4:30 am. no ones up but me, and profound thoughts are brewing with the coffee.
It’s been a few days, and while I’m not an eloquent person I need to say my peace. A lot of tragedies have happened this week, just like every week, but 2 have over ridden everything else, and a 3rd was a remembrance of an American Tragedy. 1st, a Ukranian refugee, just trying to survive, coming home from work on public transportation was brutally murdered by a man with mental health issues that REFUSED to take his medications. This man had repeatedly been released even though he was a clear danger to society. For that Iryna Zarutska paid with her life. Fast forward a day or two later and a well known man that abhorred violence, that wanted to talk and share his viewpoints was assassinated by another man with a POLITICAL agenda. Charlie Kirk left behind a wife and two children that will never know their father. And finally, as a nation we mourned the deaths of over 2000 people 24 years ago, when a group’s religious ideology demanded in their twisted minds that they commit an act of terrorism.
They don’t diminish all the other murders committed.
In fact they should highlight those other murders, and make us wonder what has happened to our society. Murder has always been around, from the time of the earliest human beings to well into the future, but that does not make it any less wrong. We as a society must do better. We must not label groups of people with differing viewpoints, it makes it easier for others with mental deficiencies to murder them. We must never celebrate murder, we lose a piece of our humanity when we do. We must remember that we are better than animals, we have the ability to reason, to think, to empathize, and to take responsibility. Let me say this loudly so that the people in the back can hear it. MURDER IS WRONG! CELEBRATING MURDER IS WRONG! I can argue and disagree with you vehemently, but I will still mourn you if someone murders you. I will still call for justice for you, because you didn’t deserve to be murdered. I will let the system do the work it’s designed to do though, because me wishing for your murderers death is just as wrong. While the system does fail as it did Iryna, it does often work, and in Iryna’s case the system failed because of humans.
Where do we go from here?
I do not know where you go from here, but I’ll contemplate my reactions to all these horrific events, and while not a particularly religious man, I will pray for those that were murdered, their families and friends, and yes even for the murderers themselves. I ask that you do the same, contemplate it all, contemplate did you celebrate a murder? For 10 minutes, put your goddamn phone down, and think, pray, ask for forgiveness, celebrate something joyous instead of a murder. Hug your families and friends, tell them you love them. Tell those you disagree with that you love them. Don’t call that person that angered you a name, tell them you disagree, but that you still love them. Be better, be a better human, be a better person, and encourage others that fall short to be better without rancor, but instead with love.
Leaving you with a Charlie Kirk quote.
“We have to be able to have a reasonable disagreement where violence is not an option” -Charlie Kirk
