Victims

Today I overheard someone comment while looking at the picture of the racist murderer whose sad mug was on page one of the Boston Globe.  "I wonder if he had ever been bullied" was the comment.

Here is my response.

I do not care if he was bullied or sexually molested or burnt with the ends of cigarettes.

He is a racist gutless punk.

We are all victims of something.  Some of us are more fortunate than others, but we all have a tale.  Victimization however grand is not in any way exculpatory. It is not your ticket to being inconsiderate to others or a get out of jail free card.  It doesn't excuse even minor transgressions never mind the outlandish behavior of a gutless murderer. It doesn't excuse racist jokes let alone promulgating a philosophy of racial superiority.

This mean putz is said to have wanted to initiate a race war.  We should care if he was once bullied?

The rhetoric of victimization is not good for anybody not even for the alleged victim.  Your politics may be such that you do not like our current President, but one thing you have to admire about him is that he never whines about the cards he was dealt.  No father present, raised by grandparents, mother shleps him to Indonesia, father shows up for a cup of coffee, father leaves and then dies, mother dies early, and oh yes, he is black in a country that has a horrific history of subjugating blacks.  So he becomes a law professor and then the president of the strongest country in the world, enduring an adversarial party for 8 years that seeks out blemishes in attempts to besmirch him.  You don't hear Obama whine.

There is no condoning what the cowardly murderer did.  No tale of victimization can mitigate the offense.  We all have the same challenge in our time before the sand leaves the glass.  Be kind to others, love, and seize the days.  And if you do not do that and want to cop an excuse that your abilities have been disabled because of some flavor of victimization, join the gutless club to which the killer has secure membership.