In honor of the most recent Hallmark holiday, I want to write about something, because that would indeed be a change, and to write about a subject near and dear to my newly single heart (the divorce is final May 19^th). Recently, a total hack writer and “researcher” Kay Hymowitz wrote an op-ed piece in City Journal about what some are calling the “Peter Pan” syndrome. In short, men are not getting married in the numbers they used to or as young as they used to. Mrs Hymowitz, who for her research read a few Maxims, watched the Man Show, but didn’t actually interview men (and I wish I was making this up, but this is by her own admission), has ascribed this trend to men not growing up. Apparently, wanting a life of your own choosing, even if that means having casual sex, playing video games, and partying with friends, makes one a child. For her, men need to have kids and wife to be an adult. However, she doesn’t really address who these “boys” are randomly hooking up with (unless she was trying to subtly imply that around 60% of men are secretly gay or bisexual), and she seems to think that responsible women should be shopping, gossiping with friends, and otherwise enjoying life (again, her words). Apparently, she couldn’t be bothered to think about an alternative explanation: marriage is, on average, a no win situation for men, and we are starting to wise up to that.

Now I should say that yes, there always exceptions. Everyone’s girlfriend is “special”; every woman is “different”, so it is with a heavy heart that I am going to actually have to look at statistics and information, as well as the nearly meaningless anecdotal evidence. Legally, marriage is a bad deal for men. Prenups help, but can be gotten around by a clever lawyer. Let’s say you are a man, live in a community property state (which a good deal of the states are), and you are married for 7 years. At that point in many states, you could come home and find her in the process of sleeping with the milk man, and it wouldn’t matter. If you divorce (or more likely, when she divorces you; most divorces are initiated by women), she gets half of all the assets, and you probably will be paying her alimony. Sure she cheated, sure she might have exposed you to a whole host of disease, but it doesn’t matter. And it gets better. Let’s say she gets pregnant by the milk man; the kid would be yours, legally. You would have to prove, on your dime, that the kid is not related to you to get out of child support payments, and even then you have to prove it in a certain span of time (in some states its 6 months or less). Sometimes even with proof, the court will order you to pay the child support, and if you don’t, it’s off to jail with you. This happens because, when married, the husband is assumed to be the father of any of the wife’s children, even she has been unfaithful. Add to that the built in bias against men in family court’s, and where is the legal benefit in marriage for men? You can get all the same medical benefits and such from power of attorneys, and with a lot less risk.

According to pretty much every study done on the subject (Dr. Pepper Schwartz actually has a few good relationship studies published, if one is looking for a good read), marriage does indeed kill sex lives. Cohabiting couples have more sex than just about any one, except for gay men (I know, I was surprised too). Why is this? There are plenty of reasons that are proposed, the most likely (i.e. put forward by some researchers who think they have an idea) is that the cohabiting is like a probationary period for a job, and the partners (usually the female one in this case) is putting forth more effort till the deal is sealed. Now here is where anecdotal accounts come in to play. Married men, on average, are not happy with their sex lives it seems. Most commonly, they seem to be told that their partners are too tired, too stressed, or that they are not interested. Sometimes the wife will say that the husband has gained weight and as such is not attractive any more. All well in good, except that often times it seems like it’s more than that. Here is the thing, and whether the basis for this thought is true or not is unimportant, at least in terms of its effect on men getting married: men these days seem to expect women to pay mind games. We do, because we are told so by women usually, and because the shows made for female viewers (Sex in the City et al) pretty much tell us you all do. So it’s hard to believe, as a man, that you are always “tired”. We are expecting you to use sex as a weapon once you know we cannot easily find another supplier. Moreover, if you were always in the mood before the wedding, why should things be different afterwards? What is different, other than there is now a piece of paper saying you can try and take half my stuff, my 401k, and my paycheck? Sure, kids can have an effect, but then, according to most valid studies, kids at best have no effect on a relationship, and at worst ruin them, so that’s to be expect. But still, why would a man want to get married if he knows that doing so is going to kill what sex life he has, especially when knows he will be expect to not look elsewhere for it?

Now, I don’t expect all this to sound like a well written, scientific research paper, because it’s not meant to be. The thing is, more and more men are thinking like this. I know I am not a misogynist, and most men these days truly are not I feel, but that doesn’t change the fact that there is no logical reason for men to enter into marriage. Why work harder (for instance, in an op ed piece in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper, it was suggested that men, in order to get their spouse to sleep with them, should basically do all the house work.) for something that we are, thanks to more liberal cultural values, able to get without marriage and thus with less risk and work? Why should we run the risk of being saddled with some other guy’s kid, alimony, and passionless marriages at all? Is love the reason? If that is the case, then we are already ruined as a species. If “love” is only proven by a legal document provided by the state and kept by legal threat, then is love really worth it?

So recently my dearly loved state has ruled that pharmacists do not have to give out the morning after pill if they have religious objections to it. They do have to “help” you find a pharmacy that will, but otherwise they are free to ignore their duties and tell you to kiss off. Now mind you, I am ok with people having objections to abortions, especially in the later stages of pregnancy when the fetus actually has a nervous system and looks like something more than a small cluster of stem cells. Of course, denying people this particular pill will just lead to an increase in said abortions, but whatever. What I have a problem with is with this “right” that pharmacists now seem to have. I think it’s a case of people believing their un-provable beliefs someone else’s rights while still claiming to be a real professional, and that this sets a rather dangerous precedent.

Right off the bat, I have a problem with people taking a job knowing what maybe asked of them, and then demanding that they not have to fulfill said roles and duties. What duties do pharmacists have? Well according to the America Pharmacists Association, the code of ethics that all pharmacists should be living by is as follows:

I. A pharmacist respects the covenantal relationship between the patient and pharmacist.

Lastly, and I do normally hate slippery slope arguments, but where does this end? Do other medical professionals get to decide for their customers and patients what they can have access to? Does this get limited solely to religious reasons? Does a vegan pharmacist have the right to refuse to hand out any medicine made from animal products, like some varieties of insulin, on the bases of moral objection? How is such a refusal really any different that this case? Granted there are other options, but do they really have to right to restrict them for anything other than concern for the patient’s physical health? And what if the patient is sensitive to anything but say bovine insulin? Sure they could go to another pharmacy, if there is one nearby, but should they have to? What if doctors stopped treating patients on the same ground? What if the only neurosurgeon in the area happens to be Muslim, and refuses to touch female patients, even during emergencies? Is that ok? What if a Hindu oncologist thinks that the most moral act they can do is to deprive a patient of chemo, so that way the patient can die and be reborn? What if a Pastafarian ER doctor (Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster) decides that it’s their moral obligation let all anti-choicers bleed out on the table, and that they need to prove they are prochoice before the treatment? Granted, every one of these doctors would have taken an oath to not do these things, but the way I see it, this ruling basically is saying that moral beliefs trump your sworn word. I am not saying that any of this will happen, but now, it could, and there is nothing that can be done about it.

I. A pharmacist respects the covenantal relationship between the patient and pharmacist.

II. A pharmacist promotes the good of every patient in a caring, compassionate, and confidential manner.

III. A pharmacist respects the autonomy and dignity of each patient.

IV. A pharmacist acts with honesty and integrity in professional relationships.

V. A pharmacist maintains professional competence.

VI. A pharmacist respects the values and abilities of colleagues and other health professionals

VII. A pharmacist serves individual, community, and societal needs.

VIII. A pharmacist seeks justice in the distribution of health resources.

Not a bad set of guidelines, and I do hope that any pharmacist I deal with follows them. The people who don’t want to give out the Plan B pill seem to not be following them, especially number 3, number 6, and depending on whether or not you think this world needs more people, numbers 7 and 8.

First, number three. I don’t see how telling someone that they cannot have a medicine that they legally are allowed to have, a pill that they are choosing to take knowing what it is intended to do, is respecting their autonomy. Doubly so since the reason you are refusing said medicine is not out of concern for their health, but rather because of beliefs that are not universal, and really add nothing to the medical profession. Now true, the pharmacist is a person too, and has rights as well. However, the patient is not the one who swore to uphold certain values and ethics when they started in a profession that no one made them pursue.

Item six, as near as I can tell, means that a pharmacist should respect doctors, and should expect respect back. If a patient comes in with a legal prescription given to them by a physician who presumably not only knows the patient and their medical issue at hand better than the person behind the counter, and is refused, how is that showing any level of respect? Perhaps this is the weakest argument I have, but really, how is not disrespectful to basically say that you know better than another professional based off of no evidence?

7 and 8 together now. There are 6 billion people, give or take a few million. Most are poor, starving, and living generally miserable lives. So why add to them? Oh sure, every life is a special gift from god, which is why he dumps most of them in the third world. Hell, many kids even in the first world have shitty lives. Why make more? Why put more strains of society, in terms of a draining of funds and increased crime rates, by adding more unwanted kids? And make no mistake; the poor are the ones who will suffer the most from this. The rich or even middle class can afford to hunt for a pharmacist that is willing to do their job, but the poor may not. Moreover, what if that pharmacist is the only one in the area that accepts Medicare/Medicaid? Now they have no options, and the pharmacist gets help from the government to make the world a worse place while forcing their religious beliefs on someone else.

Now all that aside, what exactly do these pharmacists hope to accomplish? Nothing will change, other than people will lose respect for them. As it stands right now, they might even be able to be fired for causing a boycott; their employer may not be able to fire them for religious beliefs, provided more than 50 people work for said employer, but for causing a boycott or disturbance is still likely. Also, preventing the use of the morning after pill will only lead to more abortions. If you don’t want the kid, a self righteous guy in a lab coat isn’t going to make you keep it. Hell, I can think of three or four easily acquired and just as safe as the pill plants that would easily have the same effect. No prescription needed, and most naturopathic doctors can probably list of a dozen or so more. I am not saying that people are going to flock to non standard medicine as result of this, but some might. All that will result from this is that a few pharmacists will get to have smug self satisfaction, and sadly a bunch of women are going to get screwed over.

Pornography is one of the most pervasive forces in media. Some estimates put there being almost 250 million web pages with erotic material in some shape or form, and that just the US. The industry as a whole brings in around 3 billion dollars a year, by some more conservative estimates. Yet despite its prevalence in our society, a lot of people hate the industry. A lot of people flat out refuse to admit (and lets be honest, some one is watching or reading all this crap, and its more than just a few perverted old men) that they have any form of porn. I think this is in part due to what amounts to a smear campaign run by, admittedly well meaning but misguided, feminists in the 80’s and 90’s and religions conservatives (see, there is something that they can agree on). The major arguments against porn seem to be that one, it’s degrading to women, and two, it leads to rape or sexual crime.

Feminism, as far as I understand it, is the thought that women have the same rights as men, including the rights to their bodies and to controlling their own destinies. I am going to assume that every one (at least every one sane) can agree with this definition. Now, is it degrading for a woman to have sex for money? To fuck for fun and funds? Maybe; maybe not. Maybe it was; that being said, times are changing. Hell, porn stars write books and get interviewed by CNN. They have their own version of celebrity, and their award shows. So how exactly are they being degraded? Really, how are they different than actors or musicians? In all cases you have some one willing to do something for our entertainment in exchange for money. Said activities can lead to a loss of privacy, to people who don’t know you judging you, and often enough, people blaming you for the downfall of morality. So again, where is the difference? Furthermore, if porn is so damn bad, why not go after gay porn too? Is that just as degrading, or is it ok to degrade men? Is all porn bad, or is some of it ok? Who gets to decide? In any case, this point is the hardest to argue, for or against. Some people will always see porn as degrading, not just to people on the screen, but to women as a whole. Never mind the fact that while porn has been increasing in popularity, we are seeing more equality between men and women. I am not trying to suggest causation; I am however saying that there doesn’t seem any reason to draw a negative correlation between the treatment of women and the popularity of porn.

Now lets talk about the fun stuff: rape. Many, every one from psychologists to women studies professors to cops, have said that porn leads to rapes. One of the editiors of Ms. Magazine, a Robin Morgan, can be quoted as saying: “Pornography is the theory; rape is the practice”. Of course, she is an honest to god feminazi, having also said that “ 'man-hating' is an honorable and viable political act….”, so lets not take her to seriously. Now rape is a serious crime; possibly worse than murder really, so I take any evidence linking a raise in rape and some other thing pretty seriously. Here in lies the problem with argument number two: there isn’t any evidence linking an increase in rape to the increase in popularity of porn. Not one single good study. What Ms Morgan and company fail to consider, or just ignore for the sake of a good sound bite and to advance a cause, is that there are always Z factors. For those of you who are not all hip to statistics, specifically correlation statistics, a “Z factor” (it goes by other names too) is a third, out side factor that explains what otherwise appears to be a correlation. For instance, there is a 100% positive (meaning that as one goes up, the other goes up) correlation between those who drink water, and those die. Does that mean that drinking water is what killed you? Of course not; the initial appearance of a rise in rape cases in regards to the rise of porn also probably has a Z factor. That factor: increased reporting.

Way back in the day, if you got raped, it was your damn fault. If you reported it, you might have gotten laughed at, and even if the bastard got caught and prosecuted, you would have a good deal of stigma attached to you. Thankfully attitudes changed, and rapes get reported more often, and as such we have a higher report rate, but not necessarily a higher incident rate. Of course, I might be wrong. There maybe another Z factor, or none at all. So lets take a look at 1993 to present. The rise of the almighty internet. Porn for all, and much of it free, if you know how to do a good Google image search or use a torrent system. One would suppose, with all this porn, of all varieties, being so easily available and increasing in amount that rapes would increase, if porn causes rapes or sexual assaults. That’s not what we are seeing though. Since 1993, according to the FBI, sexual assaults as a whole are down 68%, and rape itself is down 72%. What does this show? Well for starters, it shows that Morgan and company are not only wrong, but as wrong as one can be with being so wrong as to be parody and satire.

Now lets take a broader, and probably more controversial step back for a second, and talk about something related. Women have tons of magazines directed at them, many of them that seem to feature stories talking about what they, the magazine editors, think men want. I would dare say that few if any women have ever understood men, as a whole. If you did, you realize most of the previously referenced articles are crap, but that’s a different story. Also, touching on the issue of degradation, much of what is taken as “degrading” that men do to women, we do to each other, in one form or the other. The things men call each other or do to each other would get them shot or arrested if they didn’t do them primarily to their friends. What I am getting at here, is that you can tell feminist theory doesn’t understand men, not even a little, by this one statement: rape is always about power. It’s wrong on so many levels. First point of evidence on for my side: in places with legalized prostitution, there is less, but it still happens, rape. The desperate have an outlet. The second point of evidence, and this comes from what seems to be the majority of statements made by rapists as a whole “She wanted it, look at the way she was dressed” or some variation. Most rape isn’t violent. There is a lot of rape that involves drugging up a person or getting them drunk or some such. Where is the power in that? Speaking as a person who definitely leans on the D and S ends of the BDSM spectrum, I can safely say that there really isn’t a lot of domination or taking power from a victim when they are passed out. Its still rape if you do it, but it’s about sex. Until researchers are willing to look at that aspect of rape, we will never start to fix the problem, and researchers will never be able to look at this side of the problem until feminists sit down, shut up, and stop pretending that they know men better than men do.

First off, brownie points for anyone who guesses who first coined the phrase “nothing is true; everything is permitted” and what group he was famous for starting.

It’s almost my birthday. It’s also almost Samhain (Holloween for you non pagan types), which has always been a special day for me, regardless of religion. It’s a day for the dead, and I always feel alive, for a variety of reasons. It’s the day to let things go, and I think I am getting close to letting my marriage go. I don’t know if I will ever entirely let Jasmin go, but in time I think I might. The marriage however is ready to be buried; I have been mourning it for a year and I have done my time. I don’t have the papers back from her, but I figure they are on the way. I have been having dreams lately, about her, about our marriage. Some of them are replays of events, both good and bad. Others are scenes that seem familiar, but didn’t happen. The message is always the same though; it wasn’t meant to last. Nothing could have happened to change it. Either she would have left, or I would have left. I learned a lot. I grew a lot, despite what some people seem to believe. In long run, our relationship kept me going when I had little else, and taught me to what to look for in the next girl. We did have a lot of good times, and I am going to try and remember those forever. Those being said, on my birthday, I am going to get a bottle of mead, toast my dead relationship, and throw my ring into the water, and it will be done. Then its birthday party time.

"The strongest reason for the people to retain their right to keep and bear arms is as a last resort to protect themselves against tyranny in governme

Let’s talk about guns. I should start out saying that I am fascinated by weapons. I like collecting them, I like practicing to use them, and over all, I think that some of mankind’s greatest achievements were in the field of weapons design and manufacturing. I mean really, take a part a well made handgun or rifle, and look at its workings. Swiss clocks are not made with the level of precision that an MP5 has. I feel fortunate that I live in a country that lets me pursue my fascination, with in the reasonable limit that I don’t use said weapons on other people without a good reason. Now I should pause a second and remind people that I am not a Republican. I don’t like Bush or Rush. I think Jesus was a pot smoking hippie who had a few good ideas, but mostly was an annoying twit who pissed of the Romans and the Jews in power (which was never a good idea back then). I am not even a member of the NRA; they have a few good ideas, but are a bit extreme at times. That all being said, I think the Second Amendment to the Constitution is possibly the great part of our legal frame work. It’s part of what makes America great and unique.

First to take a step back, and have little information on who gun control advocates can blame the Second Amendment on. The man responsible: King James the Second, the last Catholic King of England. One Jimmy took over, his country was mostly Protestant, and not entirely happy about him ruling. He shut down Parliament, and banned Protestants from owning weapons. Once he was ousted, the English Bill of Rights was passed in 1689, and one of said rights was that Protestants have the right to “have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law”. So, much like many things in American law, we ripped off the Second Amendment from something the Brits did first.

Now, since not everyone knows exactly what the amendment says, here it is, as it appears on the original copy of the Bill of Rights
“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
It’s that damn comma that causes so many problems. I will admit it’s not the best piece of writing, but then, this wasn’t it original form…
“The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country; but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person”
…that was. What does that all mean? Basically, anyone can pack a weapon, and not be involved in a regulated militia, but that said militias (now called the Nation Guard) are vital to a state’s security. All of this was put in to the Constitution to make sure that while the federal government will be strong, the States and the citizens will not be defenseless against it. Through a series of revisions, the defining and what was probably considered extra verbiage was dropped, and that comma is really more of a period. A State should have a militia. People have the right to be armed.

“But guns kill people! Wont somebody think of the children!” As much as I am loathing to use this cliché, guns don’t kill people; people kill people. You can be hit by a car, beaten, stabbed, poisoned, drowned, starved, and so on. And that’s assuming you are just killed. You can still be hurt, raped, and/or robbed. Some people of course like to point out that guns help commit crimes. True, a weapon helps commit crime; but it doesn’t matter what weapon it is. You are just as dead if I kick you to death as you are if I stab or shoot you. But, I know that logic is rarely enough, so let’s look at some numbers. Let’s take a gun free country, say England. It’s a beast to get a gun in England legally; rifles and shotguns are not even as common as they are here. Criminals of course, have guns, because they are criminals. According to the statistics provided by the British Home Office, there were 1,220,198 incidents of violent crime (murder, rape, robbery, and so on), in 2005, with a population of about 60,776,238. The US on the other hand had 6,367,589 incidents of violent crime (number provided by the Department of Justice) in 2005, with a population of round 300 million. Now, we have more crimes committed, no doubt about it. But when you look at the incident rates, there is one violent crime per 47.619 people in the US, compared to 1 per 49.808 in England. You are more likely to be beaten, robbed, raped, or killed in the UK than you are here in the US. Is this because we allow weapons? Maybe; but look at it this way, over there you can assume granny is a law abiding citizen and thus don’t worry about her packing heat. Over here, granny may be a life time NRA member and expert marksmen. Yes we have more gun deaths; that’s because people over there are getting stabbed when they would have been shot over here.
Now for a brief section on children: if a kid gets shot, an adult is to blame, and it’s likely the parent. You can blame society, the media, or whoever you want, but ultimately, barring being an accidental bystander being shot, a parent fucked up somewhere along the line. It’s not hard to lock a gun; it’s even less difficult to not load the damn things when they are just sitting around. Furthermore, it’s not hard to teach a kid how to properly act around firearms. Rule one: don’t touch them. Rule two: don’t be around other kids holding them. Rule three: if you see one unattended or another kid holding one, get an adult. End of the goddamn lesson. If you cannot or will not teach your kids how to be safe, it’s your fault if they get hurt, not Smith and Wesson’s.

The Founding Fathers wanted us to be able to defend ourselves, both from each other, and from our government. To take away some ones right to be armed is to effectively take away their ability to defend themselves, and hands total control of their life over to the government. The criminals will never go unarmed; where there is a will, there is a gun. Criminals will likely always have bigger and better guns too. That being said, one doesn’t become a criminal because one wants to work, or wants to do things the hard way. You become one to get something you want in the fastest, easiest way possible. Dodging bullets is never easy and getting shot sucks. Furthermore, once you have no ability to defend yourself, you are effectively owned by the government. It’s not likely that in a modern democracy the police would start large scale operations of just start snatching people off the street and making them disappear, but it can and does happen even now in small scale. It’s not likely that democracy will turn in to a full on fascist state, but it can and has happened. The one thing, the only thing, that stops the government from abusing its authority, from crushing the people, is the people. It up to me, to you the reader, and to the people near us to be ready to do what is needed to preserve our freedoms. That usually means filing suit against the government, protesting, and voting for the people we think will best serve us. However, there may come a day when we have to “vote from the roof tops”, whne we may have to take up arms and remind the powers that be that the power of this nation comes from its people, not the leaders. As long as the people in charge know that out there, spread all over the nation, are people who are willing to fight to hold on to their freedoms, they will never be able to take too much. Once a population is unarmed, there is nothing to stop the government any more.
“…what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants”
-Thomas Jefferson

I love a good conspiracy. I really do. Being in them is the best. The whispers, the secret messages, most of which mean nothing, not to mention the secret handshakes and the knowledge that you are in the in crowd. You know something that most people don’t, and if they did, it would change their world. That being said, you cant always be a part of every conspiracy, and to an extent, I am glad. I often wonder what it would be like, if it turned out that there really was a shadow government running things behind the scenes, and I found hard, concrete proof. I don’t know what I would do. I mean on one hand, here I would be with evidence that would prove that life is not as we believed. Some may not want to believe it, but then, some might, and for those who do, they cannot go back. Every significant piece of information, once really understood, should and does change us. That being said, if you knew, and could prove, that for instance, crab people were really running the world, should you really tell people? This would be important, life changing. We would have to break out some serious amounts of butter and big pots of boiling water to wage war on our crustacean masters. But should you tell some one something like that? We would build our lives on how we perceive the world; if that perception is challenged, we resist, and if it is destroyed all together, our minds may well snap a bit. Is it really fair to do that to some one? To in essence destroy their world? Maybe conspiracies are secret for a reason; the people who should know, the people who can handle knowing, will find them. Maybe the knowledge is worth it; maybe its not. Maybe its worth just living life in ignorance, and being happy with our chosen reality.

So another school shooting has happened. Once again its being billed as a "tragedy", once again the media is falling all over themselves to paint the shooter as a Goth who liked Marilyn Manson (who was last popular around the time this kid was learning to write). Of course, there will be a few fingers pointed at the school, which totally failed both the dead, and the shooter. In this case, as in most if not all of the others, the school was aware of the fact that the shooter was being bullied on a regular basis, and like most schools, they probably punished the kid for reporting the abuse. No, the people most to blame, and who never get any of it, are the bullies themselves. This kid was not born a killer, he was made one.

When someone takes a dog, beats it regularly, and then is attacked by it one day when their guard is down, do we blame the dog, or do we blame the owner? True the dog attacked, but then, it also might have done so at least in part out of self defense. It didn't want to be hurt any more. I believe that most people can at least agree to that. Why is that we treat cases like this any differently? This shooter, this kid, was picked on nonstop, and at least according to modern psychology, verbal and emotional abuse is just as bad as physical abuse, which he also got. He was beaten up for being different, for expressing opinions. He wasn't too fond of Christianity, and in according the teachings of Jesus, a Christian kicked his ass. By all accounts, the school did nothing to stop this, even though they were made aware of it. So basically, this kid is in some respects being forced to go to an environment that was blatantly hostile, and yet we blame him for his actions. One could say that the bastards who were shot, teachers and students all, didn't do anything to deserve it, but then, what did they do to stop it? The Good German defense is hardly a moral position I would want to stand on. Sure, some of the victims were kids themselves, and maybe one could say that they shouldn't be blamed for being bullies; but if we are not going to hold them accountable for their actions, why blame the shooter?

I think far too much society teaches people that it's ok to be mean, rude, to abuse people, and then walk away and expect nothing to happen. I mean, sure, we may get some stares and maybe a few unkind words aimed our way, but that's all most people really seem to think will happen. We never really seem to stop and ask "what did the victim do to create this crime?" Why not blame the victim for what they did to contribute to the event? Society itself may or may not have a hand in the crime, but seeing as an awful lot of violent crimes are committed by someone who knows the victim, why not start looking at the victim?