These Are Our Children Not Collateral Damage In Someone’s Demented Personal Statement

Is any point anyone wishes to make worth the death of one human being? Is the death of these children to be considered collateral damage? Is gun control the answer?

Let me say from the start that all my heart and soul goes out to the victims families for the loss of their children and loved ones in the latest mass killing in the USA and all other families who have suffered the loss of their loved ones to violent acts of this nature whether the deaths happened at work, school, place of worship, or play.  The death of a loved one is never easy, the death of a child almost unbearable, but to lose anyone to a senseless slaughter must just leave a person wondering why for the rest of their lives and never being able to understand what could drive someone to commit such cowardly acts of seemingly random violence.  I for one think that these actions that have been growing more violent, more senseless and more cowardly across the USA are happening for a reason. I think that certain Americans are following the countries actions when it comes to dealing with perceived threats to their dreams, their safety and their pursuit of happiness and are sending a message the way that the leaders of their country have been doing for a long time now and that is to kill the perceived threat, before it can kill you.

Let me explain a little bit about what I think is going on in the United States of America these days?  Why I think it is that when a certain type of person get’s angry, or feels disgruntled and without hope, that they turn to killing other people and are now targeting  little children in the school classroom.  I could state the obvious and say that the person has to be mentally ill, on drugs or something like that to commit such a despicable senseless act of violence, but can so many people be mentally ill across the United States of America and from so many different walks of life that it is becoming common place to pick up a gun when feeling this way and kill others in such large numbers at random?  I prefer instead to ask the question of where are these people, which include children getting the idea that when they are angry, hurt, or discouraged that it is not only okay to pick up a gun and kill the person or persons that they feel are responsible for their pain and suffering, but that it is equally okay to kill innocent people caught in the wrong place at the wrong time  as well. People who have done nothing to them, in fact people they have never met? I will give you a hint, have you ever heard of collateral damage?  The government of the USA and its allies use this term all of the time to describe the innocent life of civilians killed by their weapons of mass destruction while completing a military mission.(dropping missiles, bombs and the like)   It is as though the USA has created a sub culture of suicide killers, only they are not disgruntled immigrants, or sleeper terrorists, but scared, angry, mentally disturbed Americans killing innocent Americans, because they have an axe to grind and consider all lives no matter how young and no matter what gender just collateral damage.

I ask, because it is rare that we see this kind of mass, seemingly random, indiscriminate type of killing spree in Canada.  We have our nuts who kill people they do not know to be sure. Most recently at the celebration of Pauline Marois‘s victory speech and then years ago when all of those girls were murdered at The École Polytechnique de Montreal, but nothing on the scale and the recurring nature that is seen in the USA and never in an elementary school by an adult.  I begin to wonder is this a symptom of a society that fosters the right to bear arms, the right to kill another person when feeling threatened and in danger?  I ask myself the question, “Is what we are seeing just a smaller version of how the USA in general handles nations who they feel threatened by, are angry at, or are disappointed with?  Is it the USA’s own willingness to kill innocent people and see such killings as an acceptable but regrettable fact of war, that is spawning this feeling; this sub culture of Americans that are willing to commit mass murder and die themselves to send a message, to make a point and to exact revenge on the society that they feel has failed them, or has hurt them in some way?”  Were these children just collateral damage in the eyes of the killer and can all of this senseless killing be avoided if the government changed the way it kills and leads its people with a better example concerning the value of human life?  Do you think that this argument is worth consideration; is this solution worth a try?

In Canada we have bullying and children deal with it by killing  themselves and it is tragic. We even have bullies that gang up and kill other children, but it is not an everyday occurrence and it is certainly not the way that our children feel is the way to deal with problems, no mater how stressful and no matter how hopeless.  What I am getting at is that American children are adopting the idea that when faced with a perceived threat that it is okay to kill another human being, or as many lives as it takes to sate your fear, or anger  and I do not think that these children are picking this up at the movies, or on television.  I think that the killing of people as an answer to dealing with the stresses of one’s personal life is an unintentionally by-product of the USA’s justification to its people for the wars and the taking of innocent lives it engages in everyday internationally and simply calls regrettable, but necessary if it is to achieve the greater goal of wiping out terrorism and bringing peace to the world.  Is collateral damage an acceptable price for giving our kind of peace and our democracy to the world? Is collateral damage ever acceptable and has the ideology of the practice being used unknowingly on us by our own citizens, who now see this as acceptable behavior, because as a nation we engage in it?

When I consider just how much government pro war, pro violence propaganda has been bombarding  the American people for so long now and how much blood has been spilled and justified as collateral damage by the USA, I feel that we must seriously consider that this is indeed a by-product of this propaganda and that the results are spreading and more and more people are using this type of violence to make a statement, using innocent people’s deaths as explanation points, they are  seeing their victims not as innocent human beings, but as regrettable but necessary deaths if they are to succeed in making their point.  I think that this is  a major reason why adults and children alike in the USA are finding it easy to kill so indiscriminately. I think that the perpetrators of these heinous crimes have begun to see all innocent bystanders as collateral damage? It would appear that there is a definite lack of  consideration being given for the innocent life that is being taken in these violent undertakings and no consideration being given about the age or gender of those to be slaughtered, or at least none that would change the outcome for the intended victims.

I wonder if this behaviour is problematic of a government which has been for a long time talking down organizations like the United Nations who seek diplomatic solutions to solve problems and trying to convince anyone that they have influence over that the United Nations has become obsolete. The USA has also for a long time been pushing the idea that the United Nations Security Council moves to slowly in giving the okay to go to war or kill, wasting too much time talking and not enough time acting. I wonder if it this behavior of its people is problematic of a country who refuses to be judged by the world court, insisting that it as a nation alone must be free to exercise its might in any way that it deems necessary without the constraints of being brought to justice sometime in the future for doing what it must do and only can do to save the word from itself?  If a democratic country as militarily powerful as the USA  sets itself and its people’s actions above international law what does that make us in relation to them and what message are they sending to us and more importantly to their people.  From this perspective we have all become expendable and can all be considered collateral damage. Are we the other nations of the world to become pawns or other chess pieces to be sacrificed to achieve the greater goal of winning the war for our king?  This seems to be the way things are playing out and this may be what certain citizens of the USA are emulating?

I ask these questions because our government in Canada seems hell-bent on emulating the USA as the self-imposed police,  judge, jury and  executioner of the world.  The Canadian government has begun to talk down organizations dedicated to peaceful solutions (The United Nations for one)  and have publicly declared that we are no longer a nation of peace keepers, but seek to take a more frontline role in the policing of the world through military actions.  My fear I guess is that certain elements of our population might perceive this as a justification to mirror the nations ideologies and practices by handling their discontent, their anger and their sense of hopelessness by killing innocent people in their places of work, in their place of worship and where they go to school. I am afraid that certain people will start seeing the deaths of innocent men women and children as collateral damage and we will start to see what is going on in the USA with these types of senseless killings being carried out to teach society a lesson; to shock society into action; to say look at me I am afraid, I am hurting, I need help, more often on Canadian soil.

What happened to those poor children and adults in that school and all of the people who have met death in a similar way my heart aches for them.  To have their lives snatched from them and their   families, is just so sad and so pointless.  Then I get angry because I know it is only a matter of time before somebody commits another copy cat mass murder. I call it this, because this is what it is and the Nations willingness to allow for and make acceptable collateral damage in its quest for a successful mission and to make a point is what is being copied, by certain citizens.