Too many tears are wasted on false victims while others get pushed into the background.
Another terrible tragedy has occurred at an American school and we all look hard at why it happened and how we can prevent new atrocities of such a nature.
In all the furor, however, we need to be wary about the tendency to depict perpetrators of such travesties as victims rather than the criminals they are. It is sad that the 15-year-old responsible for two deaths and 13 injuries at a San Diego area high school might have been harassed and pushed into violence. It is even sadder for so many to try to portray the killer, rather than those he killed and wounded, as the victim.
How often we are hearing and seeing interviews with the acquaintances of a killer, telling us they cannot believe such a warm and fuzzy human being was capable of serious crimes. The "friends" get choked up, cry on camera and before they are done, unless one takes periodic doses of reality, there is a tendency to think the killer was the one savaged. In some respects, that might be the case, but what about the real victims?
But this is the nature of our society today. For years now, we have been subjected to a barrage of efforts to depict criminals as lamentable products of their environment, victims, to put it directly. And all the while, the families and friends of the real victims feel great frustration over such misplaced sympathy.
But who has taught us better lessons about a cloud of victimhood than the recent American First Couple in the White House? No matter what the complaints or charges that Bill and Hillary Clinton were faced with, they almost invariably found ways to show how they were victims rather than perpetrators. With Hillary, it was the "vast right wing conspiracy" plotting against Bill, and an effort to make small towns and states look bad because the couple had come from Arkansas. Hillary pulled that one after she and Bill had managed to defeat another small-towner, Kansan Bob Dole of Russell, in the presidential race.
And so it goes so often. People work hard to show they are victims rather than taking responsibility for their own bad behavior. It seems increasing numbers are dedicated to "R and R," redemption and revenge, so they can crow about how they cleared all those hurdles to succeed and seem heroic.
Well, the shooter at the California high school did succeed in a perverse scenario of redemption and revenge. And there are those who seem dedicated to showing him as the victim.
What about the two slain youngsters, the 13 wounded and the scars they and their families will bear for life?
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