Tears for our society

Those who know me well know I don’t cry easily. I’m generally pretty stoic, and with a few exceptions, I tend to get enraged rather than weepy. Lately it’s been a different story, however. This year has been a difficult one in many ways, and I’ve found myself moved, touched, enraged, teary eyed, and downright hysterical crying at times. There’s a lot going on, both in my personal life and in the world around me, in general, and I seem to be getting a lot more emotional in my old age…

So I cried recently at the vicious stabbing death of Kevin Sutherland earlier this month. Those of you who are unfamiliar with the incident, the 26-year-old man was on a metro train on Independence Day when an 18-year-old savage attacked him for his cell phone. Jasper Spires repeatedly punched, kicked, and stabbed Sutherland and left the former Congressional intern bleeding on the train floor as other passengers watched.

I didn’t just cry because this tragic incident ended a promising young life.

I didn’t just cry because as someone who lives in Northern Virginia, I consider Washington, DC very much my city.

I didn’t just cry, because as a Virginian I enjoy my right to carry my tool of self defense, both openly and concealed with no impediments.

I didn’t just cry because, the moment I step on the Metro and make my way to my Washington, DC, that respect for my rights no longer exists.

No, all of this is tragic, but nothing new.

What I did cry about was the disintegration of our society exemplified in this  tragedy. This is what I find most tragic. This is what has kept me up at night as I thought about what I would have done had I been on that train on Independence Day.

As a veteran, I have a certain attitude – a certain mindset, if you will. I joined the military after college graduation rather than getting that high-paying job at a brokerage I was considering, because I felt I wanted to serve the nation that gave me so many opportunities I would have never had as a citizen of the former USSR. I wanted to protect America’s people and America’s Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. I certainly didn’t do it for the paltry pay and the time away from my family. I took my oath with that goal in mind, and I took it seriously.

That attitude drives my thoughts about that day. Would I have intervened? Would I have attacked the thug and beat him to within an inch of his life? Would I have saved Sutherland’s life? I certainly want to believe I would not have sat idly by and done nothing. I carry my firearm with the sincerest hope that I never have to draw it, but with the practiced attitude that should I have to, I would not hesitate to save a life. I like to think that attitude would carry over even when I am unarmed in a metro car. I’m not a weak, small person. I have no doubt I would have been injured, but I’m pretty damn sure I would have stopped that savage punk one way or another. Or at least tried my best…spores

But no one did anything. They all sat there and cowered. They all watched, and did nothing to help this guy, who got savaged because this barbarian punk wanted his cell phone. They stood by and did nothing.

Police consistently advise bystanders not to intervene.

Call the police, they say.

Do not confront the violent savages, they say.

Translation: let the victim die! Rely on us! We’ll protect you.

My aching arse.

And you know what? Most of these sheep do exactly that. From the tragic Kitty Genovese murder in 1964, to the attack on Marianne Seregi in which only one small woman had the courage to yell at the attackers (who were unarmed, by the way), to this current travesty…

…they did nothing.

Don’t tell me it’s some kind of psychological effect. I don’t want to hear excuses. This is simply a shift away from personal responsibility. It’s a shift away from courage, from humanity, from self-reliance.

And that’s what’s really tragic about the murder of Kevin Sutherland, other than the obvious loss of a young life! It is an overall societal abdication of every shred of self-reliance and accountability.

I weep for the kids who are taught from a young age not to stand up to bullies, but tell a teacher instead, even as they cower while the larger kid pummels them.

I weep for the children who are told they must wait for a nice policeman to arrive and protect them, rather than do their damnedest to defend themselves.

I weep for the cowards who are too afraid to stand up for themselves and for others, choosing instead to record brutal attacks with their damn smart phones while they wait for the police to arrive!

I weep for a society that reacts to brutal attacks on defenseless individuals by calling for government force to make them even more defenseless and vulnerable to armed thugs!

I weep for the pusillanimous weaklings who accept the message that they must rely on anyone else – be it big government, police, or anyone other than themselves who chooses to be armed and to take responsibility for their own safety and for the safety of those around them – to protect them.

It’s not any kind of psychological effect. It’s decades of indoctrination into the idea that you must rely on others for everything from putting food in your mouth and providing for you, to your very life.

It’s laziness.

It’s the unwillingness to be responsible for your own survival.

It’s the perception that everyone else is responsible for everyone else – their brother’s keeper – it takes a village.

It is this parasitic inability to fend for oneself that’s killing our society.

Someone else will protect me.

Someone will ensure I don’t starve.

There’s got to be someone who will intervene.

I’ll leave it to other people to carry a gun and to train with it. I’m afraid of guns. I’ll let others stand up.

Well, guess what, parasites! When you mewl to have the rest of us just as disarmed and defenseless as you are, there will be no one left to intercede on your behalf when a violent degenerate, who takes a large, steaming dump on the laws that you assiduously abide by and so stupidly insist others will obey, boards a metro train and stabs you to death while everyone watches in horror, because there’s no one around with the intestinal fortitude to help you!

You insist on disarming our military members while stateside, and they get slaughtered by frothing fundamentalist Islamic zealots. Just like they did at Fort Hood. Just like they did yesterday.

And then you will squeal and blame large-capacity magazines, the NRA, “gun fetishists,” and “loopholes” for the fact that this society has descended into a whining, spineless, triggering, social justice warrior-ruled swamp of hurt feelings and demands that someone, ANYONE but you, do something!

RIP, Kevin Sutherland.

RIP, GySgt Thomas J. Sullivan.

RIP, LCpl Skip Wells.

RIP, Staff Sgt. David Wyatt.

RIP, Sgt. Carson Holmquist.

RIP, Petty Officer Randall Smith.

Your government failed you by disarming you, but your society failed you worse – by both demanding that your government disarm you and failing to act on your behalf after the government leeches made you vulnerable at their behest.

And if you’re not weeping for the demise of courage, honor, integrity, and strength in our society, you’re not paying attention.

Facebooktwitterredditpinteresttumblrmail

9 thoughts on “Tears for our society”

  1. Apparently Sutherland was an advocate of disarmed peons.

    Of course nobody knew that at the time. But if you are disarmed, you are not going to intervene. That just makes sense. People like to know what they are fighting for. Family? Sure. But for some dude you never met? Why?

    I can see a couple of rational responses:
    1) Don’t live where the government disarms innocents, or
    2) Carry despite what the law says.

    1. Sorry, but I disagree. You fight for a fellow human being who is being savaged before your eyes. It’s called being a human being and having a soul.

  2. It’s not even just passive inaction from fear.

    Some time back, I was walking through a parking lot at night and saw a guy beating the heck out of a woman. Now, maybe I’d come in late and the woman had started it and the guy was responding defensively; various things about the situation made me suspect otherwise. But just to be safe, before taking any action, I yelled out, “Miss, do you need help?” Guy stopped, distracted. Woman took advantage of it to run. Guy looked at me, then ran the opposite direction. Problem solved.

    On at least three occasions, that has come up in discussions about defense of self and others. On each occasion the majority opinion was that I was wrong. Not because of the risk to self, but because I’m not a cop. Some of the things I was called are unprintable here. The less censorious included “vigilante,” “lunatic with delusions of grandeur,” “psychopath,” “[f******] caped crusader,” and “wannabe comic book superhero.”

    For _speaking_. Ghu only knows what they’d have thought and said if I’d taken a more active, physical role that time.

    So I’ll be honest: I’m a lot less inclined now to help. I have to balance my conscience and what I think a decent member of a decent society would do against the fact that this _isn’t_ a decent society and the majority of its members will consider _me_ the bad guy in that scenario and send _me_ to jail.

    1. Well, for the record, I think you did the right thing. Very right. I tend not to give a damn who thinks what about me. If a guy on a metro is getting savaged, I will help. Period.

    2. I agree with Nicki. What you did is not only the right thing, Bear, but was once upon a time what any decent gentleman would have done for any imperilled lady. Now, granted, much has changed in between gentlemen and ladies in the last forty years (do either of them even exist any more?). But human beings still look out for each other.

      As a social-justice warrior and anti-gunner, Kevin Sutherland might have been unwittingly reaping what he sowed. But in no way does that absolve the mentally, morally, and physically disarmed cowards who shrunk to the ends of that Metro car and passively watched him be slaughtered.

      Good (sad) rant, Nicki. I’m glad I still live in a part of the world where people are civilized enough to offer help to their fellow humans — and have the means to make their help effective.

  3. [ It’s called being a human being and having a soul.]

    These are very religious notions. I’m not religious.

    What motivates me is self-interest, just like everyone else. Certainly, general mayhem is contrary to my self-interest, so reasonable actions to deter it (such as Bear’s description) make sense. Who wants to live in a society where death is around every corner?

    But I’m sorry, an *unarmed* person taking on a powerful individual with a knife? Inviting almost certain death? Leaving your children behind without a father (or mother)? To protect someone you don’t know and who may be your enemy anyway (as turned out to be the case)? That is simply asking too much of people. It makes no sense.

    I very much doubt you would have done anything had you been there. It’s not because you are a coward. It’s because you are a thinking human being.

    Again, if you were carrying a firearm illegally, then the calculation works out completely differently. But we are talking about DISARMED people. Stop whacking people for doing what any reasonable person would do.

    1. I should add that if a group of young men were available and willing to take him down, that would have changed the calculation just as much as having a gun would. But in the few seconds available to get such a group together, it seems pretty unlikely to happen. Most people assume, not unreasonably, that their calculations involve unilateral action.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *