If foreigner had killed 16 Americans, we wouldn’t be looking for excuses

By David McElroy · March 19, 2012

Cleaning out the old notebook again…

A week after a U.S. soldier murdered 16 Afghan men, women and children, it’s mostly become a non-story among people I talk with. The news stories I see have taken a tone that seems to be looking for a way to excuse what happened, asking what could have “caused him to snap” or speculating about brain injuries from previous combat.

Honestly, I’m a little tired of people looking for excuses. What if this had been an Afghan soldier and he was in this country for some military reason — training, perhaps — and he had taken a weapon to a few homes near where he was based and murdered 16 Americans. Do you think we would all be looking for things to blame it on then? Would we be wondering about how his previous injuries or post-traumatic stress disorder or whatever had made him “snap”?

No, we would have a country full of angry people who were ready to kill Afghans and and were ready to blame all Muslims for what had happened. Why can’t we understand how serious it is when we send soldiers into other countries and they do bad things?

Every time there have been instances of U.S. soldiers committing such atrocities, it seems that there are similar justifications. When are we going to learn that when you train people to kill and then dehumanize the people they’re fighting, this is what we’re going to get? And when are we going to learn that the sooner we get out of these countries we’ve invaded, the sooner we’ll quit making new enemies?

Is a lot of success in life predicated on ignoring reality? I certainly ignore reality sometimes. I complain about it when others do it sometimes. But I seem to see some people become more successful by ignoring reality and plowing ahead despite the fact that it doesn’t make sense to do so. Is having a good understanding of reality actually an impediment to success? Even if it makes you more insightful about the world and about people, does understanding reality cause you a different sort of pain? If so, is it better to be able to ignore reality? Or is it better to have insight? I’m really not sure. It’s just a passing thought I’ve been toying with again.

You might be surprised at how much email I get these days from people who read the site and write to me instead of commenting online. I really wish more people would post comments instead of just writing to me — because some of them deserve a wider audience — but I love getting your email. I feel guilty sometimes that I don’t have time to answer all of it more extensively, but I read it all. And for those who take time to send nice things just to tell me that I make you think or that you just enjoy what you read, let me say that means more to me than you know.

One of the bigger surprises I’ve had over the last 10 months, though, is how many people are willing to send really nasty messages to me just because they disagree with me. The funniest part about that is that when I write about something controversial, I frequently get angry email from people on both sides of an issue — with the people on both sides of the mainstream accusing me of being one of the other side. Is that just what happens when you don’t cheerlead for either side of the mainstream?

Speaking of comments, I’ll remind you again that you’re welcome to friend me on Facebook if you have an account there. There’s a lot more that goes on over there that you never see here and there’s a lot more discussion of articles that never spills over here.

On the front page of the local paper Sunday, there was a “tease” on the front page for an article on the business page: “Area’s best-selling vehicles driving sales.” Is anybody else as surprised as I was to hear that the best-selling vehicles were contributing the most to car sales? Insightful, huh? Or am I missing something obvious?

I found a quote Friday that I really like. I’ve known plenty of people who come up with new ideas and then protect their ideas like crazy, because they’re afraid someone is going to steal their “brilliant idea.” Sometimes those ideas die because they’re unwilling to be open enough with the idea and sell it. When I was younger, I felt a little bit this way. But I’m going to leave you with a quote from the late computer scientist Howard Aiken about why there’s no reason to worry about protecting a really new idea:

“Don’t worry about people stealing an idea. If it’s original, you will have to ram it down their throats.”

I think he was right.

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On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

Have you ever had what you thought was a new idea — and then discovered that “old you” had the same idea years ago? I had that experience tonight. And it’s been wonderful. I came up with an idea tonight for a very short satirical film that would be a promotion for a fictitious college. The point is to make the college promote — as good things — everything which is actually terrible about most modern colleges. Then I remembered a fake college that I invented back when I was in college. I had created student recruitment brochures and various newsletters back then, so I decided to call my “new” college by the same name I’d invented years ago: Ochita College. As I searched my computer for any old material I might still have about Ochita from the past, I discovered an email I sent to someone in 2009 — outlining essentially the same idea which I came up with tonight. Since I didn’t remember writing that, it felt like magic. So my next film project just might be this one instead. If all goes well, you might soon see “Ochita College: Your Future Starts Here.” This should be fun.

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