Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Why?
Leading off the local Fox affiliate’s newscast this evening was a story about the shootings on the Red Lake reservation. “Why?” they asked over and over again. “Why?”
They noted that Jeff Weise had been teased for his Goth clothes and his tall stature. They noted that he had recently had trouble at school. They wondered how it could be that this student might load up a shotgun and a couple revolvers, don a protective vest, and go shoot up a school.
Here’s the answer: because he was a self-important, maladjusted little boy who thought that doing something like this would make him special. And because he didn’t fit in--and tried hard to not fit in by dressing different and acting different than the rest--he thought that it was his right to take the lives of all these people. Dealing out death is the one thing that made him powerful and unique.
Except, of course, it doesn’t. Killing someone is no big trick: for all its amazing capabilities, the human body is still a fragile thing. No, taking a life isn’t a special trick at all. And unique? Hardly. Killers are a dime a dozen.
No, in his twisted, idiotic little mind, he thought he could carve out immortality and leave a message for the rest of us fools. Instead he made a complete waste of his own life, brutally ended the lives of people who had done nothing to deserve his indiscriminate violence, and will leave behind a legacy of books, magazine articles, journalists, and other professional hyperventilators who will ask, “Why?” every time the anniversary of the event rolls around.
Like the survivors and family of the Columbine tragedy, the survivors and families of the Red Lake murders will be trotted out to offer opinions and tears whenever some other self-important little prick decides to start killing people. And they’ll all start their books, newspaper articles, interviews, and newscasts with that same question: “Why?”
Why? Because sometimes people are mean and rude: they hurt feelings callously, they exclude cruelly, and they act as if they are better than others. Those others are usually the kids who either can’t or won’t fit in with the crowd. And sometimes one of those misfits starts believing that those social cruelties and sleights somehow impart the right to murder their classmates or workmates. The murders won’t make them special and unique: the murders will make them brutal and pathetic.
Why? I won’t give Jeff Weise cover by blaming his actions on the social missteps of others. He doesn’t deserve to have his actions legitimized or his memory given a status that it doesn’t deserve. Much will be made of his father (who committed suicide), his mother (who was in a nursing home with brain damage), and his schoolmates (who weren’t nice enough to him). What it all really comes down to is that a kid who tried to be different, and was treated accordingly, didn’t want to put in the hard work of living life. He picked a cowardly and quick path to solve the problem: kill to make his name known forever, and die so he didn’t have to deal with the consequences.
What a pathetic little boy.
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Comments & Trackbacks
Well, when you’re a self professed Nazi and you make it public knowledge you kind of invite trouble on yourself.
Great post. I couldn’t have said it better.
I won’t give Jeff Weise cover by blaming his actions on the social missteps of others. He doesn’t deserve to have his actions legitimized or his memory given a status that it doesn’t deserve.
Fantastically said. Every word, but especially those. Personal responsibility is becoming an endangered trait.
Character. What a concept.
I (heart) Zomby. (Whatcha gonna do ‘bout THAT, huh?)
I’ve always been disgusted by the post-Columbine focus on “bullying” as a dangerous new trend that MUST. BE. STOPPED! I was bullied as a kid. How many corpses have I left behind me?
<counting>
<tries calculator>
Aw, to hell with it. No matter how I tote it up, the answer is always zero. And it’s for damn sure I ain’t unique in that regard.
"What it all really comes down to is that a kid who tried to be different, and was treated accordingly, didn’t want to put in the hard work of living life.”
Perfect! This is exactly what these people are doing. They want to be so different but with their simple minds cant comprehend the fact that when you arent in the norm, you attract attention and at that age the attention is usually negative. Ie. You are asking for it. Dont get me wrong most kids dont need reasons to make fun of another kid but he WAS asking for it just as the two ideiots at Columbine.
Nicely written
Firetongue
"Officer, she was asking for it wearing that short little dress.”
Note: not legitimizing his actions in the least - I agree with everything Zomby said above, but a blanket blame the victim statement like the one above is simply asinine.
RIGHT ON
I am not associating their reaction solely on the point that they ‘asked’ for it, however in today’s society everything is about being like the rest of the population. Everyone tries to fit in, and for those of us that don’t ( I am one of those anticomplacents as well. ) You are asking for attention. Not literally but you always know in the back of your mind there will be a response. It is not the right thing but it is something that in today’s society you cannot avoid.
I don’t agree fully with zombyboy. He has an one-way opinion. Yes, “killing someone is not a big trick"and “he shouldn’t get cover by blaming his actions on the social missteps of others. He doesn’t deserve to have his actions legitimized or his memory given a status it doesn’t deserve”, but still not only Jeff Weise alone is guilty of this unfortunate incident. It is easy to blame it all on him so our anger and sorrow over what happened can subside.
It is also slightly contradictory to call him “maladjusted” and sometime later say (write) that he “tried hard not to fit in”.
He (Jeff Weise) voiced himself so much. Why didn’t anyone see or wanted to see that there was something wrong with him????? There is no excuse for what he did, innocent people had to/have to suffer because he was in pain, but there might be an explanation for why these things continue to happen. Why do youth get so disturbed that their own life and the lifes around them become so insignificant..and the answer is surely not to call them “misfits”, “self-important” and “idiotic”....This won’t give us a closure at all. We shouldn’t forget that everyone is part of a society we make, so we are as much responsible for each other as we are for ourselfes.
In one thing I agree with zomby on hundred percent: “sometimes people are mean and rude, they hurt feelings callously and they exclude cruelly”....EXCLUDE CRUELLY!
I don,t know who da hell wrote this but I swear I’ll kill you.We’ll be waiting for you in hell, me and Jeff Weise..
Looks like you got your own mutant ZB. Welcome to my world.
Heheh. Kind of cute, isn’t it?
They’re like kids and pets. Cute in the beginning then they just become annoying.
You’re dead zombyboy..
You’re too trench
Firstly, I wouldn’t have thought it possible to be too trench, but what do I know?
Secondly, that’s undead, dear. “Zomby” and all that…
I can never be too Trench.
poor stupid people.. i said that zombyboy is dead and trench is dead too
They never learn.
fuck you trench!! I’ll kill you!
Oh, it was cute for a moment or two, but now it’s just irritating.
Go play in someone else’s sandbox, will you?
Youre more than welcome to come over and troll through my site. Just click on my name if you dare.
no i want to kill YOU
Isn’t it pathetic when a kid tries to pull the wings off a fly, and it beats him up? Makes him all mad at the world and everything.
Ni-night, Stewie.