On Fox News, Steyn attacked Virginia Tech, claiming school "exemplifies" a "culture of passivity"
On the April 19 edition of Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto, Chicago Sun-Times columnist and National Review contributor Mark Steyn commented on the April 16 mass shooting at Virginia Tech, saying that "when one man is able to kill dozens of people in the same location over a period of several hours, that reflects a systemic failure." Steyn continued: "So we need to understand what caused that failure. And I think part of the problem is a general culture of passivity, which Virginia Tech exemplifies."
As Media Matters for America documented, Steyn is just one of several media figures who have faulted Virginia Tech victims for not fighting back.
In an April 19 weblog entry, Salon.com editor-in-chief Joan Walsh noted that Steyn "mock[ed] the male students as somehow not quite being men" when he wrote in an April 18 National Review Online article: "They're not 'children.' The students at Virginia Tech were grown women and -- if you'll forgive the expression -- men." As Think Progress documented, Steyn further wrote that "this awful corrosive passivity is far more pervasive, and, unlike the psycho killer, is an existential threat to a functioning society."
From the April 19 edition of Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto:
NEIL CAVUTO (host): Meanwhile, do massacres like this happen because younger Americans are unwilling to confront evil? Kind of like Bo [Dietl, private investigator and former New York City Police Department detective] was just saying. Our next guest kind of agrees with that. He says it is a big, big red flag that the first person to act was an elderly Holocaust survivor. With us now is Mark Steyn, he is the author of America Alone. So Mark, you think there are a lot of red flags here. Start spelling them out.
STEYN: Well, I think -- and I should say that I am not blaming any individuals here -- but I think, clearly, when one man is able to kill dozens of people in the same location over a period of several hours, that reflects a systemic failure. So we need to understand what caused that failure. And I think part of the problem is a general culture of passivity, which Virginia Tech exemplifies. If you look at its disruptive behavior manual, for example, it tells you you should never confront people. It tells you if someone produces a weapon, that you should ask them to calmly put the weapon in a neutral position, and then advise them that violent behavior will have consequences.
"And I think part of the problem is a general culture of passivity, which Virginia Tech exemplifies."
Is there any doubt now that this putrid crap is coming from a single source?
My, how did those millions of Jews let a few thousand Nazis systematically murder them? Why didn't they rise up and jump those guards? Why did the Native Americans let those blue coats massacre them by the thousands? Why did all those African slaves let a few white men sell them into slavery? Culture of passivity?
These people are pathetic.
QFT
The logic eminating from Rightwing Wacky World really eludes me on this tragedy.
Since guns are so readily available to such mentally instable people, our institutes of higher learning are shirking their duty to anticipate it and start breeding warriors who are willing to jump in the path of bullets? That's pretty much what I'm hearing from these morons.
Their reaction is really about the number of people who were killed on that awful day. It's the worst shooting rampage to ever happen, so they have to do whatever they can to divert public pressure away from the NRA, the firearms industry and the red-blooded American gun culture in general, since they collectively play a critical role in getting corrupt, braindead Republicans elected.
"...they have to do whatever they can to divert public pressure away from the NRA, the firearms industry"
I believe you are 100% correct... we all know (those of us here, on the leading edge of monitoring these phony "media" public relations hacks) that when Fox et al are all singing the same tune, then there's a reason for it...
...and you stated that reason, all right.
[And as an added note: Can you believe how sick and insensitive it is for these hacks to say these things... can you imagine how the loved ones of the victims, already dealing with a near crushing grief at their loss, how they must feel to hear these things being said about their loved ones, by these sick and insensitive hacks, who knew them not! LORD must the pay be great at Fox et al, to work for the devil like they do.]
More to the point, why didn't the Iraqis (if I'm not mistaken, a gun culture if we ever saw one) stand up to Saddam Hussein and his bully boys? In fact, why don't they stand up to the insurgents who are killing them daily? It should also be noted that in Baghdad a day with only 33 dead is probably a good day. Do any of these talking heads actually listen to themselves much less see where their babble leads?
They are pathetic but always on point ! I'm surprised they didn't pull out the French analogy. And tell us how the victims drank elitist green tea.
"My, how did those millions of Jews let a few thousand Nazis systematically murder them?"
I'm not sure if you know this or not, but this IS a typical white pride talking point regarding any minority that has been systematically victimized - if they were equal as humans, they'd have been able to stand up to the enslaught. I've seen this logic brought up not just against the Jews, but against slaves, and against Blacks during the civil rights movement.
I think you are being too general in attributing this to all whites. I'm white (and female) and I don't subscribe to that way of thinking. I think it's some small subset of whites. White males with some additional characteristics.
I think this viewpoint stems from having an easy life. If you've never had a gun pointed at you, or never had any other significant violence directed at you, it's easy to fantasize that you would respond in some heroic manner.
I think you're all missing the point of his comments. I am a progressive Democrat who spent years working on Capitol Hill. I've paid my dues and have no interest in defending Fox News.
However, Steyn's point is that there are many self-reported instances of male students "diving to the floor and curling up in a ball." The thought occurred to me several days ago (before Steyn made his comments) that these men should have had the capacity to rush the shooter rather than allow him to shoot women and older professors who had no chance to wrestle him to the ground on their own as he approached them because of the differences in size and strength. The only thing standing between the shooter and the female students were the larger male students who should have been thinking more about their classmates then themselves. This should not be a foreign concept to us. As a soldier I understand the wickedness of the dilemma they faced and the gut tells you to hide. However, when you know others will likely die if you don't step up, the choice should be clear...even if difficult.Steyn was simply saying we cannot allow those with guns and the willingness to use force to walk into a community and start shooting it up. If the owners of that community don't protect it against threats, what hope is there for peace?
We now have reports that at least one male professor died when he attempted to confront or disarm the gunman. Steyn is simply saying that more of the male students should have acted similarly...and that we must if communities are to survive in today's world.
"As a soldier I understand the wickedness of the dilemma they faced and the gut tells you to hide. However, when you know others will likely die if you don't step up, the choice should be clear...even if difficult."
So, from the perspective of a soldier, students who were taken by surprise and without any military training should have made the choice to rush the gunman. That's brilliant. As if there's no difference between someone prepared to be in a dangerous situation and students sitting in classrooms expecting an ordinary day.
"Steyn was simply saying we cannot allow those with guns and the willingness to use force to walk into a community and start shooting it up. If the owners of that community don't protect it against threats, what hope is there for peace?"
Really? What is his suggestion otherwise? Some suicidal stalker is going to refrain from this sort of action in the future because Cho killed 7 or 8 people instead of 32? If someone is crazy enough to go into a place shooting, pretty much knowing they're going to die, then the actions of one group of people in a previous situation is not very bloody likely to have an impact on that.
So even though many people had the "capacity" to act differently, one never knows how one is going to react in such a situation. One person would be crazy to rush a man that's holding two guns. A coordinated effort might work, but the elements of panic and self-preservation don't allow for that very well. It's not like as soon as the sounds of shots are heard that men are going to huddle up and decide their plan.
But surely, someone who has a military background would understand that those without that training can't really be questioned in their reaction. And surely a "progressive Democrat" like you would have the sense of empathy not to blame the victim in such an absurd manner. Very odd, that...
Brab, you've made Steyn's point: that these students are not of a mind set that they should take charge of their surroundings...they have let their surroundings take charge of them. That's ENTIRELY his point.
I am not suggesting that they should have dealt with this situation with military precision or that some of them wouldn't have died trying to stop him. However, their decision to NOT face him may have cost other students their lives. Some would argue that that's okay...that we should only worry about ourselves. Steyn and many others argue that their decision should have been to protect others and our communities...not make a decision that could have led to more death.
The culture of passivity that Steyn speaks of is more than self evident. It has at least two dimensions: 1. allow your surrounding to define you, and 2. take care of yourself as if your the center of the universe. It's a culture that was born with MTV (a generation that I am part of.)
I'm not suggesting that those who didn't act are criminally negligent, but rather simply more concerned with themselves than their fellow students. You draw the conclusion about what that means in terms of culpability.
But, the decision to protect others...as I understand it...IS a progressive Democratic ethic.
Perhaps everyone would benefit from reading the ENTIRE article that Steyn based his comments on.
A Culture of Passivity"Protecting" our "children" at Virginia Tech.By Mark Steyn
I haven’t weighed in yet on Virginia Tech — mainly because, in a saner world, it would not be the kind of incident one needed to have a partisan opinion on. But I was giving a couple of speeches in Minnesota yesterday and I was asked about it and found myself more and more disturbed by the tone of the coverage. I’m not sure I’m ready to go the full Derb but I think he’s closer to the reality of the situation than most. On Monday night, Geraldo was all over Fox News saying we have to accept that, in this horrible world we live in, our “children” need to be “protected.”Point one: They’re not “children.” The students at Virginia Tech were grown women and — if you’ll forgive the expression — men. They would be regarded as adults by any other society in the history of our planet. Granted, we live in a selectively infantilized culture where twentysomethings are “children” if they’re serving in the Third Infantry Division in Ramadi but grown-ups making rational choices if they drop to the broadloom in President Clinton’s Oval Office. Nonetheless, it’s deeply damaging to portray fit fully formed adults as children who need to be protected. We should be raising them to understand that there will be moments in life when you need to protect yourself — and, in a “horrible” world, there may come moments when you have to choose between protecting yourself or others. It is a poor reflection on us that, in those first critical seconds where one has to make a decision, only an elderly Holocaust survivor, Professor Librescu, understood instinctively the obligation to act.Point two: The cost of a “protected” society of eternal “children” is too high. Every December 6th, my own unmanned Dominion lowers its flags to half-mast and tries to saddle Canadian manhood in general with the blame for the “Montreal massacre,” the 14 female students of the Ecole Polytechnique murdered by Marc Lepine (born Gamil Gharbi, the son of an Algerian Muslim wife-beater, though you’d never know that from the press coverage). As I wrote up north a few years ago:Yet the defining image of contemporary Canadian maleness is not M Lepine/Gharbi but the professors and the men in that classroom, who, ordered to leave by the lone gunman, meekly did so, and abandoned their female classmates to their fate — an act of abdication that would have been unthinkable in almost any other culture throughout human history. The “men” stood outside in the corridor and, even as they heard the first shots, they did nothing. And, when it was over and Gharbi walked out of the room and past them, they still did nothing. Whatever its other defects, Canadian manhood does not suffer from an excess of testosterone.I have always believed America is different. Certainly on September 11th we understood. The only good news of the day came from the passengers who didn’t meekly follow the obsolescent 1970s hijack procedures but who used their wits and acted as free-born individuals. And a few months later as Richard Reid bent down and tried to light his shoe in that critical split-second even the French guys leapt up and pounded the bejasus out of him.We do our children a disservice to raise them to entrust all to officialdom’s security blanket. Geraldo-like “protection” is a delusion: when something goes awry — whether on a September morning flight out of Logan or on a peaceful college campus — the state won’t be there to protect you. You’ll be the fellow on the scene who has to make the decision. As my distinguished compatriot Kathy Shaidle says:When we say “we don’t know what we’d do under the same circumstances”, we make cowardice the default position.I’d prefer to say that the default position is a terrible enervating passivity. Murderous misfit loners are mercifully rare. But this awful corrosive passivity is far more pervasive, and, unlike the psycho killer, is an existential threat to a functioning society.
Read it yourself. Read the part suggesting he's only inclined to write about things that are partisan. Read about "pardon the expression...men".
This is the man whose ideas you are defending, and you are blaming the victim just like he is. That is NOT a progressive ethic.
"Brab, you've made Steyn's point: that these students are not of a mind set that they should take charge of their surroundings...they have let their surroundings take charge of them. That's ENTIRELY his point."
That's not much of a point. Outside of military or police elements, who automatically takes charge of their surroundings? Do you understand the basic concept of self-preservation?
"I am not suggesting that they should have dealt with this situation with military precision or that some of them wouldn't have died trying to stop him. However, their decision to NOT face him may have cost other students their lives. Some would argue that that's okay...that we should only worry about ourselves. Steyn and many others argue that their decision should have been to protect others and our communities...not make a decision that could have led to more death."
Again, do you understand the concept of self-preservation? This meme that people could make some sort of thought-out decision is beyond ludicrous. It's all well and good to say that students in a state of panic should forget about their own lives for the sake of others, but it's naive to a ridiculous degree. That's the natural thing to do. Your comments are along the same line as churches that dictate that people shouldn't have sex before marriage. People should be able to do that, but it's not the way life works. As a progressive, I doubt you can disagree.
"The culture of passivity that Steyn speaks of is more than self evident. It has at least two dimensions: 1. allow your surrounding to define you, and 2. take care of yourself as if your the center of the universe. It's a culture that was born with MTV (a generation that I am part of.)"
Or it could just be a person's natural "fight-or-flight" reaction, obviously choosing "flight" when faced with someone wielding two guns. That seems a little bit more sensible than blaming it on the MTV generation or some such nonsense.
"I'm not suggesting that those who didn't act are criminally negligent, but rather simply more concerned with themselves than their fellow students. You draw the conclusion about what that means in terms of culpability."
So the problem is that they're selfish. Got it.
"But, the decision to protect others...as I understand it...IS a progressive Democratic ethic."
That's a human ethic. It doesn't mean that it takes precedence over one's own survival though, and that's where your argument goes up in flames.
When we say “we don’t know what we’d do under the same circumstances”, we make cowardice the default position.
And now they're cowards. Got it. When you stand up to a crazed gunman while you're unarmed, you let us know.
In other words, when hell freezes over, we can take flying pig rides.
Both of your analogies are defective.
(1) The Jews, once arrested, disarmed and incarcerated in concentration camps were no longer able to resist. You also overlook the Warsaw Ghetto, where Jews, who had some weapons and forewarning, more or less fought to the death to avoid passive extermination and inflicted massive casualties on the Nazi thugs.
(2) The "Native Americans" analogy also overlooks the fact that red indians fought the whites on many occassions, and sometimes inflicted fearful casualties. They do not call it 'Custer's last stand' becasue he was selling hotdogs and went out of business. Indeed, one could argue that the red indians only failed to annihilate the white invaders only because they were numerically overwhelmed, deeply divided amongst themselves, and poorly organized.
The people at VA Tech were a free people living in an open society, yet not one of the victims of that nut job's rampage had armed themsleves or offered any more than token resistance. Had one, just one, honest citizen with a concealed carry permit been present in that group, there is an good chance this shooter would have killed far fewer. Had there been three or more armed 'victims', it is almost a certainty that this Cho would have been killed before he could murder even 15 people. Of course, someone who cannot assemble a valid analogy is not going to comprehend how the widespread posession of firearms curtails violent crime. I suggest you study the Northfield, Minnesota raid. What happened to the outlaws who did that?
Had one, just one, honest citizen with a concealed carry permit been present in that group, there is an good chance this shooter would have killed far fewer.
And if people were made of marshmallows, we'd have emergency candy trucks instead of ambulances, hooray! =D
Of course, someone who cannot assemble a valid analogy is not going to comprehend how the widespread posession of firearms curtails violent crime.
Police officers on the beat in the UK don't even carry guns, and yet they have a lower crime rate than we do.
If ingorance is bliss then you must indeed be happy. Since when is the crime rate in the UK any lower or in any way any different than here in the US? Where is your data?
Here is mine: From the UK Home Office. It says 25% of Britons are crime victims each year.
and this is from the US Dept. of Justice.
And looky here: a chart that says crime is LOWER in the US than in England and Wales!
Get some facts or get polished off in a debate.
Enjoy your shine!
From your first link: The British Crime Survey (BCS) asks people about their actual experiences - and so gives us a more accurate picture of crime levels and trends across England & Wales. Naturally, this figure will be higher. I don't know what definitions the Bureau of Justice Statistics uses, but the information really isn't presented in the same way, which makes comparisons difficult. And lastly, that image is of reported burglary, not overall crime. But a Wikipedia article that features that image notes:
Overall crime statistic comparisons are difficult to conduct, as the definition of crimes significant enough to be published in annual reports varies across countries. Thus an agency in a foreign country may include crimes in its annual reports which the United States omits.
One thing that is clear, though, is that the US has a much higher homicide rate than the UK, France, Germany, and other developed nations. So I may have been wrong (or at least inaccurate) when I compared violent crime rates, but how do you refute the significantly higher homicide rate?
Pigs. These guys would have us believe we are a passive culture. Tell that to the Iraqis. Tell that to childless mothers whose children are no more because of gang violence. Yeah, we're a real nation sissies.
This is a gun issue, this is mental health issue. This is about our collective numbness to violence because we are a violent, war-hugging nation.
What really amazes me is that these same cretins are accusing the "libruls" of politicizing this tragedy.
what is truely amazing is how many of them are of enlistment age so they could sign-up and show all of us what 'hero's' they are. Yeah, and i have this bridge I need to sell too...
Never underestimate the audacity of the...
Chicken Hawk.
Yup. I say bring back the draft. Force these college age kids to enlist and learn how to defend themselves and the country. What's that righty says? It'll cost the party that implements it votes? It'll be like commiting political suicide? Ohhhh, poor replicans. Guess that means you are promoting this culture of passiveness...
I agree with you both. I've heard a LOT of this same sort of tripe on AM while driving to work. People keep saying that someone should've done something (more)... Of course, those crying the loudest appear to be the biggest cowards -- all the way up (down) to the warmonger idiots from FOX.
And those same twerps talking the loudest today about the dangers of passivity are the same twerps who were talking yesterday about the dangers of violent hip-hop culture. These conservatives are masters of a cultural shell game.
The thing is you dont blame someone for not being a hero. You dont blame a victim for not being Audey Murphy and if you do you demean your own humanity. Heroic deeds are by definition ABOVE what we expect from normal everyday people when in an INSTANT are confronted with an unexpected and overwhelming crisis. This seems to obvious to me. Then again Tex is right. This has nothing to do with reality and everything to do with doing their jobs which is to blame EVERYTHING that has the public attention on liberals, giving thier base a boogeyman to fear and hate is their reason for being.
I can't even begin to describe how idiotic this assessment of the situation is and will continue to be. A "general culture of passivity." As if an angry student body is what every university should have, just in case one of their fellow classmates should decide to shoot up the place.
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing that it seeks to destroy." - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Perhaps somebody could explain the meaning of the quote above to several members of the media, as their grasp has slipped completely.
Nothing like a little gun play at the keg party. Boy, I sure missed out when I was in college.
Soon you'll hear this idiot's ilk say that everything changed after VA Tech and professors should be carrying sidearms and campus borders should be surrounded by razor wire.
This comment sounds almost sane when compared to the guy who came here after the shootings at the Amish school in Pennsylvania telling us that if the teachers were armed those little girls would still be alive.
Never underestimate the intelligence of a true "Wingnut".
And arent these the SAME people who constantly demean the college students of the sixties for being so NOT passive.
Why is it that none of these lowlifes who are questioning the behavior of the victims have looked down the barrel of a gun?
All of these Monday morning badasses are scum. As are any posters who come claiming, they make valid points. They don't.
Every situation is not fair game for scoring political points. This incident should be absolutely out of bounds for these type of comments.
They want us to believe that we're a nation of victims, yet they'd like us to be a nation of bullies.
How would Steyn know how a man would react? To answer that, he would have to be one. He is clearly not. Nor is anyone coming here to defend his comment.
And, of course, the ultimate irony is... that these bullies count on the fact that people are fearful and can be victimized. The sick, circular 'logic' is appalling.
Right on, dude. I'd like to see any one of these cultural warriors keep their underwear dry if someone pointed a loaded gun at them and cocked the hammer.
The real issue here is the "24ification" of our cultural warrior class. They are no longer able to differentiate between the right-wing jerkoff fantasies they watch on TV and the real world. And they are unable to see a difference.
Here's a test I'd like to try. It's a lot safer and more controlled than having a psycho try to shoot you. Let's take every pundit who thinks someone at Tech should have fought back, put them in a fully functional parachute and push them out the door of an airplane at 4,000 feet, minus any static lines or auto-release mechanisms to open the chute for them. That's plenty high, they'll have plenty of time to get their wits together and pull the rip cord. Unless they go into sensory overload, that is. WHICH IS WHAT HAPPENS TO MOST PEOPLE THE FIRST TIME THEY JUMP OUT OF AN AIRPLANE, even the ones who go on to become accomplished parachutists.
I'm guessing fewer than one in five would survive.
Just for the record, Steyn did not fault the victims, as Media Matters claims. Steyn clearly was faulting what he sees as a "culture of passivity" and also stated expressly, "I am not blaming any individuals here..."
I do not agree with Steyns argument, but I also don't agree with Media Matters characterization of it.
Sorry Bruce. Steyn's comment "if you'll forgive the expression -- men" was most definitely a shot at the victims.
You are correct, his weblog entry was different from his television appearance.
Then who is he blaming? The 'culture'?? Which VT 'exemplifies'??? I think MMFA's characterization is pretty accurate.
The problem, I see, is the use of this tragedy as a stepping stone to rationalize the proactive use of force and violence -- instead of addressing the more logical problems of gun control and mental healthcare. More fearmongering...which I believe has a broader application, all the way to this failed Iraq debacle (ie. 'we'll fight them over there before they come here').
Excellent point. These are the same geniuses who try to characterize our invasion of Iraq as "self defense".
I agree with that. Some things cannot be explained or prevented. Society will breed unstable people and it is not the fault of any particular thing. Some minds just go the wrong way.
Dennis Miller summed it up in one of his "rants" when he said: "There are crazy people in this world and we will not prevent that. You just hope you're not standing next to one of them when they go off".
I had a convo with my wife last night... basically, revolved around the notion that -- within a nation of millions... there'll always be a small percentage who need "help" and should (effectively) be taken out of the rotation. It's just a matter of playing the odds and protecting the general populace.
Of course, implemenation of said 'help' is a whole other can of worms.
I'm inclined to agree with that, even if it puts me closer to the "conservative" camp. Tighter gun control may not prevent such things, since black market guns are so readily available. Maybe more thorough background checks might have stopped this guy, but if he was that enraged, he probably would have found a gun somewhere else. There is no simple solution. No matter what we do, crazy people are going to slip through the cracks and find some way to hurt themselves and others.
But, maybe we can make those 'cracks' as small as possible.
I agree, Bruce.
Steyn said..."They're not 'children.' The students at Virginia Tech were grown women and -- if you'll forgive the expression -- men."
I think MMFA has nailed it pretty well on this one. I don't think it's possible to chastise these cretins enough for this shameless propaganda.
"I am not blaming any individuals here"
"part of the problem is a general culture of passivity"
In other words, no one victim should be at fault for preventing these deaths, all the shooting victims share the blame. It's their fault that they were not bred to be bullet-dodging warriors.
If you believe he's not at least partially blaming the victims then who is he blaming?
Virginia Tech aka VPI was a military school. Then they banned guns on campus. However, they also had support of a police group to ban the guns.
Most campuses have a culture of passivity. Many colleges don't even allow the campus police to carry guns and some even fight them carrying tasers. Not sure why people argue with Steyn's point. Nearly every college has this culture. Whether or not this whacko could have been stopped by a campus that carried guns is debateable.
Maybe you can answer this Leather. When VT was VPI were students permitted to carry loaded weapons? Most military training facilities keep a pretty tight leash on who and who is not permitted access to ammo.
Are there any veterans who remember live ammunition being carried by trainees at Boot Camp, Basic Training, or AIT, except for trips to the firing range where every single bullet was accounted for?
And if the need arose to arm the trainees, how long would it take?
No brass, no ammo, Drill Sergeant!!!
I haven't heard that phrase in more than 35 years.
Not that I hear things through the internets.
Not yet, anyway.
I was going to post the phrase when I saw Scottie had done it. Ah, doesn't the sound of it just take you back? We were coming off the range (Oct. 66) and the guy ahead of me shouted it out. The DI looked into the chamber and saw a live round. The 1st Louie soiled his shorts. If it had fired it would have blown his ear off.
The guy was on KP for a week.
I went to a military school back in the 60s. We had hundreds of guns, but not one of them had a firing pin.
Actually, I take that back. The marksmanship team had working .22 rifles, but they were kept locked up. No one on campus carried a loaded weapon, unless some of the ROTC teachers had them hidden in their desks. The students certainly didn't have them. I guess the cadet officers could have attacked a crazed gunman with their sabers.
So you guys were actually expecting Leatherdude to FINALLY make a cogent argument? Exactly how likely was that anyway?
Nearly every college has this culture [of passivity]. Whether or not this whacko could have been stopped by a campus that carried guns is debateable.
Yeah, but whether or not this whacko could have been stopped by a campus that carried hand-grenades is NOT debateable. These colleges with their culter of passivity that don't allow their students to carry grenades are begging for their students to be shot. I don't own a grenade, but I don't have a problem with people carrying them for protection or hunting. But no, passive activist wussies won't allow grenades on campus. Ridiculous. If even one student had been carrying that day, this whacko would have been taken out before he finished his rampage. Who knows how many lives would have been saved?
Unless....unless he had a grenade launcher! Then the students would have had inferior firepower. And don't kid yourself - if they can't get them legally, there's plenty of other ways to get them....hmmmm...
Okay, I am now advocating for shoulder mounted rockets. Shoulder mounted rocket training and proficiency testing should be mandatory on all college campuses.
Absolutely... and why weren't these VT students not wearing body armour? This "culture of passivity" that encourages civility on campuses instead of armed, pro-active, tactical defense just has to go. Damn sissy liberals won't allow it though...
Leatherhelmet:
I work in a small survey research company housed in a large office building. We have a security guard or two, but I'm not sure if they carry guns. Neither I nor my co-workers have guns. I'm pretty sure we aren't allowed to bring them to work. If a crazed gunman came in and blew us all away, should we blame my company for nurturing a "culture of passivity?"
This is all nonsense, a smoke-screen designed to distract us from the real issue (lax gun control laws) and to find a way to blame the liberals for this tragedy.
We argue against Steyns attempt at a point because it is inhumanly demeaning to the victims. He is blaming them for not being heroes and falsely interpreting that to some strawman about a culture of passivity and your nonsense attempt to justify this sh%te, would be to define this culture of passivity singularly by whether or not they are currently carrying firearms. A dumb attempt if I ever saw one. Virginia Tech was one of the schools where the students took a stand against sweatshops and demanded thier school not use them for their merchandising. Is THAT passivity? Or is it that they SHOULD be passive except in ways you cons prefer? Your appology for this contemptuous talking point is disgusting.
What the hell does protesting against sweatshops have to do with guns? That is insanity. I'm sure they hosted sex-toy seminars too but that hardly is relevant to the point.
The students didn't make the anti-gun laws at VT. In fact, one student with a concealed weapon has to appear before multiple campus authorities for carrying a weapon on campus. The fact is there will lawsuits that say VT has no authority to ban guns on campus and those people will win those lawsuits. The argument was that passivity has set in on campuses. That is undeniable a fact as the campus authorities added laws to prohibit guns despite the fact that no laws exist giving them that authority and that the laws didn't exist before. This is true on 95 percent of college campuses -- the one state school where I live also has a "no-nuke" zone, like that would stop a country from dropping a nuke on them to avoid a $25 fine.
The question is whether the culture of passivity kept Cho from being stopped. This is where I veer from Steyn. Maybe if the one in 500 kids that carried a concealed weapon were in a class he attacked they could have killed Cho. I don't however believe there was much time for the people attacked to plan counter attacks and I doubt even if gun were allowed that anyone could have stopped him. And even if guns were banned in the whole state, I think he would have made bombs. Whackos like him are hard to stop.
Protesting against sweatshops ISNT passivity. DUH. The fact is they dont allow loaded guns on campus. They didnt allow kids to run around with loaded guns when it was military either. The fact is YOU keep trying to define this phantasm of a culture of passivity solely as whether or not people carry guns. I dont carry a gun I dont own one. I am not in ANY way a passive guy. The proposition is not just self serving its DUMB. You dont blame someone for not being a hero. To do so is disgusting. I somehow doubt that the best way to stop or even LESSEN gun violence on campuses is to get everybody to carry a gun. For every one of these tragedies you people are exploiting shamelessly that was cut short there would just as likely be five more that happened just because someone lost their temper and had a gun easily available at the wrong time. You live in a fantasy world where all the answers to complex problems are so simple. Someone takes a couple of guns and kills 30 people the answer is obviously to flood the campuses with MORE GUNS.
The VT students ARE the culture, therefore Steyn is blaming them. Steyn's just doing it in, ironically-considering his argument's premise, a very passive-cowardly way.
Steyn does have one or two brain cells - enough for him to be aware of how the directly-blame-the-victims-game is a dicey proposition--one that Steyn doesn't possess the guts for.
Steyn ... also stated expressly, "I am not blaming any individuals here..."
I'm sorry, but that totally reminds me of this exchange from Talladega Nights:
Mr. Dennit: Ricky, your little obscene gesture is going to cost you 100 points. Do you know how much that costs us in sponsorship dollars?Ricky: With all due respect, Mr. Dennit, I had no idea you’d gotten experimental surgery to have your balls removed.Mr. Dennit: What did you just say to me?Ricky: What? I said it with all due respect!Mr. Dennit: Just because you say that doesn’t mean you get to say whatever you want to me!Ricky: Yes, it does!
And just because Steyn states that he's not blaming the victims doesn't give him carte blanche to turn around and take potshots at them.
But as it's been mentioned, it's incredibly important for these theoretical tough guys to push the theory that this tragedy has more to do with the VT student body being composed of complete wusses than it does with a crazy person's unfettered access to handguns.
Gosh, they're all so brave in the studio or behind a microphone. I guess that comes from all their combat experience fighting in the trenches...of their imaginations.
Must be great to be so tough and manly.
Nice to see Fox spin this for all its worth. I'd like to see a blue Virginia on the election map : )
As a Virginian who was raised in Blacksburg, I'd like to see that too.
Chicago Police advise citizens to comply with a gun-wielding criminal--not to attempt to fight back.
As a resident of this great city, I'm sorry to see its presence in the video's background befouled by the likes of the putrid Mark Steyn.
"If you look at its disruptive behavior manual, for example, it tells you you should never confront people. It tells you if someone produces a weapon, that you should ask them to calmly put the weapon in a neutral position, and then advise them that violent behavior will have consequences."
If this idiot thinks this approach does not increase your chance of survival, why doesn't he tell us what will?
An unarmed person is supposed to instinctively lunge at the armed person and dodge any bullets that come his way?
Steyn doesn't tell us what to do in this kind of situation, but Michael Savage did last night.---He recomends you start pretending to cry while putting your hands on your head to break his train of thought or you could lie on the ground, crying and squirming around etc., and look for a chance to take a poke at him in the crotch.
Hey, Weiner may finally have a point. He's spent his whole life squirming around on the ground crying, and he's survived this long...
Please tell me you're joking.
This obviously wouldn't have worked in the Cho situation. He was talking generally, when confronted by an angry gunmen. His point was that there really is no self defense against a gunmen aside from somehow altering his mindset.
I've been giving a lot of thought to the implications of Librescu's actions. It's entirely possible that he sprang into action because he had been in life-and-death situations and had confronted evil in the past and was acting on experience. Most of those students had probably never had to defend themselves or come to grips with someone perpetrating evil deeds. But, I would think that under normal circumstances that's a good thing.
"Evil"? Okay. A gentleman on the radio yesterday said, He thought this gunman was 'evil'. Where do you go from that? It's simplistic at best.
Right, that's why I used "evil" as a modifier to the word "deed" instead of the person. I have read comments from several survivers that suggest they spent the first few moments coming to grips with the idea that this could actually be happening. I'm suggesting that Librescu may not have had to go through that process because he was already familiar with the idea that people can commit unspeakably horrible acts against other people. As a result, he was able make a decision and act quickly. Likewise, there are reports that several instructors with military or police experience in the building who, when they heard the shots, knew immediately what was happening and rushed to the scene. Others heard the shots and spent time wondering if they were construction noise or whatever.
I don't know where you go with that. I don't have any ideas. My point is that I don't understand what these commentators are suggesting we go with that. How do we "toughen up" our children so they are prepared to deal with such a situation? How do we become a less "passive" society? Do we promote agression in our schools? It just doesn't make sense.
I would have loved for your creator, Mr. Vonnegut, to have lived long enough to comment on this particular piece of right wing insanity. I'm sure he would have been appalled by these comments.
"We are human only to the extent that our ideas remain humane."- Kurt Vonnegut Jr
So much said in very few words. I for one will miss him.
Speaking of Kurt, did you see the Fox News obit on him? As a fan of his work, I was not pleased.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/index.php?rand=20070420110246&paged=4
I was not please either.
But I take comfort in the fact that generations from now, Fox News will be a distant memory and the wet dream of the few survivors of neoconservativism, but the works of Mr. Vonnegut will live forever.
I really hope you're right!!
I may never have read a quote I agree with more
Perhaps I misunderstood your comment. I suppose I was reacting to the use of the word 'evil'... which, in my mind connotes an unwavering force of nature (or whatever supernatural force you choose)...which, we can only address by fighting or violence, etc. Smacks of Bush and his call to fight 'evil-doers', etc. Doesn't really address issues we DO have control over...(i.e. ourselves and our actions).
Good point, "evil" is a charged and overused word these days with religious connotations. Poor choice, I should have used "malice/malicious" instead.
I disagree.
The concentration of everything that can possibly be bad about the human condition during the Holocaust, which the instructor survived, is probably the closest thing any of us can relate to true "evil," and it is an appropriate word.
A man who has lived through evil, who has lived with it surrounding him, and who learned the appropriate survival strategies to get him through the ordeal would certainly be better equipped than a bunch of untrained teenagers to react to an immediate danger.
Of course it doesn't make sense. This is just another Troglodyte excuse to attack "Liberalism" in general. They know it's nonsense, but they are well payed to spread such nonsense.
"this awful corrosive passivity is far more pervasive, and, unlike the psycho killer, is an existential threat to a functioning society."
This is getting pretty sick, IMO. When suddenly faced with a rampaging gunman don't you think a normal person's initial, instictive reaction would be to duck and cover or run away? Cho was blasting away with two guns and caught his victims by surprise. In a hostage situation, perhaps, people might have the time to consider an effort to disarm the gunman... but when suddenly caught by surprise a person's first instict is to avoid the threat. This isn't cultural passivity, this is human instinct.
Perhaps Mark Steyn would advocate that we teach our children to be more aggressive like young males in hostile Middle Eastern countries where many families routinely stock at least one AK-47 rifle and where young men are routinely accustomed to dealing with violence. But how often does a VT situation occur in America, a country which represents itself as the model for civilized societies? Is Steyn saying we should teach young people to be more aggressive just so they are prepared to attempt to deal with the rare psychopath who commits mass murder? What's next, Steyn, mandatory self-defense training in our schools?
Maybe this cretin should contact the parents of the dead to personally let them know that their children died because of their "culture of passivity" and their child's unwillingness to "confront evil"
Conservatism is one f'ed up ideology.
Agreed. This is an ample illustration of the intellectual bankruptcy which characterizes the "conservative movement". This is what happens when you listen to Rush Limbaugh for fifteen years.
Please explain to me what any of this one man's opinion has to do with conservatism? His "passivity" comments are misplaced, in my opinion, but it has nothing to do with one political ideology or another.......so your swipes against conservatism with an irrelevant broad brush are unwarranted.
It is a broad brush, Tommy.
But there seems to be another conservative painter using it every day. I'm not blaming conservatives in general. but only the conservatives who've commented about the victims not stopping a madman. I also don't like the conservative comments about a nation of sissies etc.
But again, it's only a handful of commentators so far. But one of the commentators has the largest radio audience in the nation.
Worrier,
I was responding to the poster's slur against conservatism, not media conservative personalities, who have their opinions, as do you and I.
RJC specifically said conservatism, which I take issue with considering this has nothing to do with any ideology - it is a tragedy that need not be exploited from anyone to score political points, or bash one ideology or another. These conservatives speak for themselves and have opinions on the causes and reasons for this tragedy - to extrapolate them on to some unrelated ideological belief system is a stretch, and not relevant.
Tommy, I'll concede that I let anger get the better of me in my post. But you have to admit that the argument being advanced by SOME conservatives which essentially paints the victims of this tradegy as sniveling cowards due to an indoctrination of passivity is just plain f'ed up.
This has nothing to do with true "conservatism", but it does exemplify the "conservative movement" which has been hijacked by bombthrowers like Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, etc. You must admit, they are the most visible representatives of modern American conservatism. Maybe it's not fair, just like it's not fair to view Al Sharpton as a representative of modern Liberalism.
Nerzog,
Al Sharpton is a liberal, but his personal ideological opinions are his own - to broad brush his statements or actions as some condemnation of liberalism is unfair.
I would tend to agree. However, as I'm sure you're aware, Rush Limbaugh claims to speak for Conservatism every day. While I haven't heard him specifically address this issue, I would bet that he's repeating the same talking points.
Unless Rush has some official authorization from the "Church of Conservatism", to which from my knowledge there is no such thing........then his "claim" goes more to his ego than any divine authority.
I know millions of Rush fans who would disagree, but your point is valid.
For Heaven's sake! Three pages of comments and Tommy waits for someone to make a generalized statement about conservatism to chime in. Tell me, Tommy. What is your take on this Steyn's comments? I'm more interested in your opinion on the subject than on other people's postings.
For Heaven's Sake!! If you read my first post you will see where I opined that his comments were "misplaced".......however I know unless I lay out a flurry of personal insults against the man as some of you do when commenting, my criticism gets lost.
Turds for brains...
Steyn might want to explain jsut what the Hell a "culture of passivity" is.
While he's at it, why it would be so much better if Virginia Tech "exemplified" a culture of... I don't know... a culture of agressiveness?
Maybe Steyn's view is to give all of 'em guns and let the good shots and the fast reloaders sort it out.
That'll work.
This from a - if you'll pardon the expression - "man" who never went to college. This from a - again, please pardon the expression - "man" whose only contribution to the world-at-large is uneducated, ill-informed nonsense.
Then again, he's wearing a suit so he must know what he's talking about, eh?
And he's on the TeeVee!
So he has to know what he's talking about.
Oh, and I forgot to mention, his accent makes a big difference too. After all, people with vocal accents like his are always well-educated, aren't they?
Yeah. I think there's an inverse relationship b/w the quality of 'news' and how 'shiny' it is... PBS (when I was younger) was as drab as you could get...but, generally offered good, unbiased reporting. C-SPAN, I guess, is the modern equivalent. :)
I guess in Steyn's little world, the VT students should have all been like Rambo. Or maybe they didn't watch enoug R-rated movies or play violent video games? Maybe he should stick to Muslim-bashing. He's so good at it.
I guess he can't handle the idea that the environment at Virginia Tech and other college campuses should be one that promotes a welcome peaceful society.
This is an email I'm sending to Mr. Steyn:
Mr. Steyn,
I watched with dismay as you sought to blame the victims of the Virginia Tech shootings for "passivity" on the April 19th broadcast of FOX News' Your World with Neil Cavuto. As it seems highly doubtful you have ever been in a situation where guns were involved, much less had a gunman enter your classroom and begin blasting away indiscriminately, it seems to me unwise and very callous for you to advance such an assessment.
Do you know of a single college anywhere in the world that encourages (or even allows) students to carry loaded weapons to class (military institutes included)? Do you really believe that would make classes safer? Do you know why people go to college in the first place, since you don't seem to have gone yourself?
Higher education is for the purposes of learning, not so amateur Rambo wannabe's can tote firearms around campus just in case there's a madman running around somewhere. As a 15-year veteran of the military (still serving) both Army and Air Force, I can speak from personal experience that a majority of the time, even our brothers & sisters in uniform aren't walking around packing heat. At least, not here in the states. Those that do are generally in the business of security.
Perhaps you would say that the military has a culture of passivity as well?
And so we come to it. For you - an armchair Rambo yourself - to criticize these people the way you have is to demonstrate a degree of ignorance that disqualifies you from intelligent discussion of the issues. With all due respect, the responsible thing for you to do would be to offer an apology to the victim's families, and recuse yourself from further discussion of topics you are not qualified to speak about.
Thank you
You are my hero.
This is thoughtful, powerful, and beautifully written. I hope that this clown cries in shame after reading your response to his vile comments.
In the culture Mark Steyn extols, a culture devoid of that terrible passivity...
...guys in jeeps and pickups would be driving through nearby towns, throwing Molotov cocktails through the windows of Korean businesses, and clubbing, sometimes to death, any Asian they found.
You think not? It's happening every day somewhere in the world.
All those non-passive Rwandans...
Thank you for keeping us updated on this situation. I am going to contact Mark Steyn and thank him for his comments and intelligent insight.
Would be quite foolish to look into a gun producing liberal psyco's eyes and ask to have the weapon put into a neutral position.
A "Well-done" to Neil Cavuto for having the courage to have Mr. Mark Steyn on his outstanding program
Yeah, next time you overpower an armed assailant, get back to us...okay? We'll be waiting.
When we see you actually test Mark Steyn's Non-Passive E-Z Suicide Plan, we'll watch an example of Darwin's evolutionary theories at work.
Nice choice of a word "INSIGHT'.
Let's hope that no one ever has you or one of your cowardly heroes, "in sight".
"...intelligent insight." ???
Where? What "insight", intelligent or otherwise? What the hell does "culture of passivity" mean? Does it mean enccouraging civil behavior instead of aggressiveness? Out of the thousands of students at VT and how many of them were deranged mass murderers? One... And you agree that a "culture of passivity" is to blame? You sound more like a shallow idealogue than a thinker.
While you are at it. Ask him where you guys keep your collective humanity and the brain cells you obviously have put in a blind trust. You are sick. Please seek the help of a mental health professional immediatly.
God, these people make me physically ill. These soft, pudgy, middle-aged Jack Bauer wannabes, most of who have never worn a police or military uniform in their lives and don't have the slightest clue what it's actually like to be shot at, are simply beneath contempt. How shallow a mind, how little self-awareness, how stunted a sense of shame, does one have to possess in order to publicly make these kinds of revolting comments over and over? And why does our national media insist on giving these braying fools a platform?
trying to have it both ways
These same rightwing idiots who are complaining that our culture is too passive and timid in the wake of the Virginia Tech tragedy are the same people who complain that our culture is too coarse and violent when they can get mileage out of that complaint
the stupidity and two-facedness of people like Steyn borders on the astonishing
I like how tough talking these, if you excuse the expression, "people" are. Essentially they are saying that liberals are weak cowards. However, if I, as a moderate liberal, saw one of these people in a bar and asked him to step outside to see how weak I really am, they would immediately insult me that I have to resort to violence first before arguing my point verbally.
I despise these doughy, insecure punks!
Fox suggests they're the Christian channel.
And they're the killa channel too.
So, one has to ask, "Whom would the killa Christ kill?"
That's a really good point. Why didn't the Disciples just tackle the Romans? Passivists!
Christ was a passivist, and you see what happened to him. I think that, given another chance, Jesus would have tried a holy surge and bull-rushed the crucifiers. Sure, some may have been crucified anyway, but who knows how many other lives would have been saved?
Maybe the crucifixion was just the first act to build up suspense, the same way Batman and Robin always got trapped in the first part of the episode, or Ben Cartwright always got shot or knocked out before kicking butt.
The second coming might be our introduction to Jesus X-Treme.
and this time, it's personal.
Hmmm.... So the star that led the 3 wise men to the manger is similar to the bat-signal!
I can't wait to see what he's got in his utility belt...
LOL. Priceless!
Ok, I did a little research and I recomend that all staff and professors be required to take this class:
http://www.teamspartan.com/teamspartan_INTRODUCTION_TO_DYNAMIC_ROOM_ENTRY.htm
Right? Next time a liberal shooter goes on a rampage the janitors and english professors will have the training to go after the armed, mentally ill shooter.
{end of sarcasm}
The only way to prevent a tragedy like this is for schools to be proactively looking for youngsters who have lost their way, who don't have any friends or other emotional support systems, reach out to them and get them the treatment they need. To say that making the culture on campus less passive will prevent shootings is exactly oppisite of what will happen. Would more bullying have pushed this individual away from his violent obessions?
Steyn's assertion that"when one man is able to kill dozens of people in the same location over a period of several hours, that reflects a systemic failure", is a distortion of the facts at best. The initial 2 killings took a mere seconds while the latter massacre took place over a period of minutes not the two hours that he implies. As a combat veteran in Vietnam the initial response to any ambush is to first and foremost seek cover. Only then do you formulate a response and this is while being armed and existing in a combat zone. These students had zero expectation of facing an ambush which according to eye witnesses took place in seconds with the assailant commencing fire immediately on entering the classroom. The fact that so many still reacted so quickly to barracade doors is admirable. To blame these students for their own demise is the lowest form of gutless cowardice I can imagine. As has been the case so many times in the past, these same characters, Steyn Cavuto, Graham, all lack the intestinal fortitude themselves and therefore desperately try to project these shortcomings on others.
Thank you for this post. I'd like to add, that courage doesn't mean a cartoonishly rambo like fantasy. That sounds a lot like what the disturbed shooter had. The word courage comes from a French word meaning "heart." And truly that is where courage comes from.
It seems to me that American citizens must decide to act "with heart" instead of fear or selfish temporary self interest. This goes beyond gun control (but includes it) and involves how we think, feel and act as a society. How we treat the "least among us", how we entertain and educate ourselves, how we help (or hurt) one another. I am reading that this shooter was bullied in school.
No weapon or drug will cure what truly ails this country.
That's it I am convinced. The right thinks we should raise our kids to be Spartans. I was on the fence but now I'm convinced.
Thanks for letting me know. Now I'll be sure to sign my five year old up for a practical pistol course and send the three year old to survival training. Can anyone say Summer Camp?
What a joke. Did this guy ever serve his country in combat? Has he ever taken a weapons class? Doubt it, if he had he'd know better than to spew this ignorance.
Mark may talk the talk but I bet if he were in the same situation he would taking cover not beating his chest at some gunmen. If he did act like some macho over testosterone male, he would be the first
one with a bullet in his head. In fact I would go so far to say that Mark is more of a coward then any VT male student by writing that trash and he would
be the first one crying in his boots
Is Steyn human?
Nah, he just appears to be a member of the race.
Notice that not one of the considerable number of posters who have or are serving, and know what it's like to be shot at, have expressed anything but contempt for Steyn's idiocy. 'Nuff said.
I think you're all missing the point of his comments. I am a progressive Democrat who spent years working on Capitol Hill. I've paid my dues and have no interest in defending Fox News.However, Steyn's point is that there are many self-reported instances of male students "diving to the floor and curling up in a ball." The thought occurred to me several days ago (before Steyn made his comments) that these men should have had the capacity to rush the shooter rather than allow him to shoot women and older professors who had no chance to wrestle him to the ground on their own as he approached them because of the differences in size and strength.The only thing standing between the shooter and the female students were the larger male students who should have been thinking more about their classmates then themselves.This should not be a foreign concept to us. As a soldier I understand the wickedness of the dilemma they faced and the gut tells you to hide. However, when you know others will likely die if you don't step up, the choice should be clear...even if difficult.Steyn was simply saying we cannot allow those with guns and the willingness to use force to walk into a community and start shooting it up. If the owners of that community don't protect it against threats, what hope is there for peace?
We now have reports that at least one male professor died when he attempted to confront or disarm the gunman. Steyn is simply saying that more of the male students should have acted similarly...and that we must if communities are to survive in today's world.
You're cutting and pasting your comments from the other thread.
So far, you are the ONLY veteran that hasn't been outraged by these comments.
Many of us are combat veterans. Everyone of us who has weighed in about this incident has said, that under these circumstances, they have no idea what they would have done. Everyone of us.
If you are questioning why these kids didn't defend themselves, I'm suspecting you were peacetime military. There's nothing wrong with that. You're to be commended for your service.
But anyone who has been to war, always knows before hand what he'd like to do and what must be done. If you give the person a theoretical situation, he'll tell you how he'd like to react. But the key word is theoretical. The realities of war and situations like being in this classroom in VA are that once anyone is under fire, anything can and will happen.
A trained unarmed soldier should first seek cover for himself, second secure those in his area and third plan a defense. By that time it would be over. Even the highly trained soldier would be dead.
The right wing Chicenhawks who are pushing this lack of heroism angle don't seem to understand that heroism isn't planned. They're seen too many war movies and not enough real war.
It's time that everyone stop talking about what a roomful of college students should have done and concentrate on what one deranged, bullied, kid actually did.
I have heard many women also say that they wondered why the men didn't team up and physically overpower him.
It seems to me that in order to team up you have to have time to plan and I doubt any of those poor souls had more than seconds to plan anything. Some barricaded doors that saved lives while others lept from windows.
I believe even in the United 93 flight they had time to plan an attack. I doubt the VT victims had the luxery of time.
I agree, Leather. I doubt there was time for a plan. This is one tragedy that can only be made worse by people pushing a political angle.
Everyone needs to drop all of the partisan nonsense and allow the families to grieve.
Oh, I see. Apparently the memo that was sent around to all the right wing hacks about Virginia Tech is to use the shooting as a way to attack academia. Now, not only are our institutions of higher learning bastions of liberal bias, but they also encourage a culture of passivity for our young people, which is absolutely NOT what our society needs in this time of endless war and terrorist threats. We need aggression, more weapons, more violent encounters. That's what will solve all our problems. Not more effete, liberal intellecutalism and weakness.
I have to agree with Steyn on this one; thank goodness these weren't the folks on flight 93. Maybe if Cho had picked something other than an engineering building he would have encountered more resistance, like say, a building of one of the agricultural related majors.
Yeah, tell you what. AFTER you have Ramboed an armed gunman, disarmed, and shown that YOU could do better get back to us. THAT is what it will take before I cede to you the authoritative right to demean dead kids slaughtered in an act of senseless violence and without a shred of decency use it to make some point about a culture of passivity. I wont be holding my breath
The people on Flight 93 were dealing with box cutters, not guns.
Your an ass as well as an idiot. I don't care who or what you are, if you've never had someone shooting at you, you'd look for cover.
Get back to us after you've been in that kind of danger. Better yet, sign up for a tour in Iraq. Let us know how brave you are afterwards.
And more to the point, everyone on flight 93 had time to plan and understood they were going to die no matter what. They knew it wasn't a run-of-the-mill hijacking where there was a high chance of survival. In that situation, with those realizations, it's much easier to take a stand, since you have nothing to lose. The students in question had no time or reasoning to view themselves as a collective and obviously were going to have their individual survival in mind.
I too, wouldn't advise you hold your breath waiting for me to wait for you to "cede me the right" to do anything.
Nicely worded, Thoreau. You have the right to be as big a jackass as you can manage to be. Just don't expect anyone to respect your opinion when you blame the victim.
i don't understand. what is so wrong about fighting for your life and the lives of others ?
That is not the question. And if you think it is you are way out there. A bit of information that has come out that some of the students did act to defend themselves and others. There is as yet no report out on all actions taken by potential and real victoms. Some how the image of these students meekly waiting to be killed has grabbed onto the right wing media as an excuse to beat anyone with peaceful habits over the head. Metaphorically speaking. I think they may have had some sucess here.
The worst part about idiots like Steyn is they haven't the slightest idea of the facts about what occurred inside Amber Johnson and Norris halls.
R.A. Ryan Clark died because he came to the aide of the woman who was shot in Amber Johnson.
In Norris Hall, police say as many as 225 shots were fired. 47 people were hit (32 dead, 15 injured). There were a number of students and professors who helped others out. We don't know the facts about who and how anyone tried to counter Cho or not.
The first responsibility is getting away. The last resort is attacking the gunman.
Without all the facts, Steyn and people like him are just talking out of their butts. Of course, what else is new? It gets them airtime.
As long as you're collecting facts, it's Ambler Johnson, not Amber Johnson [she was a '70's black pornstar]