Related (Because We Apparently Haven’t Learned Yet):
I started working on this writing during my traditional morning writing, and finished it during my lunch break on Friday, July 8, 2016. It’s merely opinion and nothing more. Before you judge based on how you feel, consider being of rational mind and listening to someone else’s thoughts.
Have you watched the news in the last few days? Cops being shot and killed, people getting killed by cops, people hating on one another, protests that claim that only some lives matter (and others don’t). All of it is enough to make you want to run, hide, and fear the next blade of grass you step on may blow you up.
Oh, by the way, did you hear about what happened in Central Park last weekend? That was a little freaky, wasn’t it?
All of the happenings really seem to drive one point home: we’re quick to hate, retaliate, and take no prisoners. No mercy to be had – if you look at someone the wrong way, prepare to pay for it. Bodily injury would be nice, but your life would be even more satisfying to someone who doesn’t care about you.
The point is that there is not any one life that matters. No one should ever think their life matter more than another person based on who they are, what race they identify as, what religion they follow, what they like, what they don’t like, who they don’t like, who they like, what they do for a living, who they are in general as compared to you, so on and so forth. It’s almost as if people have fouled up the most basic existence and would rather ensure that you’re the one less human in involved in the process of existence. Even worse, people are willing to kill many for the life of one. You actually begin to wonder if that one person who was shot by a cop would have wanted these protests and riots to happen.
The justification: “So and so would have wanted it this way!”
I’m not sticking up for the people who were killed by the guns of cops, but I’m also not sticking up for the protesters who decide to make a point by killing cops. Heck, I’m not even sticking up for the cops that shoot unjustifiably, but their policy is that if the cops believe their lives are in imminent danger, then they have to take matters into their own hands. The common thread with these cops was that they believed they were in danger. And while it turns out some of these cops weren’t entirely innocent in their actions, I’d rather know that a cop protected himself and others around him if someone was brandishing a loaded gun, or worse, firing shots into a large crowd.
And there’s rioting for the sake of rioting. Have you seen the news footage surrounding the backlash of Freddie Gray’s death? All the looting in Baltimore as a result? Did you see what these people wanted? Tampons and toilet paper. They stole essential products! “I’m going to avenge Freddie Gray, but my cycle started today. Time to steal some tampons!” Reminds me of the late 1990s (I think it was 1998) when the Los Angeles Lakers won the NBA Finals, and rioters took to the streets to loot and riot, all in the name of victory. I’m sure the team they did this in honor of wasn’t impressed. And it also leaves me to wonder the exact same thing I wondered as a teenager, watching the footage on television: What would have happened if the Lakers lost? And were Bounty paper towels stolen as a result?
Remember the mom who, on live television, went after her son while he was on the way to riot in Baltimore last year? Remember the live footage of the mom hitting her kid for his choice? We need more people like that in the world. Mom doesn’t want you to be a rioter and troublemaker, and neither do those who respect the law.
And peaceful protest. Isn’t that an oxymoron? How can a protest ever seem like a peaceful event? I understand a peaceful protest that is about holding up signs or marching without picking fights, but of the number of peaceful protests, how many of them remain peaceful in the end?
Let’s face facts about the tragedies we see: they are tragic. No one deserves to die as a result of suspicion or revenge. I could go into gun ownership laws and such, but I won’t. I don’t want to touch the Second Amendment. I’m not stating my stance on that. I’m just discussing the state of the world as of late.
And what a state it is in. It is appalling and unfair to those who live peacefully and not get involved in the hysteria that surrounds these shootings.
I know it’s not enough (and unrealistic) to just say “Stop it already!”, but wouldn’t it be nice if all of our problems could be resolved this way?
Or better yet, have millions of people like the mom in Baltimore to slap trouble seekers upside the head on live television. That might teach them.
Allison's Written Words
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