Was the "point" proven?

No.

Don’t hog the toilet. I want to throw up, too.

The point for me is that we live in violent times and that swearing to any oath that includes “God Bless America” provides us no haven.

Maybe it is just the media, but it feels like so much tragedy in such a short time. My heart is broken. How many mass attacks on ourselves have to occur before we consider it a civil war? Not really a question I’m looking to have answered, just a general sense of how I feel about all of this.

I can’t tell if the “point” has been proven, because I will never understand the point of this.

Yeah @DigitalBlue. I agree. And how would you declare a Civil War? Against whom? Against the nuts who are hoarding guns because a civil war is imminent, or the ones who are going to provoke a Civil War, which are the same ones who are hoarding guns against an imminent civil war? It’s SO screwed up.

I feel sorry for any and all who got hurt in Boston.

This kind of stuff seems to be part of “the new world”. It brings a very nasty reality very close to home.

For many people living in places around the world this is daily routine. Let’s use the occasion to widen our view and feel compassionate with all people around the world confronted with violence that they didn’t look or ask for.

Three dead. Over 130 injured. @Pachyderm_In_The_Room—Patriot’s Day is a holiday in Massachusetts. God wasn’t working today. But all those who feel prayer is the answer can pray that those who got their feet or legs blown off will grow new ones. My guess is that the person who carried this out probably believed that their personal sky fairy would bless them abundantly for doing it. In other words, they were fricking insane.

@whitenoise It’s not like the world has suddenly become a dangerous place. We have had rape and pillage politics since the dawn of time. Here’s a list of great conquerors. Of course, many more failed to make the top 10 list. There was the Crusades, the Inquisition, the 100 year war, the holocaust, Stalin’s murder of 20 million of his own people, Chairman Mao’s murder of 50 million of his. Violence sucks today because our advancing technology empowers anyone to commit mass carnage. You no longer have to be clever enough to rise to the top of a political movement in order to take out boatloads of other humans. But humans have always been a violent sort. Nothing new there.

@ETpro
You’re right from a macro and historical point of view. For many people currently living in the US or Western Europe, though, this is not true. They (we) have had a rather exceptional time in which most of us could ignore even the existence of violence.

Technology, increasing social disparity and media expose us in our safe-havens to a reality that is part of the human condition for most people in todays world and has been always. I was in Pakistan and Bangladesh not so long ago and they will not be impressed by what happened in Boston. This is their daily life.

Wandering off a bit and touching on another of your questions… I feel, one of the reasons that many people in the US are so willing to go for armed solutions is that they have not seen military style misery in their homelands during their lifetimes. They have forgotten the misery war and violence comes with. Europeans had their fair share, but also they are starting to forget.

When I was growing up in the 80’s in America many people said younger people today have had many years of peace and prosperity, they have been lucky. It was a statement about America not being involved in any wars in any major way since Vietnam, many World War II survivors were still around, and an older generation could perceive a naivete amongst younger people I think. I believe that perception was correct for the most part.

I don’t know if these sort of bombings and mass shooting are statisically more common now or not. For me, this sort of craziness has always existed. I have mentioned before always having a thought in the back of my head that while in a synagogue it is like all us Jewish people there are sitting ducks for some antisemitic nut job. Not a paranoia really, but the thought is there, so it is not so shocking if something happens.

When I hear about poison released in a subway system somewhere around the world, or a car bomb, or a mass shooting I don’t think, that’s there, it can’t happen here. When people think of 9/11 being the first attack on America, I think, where have they been? There was another attack on the world trade center several years before, and attacks on our embassies, and attacks on a military vessel, and attacks on other western countries by Al Qaeda. Then we also have some of the trajedies at more than one Olympics. Oklahoma. The list goes on.

When I became engaged to my now husband I thought to myself, now I will have a very Jewish name. A middle eastern Jewish name at that, and if my plane is ever hijacked, I’m the first one dead. This was back in the early 90’s way before 9/11, but not before Israel had dealt with too many hijacked planes, and that felt as real to me as if it had been America.

Maybe it is because of the holocaust and being Jewish. Hearing all those stories from a fairly young age and identifying with the victims. Being told it would have seemed impossible in a modern country like Germany, which meant it can happen in America. To me it’s the same, the ability to kill masses of innocent people. I will never ever understand it.

I don’t know if the point is proven, but more than one person on fluther and people around me here in real life have said in passing it makes them think twice about being in any public place with throngs of people. People said it to me after 9/11 and I hear it now again. That’s why I call this a terrorist act, because people are terrorized, fearful, that this could happen anywhere, and it becomes very real to them.

Nut job with nothing to lose + internet + technology = recipe for disaster.
Which do you fix?

I don’t know, because I don’t understand what kind of point “they” are trying to make. That America is no longer safe? I just don’t understand so many tragic events in so little time. I don’t. My head hurts and my heart weeps.

Is this the part where I throw up with you?

If they were trying to prove that they can make us take away our own rights and freedoms, they may be right. Quotes like this from Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick scare me “There will be random checks of backpacks and other parcels. We are also asking that everyone be on a state of heightened vigilance,” he said.

I recall the knee-jerk reactions we had to 9/11. We are still suffering under the auspices of the Patriot Act and Homeland Security.

We are too willing to give up what makes America America just to give ourselves a false sense of security.

Ask government officials, they are the ones calling the shots for all of us- ‘foreign and domestic.’

I posted this on the thread about the value of prayer for those affected, but it seems even more relevant here.

I like this short quote that Upworthy.com just sent to my email box.

I can only imagine the bomber thought that it proved a point but obviously with some distorted kind of view.

This is the act of someone who lacks empathy. Therefore in my eyes the view is distorted since it is my belief that most of us have empathy, therefore the complete lack of it is unfathomable for those of us who willingly enjoy using it.

”... I don’t know if the point is proven, but more than one person on Fluther and people around me here in real life have said in passing it makes them think twice about being in any public place with throngs of people. People said it to me after 9/11 and I hear it now again. That’s why I call this a terrorist act, because people are terrorized, fearful, that this could happen anywhere, and it becomes very real to them.”

@JLeslie, I couldn’t agree with you more.

@Pachyderm_In_The_Room Thanks. :)