From:
Benjamin Hyatt
Subject: More of the "The big issues."
I would just like to
say Mr Gasior, that I found your mail to be very insulting.
While loonyboi might
be giving you some rope, and stating you're on the fine line, I
think you went way over it. I mean, come on here, for one thing,
I doubt the last thing Blue wants to do is turn his mail into a
massive religion debate :-)
Although, I did like
seeing the quote from Marilyn.. that's a first: no doubt about it
;-)
Anyway, to address some
of your points.. I think you couldn't hit the broad side of a barn
if you tried. Let's see.. "...their own holy book is so mired
in hypocrisy..."
Where? When you make
an accusation, please.. PLEASE give a reference. Words alone don't
carry any weight at all. And quotes from rock stars who hurt themselves
in public don't count.. if I got a quote from Hitler, how much weight
would it carry? :-) Now we're not perfect, I admit.. no one can
follow the Bible to the letter.. no one but God himself. But the
Bible has yet to be proved wrong, so your assumption (again, I say
assumption, theory, and so on, because it can be no more than such
:) about the Bible can not be proven. If you're going to insult
someone, you should include the reason why they were insulted, and
on what grounds you insult them :)
I don't mean to insult
anyone further here, afterall, I'm a right-ring righteous bigot
who is doubtless so perfect.. no? :) But we already *know* that
the two kids; erhm, homicidal kids killed a lot of other people.
Now, don't take this the wrong way, but let's get on with it. They're
dead. It's over. What we need to focus on is not the fact that "they
killed other people" but what made them kill other people.
This is where we get to the "we're all violent by nature"
stuff, but c'mon.. that's just another scapegoat isn't it? The entire
human race is always searching for a scapegoat.. a particular president
comes to mind ;-)
Now, if we're all truly
violent by nature, then why don't we all go around blasting things,
killing people, dropping nukes, and what-not? I wonder... could
it be because our parents teach us how to play by the rules? I believe
the only true source moral is the Bible, and could give you numerous
reasons why.. but I don't wish to turn this into a religion debate
(regardless of the fact that you seem hard-pressed to do just that).
The fact is, our parents teach us how to act... we act upon the
things we see, and what the kids in school do, etc. We see our parents,
maybe they have a home-business.. a lot of kids grow up in the footsteps
of their parents.. they continue the business, or they'll do what
is "cool" with their group of friends. Our decisions are
based upon input from other people, atleast most of the time.. when
you're a kid, and someone asks "What are you going to do when
you grow up?" Well, you've never had a job before, so how in
the world would you know?? You wouldn't. You would give them an
answer ** based upon input from other sources **
Other people shape our
lives, and parents are our biggest role-models, for a long time
to say the least. If these parents paid no attention to the shot-gun
lying around in a 16 year old kid's room, or to the automatic weapons
they doubtless saw, what does that say to you? To me it's a big
fat sign on their forehead saying "I'm the dumbest person
on earth.. and btw, I'm blind too."
These parents should
have taught their kids a lot better.. true, the final decision to
kill other people was the child's.. but tell me... have you really
seen a lot of kids with guns lying around, and their parents ignoring
that? For all I know, their parents encouraged the kids to, ah..
reach out and hurt someone :-)
If the parents had swayed
their children in a proper manner, towards.. dare I say it.. righteous
morals, then the chance of such a thing happening would be about
10%.
A person who doesn't
swear, to me, represents a smart man... and I respect people like
that. From my gaming experience (gaming life, whatever you wish
to call it :), 90% of the people I've met online who don't swear
are the following: Good players, good friends, and good people.
I know, right off the bat, that if this is their true character,
they wouldn't kill someone.
If I see a guy on the
net swearing every time he dies, everytime the enemy team scores,
and swearing everytime he types something; I look at that person,
and think "What a jerk." Or what I'm really thinking,
is.. he's a nasty guy. I wouldn't even be phased if someone like
that went around killing people.. in fact, I would.. *expect* it
to happen eventually.
Ah, *whew* enough of
that. I did my best not to insult you, and I hope you do the same
in the future. If you're applying for a job, and your boss is a
Christian, take some advice: Don't insult him so bluntly, or his
beliefs, or you'll get a quick response: "You're fired."
Now, as for the stereotype
computer kid, I'm not half surprised. When you look at leagues,
whether it be Tribes or Unreal, the top players are…what do
you know, the ones who play the most: or waste the most time. It's
not surprising that it is the current view of computer kids, I mean
look at it.. the top players probably have a good amount of skill,
but more importantly, they play almost 24/7! Have you ever played
all day in a game? Most of the time you'll get at least 5 people
telling you "You have no life" or "You're still here?"
Go ahead and make a poll..
you'll find that people who concentrate more on college & school
get ahead, and people who play games most of the time drop back.
Moving right along here,
in answer to the letter about the media.. I fully agree with you.
Most killers, if you would ask them, "Why shoot a guy?"
they might say, "I might be hanged, but atleast I'd be world
famous." Well, how do they become that? The media.. I fully
agree with your view, but I think one day of coverage is apt :)
The only other thing
I hated was the fact that I watch the news to get news.. not reruns
of the shooting, and the weather. Fine, they can show a lot of crap
about the kids, but I want to see other news too. :)
Of course, I don't know
if this will be posted on Blues' mail bag, but if not, I would like
to ask loonyboi to forward this to Mr Gasior. Thanks :-)
- Benjamin Hyatt