Tribute to the Virginia Tech Victims.

• Britt
  April 20th, 2007 at 12:44 am

  Was Cho Seung-hui not also a victim?

• Darken
  April 20th, 2007 at 2:47 am

  No. No, he wasn’t.

• hearse trax
  April 20th, 2007 at 7:01 am

  no such thing as an innocent person

• Karyn
  April 20th, 2007 at 12:24 pm

  I’m sure it would madden many to see his name and picture with the 32 others, but I do agree that Cho was also a victim.

• Darken
  April 20th, 2007 at 12:40 pm

  “no such thing as an innocent person”

  Non sequitor. Go away.

  “I’m sure it would madden many to see his name and picture with the 32 others, but I do agree that Cho was also a victim.”

  This memorial isn’t for a murderer, it is for the victims of HIS crimes.

• ted
  April 20th, 2007 at 12:45 pm

  Those have got to be troll comments.

  If you’re going to make such an absurd assertion that this killer was a victim, at least back it up with why you believe so.

  Good old Cho, he really meant well. He was just a little messed up? He thought he was playing paintball.

• pippy
  April 20th, 2007 at 2:09 pm

  Presumably someone somewhere is greiving the loss of Cho? And no doubt feeling guilty for not acting to help prevent his horendous actions. I don’t know if it’s appropiate to include him in this memorial, but I do think we should avoid de-humanizing him.

• Chris
  April 20th, 2007 at 5:30 pm

  what he did wasnt human, it was the incarnation of hate and evil

• Supreme Commander
  April 20th, 2007 at 6:49 pm

  What he did may not have been “human”, but people like him are not born, they are made.

  What must have he gone through in life (or at the very least *felt* he went through) to make him do what he did?

  He too is a “victim”, just not one of his own crime.

• Britt
  April 20th, 2007 at 7:22 pm

  Anybody who can do something so terrible has to be the victim of something.

• ted
  April 20th, 2007 at 8:23 pm

  Oh my lord.

  What complete insensitivity - to demean the victims of this person’s unspeakable crimes with such twaddle.

  I’m not dehumanizing him. He was one severely messed-up person. But there are a lot of frustrated, angry, lonely people out there who don’t go that extra step and start killing other people. If anything, he dehumanized himself, to have such little care for others.

  If you’ve heard his sister’s statement, the family is mourning his loss, but they aren’t making excuses for him. They are trying to understand why he did what he did. And they are apologizing profusely to the entire world.

  But the memorial is not about him - it’s about his victims.

  And, when you look at it, we are all victims of something - it’s what we make of what happens to us in life that matters.

  And Britt, I doubt you’d be making such glib comments if you were a relative or friend of one of the people he killed.

• goodgrief
  April 20th, 2007 at 8:51 pm

  Demean the victims? Unspeakable crime? All they did was get killed. They aren’t heroes, they didn’t sacrafice themselves, they’re just dead. I’m not saying that to be insensitive. Sure, nobody wants to get shot, nobody wants their friends or family members to get killed by some random guy. He took a gun to school and killed people. Hardly “unspeakable” — it’s a common occurance in that country these days. People died, dude killed himself, it’s a shame; unless they were your friends or family, don’t pretend it’s the worst thing that could happen. Just because the advertising department at CNN/FOX/ABC needs to sensationalize this, it doesn’t mean you have to buy it.

• Britt
  April 20th, 2007 at 10:26 pm

  My dad died last month from alcoholism and his own selfish stupidity. I think I know a thing or two about what being a victim means, and who is and isn’t a saint.

  Suggesting he was a victim doesn’t dehumanise those he killed. He too died in the massacre. It’s tragic that such a person existed and felt he needed to do something so awful. It’s tragic that he didn’t bother to get help, and it’s tragic that he was so skewed. What I’m trying to get at is that those people up there? Aren’t the only ones who died. Maybe he was dead long before any of this happened, but it’s still pretty damn sad.

  I agree with goodgrief. I live in Saskatchewan, and yet this has been on the front page of the local paper every day since it happened. Unfortunately, I can’t say ‘I don’t care’ without having my ass handed to me.

• ted
  April 21st, 2007 at 1:08 pm

  Oh, well, I didn’t know I was talking to an expert. Obviously, your father’s drinking himself to death uniquely qualifies you to pass judgement on mass murder.

  I agree that the press does tend to dwell on these things. It’s news. If you want to criticize the press capitalizing on this sad event, go right ahead. I am reminded of the annual vigils of the “Montreal massacre”.

  Why do you feel the need to tell people you don’t care? Why do you feel the need to tell people how they should handle their grief and shock at this crime? If you kept your mouth shut, maybe you wouldn’t have your ass handed to you. We certainly aren’t talking about it every day over here. If it’s in the headlines too much, don’t read the frickin’ story.

  And yes it is unspeakable. I didn’t call those victims “heroes”. It is sad to see you and “goodgrief” put down those people - “all they did was get shot”, happens every day? Get over it?

  That young man’s life may have been sad. it still doesn’t excuse what he did, and it doesn’t give him the right to be memorialized along with his victims.

  Tell you what. Why don’t you set up a candlelight vigil for him next week? Poor guy, he just wanted to be accepted.

• goodgrief
  April 21st, 2007 at 1:59 pm

  I think Britt’s point is that it’s also a tragedy that he felt mass murder was the reasonable thing to do, and not just because of the obvious consequences. Noting that his life must have sucked doesn’t mean he’s not responsible, and doesn’t undo his actions. Mourning his victims is easy, anyone can do it (and is): actual compassion means being able to feel some twinge of empathy for *him* too. (That’s “too” meaning in addition, and not as you may initially assume, instead of.)

  The random shooting of people is not unspeakable, nor the shooter inhuman. These are a part of the human condition. It is delusional to pretend this sort of thing doesn’t happen, and it is cowardly and dangerous to pretend actions such as that are somehow outside the realm of human potential; that they somehow emerge fully formed from some dark elsewhere and have nothing to do with the circumstances and emotions the human agent endured for years.

  Nowhere did I “put down [those] people” who got shot. It was the media that somehow elevated them in the eyes of people. Dying does not make you special. Dying under highly unexpected circumstances does not make you better than anyone else. Pointing out that the only reason we’re talking about them is that they’re dead does not mean they don’t matter deeply to someone, somewhere, or were otherwise unimportant.

  The shooter’s family is mourning him for a whole number of reasons right now. Acknowledging that he too had a family might complicate things for the righteous mourners, perhaps.

  I know here in South Korea people can identify with the difficulties of emigrating to a completely alien society, and yet they also regret the murders.

• Britt
  April 21st, 2007 at 4:49 pm

  I’m not suggesting I’m an expert, and perhaps I shouldn’t have commented on a personal issue that I’d be unable to connect without an essay, but we all have our stories and our reasons.

  I don’t tell people I don’t care, and I don’t go out of my way to be a bitch about this. I’m not a moron, I know I can turn the page or close the window if I don’t want to read something.

  Why do you feel the need to tell people how they should handle their grief and shock at this crime?

  You’re doing it too, mate. You’re telling me to not say how I feel. The last thing I’m going to do is tell somebody how to grieve. Of course people are grieving.

  All I suggested from the beginning is that saying ‘… a touching tribute to all 32 victims of the Virginia Tech Massacre …’ isn’t entirely true. Thirty-three people are dead, remember?

• ted
  April 21st, 2007 at 6:32 pm

  It’s completely true. 32 victims of the massacre. You can’t call that fellow a victim of the massacre.

  Let’s compare murders. How about the hijackers of the planes that hit the World Trade Center? They also died in that attack. Are they thus victims of the attack? Perhaps they’re victims of something else - brainwashing, peer pressure, insecurity - but surely not victims of the attack. But they had families who mourned them. Surely, we ought to mourn their loss, as well.

  Jeffrey Dahmer killed and ate several young men - obviously a messed-up guy. He was killed in prison. Does that make him a victim of the crime of cannibalism?

  My opinion is “No, they are not victims of their own crimes”.

  I’m not telling you how to feel. You can feel sympathy for a murderer, if you like. You can say, “These lives don’t matter because this happens all the time in the USA,” or “just because they died doesn’t make them better than anyone else.”

  To me, that’s disrespectful. I’m not elevating them into saints or lowering him to the status of a devil. I just think it’s sad that someone can say such callous things when people are grieving. And that’s my opinion.

  Anyways, I’m done with this topic. It’s not my job to teach you folks manners.

• thomas
  April 21st, 2007 at 8:25 pm

  during the week in which this tragedy occurred, FEMA disposed of 13 million MRE’s (meals ready to eat) that were originally set aside for hurricane katrina victims. they said they no longer had warehouse space for them. to me, knowing that our government is capable of doing something that callously stupid rivals or even surpasses the significance of the shooting tragedy. the media certainly knows where the money comes from.

• Britt
  April 22nd, 2007 at 2:44 am

  You can’t call that fellow a victim of the massacre.

  I can and I have. I still think he’s a jerk, but I’m looking at the bigger picture. He’s dead, too.

  Hell, how many other people died that day? I’m absolutely far away and unaffected by this incident. If that makes me callous, so be it, but I honestly haven’t the willpower to mourn every person to ever die in the United States. Ever. Unlike you. You’re special.

• ted
  April 22nd, 2007 at 1:56 pm

  I’m not telling what you can or can’t say. If you want to say up is down and yes is no, be my guest.

  I could keep saying it, but what’s the point? Like I said, I’m not going to try and teach you manners. Or compassion. Hopefully, that will come as you get older, and maybe as you come to terms with your own personal grief.

  Take care, Britt.

• mutterhals
  April 23rd, 2007 at 2:05 pm

  This is how I see it: I feel worse for Cho b/c he lived his entire life in isolation, due to his severe mental illness. At least the people he killed had friends, loving families and made actual human connections during their short lives. He experienced nothing but pain and anguish. It’s not an excuse for what he did (and I think the school officials should be held accountable for not securing the campus after the first two people were killed) but what is the harm in having compassion for a person like him?

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