Finding Blame for the Bad

The tragedy that befell Virginia Tech on Monday will not be forgotten anytime soon. But it has been only 48 hours since the event, and I've already had to listen to 36 hours of finger pointing. Why must America always look for a scapegoat? We already have someone to blame for this heinous act, why must we find a something as well?

Neither guns or video games cause shootings. Not a single time ever has anyone that doesn't have some sort of emotional trauma picked up either and decided that a mass killing spree would be a good idea.

Let me get this out of the way because apparently Americans are confused. The United States of America is not a Utopia. It's not suppose to be. It is a country founded on diversity and has grown through adversity. It is a county that everyone's rights to freedoms are meant to be maintained despite the hardships we might encounter. And in no place will you find in any of this countries great documents that we are a Utopian society free of crime, murder, or any other heinous acts.

So with a population of over 298 million in a country built around the differences of many cultures, how is it that Americans are so taken by surprise when something of this nature happens. The bad news, there is no way to prevent it.

If our country only had ancestors of identical beliefs and we lived under a dictatorship forbidding anyone to have individual thoughts that might stray from those beliefs, then and only then the chance for such events might shrink. Yes there are several of these countries in the world, some have less violence, some have more. But that's not possible for us. We as a country have embraced our widespread roots. It makes us a country with more character. And under no circumstances are we going to hand over our freedom to a dictator.

Hardships are the price of freedom. Americans need to realize that there is no country where these kinds of acts aren't present. Japan is the closest thing I've heard about, and it is one of those non free thinking countries referred to above. Instead of looking for something to blame, instead look for ways for more people to feel socially accepted in this country. Unfortunatly, until laws are in place that require people to speak English in this country, making everyone feel welcome will be a hard battle to win. Past that we need to learn to deal with the bad so that we can accept the good.