Wednesday, April 18, 2007
And let no one say that violence is the courageous way, that violence is the short route, that violence is the easy route. Because violence will bring no answer: It will bring no answer to your union; it will bring no answer to your people; it will bring no answer to us here in the United States, as a people. — Robert F. Kennedy
This morning, thousands of University students awoke to their peaceful lives, took a sharp breath of fresh April air, and began their collective Wednesday. Few, if any, of our lives have been shattered by violence; little, if any, of our calm has been disrupted by the cruel winds of fate. The sun still shines in idyllic Lawrence, as it will tomorrow and the next day.
nutgraf
The thought of such an event occurring here or in any number of schools is terrifyingly believable, but this should not create an atmosphere of constant terror.
Hundreds of miles away in Blacksburg, Va., 32 others are not so lucky, their lives snuffed out too soon by a man who held no grudge, bore no umbrage, against them. To say their deaths were senseless is to understate the matter — their premature departures are simply and cruelly unfair.
In the days and weeks to come, the U.S. will begin a national self-examination, peering inside its heart, its soul, searching for some explanation or justification for this violence. We will likely find no answer, but such is the nature of illogical violence. What we will find is a host of alleged culprits: violent video games and the sometimes lonely souls who play them, frequently lax gun laws and their loophole-laden texts, the torturous pain of adolescent love and the tumultuous transitions of college campuses.
We will find those eager to place blame, desperate to lay this horrific tragedy at the feet of some wrongdoer. Their pursuit will be sadly understood, affirmed with a quiet nod as we all try to make sense of tragic events. But in our rush to find some archetypal cause upon which to pin the culpability, let us not recoil in fear or cower in trepidation, afraid to live our lives.
Is it so hard to imagine such an act happening on our beloved campus? The horror struck a university of about the same size, in a college town of equally placid stature. The thought of such an event occurring here or in any number of schools is terrifyingly believable, but this should not create an atmosphere of constant terror.
We will stand tall in the face of violence and fear. We will not dread those cowardly souls who find their only voice in the barrel of a gun. We will not allow the depraved selfishness of murderers to force adjustments in our lives to their contemptible and malicious whims.
In the final analysis, we students must carry on the best we can, equipped with the sad knowledge that those steadfastly determined to kill and be killed can rarely be deterred, only contained. And as we watch the peaceful calm of campus enclaves, which semester by semester recedes before us, we remain ever vigilant, ever unyielding, ever hopeful.
— McKay Stangler for the editorial board
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Comments
Editorial: We must stand tall
"Is it so hard to imagine such an act happening on our beloved campus?"
Yes. I'm more concerned with college kids playing Frogger on Kentucky at 2 AM while drunk.
Editorial: We must stand tall
Murder vs. drunk Frogger? Kind of a specious logical jump, don't you think?
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