Aggressive Defensive Solutions

David Sirota from Salon wrote on Tuesday, “Let’s hope the Boston Marathon bomber is a white American.” Mr Sirota’s misguided rational for hoping this was an act of domestic terrorism is simply “white dudes get a free pass” in the United States, so he feels it is in the nation’s best interest that an American Caucasian male is the bomber. I can see his point, even if I don’t agree with is. I believe the logic goes like this, the majority within the country says, little Timmy McVeigh does not represent mainstream Anglo-American thinking, so don’t profile white men.  I think Mr. Sirota has good intentions, albeit highly misguided; his hope is Nationalistic pride does not send us on another witch hunt, but let us take a pause to understand what this hope would mean for our country.

Let us take a moment to look at ideology. Timothy McVeigh’s action at the Murrah Federal Building was an act of domestic terrorism. Truly, a despicable act that murdered 168 and injured hundreds more innocent Americans. McVeigh’s target was “the Government.” Why because he had a radicalized view that the US Government had become tyrannical and McVeigh sought to start a new Civil War. If we take time to look at McVeigh’s words we will see they are scarily similar in verbiage to what is being batted about on social media today. The death of 19 children in the Murrah building bombing remains a vivid reminder to me of the horrible cost of collateral damage. The children were McVeigh’s acceptable collateral damage, but his intended targets were the Federal Agents in the building. We can clearly see how he rationalized his target: he had it in for the US Government; specifically, Janet Reno and the ATF, and the bombing of the Murrah Federal building was that manifestation. I can see how Mr. Sirota can make the leap from McVeigh’s words to what is floating around the Internet with the current legislation on gun control, but there is a missing piece and that is motive.

If the attack in Boston was by Mr. Sirota’s white American, it would shake the foundation of our Great Nation. I can sum it up with one simple reason; the Boston Marathon bombing was calculated attack against America, Her citizens, not against the shadowy Government.  Look at it this way, this is the Boston Marathon, it is like blowing up a Baseball game; an Americans just would not do it because it represents what we feel is the best of us. Sports are where we all come together to celebrate, where we are actually united. The thought that an American of any color would attempt to destroy that is not logical.

So, thankfully Mr Sirota even though the white dude did it it was not the white American you hoped for. Maybe it is a compromise.