oldognewtrick

That everyone would take a moment and say a prayer for the fallen armed serviceman, the wounded and their families at Ft. Hood. I am just without words to describe what I'm feeling about this horrific event. I for one salute the efforts of our military and hope that they know I, as an American citizen, appreciate the sacrifice they and their families have paid for our freedom to live in this society and enjoy the freedoms we have available to us.

My flag is at half mast in remembrance to the hero's of this nation. Salute!

Nestor_Kelebay

Well said, Oldog/Newtrick.

But, as bad as the news is, there are still some things you guys can take comfort in.

This was not a terrorist attack like 9/11. It wasn't like some group was able to get into a place as secure as an American military base and kill a bunch of people there. This was a lone American that decided to end his life, and figured he was going to take as many people with him as he could. You really can't protect yourself against someone doing something like that. It's not like your Department of Homeland Security could have found out about the plot if they'd bothered to investigate but didn't. Put this one in the same bag as Columbine. It's tragic, but it's also unpredictable, and there's nothing anyone could have done differently that would have prevented it from happening. When someone's willing to kill themselves, you can't stop them from doing it in a way that also kills others.

Probably it's only the western democracies like America where a guy can do something like that and then be nursed back to health at public expense in a modern hospital to face a fair trial. But, Gawd, sometimes it's hard to live with the degree to which we guarantee individual freedoms. In a case like this, I can see people just wanting to pull out a gun and blow the SOB away. There would seem to be an undeniable "fairness" in ending his life as calously as he ended the lives of others and left people crippled for life. But, no matter how severe his punishment, it doesn't restore the lives of his victims or bring any consolation to their families.

So, ya just gotta carry on. What else (besides the prayer and minute of silence) can you do? Some questions just don't have an answer.

funetical

It's what separates the west from the east. A thought into the value of human life. It doesn't matter that it could only happen here. To not allow him recovery would be revenge, and revenge is never justice. Revenge is self serving. The death of this man without trial will leed to the dreaded martyrdom that many who follow Allah are looking toward. I don't understand how we can blame Christianity and the Church for the Dark Ages but yet we are at fault when we blame the indoctrination of Islam for matters like this.

Nestor_Kelebay

There are fanatics in all religions. There are fanatical Catholics that think that homosexuals should be killed. Those same Catholics will protest at the funerals of fallen American soldiers, claiming that God is punishing America for being accepting of homosexuals.
Westboro Baptist Church - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There are other fanatics in other religions that won't let their children have blood transfusions even to save their lives because of their interpretation of the Bible's writings.

I think that whenever you turn to a 2000 year old book to provide answers to modern problems you're gonna run into difficulty, whether you're catholic, muslim or jew.

It's the fanatics on all sides that give religion a black eye. I would rather live in a world with religion than without, but I cannot accept that any religion would condone violence against people that have done no harm, but that's exactly what some people seem to find in their holy books.

There was a Jewish scholar who lived at about the time of Christ named Hillel. He was asked to sum up all of the Torah while standing on one foot. He raised one foot and said: "Do not unto your neighbor what you would not have him do unto you; this is the whole Law; the rest is commentary."

If the religious fanatics on all sides recognized that this principle is the more important one to live by, and outweighs any statement condemning homosexuality or the infidel, we'd all get along so much better.