Justin Carter–not all speech should be free

A young man the same age as Adam Lanza makes explicitly violent threats on Facebook and then his family cries foul and claims he is just a sarcastic teen?

Troubled at best. What he said was specific, disturbing, and directed at defenseless little children. He should be held accountable and care should be taken to protect little ones in his community. The way this case is handled will influence the way others use and misuse social media. Why should any of us tolerate hate speech against children?

We simply should not.

I hope and pray that prosecutors in this case fully investigate this man’s Internet history as well as how he has treated animals and children. Bullying words define a bully. Why should anyone wait until Mr. Carter chooses to act on words and threats too awful to repeat?

If Justin Carter gets a slap on the wrist, it will be a slap in the face to child advocacy. Our children deserve our protection.

Sandy Hook

What if there was a list?
Of things no one wanted
The emptiness in a room
Blood memory
An unrelenting ache
my baby/my baby/my baby
Cannot be…

Worse than death
Stalking us at every turn
will we be
Safe?

No.
Not this time the children’s story
Man with a song leading us into the mountain
because our parents will not

What?
What is it we have not done?
Have not paid
To the coroner
To the cops
To the teeth of the dog
Who guards this hell we have

become
a houseful of memory
Of a Christmas most like the very first, second and third

When armed men broke through doors to wrest
Babes from nursing

Women who retain with their inmost thoughts each scrap of life
This child
This child
Don’t turn away.

A History of Violence

Yesterday an entire community woke up feeling safe and went to bed knowing the truth–no one is safe.

When we examine mass killings in America the list is chilling without the quotidian descriptions of domestic murders. When I read these articles on our history of violence what struck me was how incomplete the lists were.

I found several articles but none mentioned the tragedy at the Amish schoolhouse several years ago. The story of a methodical murder of children at school? Worth remembering.

And now we have Sandy Hook. I hate these stories. Most of us do. But what I find almost as disturbing is how quickly we go back to our Christmas parties and meme gathering.

Sometimes it does seem as though we are more pro-active about spreading urban legends than the truth.

I understand our desire to play the numbers–immediately after the tragedy I heard and read several reporters say–these events are rare.

I seem to have missed the bend in history when the NRA needed more public advocacy than school children.

We have a big problem. A deadly,escalating association between power and slaughter, the desire to exact a terrible revenge on children and the need for fame?

Can it be that our culture of entertainment violence has collided with real violence and a quest for celebrity? Do any of us dare face the possibility that this is the monster we have created? Nurtured? Then allowed to roam our schools, malls, concerts and cinemas while we idly click our remotes looking for something to distract us from a gathering darkness?