Troll - I am not saying McVeigh isn't responsible for his actions, and for those actions I would imprison him, probably for life. I am saying that his behaviour is partially a result of the society he grew up in...and the way he reacted to that society. That is equally true of all of us. Most of us react in a far less dangerous manner than he did. Thus, most of us do not need to be imprisoned in order to protect the rest.

The real sticking point here, I think, is that many people see Timothy McVeigh as evil. I don't. I see his actions as evil. I see him as ill...insane in my terms of what the word means (maybe not in yours). Not that he didn't understand what he was doing in a literal sense...but that he didn't understand life in a larger sense...or he wouldn't have blown up a building full of strangers.

I don't see people as evil because I judge the act, not the person. That doesn't mean I won't arrest, proscecute and imprison the person if it is a destructive act. That also doesn't mean I won't defend myself if someone breaks into my place in the night and attacks me...hell, I might even kill him in the heat of the moment...but not because he is evil...simply because I have a normal moral duty to protect myself and my property.

I might feel hatred toward that person afterward too...you know why? Not because he's evil, but because I am human, I am emotional, and I can get very scared, and I can relive that fear in the form of hatred and be haunted by it. As long as I can't shed the fear, I will carry a charge of hatred in me and it will poison me from within. It won't undo the harm that was done, but will perpetuate the damage.

These are the kind of instinctive feelings that only a handful of the most enlightened people in history have risen above, and I have got a long way to go on that. I have barely begun. But I have seen the snow gleaming on a very distant mountain top, and I aspire toward it.

To blame only society for Timothy McVeigh's behaviour would be foolish, but to completely discount society's influence on shaping his life toward an insane, violent act would also be naive. It's not a case of black or white...it's shades of gray.

I hope that makes it a little clearer what I meant.

And if not, well, "you're right from your side and I'm right from mine", to quote Bob Dylan.

- LH