Is he guilty? Well, so far the government says he was working late at night for no reason: proving nothing. They say he was unstable. Duh. And they say he was working with the same strain: very much like what came in the letters. Damning. Except: how many other scientists were working with the same strain? If he did do it, was he the lone wolf the government claims he was? How can one even make that claim?

     Of course the intent here was not guilt or innocence, but how it was handled. The government shouldn’t be allowed to harass people: stomp through their lives like an angry elephant; making them lose jobs, friends, credit, bank accounts. You walk softly until you charge them, then quickly to trial. That’s the way it’s suppose to be. Instead it’s more like being thrown to the lions before they even show evidence you’re a Christian.

     I had to wait to write this edition of Inspection. I was angry, beyond words. Oh, I tried to write it several times, but it always wound up being a froth at the mouth rant regarding the rhetoric of Hannity, Limbaugh, Scarborough, Savage and the rest who have appropriated the anti-Jewish screeds spouted in the thirties both here, and in Germany, and simply replaced “Jew” with “Liberal” and “Gay.” In the case of Savage try “autistic” too, which includes one of my nephews. Apparently Mr. Mike feels you can either beat, or lecture, the autism right out of them.

     While these folks in some ways certainly helped pull the trigger during that Knoxville church shooting, if I had published the first drafts of this column, I too would have been simply “looking for someone to blame.” …just like that murderer did when he walked into a UU church in Knoxville and started killing people whom he thought were responsible for his lack of work; and perceived ills of society. My wife called my cell that day and left a message to assure me that it was in Knoxville: not Nashville where she had been attending a UU service. I had already heard the news.

      There’s so much as a society we could do to prevent such travesties; starting with making the ratings of those who sell hate so bad no one will air them. Maybe we could also stop supporting movie directors, TV producers, who portray the use of guns as the answer to our problems? I’m not suggesting any gun laws, I’m addressing perception. When you have movies and TV shows that make out of control cops and some fictional John Q. Citizen who uses a gun to vent his anger as heroes; is there any surprise that fiction and reality mirror each other? No bans: we just need to stop giving our money to those who encourage such: and I am just as guilty as anyone else.

     “Someone to blame” is probably one of the biggest problems we have as a society. The FBI is trying to shut down the search for the anthrax murderer as I type this, claiming “case solved.” No, nothing has been solved. Having failed to harass one citizen due to lawsuits… (Damn those pesky nuisance lawsuits that make the government actually pay attention to basic human rights!) …they turned on a guy with a history of mental problems and he killed himself; and I would bet good money they knew he had mental problems: the kind that might lead him to kill himself. So the only thing they have “proven” so far is that they can harass a mentally/emotionally challenged person into killing himself.

      They don’t deserve congrats: they should be ashamed of themselves at best… maybe even a trial of their own for harassment instead of quietly: less intrusively… investigating someone, you know… like the trial they failed to give the dead guy? What ever happened to a quick and speedy trial? No, it’s just easier to find a fragile person and harass them.

      Tinfoil hat time…

       …suicided?

       Evidence: 0. But doubts? Well, let’s just say I may have some, but some of my “doubts” include whether the government could have had a hand in the end of a life. We do know they did… indirectly. That much is certain. Maybe he did it: maybe not. But we’ll never know now, though the gov can try to claim “case closed.” How convenient: especially for all those Dems who died. Seems the few Republicans who got powder got the fake stuff.

      That’s beyond “convenient.” That’s damn suspicious.

      But, once again, I too am “looking for someone to blame,” aren’t I. Hard, isn’t it?

      Whenever someone kills themselves the easy thing to do is blame them: and only “them.” No one else could have any any effect on this final decision, could they? Obviously: yes. No one person is an island and we are all responsible for what goes on around us: from a little… to a lot. We are usually more to blame than most people will ever admit; at least in public. Guilt is often a Halloween mask we wear, inside, made of cognitive dissonance, while on the outside we rant about “personal responsibility” as if that is the one, and only, answer. This kind of logic doesn’t sell very well, unfortunately. So much easier to blame the homeless for where they are, the poor for being stupid… as one ad they keep playing on Sirius states, the only reason people aren’t millionaires is because they don’t want to be.

      Right.

      I’m all for individual responsibility; and I’m especially for it in relation to how we treat others. Those who preach “individual responsibility” always seem to skip their “responsibility” towards others.

      I think what makes this so much more difficult these days is the great divide: Liberals, Conservatives, Fundamentalists, Libertarians, Pro-Life, Pro-Choice… there was a time when we sought the middle and avoided the extremes. Now we seek the extremes and both rage and laugh at the middle. Talk radio and talking heads have done their best to increase the divide: it increases ratings. We see each other at a distance across a chasm, and then we really only see funhouse mirror-like reflections that the media and punditry allows us to see.

      In a world where our communicative abilities have gone from morse code, to telephone, to Internet; we are actually communicating less, understanding little and distorting everything.

      No wonder it’s so much easier to just find someone: anyone, to blame… and then try our damndest to crucify them.

                                                               -30-

        Inspection is a column that has been written by Ken Carman for over thirty years. Inspection is dedicated to looking at odd angles, under all the rocks and into the unseen cracks and crevasses that constitute the issues and philosophical constructs of our day: places few think, or even dare, to venture.