American
10th March 2003, 07:43 PM
Back when I read "books", I was forced to endure Charles Dickens Tale of Two Cities. From reading the first and last paragraph of each chapter (thus earning a respectable grade that helped me graduate with honors), I recall a mole of a woman who was obsessed with knitting. Apparently, she was knitting the names of people to be killed in the coming French Revolution. The bitch was making a hit list!
Isn't that... illegal? I hope it is, or is it perfectly legal to make a "People I Want to Die if the Government Falls" list?
For one example, the supreme court ruled that abortion lists on the internet ARE illegal. Good, they should be. I want to be a doctor 40 years from now, and although I wish to die in a blaze of glory (I'd prefer to go out Shatner-style and be sucked out the USS Enterprise while trying to rescue a ship full of interstellar space refugees...), dying because some ass-**** heard voices in his head and found my name on the internet ranks a distant #274823 on my own "Ways I Hope to Perish" list.
As a second example, I'm always reading about kids pulled out of school for making hate lists, probably in trying to prevent another Columbine massacre. I can go either way on that... Yeah it's a "problem sign" to see a 12-year-old with an AK-47 and building bombs to kill some other loser who hucked M&Ms at his head in the 3rd grade. (If they were Peanut M&Ms, I could understand the rage...) But seriously, I say it's far better to make a list of people you hate (with the awful things you want to do to them), than it is to let anger stay inside, which makes you more prone to act on it. It's just a therapy technique- you keep the list, and when you calm down and think straight, you throw it out. That's how you forgive people, and come to recognize that YOU are the dumbass who needs to adjust his attitude and learn to cope with reality.
Isn't that... illegal? I hope it is, or is it perfectly legal to make a "People I Want to Die if the Government Falls" list?
For one example, the supreme court ruled that abortion lists on the internet ARE illegal. Good, they should be. I want to be a doctor 40 years from now, and although I wish to die in a blaze of glory (I'd prefer to go out Shatner-style and be sucked out the USS Enterprise while trying to rescue a ship full of interstellar space refugees...), dying because some ass-**** heard voices in his head and found my name on the internet ranks a distant #274823 on my own "Ways I Hope to Perish" list.
As a second example, I'm always reading about kids pulled out of school for making hate lists, probably in trying to prevent another Columbine massacre. I can go either way on that... Yeah it's a "problem sign" to see a 12-year-old with an AK-47 and building bombs to kill some other loser who hucked M&Ms at his head in the 3rd grade. (If they were Peanut M&Ms, I could understand the rage...) But seriously, I say it's far better to make a list of people you hate (with the awful things you want to do to them), than it is to let anger stay inside, which makes you more prone to act on it. It's just a therapy technique- you keep the list, and when you calm down and think straight, you throw it out. That's how you forgive people, and come to recognize that YOU are the dumbass who needs to adjust his attitude and learn to cope with reality.