Editor: Rather than spout the apparently only “acceptable” reply to the emotionally and politically charged topic of the Boston Marathon terrorist bombing, (if I may sarcastically translate — “We’ll give ’em a fair trial – then we’ll hang ’em”), brand-new federal Liberal leader Justin Trudeau blew me away with a totally-unexpected, very rare and thoughtful reply.
Asked what he thought about the piping-hot topic while he was being interviewed by CBC’s Peter Mansbridge, young Trudeau had the admirable courage to suggest that society must look beyond violent persons’ atrocious acts. He suggested looking more at the violent offenders’ motivation(s) for committing the acts, however abhorrent, and therefore possibly learn how to prevent future offences of the kind.
He apparently finds it all too obvious to state the ad nauseum trial-and-punishment-if-convicted scripted verse. He offered the amazing concept that, if we want to prevent such horrific violent crime, rather than just react to it — as does PM Stephen Harper (with an NDP MP apparently safely agreeing with Harper) — society desperately needs to meaningfully and progressively consider all potential causes of such terrible crimes.
Nonetheless, contemporary society’s general mentality is to mostly react according to the criminal acts themselves, and to basically disregard possible noteworthy motives for those acts. Such knowledge that could perhaps prevent future monstrous conduct.
Frank G. Sterle, Jr.,