Choose your targets and your reasons carefully, kids

Monday, 19 April 2010

Just thinking to myself a moment ago. Fifteen years ago today McVeigh blew up the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City. Tomorrow is Hitler’s birthday; and my best-friend’s or I’d never have known that fact. I wondered if McVeigh had considered that date. No idea. Maybe he was as oblivious as I should be and was just on whatever schedule his plans forced. Made me think further though.

I suspect his day was chosen carefully. After looking it up I see it was a Wednesday. A day that would maximize casualties. That’s a terrible realization but prompts the opposing question.

What if he’d picked the following Sunday evening and hadn’t killed a single federal employee, janitor, or the daycare full of children he got?

I really think he’d be in prison to this day—never executed—and by about this year, or perhaps a few further out, he’d probably be the biggest American folk hero of the 20th century.

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Brad

Re: Choose your targets and your reasons carefully, kids

You never heard of Waco? April 19, 1993? Good grief.

By Brad on 19 April 2010 · 19:38
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Ashley

Re^2: Choose your targets and your reasons carefully, kids

You never heard of the problem with making assumptions?

I’ve written about it extensively, including this exactly five years ago: Here’s the score. What’s game point? Sometimes it feels like the Internet has absolutely killed literacy and subtlety. Eh, two birds, right?

By Ashley on 19 April 2010 · 19:42
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Vagrant

Re: Choose your targets and your reasons carefully, kids

What if he’d picked the following Sunday evening and hadn’t killed a single federal employee, janitor, or the daycare full of children he got?

That's an interesting thought. I'll bet you're right about the outcome.

By Vagrant on 20 April 2010 · 06:40
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Ashley

Re^2: Choose your targets and your reasons carefully, kids

Lord knows I’d be a fan. No blurriness about righteousness there.

By Ashley on 20 April 2010 · 13:14
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