By: Jefferson Weaver
The Oxford dictionary’s historical root version describes the word “thug” as a “member of a gang of murderers and robbers in India who strangled their victims.” The thugs (properly know as the thugees) roamed about the country in gangs. They pretended to be pilgrims or traveling peddlers, and when the opportunity arose, strangled fellow travelers for their money, food, clothes, or even just for fun.
They used a handkerchief, a turban that they quickly unwrapped, or a cord. Among their favorite places were long roads from small towns to big cities or religious sites, where even in a strictly caste-based society there were opportunities.
They often dressed their antisocial behavior in the guise of religion, giving a third of their take to the goddess Kali. By around 1839, the pretense of religious motivation had been cast off, and Indian officials worked with British colonial authorities to run the thug gangs out of existence.
A band of thugs ransacked a major retailer recently, and at least they didn’t use religion as an excuse. The security video even shows them knocking a man in a wheelchair to the floor.
The express purpose of the raid, according to the two suspects in custody at this writing, was to see how much destruction these punk kids could create.
The suspected leader was arrested after returning to the store for his cellular phone, which he dropped in the melee, according to police. In a further demonstration of the brilliance of the criminal mind, he looked at a security camera and flashed a gang sign before starting the rampage. The total number of suspects involved isn’t known, but police reported there could be dozens.
The episode began when a group of teens and early twenty-somethings were at a party, and decided to go trash the Walmart.
This came on the heels of the tragedy in Charleston, where a single thug violated the sanctity of the house of God, and murdered people gathered there for a Bible study. I don’t know about your church, or the one in Charleston, but usually, the folks who attend service on Wednesday night are among the most serious when it comes to faith. It wouldn’t surprise me if at least one of those folks was praying for the Roof kid as he opened fire.
People want to blame something for acts like these; they blame guns, Confederate or American flags, white privilege, black gangster culture, video games, poor parenting, television, sunspots, or our societal willingness to shove psychotropic drugs down kids’ throats so they’ll behave.
I agree, to a tiny, tiny extent.
But what no one wants to admit is that Kharron Nathan Green, Vashan Rozier, and Dylann Roof are to blame for their actions. Perhaps Roof’s upbringing, and the unwillingness of those around him to “say something,” contributed to his actions. Perhaps Green, Rozier and their cohorts were swayed somewhat by the media glamorization of criminal life. But really and truly, I don’t care.
Society won’t go on trial in the Macon rampage, anymore than Roof’s family and friends will be arrested and charged with aiding and abetting murder. The actions of those young men (and women, since there were females in the Macon rampage) were simply the actions of criminals. Roof stated that he wanted to see a race war, and some of the media, most of the rabble rousers, and all the politicians who dance in the blood of the innocent seem determined to give him just that.
They weren’t having a “Boston Tea Party” event, as one left-leaning apologist called it – they were feral children under the influence of drugs and alcohol, who have been taught there are no consequences for their actions. Dylann Roof is a disturbed young man among many disturbed young people who have found it handy to blame people of other races for their problems. He could just as easily have been the Sikh who attacked a mosque in southwest Asia a few years ago, or the man who said Allah told him to slash and slice people on a commuter train in China.
It’s not the fault of God, Allah, Kali, the Grand Dragon, Malcolm X, Sam Walton, George Bush or Barack Obama that people do stupid things. It’s not even the fault of Satan, since all men are born with a sinful nature that Old Nick just helps facilitate.
It’s the fault of the people who do those things.
This is America, where if you work hard, you have just as much of a chance to succeed as the next guy or girl. Some people do still face more challenges than others, but with the systems put into place by a well-meaning but often misguided government, a lot of those challenges are negated.
If we fail, there’s a better than average chance the fault doesn’t lie at the end of a pointing finger—but at the end of the other three fingers pointing back at us. Blaming someone else for our own stupid decisions is like blaming the weatherman when it rains, cursing the engineer who designed your car to go fast when you get a ticket, or suing a restaurant because your coffee was hot.
Inanimate objects don’t make stupid decisions. People do. Those who can’t take responsibility for their own actions, who use politics and excuses and all other kinds of silly crutches to justify their actions–they are just thugs, intent on strangling society. And as long as we let them, they’ll keep preying on those who are willing to walk the long road for a chance to succeed.
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