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Originally Posted by Carrie
L
XxX, now that we're in a calmer environment - I wasn't putting words into your mouth. I was bitching about the things going on in N.O., you were making excuses as to why they'd be doing these things (the situation they're in, the part of town they're from, etc). When you make excuses for someone's behavior, you are condoning what they are doing. It's like enabling. It's giving them a free pass, as if they had no control over their own actions.
Think of the man who beats on his kids, and he was beaten by his father while he was a kid. One camp of people will shake their heads sadly and say he couldn't help it, another camp will say he most certainly could, it was his choice to repeat the behavior. I'm in the second camp. No matter what your life status, your situation, your upbringing, whatever - you've always got a choice.
When you excuse away or explain away someone's behavior, you put them in a position of being a victim who helplessly had no control, rather than an empowering position of having control over their own actions and choices.
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Again, by assuming I was excusing it you're putting words in my mouth Carrie. You may not see it that way but that is exactly what you're doing. I was NOT, in ANY way what-so-ever excusing what they did. I was trying to make you see it from BOTH sides of the coin. There is absolutely NO excuse for what they did. But going without food, water, having to sit on a roof for a wek in 100 degree weather surrounded by chest high water filled with human and animal waste, e-coli, dead bodies, chemicals and other things, chances are you're not thinking rationally, and when rational thought escapes you, you tend to do shit you normally would not do. The utter feeling of abandonment for not being rescued or helped for 5 days, what did they have to lose? Again, I am NOT excusing it, just trying to make your view a little more objective.
Personally, I think rapists should be put to death, as well as murderers. So know for a fact I do not in any way excuse what's happened. But, there are extraordinary situations in New Orleans and people tend to do extreme things in situations like that. I am not a violent person by nature, the only thing that makes me want to fight is seeing a man hit a woman, but if I were in New Orleans and it came down to some douchebag trying to steal the last bottle of water i have from my kids, then chances are i'm gonna hurt you badly or kill you to protect my own. I'd like to think I would NEVER do those things, and fortunately I was 70 miles west of ground zero and not put in the position to have to make that choice because I honestly could not say (nor could anyone) what I would or would not do if I were in the middle of it.
Unless you're actually there, no one can say for sure how they'd react. Good people are capable of doing VERY BAD things in extreme situations. More often then not they won't, but the chance still exists.
But telling me I was excusing it is most assuredly putting words in my mouth.