The Lesson from South Carolina

The O.P. and most of the replies on this thread are full of it. This crime isn't what it appears to be. Mr. Roof has about 80 Face Book friends, half of whom are blacks. Whether he's out of it, over some meds, or really clever, will have to be seen. But so far, the little shrimp is winning. The church wasn't his target, it was a school. But he recognized that they had armed security, so he went to a gun free zone, which just happened to be a church.

How many times have we seen this before? But what may be completely different this time, is that Mr. Roof might have become a chameleon, using the far right patches to smear all of the decent conservatives. Real White Separatists won't hang out, get drunk, and relate, on Face Book, to forty or fifty black friends. They do all of the above, but with their White Friends, and the odd F.B.I. snitch.

This may have been timed to deliver the ultimate "diss" against his own father, just a couple of days before Father's Day. This is why I think we should pay attention to the drug cocktails he's been taking in. This guy may have wrapped himself up in the Stars and Bars, in order to commit an unforgivable atrocity, and bring down the roof, ala Sampson, on the ordinary folks, which reminded him of his own "control freak" father.

We've seen the Prozac Maniacs before, but this Suc's may open up a whole new level of psychotropic derangement. Note; that while the religious people from that church may forgive him, the rest of the conservative, gun owning public, have one more bullseye, being slapped on their backs, thanks to him. Now, everyone from the President on down, are going to wave the "Bloody Shirt".

What you will never see, are those same church goers, manning up and embracing the White Conservatives, esp. the Second Amendment people. But we may well be the real target of his drug induced rage. This is different from earlier Prozac initiated terror actions, in schoolyards, where demented gunmen actually did want to remove minorities.

Brother Pinckney, has already had to face the ultimate CCW defender. And that's no less than St. Peter, standing guard at the Pearly Gates. Peter carried a military deployable sword, and lopped off a Roman Legionary's ear, in the the fracas in the Garden, before his Rabbi, Jesus was carted off to Pilate. Those Romans came to the Garden with a Cohort, which is over 600 troops. Brother Pinckney as their shepherd, darn well should have maintained one or two CCW, security types, just like Jesus, the Good Shepherd, did.

unless or until, these same Church goers, come out and speak up for the general Conservatives who didn't have anything to do with Mr. Roof, either in person, nor online, their so called forgiveness rings very hollow indeed. So far, they are forgiving a psychotropic tool, and not speaking up over a veritable "lynch mob" going after innocent Southerners.

Besides Pinckney having some security, even pepper spray, Roof's black drinking buddies, wouldn't snitch on him to the Police, but only hid his Glock, in an air conditioner, until he sobered up. Likewise, his mother didn't leave that 45 down at the Cop Shop, until her dear little boy, could get straight with the law, and bring it back home.

I'm sure that you are going to call me out, but everyone around Mr. Roof, Black and White, cut him way too much slack. But if he had a hidden, "Sampson" complex, going, its still really going to poison the Greater Charleston political dialogue for the next couple of years. I'm not seeing any conspiracies here, but rather a drug induced D.I.Y. false flag operation, that so far, is working. This madness might be explained by Dylann Roof bringing the Dagon Temple Roof down on all of the other White Southerners, over his hatred of his own father. His Delilah, was only a bottle of pills.

originally posted by: Benevolent Heretic
a reply to: wildapache

Forgiveness doesn't mean that what he did was OK... It's not really about him at all. Forgiveness is something we do for ourselves, so we can lay down the anger we feel over what happened and continue living, without carrying around the hatred in our hearts.

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
― Mahatma Gandhi,

Wonderful comment and post. 100% agree with this mindset

a reply to: carpooler

Interesting theory, to be sure. I'm not sure I can refute it.

I know i can't refute the fact that the lack of weapons was what caused him to choose this church. He has said he chose it because he couldn't go up against "the ghetto," where a lot of the inhabitants are armed. It's a known fact that criminals will always go for the easy targets; a great deal of the home security industry is built around "make your house a hard target."

Perhaps it would have been good for someone in the church to be packing as well. It's sad to have to say so, but it's true.

I don't know about Jesus carrying around the equivalent of a military force in Peter, though. Yes, he cut off the Roman's ear, but if you will recall, Jesus put it back, and then admonished Peter.

I see one thing different from earlier similar events, however. The President has not missed a single chance to call for gun control in the wake of any gun violence that can be found, and he has indicated his desire for gun control over this incident as well. But this time, he has changed his normal demand to more of a plaintiff cry of impotence, saying that this will not bring about effective gun control.

Now, if there were an alterior motive to this shooting, and it were an attempt to force conservatives into a bad light and farther from their gun rights, why would he go on to say it wouldn't work? What's different this time?

I submit that this time there was no demand for justice. This time there was forgiveness.

TheRedneck

This forum is often used by some to deny and denigrate God and Christians and spirituality in general but those of us who hold to such beliefs mostly skip over those threads and smile to ourselves. Whatever one may believe concerning such matters it can't be denied that the morality such belief systems impart to humankind has raised us up from violent savages and often represents the very best of human traits.

Ah, forgiveness! Excellent OP and needed discussion!

I've had a fascination with *forgiveness* since working with populations of women who have had all manner of heinous atrocities perpetrated against them. In fact, I wrote my very first thread on ATS about Forgiveness.

It was while working with groups of women, and there were several males in those groups, too,( Survivors of Childhood Sexual Assault -- was the name of the group), that forgiveness became the subject of much discussion, and began my studies about it. It's quite an interesting study if anyone wants to take a look at the thread which can be tracked down on my profile page. Lots of insights on that thread as well.

I have lifted this from the OP in that thread, and perhaps it delves into a somewhat more complicated realm of forgiveness, but I hope is not off topic for this thread. I have used color to highlight it, rather than the usual codes to make it more readable.

Can you forgive the unforgivable?

My first attempt at studying forgiveness was a book referred to me by a colleague. It is entitled "The Sunflower" by Simon Wiesenthal. Wiesenthal, in 1944, was a prisoner in a Concentration Camp. He was fetched to the bedside of a dying nazi, who wanted the "forgiveness" of "a Jew".

The Nazi spoke his piece, (peace) to Wiesenthal, as he lay on his deathbed. After standing beside the nazi's bedside for a few moments, taking in what was happening, and in full realization of the profound meaning of the encounter, Wiesenthal looked the Nazi in the eye, turned quietly on his heels, and walked away.

After the war, he wrote his book. He wanted feedback. Had he done the right thing? Should he have given the requested forgiveness?

There were many perspectives on his actions, but the general consensus was that yes, he had. Wiesenthal and his audience came to realize that sometimes forgiveness is only accomplished over a period of generations.

I consider Slavery as well to fall in this category. Generational forgiveness. Does it not make sense?

I hope this is not taking the discussion to a realm where it was not intended to go. But I am always curious as to what other peoples thoughts are.

In those groups, I used to give out little inspirational snippets to the members. The one for this group said

Forgiveness is not forgetting, it's remembering and letting go.

Can people forgive this guy for murdering innocent church goers? Many people have forgiven him, quite amazing really.

Will they forget that this happened? Probably not, at least not until the next bigger event eclipses this one or many, many years have passed.

Can forgiveness (in this case) be considered an act of love? I'm not so sure it can be. I doubt that anyone could have any love for this murderous nut case. Unless this guy's mother is just as screwed up as her son, I can't believe that even she could have much, if any, love left for this kid. She may have some love for the little tike that she gave birth to, but likely not the monster that he has become.

Forgiveness is truly a higher spiritual goal in one's life, but I don't think (esp. in this case) that it is directly related to any love for this deranged killer. Some folks may be saddened or upset by his certain demise from the death penalty that I'm sure he will get, but most will feel relieved that he got the most severe penalty that the law could offer. I have not doubt that some would believe that he should get something worse if it were possible.

Being the victims were Christians, they may have displaced their anger toward the devil or other personified evils, but it would be hard for me to believe anyone could actually love any evil murderer such as this.

To use a famous lyric, "What's love got to do with it?"

I was going to write something but I think its best to leave it at


LOVE/hate

a reply to: TheRedneck edit; spelling.
It was more than one Apostle who had a sword hidden in their robes. Jesus counted noses, and did what he had to do. They could very easily have been all wiped out, right then and there. In other passages, he told the Apostles to make sure that they did have sharp swords. A first Century short sword was militarily deployable. Today, military deploy ability, means something like Dylann Roof's concealed Glock. As some have noted; a Roman Cohort was around 660 Legionaries. These were overwhelming numbers.

I personally think that the first step of the solution, is to force the Pharmaceutical Companies to pull some of these psychotropic meds off the market, as they are actually threatening our Second Amendment Rights. The Gov't did it with Marijuana in the 1940's, and it can do it today with these Psych drugs. No Pharma Co. should be able to buy advertisements anywhere, aimed at the general public, if the public cannot buy their product, directly. All of the Big Pharma T.V. adds are only "Baksheesh" to keep the T.V. Station News crews silenced on this man made plague of theirs. Rip away this "hush money", and maybe we can have a real public discussion about how to deal with mental problems. Their only advertisements should be in medical journals for the licensed M.D.'s, and Psychologists. These are their actual customers. And these Docs. are the only ones' able to write the Prescriptions, for the controlled meds.

The Suc's, drugs, that Roof was prescribed is a new threat, but most of the problems have been from Prozac, Zanac, ect.. Oregon's Gov. Kitzhaber got a reporting law passed, but after a year, the Shrinks had stonewalled him so bad, that only five mental cases had been turned in to the Oregon State Police. This is what's got to change, to stop these "beserkers", from doing heinous acts, like what just happened in Charleston, S.C. For Mr. Roof to get that prescription, some doc had to have known about his Opiate dependency. And he should have been put on the no firearms sale, insta-check list, before he ever filled his Suc's, prescription, in the first place.

My late mother, was dying of cancer, and had a Prozac prescription. She had at least one episode like this, right in front of me. But she was too weak to carry out any kind of attack. But I still remember seeing that blind, vacant, hatred, in her eyes, when we were sitting at a kitchen table, in my parents home. Shortly thereafter, she went to a hospice in Seattle, and I never saw her again. She passed suddenly, about the same time I was told to get over there, within a week. My dad kept his long guns in their home, but my mother was just barely getting around, at that instance.

If everyone makes this atrocity into a Confederate revival incident, then Dylann Roof's alter ego wins. At best its a schizophrenic break, and at worst, its a deliberate "false flag", to bring the "roof" down on the South Carolinian rednecks, who remind him of his excuse for a father. One Legend of Anagrams solution for this kid's name, gives, "torn root land". This legend of anagrams posits that your fate is determined at your christening. And Dylann seems to want to tear his white friend's heritages, in South Carolina, out by their roots.

I would classify him as someone committing a psychological Patricide, rather than being any White Racist. The real White Racists are out there, but they won't be partying with any black "Homeboys". With the D.O.J. grabbing his computer and online identity, there's no telling who they will smear.

I certainly believe these people have the right to grieve in any form they like. But h must personally state this forgiveness stuff is a bunch of garbage. I've always been on the belief that what you bring to me I'll give it back ten fold. I believe it has served me and mine well so far. I believe if these people did have the opportunity to give it back ten fold they would. I believe that when people say I forgive you it's only a mechanism for themselves to move forward but if given the opportunity to get an eye for an eye without consequence I believe most would. I think this forgiveness stuff is a way for the "weak" to get even with someone who's wronged them when they lack any other proper recourse.

a reply to: carpooler

It was more than one Apostle...

I find myself in the unenviable position of being less than completely infprmed on those details. As such I cannot refute yourr claim, but rest assured I will investigate when I have time. It should be fun to look at those verses in a new light.

I personally think that the first step of the solution, is to force the Pharmaceutical Companies to pull some of these psychotropic meds off the market...

I must absolutely agree with this. Pharmaceutical commercials are the most idiotic commercials on TV.

i believe it is quite possible that Roof was using some sort of psychotropic drugs, but that is for another thread. i'm sorry to hear about your mother.

If everyone makes this atrocity into a Confederate revival incident, then Dylann Roof's alter ego wins. At best its a schizophrenic break, and at worst, its a deliberate "false flag", to bring the "roof" down on the South Carolinian rednecks, who remind him of his excuse for a father.

I will go ahead here and say this: if the goal was to ban a flag, then it's a diversionary goal. The only goal I can see from this incident is that of gun control. That has been a regular cry form this administration since it came into power, but i also know that in this case the cry was not one demanding gun control, but one lamenting that this will not be allowed to usher in gun control. Why this change in this circumstance? I can think of one and only one reason: the amount of anger in the public is less than has been in cases like Trayvon Martin, the Ferguson shootings, or pretty much every shooting incident I can recall. The primary reason for that is that the public is as much enthralled with the concept that such forgiveness can exist as they are with the gory details.

I would classify him as someone committing a psychological Patricide, rather than being any White Racist.

You may be right; the only way I have to determine the actual motives involved is to wait and see how the story is spun and what attempts are made to 'rectify' the situation. I am watching for these signs, and will be doing so until I am satisfied I understand what has truly hapened and why.

Perhaps this is a lone gunman who, for whatever reason, decided to perform these heinous acts of violence; perhaps it is a flase flag and Roof was simply a participant in a larger conspiracy; perhaps it was an attempt to start a race war; perhaps it was an attempt, as you say, to place the typical Southern male in a bad light publicly. Either way, though, I believe the premise of this thread stands: forgiveness has made any of Mr Roof's goals moot, or if not moot, less than successful.

TheRedneck

originally posted by: carpooler
The O.P. and most of the replies on this thread are full of it. This crime isn't what it appears to be. Mr. Roof has about 80 Face Book friends, half of whom are blacks.

Shut up and do your homework and read Dylann Roof's blog instead of spouting uninformed crap:

I was not raised in a racist home or environment. Living in the South, almost every White person has a small amount of racial awareness, simply beause of the numbers of negroes in this part of the country. But it is a superficial awareness. Growing up, in school, the White and black kids would make racial jokes toward each other, but all they were were jokes. Me and White friends would sometimes would watch things that would make us think that “blacks were the real racists” and other elementary thoughts like this, but there was no real understanding behind it.

The event that truly awakened me was the Trayvon Martin case. I kept hearing and seeing his name, and eventually I decided to look him up. I read the Wikipedia article and right away I was unable to understand what the big deal was. It was obvious that Zimmerman was in the right. But more importantly this prompted me to type in the words “black on White crime” into Google, and I have never been the same since that day. The first website I came to was the Council of Conservative Citizens. There were pages upon pages of these brutal black on White murders. I was in disbelief. At this moment I realized that something was very wrong. How could the news be blowing up the Trayvon Martin case while hundreds of these black on White murders got ignored?

From this point I researched deeper and found out what was happening in Europe. I saw that the same things were happening in England and France, and in all the other Western European countries. Again I found myself in disbelief. As an American we are taught to accept living in the melting pot, and black and other minorities have just as much right to be here as we do, since we are all immigrants. But Europe is the homeland of White people, and in many ways the situation is even worse there. From here I found out about the Jewish problem and other issues facing our race, and I can say today that I am completely racially aware.


Blacks

I think it is is fitting to start off with the group I have the most real life experience with, and the group that is the biggest problem for Americans.
Niggers are stupid and violent. At the same time they have the capacity to be very slick. Black people view everything through a racial lense. Thats what racial awareness is, its viewing everything that happens through a racial lense. They are always thinking about the fact that they are black. This is part of the reason they get offended so easily, and think that some thing are intended to be racist towards them, even when a White person wouldnt be thinking about race. The other reason is the Jewish agitation of the black race.

[...]

lastrhodesian.com...








I hope I don't need to explain to you what "14 88" stands for.

a reply to: TheRedneck

Wonderful thread brother. It makes you take a look at what the parishioners really are. Christians. Not the fake ones, not the paper ones, the real ones. People who in their faith, kept love in their hearts at a horrible moment.

Wouldn't it be a miracle if this turned into a movement to patch some of the ignorance of racism.

Stranger things have happened.

a reply to: network dude

You know, I admit I have a pretty negative view of Humanity as a whole... the anger, the hatred, the ignorance, ,the greed, the incomprehensible lack of compassion... but you just ignited a spark of hope in me that there's some good left.

May your post be prophetic. Please, please, let it be prophetic.

TheRedneck

Very well stated, OP. Let me see if I can paraphrase what you said. If those who hate see that their hateful acts don't engender hateful responses they will stop committing hateful acts. I believe that is true to an extent. But in order for it to be true the person committing the act needs to have the capacity of reasonable thought. They need to be able to think, 'gee, I hate _____. I'm going to shoot them up/burn them/knife them so they will hate/fear me.' But what we know about the vast majority of these mass attacks is that they are committed by people who, at least at the time, are incapable of rational thought. They are acting on pure impulse. In almost all cases people close to the perpetrators knew that the person was planning something or ideating dangerous things. 'We never thought he would REALLY do it' is where the problem lies IMHO.

a reply to: TheRedneck

I wonder, Mr. Love, do you own guns?

Would this Love that you are promoting dictate for you to kill another human being in defense?

If so, I would say that your message of "Love" isn't as genuine as you would like us to believe.

originally posted by: jimmyx

originally posted by: AlexJowls

The Lesson from South Carolina

exactly....what is this crap about forgiveness.....geez, I'm a 62 year old white guy, and I can't forgive this punk, but somehow all black people are suppose to forgive him?....and south Carolina flying the confederate flag shows you EXACTLY how the government of South Carolina feels about racism. to me, flying that flag is like flying the Nazi flag

Everyone is supposed to forgive him. Color has nothing to do with it.

If we all don't learn to let it go, then we risk becoming what he is now and that's precisely what he wants.

originally posted by: kruphix
a reply to: TheRedneck

I wonder, Mr. Love, do you own guns?

Would this Love that you are promoting dictate for you to kill another human being in defense?

If so, I would say that your message of "Love" isn't as genuine as you would like us to believe.

All it takes for evil to win is for good men to do nothing.

If you truly want to live in a world where the good do not stand up for themselves even unto death at every turn, then only the evil men will be left and be in power. Which are you, I wonder?

I have never been tested like that and I hope I never will, I thought about the awful what if and all I came up with was suppressed rage which can't be good for anyone, I wished I could be as strong as them.
Yet the concept of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind.

I will believe this is a Psychological Patricide, until his face book black friends can refute it. No real White Separatist or Supremacist will party down with a group of Black Hommies. I have a bad feeling that this is more dark than anyone has figured out so far. One survivor said that Dylann tried to commit suicide, but ran out of bullets, in the church. Only some real bad psychotropic drugs are going to initiate something this heinous.

a reply to: kruphix

Yes, I have guns. I have also been placed in the position of being tested as to whether I could pull one on another human being in self defense. I can. Thankfully, I never had to pull that trigger, but I had no problem making the decision to do so.

That's not what this thread is about. Everyone has the right to defend themselves. Had one of those in the church had a gun and used it to stop Dylann Roof, I would think no less of them. It would have been done in self-defense, during an attack. That's not hate.

What matters is what happens next.

There are people who would have hunted Roof down, people who would have spent the rest of their lives trying to destroy anything that reminded them of his act, people who would have even gone out and started shooting white people themselves out of revenge. That's hate. That's what some here have advocated. An eye for an eye. "You hurt me, now I'm going to hurt you, and if I can't hurt you I'll hurt someone like you." 1 kills 2; 2 kills 4; 4 kills 8; 8 kills 16... on and on, angrier and angrier, hatred begetting hatred, until what? What stops the cycle? When all are dead? Who wins? The last one to pull a trigger, right before despair convinces him to end his own life?

Everyone loses when Hate rules.

Love says "It's over. Stop." Love breaks the cycle.

I realize you can't see that. I realize you probably believe that revenge and hate is the best answer. I'm coming to understand just how deeply the hatred, the source of all racism, is engrained into the psyche of most. I just hope that someone will see it and try to change themselves, and I believe some have.

Oh, and I take exception to being called "Mr. Love." Please reserve that for those who truly deserve it. They're members of a church in South Caroline.

I don't have even a small fraction of their strength. I'm just trying to.

TheRedneck