Christians Bomb Mosque

[gzt]

I last was with this guy in December of 2014. He was part of one of the traditional "peace churches." I am just in awe of how quickly this came up. I guess he was hiding it the entire time?

Yeah, it's puzzling. Radicalization can happen quickly. Lord have mercy.

 

[~Anastasia~]

Maybe the Fast is getting to you, brother. I'm not trying to "win" some argument. Let's drop the attitude and tone and just get back to the discussion. It sounds like you're making this personal because you knew the guy.

Your post seemed to make "gun culture" linked to all this madness. I simply disagreed with you. At this point in history, we want someone or something to blame. It's human nature. We want to burn something in effigy when we're at the end of our rope. And, frankly, we Americans are at the end of our rope with all these school shootings, bombings, drive-by's, murders, and random violence. It's so draining on our national soul. So, we want a quick scarecrow to burn in effigy to feel some relief or sense of alleviating the crisis.

Perhaps your friend did not possess mental illness, perhaps he did and you were not able to perceive it? I don't know because I know neither of you. I, of course, take you at your word. But my point is that this country is LOADED with mental illness. I think it's sad that liberals tend to think conservatives are just somehow concocting a "mental illness argument" talking point to shy away from guns. It's actually not true.

As you know, I'm a teacher. I've been teaching 20 years, so I do have some perspective on how society is shifting, especially with parenting and children. I'm sure you'd respect my anecdotes also. In the current school in which I teach, I've been here since 2005. It's now 2018. In 13 years we've changed dramatically. What a difference a decade makes.

When I came to my school we had mentally ill, horrible-behaving kids. But the thing is---we had maybe 6-8 in the whole school. Then the rest of our troubled kids were just angry kids or just classic "brats." But after 13 years now we're looking at around 3-4 mentally ill kids IN EVERY CLASSROOM. Yep, you heard me right. Last year I had a girl with acute, severe paranoia. She cut herself all over, thought everyone was out to get her, talked to herself, had no friends, wandered all over the place, and all she talked about was killing herself or dying or how everyone hated her. She was never once correct. She was on psych meds. That same year I had a kid who had severe Aspergers. When ANYTHING didn't go his way in the smallest way, he'd cry, stomp his feet, have a melt-down, and run away from the rest of the class. Principal would have to chase him down and give him a "cooling off period." Then I had a second Asperger's kid who was FAR WORSE. If he scored under 95% on any test, he'd cry, pound his hand against his head, go home and tell his mom he wanted to die, talk about how unfair everyone was and how they were out to get him, etc. Then I had Lily who had severe disabilities and had some kind of undiagnosed paranoia. She thought even her friends were all out to get her. Her maturity was that of a kindergartner in sixth grade. She had no ability to control her emotions. Cried at the drop of a hat. She turned me and every other kid or adult in constantly thinking we hated her. Paranoid, frantic.

This year I have plenty of mental illness in my room. One of the kids in my room was terribly violent in his mental illness. Bipolar, ADHD, and had oppositional defiance. Completely crazy. The kid would have frequent melt-downs. In those melt-downs he'd get violent, throw things at kids, flip them off, tell them all to "F" themselves, and would ATTACK other kids. Yep, attack. He punched so many kids and injured so many kids that we had to assign behavior intervention aides to deal JUST WITH HIM! Finally, he threatened to bring a knife and firearms to school and use them on kids he hated. That was the last straw. I got him kicked out of here.

I've had mentally ill kids threaten and hurt so many other kids and many times I have felt unsafe.

So, in 13 years, my school is littered with mental illness. We have kids from kindergarten to eighth grade on our campus walking around talking to themselves, talking to trees, needing psych help, medicated with Prozac and other crazy drugs, and our school district in general is just rife with mentally ill kids and behavior out of control. It has reached such a fever pitch that now each campus has "BIA's" or "behavior intervention aides," at least 2, usually 3-4. We now are having to come up with behavior academies to accommodate the severe mentally ill and worst behaved. There was a city-wide community forum to address the out-of-control behavior and widespread inability for our district to cope with this much insanity recently. It is the #1 issue discussed at our union meetings and schoolboard meetings.

There is a nation-wide epidemic of mental illness. It's just a fact. And our country is ill-equipped at this point in time to cope with it. More kids, teens, and adults on psych drugs than any moment in history. We have a nation-wide shortage of psychologists, psychiatrists, and mental health professionals as well as institutions and offices to deal with it. I know something about this from my work PLUS I have a best friend whose daughter is mentally ill. It was a NIGHTMARE trying to get help for her! After 4 years of hardly getting any help, having cops at his house, institutionalizing his daughter and having her hospitalized over and over, only now is he getting help. The waiting list for seeing a child psychologist is like a Soviet bread line.

So when I bring up mental health, I mean it. I'm not watching Fox News, hearing the buzz words "mental health" and trying to debate you. I'm simply stating the obvious. We're in trouble as a country.

I'm a firearms enthusiast. I go to the rifle and pistol range a lot. I grew up shooting. My kids shoot. The good folks at the rifle range who own myriad firearms are not villains to whom mosque-bombers and lunatics should possibly be linked. These are mostly good people. "Gun culture" has always been there. In 1965 there was a healthy "gun culture" in America. There were hardly any school shootings anywhere? Why? In 1950 no shootings and yet plenty of hunters, shooters, and gun owners. Why? In 1980, same thing. Why in 2018 is it different?

I'm just tired of hearing guns blamed. And I'm weary of hearing gun-owners vilified and gun culture sounding like a bunch of crazed red necks with torches secretly plotting murders and mayhem.

Mental illness IS a problem. It's not the entire problem, but it's a big part. It needs to be addressed.

I'm sorry your friend did this. I'm sure it hit you hard. I can only imagine.

And this is one reason I'm almost scared to do my job sometimes. Imagine being a teacher who doesn't know the first thing about any of these kids being dropped into your classroom for a day or few. And now they've passed a law allowing the teachers to bring firearms onto campuses.


I will offer something. I teach all over two districts. The schools run the range from inner-city type areas - low income, much hunger, domestic violence, drug use, and all that goes with that for many homes - to upper class rather elitist areas with kids that are hugely "entitled" and think they are the center of the universe - to rural areas with typical farm kids and much less of the other kinds of problems though poverty is rampant.

The classrooms and children are vastly different.

The inner-city kids often learn to fight for survival from a heartbreakingly young age. And soon even the ones who escape from that are worshipping gang culture. Those schools are dangerous and frankly I won't go there anymore. There are behavior aides and resource officers (policemen) and I've had to call them but it often doesn't help. There are many real issues with kids having severe mental problems, and the majority develop behavior problems. What's heartbreaking are the smart and/or well-behaved ones who want to learn but the teacher can't spare them any attention because they are too busy trying to manage the others so everyone is physically safe. It's no kind of school environment.

The rich kids - eh, they can be brats. Disrespectful and think no rules apply to them. But they are just worried about how they look on social media. And they try to be insulting but I just don't take the bait. They aren't generally dangerous though. Just a mite soul-wearying.

The rural schools are the best. Yes, a few rowdy ones, but not downright dangerous. There is a degree of mental illness in that population, but they are mostly gathered into their own classrooms at particular schools, and to be honest, I like working in those classrooms. The teachers care, the kids respond, and I've never felt threatened. These kids probably almost all have weapons available at home, but I never worry they will do anything. I've met only one child in many schools that I was honestly just worried about him, not that he'd hurt anyone else.

SOMEthing is very wrong. But seeing where it is wrong and how, in my little corner, is a couple of pieces of the puzzle.

I get the idea it doesn't fit with your puzzle, Gurney, so ... I think we are talking about multiple factors. But where you teach and where I teach are probably social and political opposites.

 

[gzt]

And now they've passed a law allowing the teachers to bring firearms onto campuses.

Yikes!

 

[frienden thalord]

I'm not sure if any of you saw the news about the mosque bombing or not.
Mosque Terror Attack Suspect Put In Detailed Bid To Build Trump A ‘Great’ Border Wall

I heard this on NPR this morning and had to pull my car over. I know 2 of the 3 men arrested very well. I actually almost entered into a business venture with one of them a couple of times. It is a long story. However, the frightening thing is that we were all part of a non-resistant Christian group at the time. I cannot for the life of me figure out how things escalated from being basically a pacifist to bombing mosques and abortion clinics. I know the answer is "sin" but nonetheless, this was not even on the radar 3 years ago.

It makes me sick enough to just pull away from politics, the gun culture, and just live to serve God and love my neighbor. It is just sad.

Hermit . a few years back the Spirit warned me that this stuff would only increase
And that society and churches as a whole would embrace this false unity more
and place the rest of us that don't conform to it , n the same camp as these dangerous ones.
Satan is doing this , He is causing this and it will increase from so called christain groups.
And all the while they will more and more believe that ones like us , WHO would not harm
a fly, YET wont conform to this one big religion unity mindset , they will see us
as dangerous as these . Its only going to increase .
Satan uses men like this , For the purpose of making all bible only JESUS
ones to seem dangerous . Pay attention to his whole unity move
and watch what its enemy is , Evangelical JESUS ONLY gospel preaching
ones. Its a world wide goal and thus what does satan do
he gets men who play christain to do dangerous evils
then at the same time satan has this all inclusive huge unity religion being formed.
And in time whoever don't go with that flow , will just be seen as dangerous .
I would not harm a fly and I preach no self defense even.
But it wont matter , in time people will just see us as dangerous
and the all hugging all embracing UNITY as the good ones . Nothing can stop this .

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

I have not "slammed" you, Hermit. Obviously you've never been slammed before. That was nowhere near a slamming. A "weapon"?? I'm not even going to address that, brother. A touch hyperbolic.

How was I aggressive? I sought to explain to you my own experience as a teacher. I gave you a lot of examples of how mental illness is out of control. I never attacked you or called you names or called you a madman. When I mentioned Lent getting to you, the problem is, Hermit, you haven't been in TAW that long. For years in here we have talked about The Fast getting to us. Anhelyna frequently would point out to us all that the Fast of Great Lent makes us snippy, snarky, impatient, and generally grouchy. I can admit it has done that to me at times. I'm sorry a well-established point of TAW was something you felt insulted by. It wasn't.

Sorry you don't want to discuss this. I don't feel the same way toward you.

OK, I didn't read all of this. First, you slammed me this week for writing too much, and yet... Second, you have used Lent/Fasting as a weapon against me more than once so far. Third, you have a tendency to call out others for aggressiveness when you are super tough to deal with because you are super aggressive ALL the time.

I really don't want to engage you again. I won't respond to you again on this thread.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Hey Anastasia,

I'm not sure what you meant at the end? Maybe you meant that you don't see mental illness so much as bad parenting and societal breakdown and income/socio-economics as more a factor in creating "little monsters." You might be right. I'm not disagreeing. But I am telling you that, YES, we have heaps of rotten apples, but at the same time we have copious piles of mental illness. Think how many kids are "on the spectrum" nowdays. We have kids with psych issues all over the place. I hear from people across the country the same junk. I think we have:

bad parenting
bad diets
lack of sleep
overmedication
crime
poverty
GMO's
mental illness
ignorance
in abundance.

I

And this is one reason I'm almost scared to do my job sometimes. Imagine being a teacher who doesn't know the first thing about any of these kids being dropped into your classroom for a day or few. And now they've passed a law allowing the teachers to bring firearms onto campuses.


I will offer something. I teach all over two districts. The schools run the range from inner-city type areas - low income, much hunger, domestic violence, drug use, and all that goes with that for many homes - to upper class rather elitist areas with kids that are hugely "entitled" and think they are the center of the universe - to rural areas with typical farm kids and much less of the other kinds of problems though poverty is rampant.

The classrooms and children are vastly different.

The inner-city kids often learn to fight for survival from a heartbreakingly young age. And soon even the ones who escape from that are worshipping gang culture. Those schools are dangerous and frankly I won't go there anymore. There are behavior aides and resource officers (policemen) and I've had to call them but it often doesn't help. There are many real issues with kids having severe mental problems, and the majority develop behavior problems. What's heartbreaking are the smart and/or well-behaved ones who want to learn but the teacher can't spare them any attention because they are too busy trying to manage the others so everyone is physically safe. It's no kind of school environment.

The rich kids - eh, they can be brats. Disrespectful and think no rules apply to them. But they are just worried about how they look on social media. And they try to be insulting but I just don't take the bait. They aren't generally dangerous though. Just a mite soul-wearying.

The rural schools are the best. Yes, a few rowdy ones, but not downright dangerous. There is a degree of mental illness in that population, but they are mostly gathered into their own classrooms at particular schools, and to be honest, I like working in those classrooms. The teachers care, the kids respond, and I've never felt threatened. These kids probably almost all have weapons available at home, but I never worry they will do anything. I've met only one child in many schools that I was honestly just worried about him, not that he'd hurt anyone else.

SOMEthing is very wrong. But seeing where it is wrong and how, in my little corner, is a couple of pieces of the puzzle.

I get the idea it doesn't fit with your puzzle, Gurney, so ... I think we are talking about multiple factors. But where you teach and where I teach are probably social and political opposites.

 

[~Anastasia~]

Hey Anastasia,

I'm not sure what you meant at the end? Maybe you meant that you don't see mental illness so much as bad parenting and societal breakdown and income/socio-economics as more a factor in creating "little monsters." You might be right. I'm not disagreeing. But I am telling you that, YES, we have heaps of rotten apples, but at the same time we have copious piles of mental illness. Think how many kids are "on the spectrum" nowdays. We have kids with psych issues all over the place. I hear from people across the country the same junk. I think we have:

bad parenting
bad diets
lack of sleep
overmedication
crime
poverty
GMO's
mental illness
ignorance
in abundance.

I

No, what I meant ....


Is that from your descriptions of your school, I can't apply the causes that I see as being the only ones influencing your experience in the classroom. So ... I see one set of causes. But there are obviously more things going on, since I think your experience doesn't mirror mine, but is significant on its own.

However, California would seem to be a very different environment from my districts here. So I think the backdrop (political? Social? Religious?) might influence the different causal factors you might see.

I hope that makes sense.

 

[Kristos]

Maybe the Fast is getting to you, brother. I'm not trying to "win" some argument. Let's drop the attitude and tone and just get back to the discussion. It sounds like you're making this personal because you knew the guy.

Your post seemed to make "gun culture" linked to all this madness. I simply disagreed with you. At this point in history, we want someone or something to blame. It's human nature. We want to burn something in effigy when we're at the end of our rope. And, frankly, we Americans are at the end of our rope with all these school shootings, bombings, drive-by's, murders, and random violence. It's so draining on our national soul. So, we want a quick scarecrow to burn in effigy to feel some relief or sense of alleviating the crisis.

Perhaps your friend did not possess mental illness, perhaps he did and you were not able to perceive it? I don't know because I know neither of you. I, of course, take you at your word. But my point is that this country is LOADED with mental illness. I think it's sad that liberals tend to think conservatives are just somehow concocting a "mental illness argument" talking point to shy away from guns. It's actually not true.

As you know, I'm a teacher. I've been teaching 20 years, so I do have some perspective on how society is shifting, especially with parenting and children. I'm sure you'd respect my anecdotes also. In the current school in which I teach, I've been here since 2005. It's now 2018. In 13 years we've changed dramatically. What a difference a decade makes.

When I came to my school we had mentally ill, horrible-behaving kids. But the thing is---we had maybe 6-8 in the whole school. Then the rest of our troubled kids were just angry kids or just classic "brats." But after 13 years now we're looking at around 3-4 mentally ill kids IN EVERY CLASSROOM. Yep, you heard me right. Last year I had a girl with acute, severe paranoia. She cut herself all over, thought everyone was out to get her, talked to herself, had no friends, wandered all over the place, and all she talked about was killing herself or dying or how everyone hated her. She was never once correct. She was on psych meds. That same year I had a kid who had severe Aspergers. When ANYTHING didn't go his way in the smallest way, he'd cry, stomp his feet, have a melt-down, and run away from the rest of the class. Principal would have to chase him down and give him a "cooling off period." Then I had a second Asperger's kid who was FAR WORSE. If he scored under 95% on any test, he'd cry, pound his hand against his head, go home and tell his mom he wanted to die, talk about how unfair everyone was and how they were out to get him, etc. Then I had Lily who had severe disabilities and had some kind of undiagnosed paranoia. She thought even her friends were all out to get her. Her maturity was that of a kindergartner in sixth grade. She had no ability to control her emotions. Cried at the drop of a hat. She turned me and every other kid or adult in constantly thinking we hated her. Paranoid, frantic.

This year I have plenty of mental illness in my room. One of the kids in my room was terribly violent in his mental illness. Bipolar, ADHD, and had oppositional defiance. Completely crazy. The kid would have frequent melt-downs. In those melt-downs he'd get violent, throw things at kids, flip them off, tell them all to "F" themselves, and would ATTACK other kids. Yep, attack. He punched so many kids and injured so many kids that we had to assign behavior intervention aides to deal JUST WITH HIM! Finally, he threatened to bring a knife and firearms to school and use them on kids he hated. That was the last straw. I got him kicked out of here.

I've had mentally ill kids threaten and hurt so many other kids and many times I have felt unsafe.

So, in 13 years, my school is littered with mental illness. We have kids from kindergarten to eighth grade on our campus walking around talking to themselves, talking to trees, needing psych help, medicated with Prozac and other crazy drugs, and our school district in general is just rife with mentally ill kids and behavior out of control. It has reached such a fever pitch that now each campus has "BIA's" or "behavior intervention aides," at least 2, usually 3-4. We now are having to come up with behavior academies to accommodate the severe mentally ill and worst behaved. There was a city-wide community forum to address the out-of-control behavior and widespread inability for our district to cope with this much insanity recently. It is the #1 issue discussed at our union meetings and schoolboard meetings.

There is a nation-wide epidemic of mental illness. It's just a fact. And our country is ill-equipped at this point in time to cope with it. More kids, teens, and adults on psych drugs than any moment in history. We have a nation-wide shortage of psychologists, psychiatrists, and mental health professionals as well as institutions and offices to deal with it. I know something about this from my work PLUS I have a best friend whose daughter is mentally ill. It was a NIGHTMARE trying to get help for her! After 4 years of hardly getting any help, having cops at his house, institutionalizing his daughter and having her hospitalized over and over, only now is he getting help. The waiting list for seeing a child psychologist is like a Soviet bread line.

So when I bring up mental health, I mean it. I'm not watching Fox News, hearing the buzz words "mental health" and trying to debate you. I'm simply stating the obvious. We're in trouble as a country.

I'm a firearms enthusiast. I go to the rifle and pistol range a lot. I grew up shooting. My kids shoot. The good folks at the rifle range who own myriad firearms are not villains to whom mosque-bombers and lunatics should possibly be linked. These are mostly good people. "Gun culture" has always been there. In 1965 there was a healthy "gun culture" in America. There were hardly any school shootings anywhere? Why? In 1950 no shootings and yet plenty of hunters, shooters, and gun owners. Why? In 1980, same thing. Why in 2018 is it different?

I'm just tired of hearing guns blamed. And I'm weary of hearing gun-owners vilified and gun culture sounding like a bunch of crazed red necks with torches secretly plotting murders and mayhem.

Mental illness IS a problem. It's not the entire problem, but it's a big part. It needs to be addressed.

I'm sorry your friend did this. I'm sure it hit you hard. I can only imagine.

Thanks for sharing. This is alarming. I wonder though - why the increase? I also wonder - are they mentally ill or could they be possessed? If they are possessed, then what good will more mental health care do? Sometime I feel like, as a culture, we are in denial of evil itself.

 

[Steve Petersen]

I'm not sure if any of you saw the news about the mosque bombing or not.
Mosque Terror Attack Suspect Put In Detailed Bid To Build Trump A ‘Great’ Border Wall

I heard this on NPR this morning and had to pull my car over. I know 2 of the 3 men arrested very well. I actually almost entered into a business venture with one of them a couple of times. It is a long story. However, the frightening thing is that we were all part of a non-resistant Christian group at the time. I cannot for the life of me figure out how things escalated from being basically a pacifist to bombing mosques and abortion clinics. I know the answer is "sin" but nonetheless, this was not even on the radar 3 years ago.

It makes me sick enough to just pull away from politics, the gun culture, and just live to serve God and love my neighbor. It is just sad.

The old 'moral equivalency ploy.' Yes, I have forseen this.

 

[Kristos]

And this is one reason I'm almost scared to do my job sometimes. Imagine being a teacher who doesn't know the first thing about any of these kids being dropped into your classroom for a day or few. And now they've passed a law allowing the teachers to bring firearms onto campuses.


I will offer something. I teach all over two districts. The schools run the range from inner-city type areas - low income, much hunger, domestic violence, drug use, and all that goes with that for many homes - to upper class rather elitist areas with kids that are hugely "entitled" and think they are the center of the universe - to rural areas with typical farm kids and much less of the other kinds of problems though poverty is rampant.

The classrooms and children are vastly different.

The inner-city kids often learn to fight for survival from a heartbreakingly young age. And soon even the ones who escape from that are worshipping gang culture. Those schools are dangerous and frankly I won't go there anymore. There are behavior aides and resource officers (policemen) and I've had to call them but it often doesn't help. There are many real issues with kids having severe mental problems, and the majority develop behavior problems. What's heartbreaking are the smart and/or well-behaved ones who want to learn but the teacher can't spare them any attention because they are too busy trying to manage the others so everyone is physically safe. It's no kind of school environment.

The rich kids - eh, they can be brats. Disrespectful and think no rules apply to them. But they are just worried about how they look on social media. And they try to be insulting but I just don't take the bait. They aren't generally dangerous though. Just a mite soul-wearying.

The rural schools are the best. Yes, a few rowdy ones, but not downright dangerous. There is a degree of mental illness in that population, but they are mostly gathered into their own classrooms at particular schools, and to be honest, I like working in those classrooms. The teachers care, the kids respond, and I've never felt threatened. These kids probably almost all have weapons available at home, but I never worry they will do anything. I've met only one child in many schools that I was honestly just worried about him, not that he'd hurt anyone else.

SOMEthing is very wrong. But seeing where it is wrong and how, in my little corner, is a couple of pieces of the puzzle.

I get the idea it doesn't fit with your puzzle, Gurney, so ... I think we are talking about multiple factors. But where you teach and where I teach are probably social and political opposites.

Interesting. We live in a rural community that has become a bit of a bedroom community to a medium sized city. It seems to have maintained it's rural feel, but without as much poverty. We will not be moving until my kids graduate!