tiredinnocence

Alright, so vigilantism is a bit lot of a rather...controversial topic. Which is why instead of breaking it down bit by bit and really trying to argue with people and make sure that you're right and the other person is wrong. When it really comes down to it, there is no just black and white in this topic, instead there are varying shades of gray, something everyone has thought about and wondered about even if briefly for the smallest thing, something they wouldn't even consider it to make them a vigilante, but it does.

Moving quickly to the point is easy enough, vigilantism in the movies. Now there are more movies than I can name that employ some sort of vigilante as the main character(s), The Boondock Saints, Four Brothers, Law Abiding Citizen, and Spiderman are just a few in recent memory to name. And each is employed for different reasons in the movies, varying up the types of ways people could seek justice, or just revenge.

How often do revenge and vigilantism cross paths? Too often, in the movies people are almost always forced into taking the law into their own hands because of something that happened to them. These can be good people, or people who just were shady to begin with. Law Abiding Citizen and Four Brothers are perfect examples of two opposites. In the first, a good citizen has his family taken from him and the justice system fails to do anything, so he decides to do it himself. In Four Brother, four adopted brothers who are definitely on the wrong side of the law go seeking out the reason and the people who were responsible for the murder of their mother.

There can be problems with being a vigilante though, like in Spiderman, magazines and newspapers are able to turn people against him and make him out to be some sort of menace rather than actually trying to help people. When one person takes the responsibilities of an entire city if not more into his or her hands, they can be crushed under the weight or even turn to the dark side where they start abusing the power that they have taken on.

Contest or no contest, when it comes down to it, I believe strongly that vigilantism is absolutely necessary. Granted it can cause quite a few bad things, people thinking that how things happen in movies happen exactly like that, people who take it too far, and people who believe different things are wrong or right. While nearly all of us have the same moral standards and guidelines, some people have codes that are a LOT more stringent and they are much less forgiving. Anyway, it's needed. Too often the justice system that was set up to protect and help people just all out fails. There are people out there that have lost children, parents, siblings to some violent crime and have to deal with the fact that the perpetrator will be walking the streets in 5-10 years. Right, that fixes the problem.

Now I may be thinking of the most extreme form of vigilantism, an eye for an eye, but maybe that's what is necessary, you take someone's life and then yours gets taken from you. Obviously if you killed someone, you didn't give them the chance to live, and you played God,why in the hell can't someone else play God with your life? It is all a moral code, and either you have morals or you don't, those who don't tend to be the ones that are on the other side of the smoking barrel pointed at the back of their skull courtesy of Connor and Murphy McManus, if only we were that lucky.

It's hard to write my thoughts on vigilantism without using The Boondock Saints as an example, they are just prime and perfect. Two men, nothing really special about them, not wealthy by any means like Batman, no sort of super power to speak of like Spiderman or Superman, but they are still heroes. Well, heroes to the 99.8% of the population that Troy Duffy was speaking to with his powerful movies. When it comes down to it, those boys were really nothing special or out of the ordinary, just normal men that were no longer pleased with sitting back and watching things happen around them, instead they took it into their own hands, by the word of God and decided to do it, decided to stand for something and I think that is the most important.

My own mother is a fan of the BDS movies, and she said something that I just laughed off at first, keep in mind, these aren't her exact words but they are close. She told me the reason the movie was so popular and had such an underground following was because, "Every guy would love to do shit like that and handle it themselves and every girl would love to have that guy that was willing to do that." Now she isn't sexist and doesn't believe that women can't go out for a little justice every now and then, I know that's not true.

If you want to make it make sense, think about it. If you're a parent, what if someone kidnapped, raped and murdered your -child-, are you REALLY going to be content with sitting back and letting the courts handle everything and be prepared to let the person just walk free after they have served an 'appropriately assigned' time which ends up being five years, THREE after good behavior and parole? Is this an ACCEPTABLE substitute for the suffering your child endured and then end of his or her life?! You think if someone killed that man the next day, you'd feel guilty or upset over the loss of the waste of life? I don't know, maybe I'm too cynical and don't give enough credit to the forgive but not forget theory, I can only really comment on myself, and if someone ever took my sisters, mother or child from me...I would much rather that person was taken care of, permanently. Then not only could that person NEVER do that again, but it would be space for one more person on this planet that deserved it.

You know, it's a little known fact, but it is a fact. Do people really know what happens to the child abusers/murderers/rapists in prison? The prisoners hand out their own punishments to those people, typically they have to be segregated from the rest of the population for their protection. FOR THEIR PROTECTION. WHY is it that people like THAT deserve to be PROTECTED by the JUSTICE system that is supposed to be working AGAINST the guilty and FOR the victim?! How does this make sense? It doesn't, at all. Exactly WHY these movies stir so many feelings in people, because they know it's right, they know what's happening isn't enough and they know it should BE more like those movies. I guess, to me, it's not a question of whether or not the movies are good or bad, because it goes both ways. The only real question to me is what are people waiting for? Harsh and drastic, maybe, but this world needs a bit more right, a bit more just, and if that's one of the ways to dole it out, and the movies inspire so be it, but movies can only inspire, they can't force a person to do anything, so blaming ANYTHING on a movie, is pretty much ludicrous. Chill out, people, you can't blame the movies for everything.

And this definitely turned more into a rant than an actual debatable...professional little essay, but I don't really care, it's my mess of thoughts and that's pretty much good enough for me.

I wrote this on the eighth of February, 2007. But I feel like posting it...100+ things to do before I die.
1- Be a mom.
2- Find real love - or at least discover what it is.
3- See my mom find this true love.
4- Have my own record label.
5- Own a No Kill Animal Shelter.
6- Save Someone - Paulie...I love you kid...so much, and I am -so- glad that you didn't succeed. 2/17/07
7- Write a novel.
8- Get through college.
9- Study psychology.
10- Be called beautiful, and have them mean it.
11- Have black and purple hair.
12- Buy matching outfits with the twin.
13- Be sure my friends know that they are everything to me.
14- Do something special and meaningful with all four of my sisters.
15- Have a girls' day. Just me and mom.
16-  Get a Superman Tattoo.
17- Go to a Wild game VS Ducks.
18- Date a hockey player [Pierre Marc Bouchard...he's just too adorable and such a sweet guy.]
19- Discover who I am.
20- Save a cat and a dog.
21- Go to all 50 states, even the ones on the bad list.
22- Go to Ireland.
23- Go to Poland.
24- Go to Germany.
25- Go to England.
26- Go to France.
27- Go to Switzerland.
28- Go to Australia.
29- Adopt a Koala.
30- Spend an entire day on the beach.
31- Buy my mom her dream home on a lake with a wrap around porch.
32- See my niece grow up.
33- Watch my sisters all find happiness.
34- Not have to experience a great loss.
35- Find my true friends again.
36- Make an everlasting difference in the world.
37- Become the first honest woman president.
38- Be on a television show.
39- Be a tour manager for one of my favorite bands.
40- Learn at least one trick on a skateboard.
41- Write a few songs.
42- Teach someone something valuable.
43- Find something I love for a career.
44- Read and understand The Odyssey.
45- Learn to play the drums.
46- Swim in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.
47- Ride on a motorcycle.
48- Develop my own perfume.
49- Tell my family the truth.
50- Give solid advice to someone desperate.
51- Let my family know that I could never have made it through life without them.
52- Learn to make something magnificent.
53- Be called Grandma.
54- Drop to 140 pounds.
55- Spend a night laughing under the stars.
56- Figure out how to trust.
57- Direct a movie.
58- Fix all of my, "Shoulda, woulda, coulda's."
59- Never let go of the amazing moments.
60- Live free with no regrets.
61- Make an entire CD mobile.
62- Forgive my dad.
63- Save a poor, lonely child.
64- Paint a huge mural for all to see.
65- See my name in print, again.
66- Learn to drive a stick shift.
67- Go to as many concerts as possible.
68- Study American History.
69- Never lose my own opinions.
70- Never lose sight of my family - always number one.
71- Meet up with my boys, Sam and Colin.
72- Learn to cut hair.
73- Be in at least one more wedding, not counting mine.
74- Get the signature of every Wild player with a photo.
75- Have a huge pool.
76- Have my kids me close with my mom.
77- Have a star named for me.
78- Remember the small things that make life great.
79- Learn how to kickbox.
80- Go down a hill once on a snowboard.
81- Wear a dress that I look amazing in.
82- Go on a serious road trip with the Crew.
83- Discover an amazing band.
84- Have a family portrait taken.
85- Shoot a gun.
86- Spend more time with my gramma.
87- Get my CD collection on vinyl.
88- See a ghost.
89- Experience a miracle.
90- Have a jacuzzi bathtub.
91- Learn to play mom's favorite song on the guitar.
92- Win the lottery.
93- Discover what God is really all about.
94- Let the Catholic Church know what I -really- think.
95- Own a purple shag carpet.
96- Go to Canada.
97- Help young cutters.
98- Own a '67 Chevy Impala.
99- Go to the Caribbean.
100- Be happy.
101- See Sarah on Broadway.
102- See Jordan in concert.
103- See Molly try her first case.
104- See Kristine get through med-school.

Yesterday was anything but uneventful.

According to Governor Pawlenty. Yesterday was a 'tragedy of historic proportions.'

I believe he was right.

But I don't like how the whole thing was turned into a media circus. Do these people realize that people are -dying- here? Dying, hurt, trapped, confused, scared. Yet, we have to turn it into some sort of media spectacle.

I understand that it's a big deal, a bridge collapsed into the river and this doesn't happen everyday. But did it need to be flashed on every news station in the country? Perhaps it was for the prayers, or perhaps it was because someone deciding that the people of America need a little bit -more- fear instilled in their hearts to keep them heading in the right direction.

People were probably getting too comfortable with nothing horrible hitting close to home. So we'll take something awful, a tragedy if you will, and multiply it by ten and make people afraid again.

It is awful enough as it is. It doesn't need to be blown up anymore. I mean honestly. We don't need anymore fear, anyone who was involved or who knew anyone involved or who was just plain worried, knows full well what that fear feels like as it sits in the pit of your stomach and slowly eats its way throughout your entire body.

Tonight was no different. Story time shall we? I think we should.

I get a text message, at six, asking if I've heard about the bridge, and to turn on channel four if not. I just thought it was something silly, something small, maybe something that happened somewhere else that shouldn't really matter.

God, was I wrong.

Seven comes around, and I decided I'll finally look it up. So I go to WCCO's site, and see that part of a bridge has fallen into the Mississippi river. Parents say it is in Burnsville. Still. Hitting a bit closer to home, so of course I wanna know more. Channel 9. How wrong were we? Nothing to do with Burnsville. It's a highway leading from downtown Minneapolis to the University of Minnesota.

Over 50 vehicles went into the water.

7 people dead so far.

67 injured.

See, some don't think it's that big of a deal because only seven people died.

Only?

Are you kidding me? That is seven lives. Seven people with families and friends and careers. Seven people that will never get to enjoy anything about life again because of a bridge. Seven people who have left shattered and broken people in their wake. How should that not matter? Just because it isn't in the thousands like 9/11. Or millions like the holocaust. It's still a tragedy. Those people didn't have to die, but they did. They deserve the same respect, not to be shrugged off as some random statistic not good enough to be on the board with the big boys.

Anyway. Back to my own personal story.

So I didn't really think that much of it, just that it was awful and something that probably could have been avoided. But as I'm watching the news, I start to get a sick feeling in my stomach, and I realize something is very wrong. Minneapolis. Molly works in Bloomington. So I text her to ask if she's heard. I get nothing back. So of course I start to panic, I mean, this is my sister here, and my family is everything to me. But as I'm panicing, my mom calls to tell me that one of her friends may be in the mess and no one can get a hold of her. After only 13 minutes, and some calming down done by my sweet Oreo who kept me entirely sane tonight and for that I owe her everything. Molly calls to tell me she is just fine and at work.

Breathe and calm down.

Right?

Wrong.

My dad decides he wants to figure out where the bridge is, because he still doesn't know. So he gets the handy dandy, trusty map book. And he finds out where it is and shows me. The bridge leads from Minneapolis to Roseville.

My brother-in-law works at the Best Buy in Roseville.

This didn't really click at first, actually, it took a good bit to kick in, and then I realized that Kristine has moved to Minneapolis. So, the search for her begins.

Call her. Twice. Nothing at all, just the annoying ring of the damned phone.

Parents call her.

Sisters call her.

We all get nothing.

As of now, you can imagine we are all quite a bit panicked and I'm barely breathing properly. I felt like that day when Paul went on his rampage all over again. Except the feeling is much more intense. Even now as I sit here, I remember it full well and it seems like nothing more than a dream. If only that were true.

But finally, after an hour and a few minutes, she calls, texts and emails the lot of us to tell us that she is just fine, Graycen is just fine, and David is just fine.

Insert sigh of relief here.

So now my entire immediate family is safe and accounted for. I should be calm and getting back to normal, right?

Wrong.

Something was still off. I couldn't shake it, and for a good three hours after we had confirmation that everyone was fine, I felt sick.

Literally sick to my stomach. I felt as if I was being twisted in knots and then yanked out again. It was awful. I just felt like there should be so much more. There had to be something I could do, something I was missing. I wasn't in danger, everyone I cared about was safe.

Yet I still felt a desperate pull to the people who were hurt or killed and their families, and I found myself defending them maliciously, as if they were my own family. I don't know what it was, but something inside of me just snapped and couldn't deal with the task that was at hand, which really was nothing.

But it was horrible. ANd I never want to feel that way again. So out of control, alone and useless. It was awful and something tells me, with the circus that we must call the media and in their effort to 'help' and 'inform' people...it's not over yet.

Gah. What to say, honestly? I really don't know. My head is all over the place again. Then again, when is it never not?

Yesterday. A student at Virginia Tech entered a dorm and shot his girlfriend and the guy she was cheating on him with, and killed them. Then, that gunman precedded to the classrooms TWO hours later. Not two minutes, not twenty. Two HOURS. They had hours to alert people and warn them, yet the school did nothing. Anyway. The gunman went into the classrooms, killed 8 of the 15 German students and their professor. Then continued on throughout the school killing a grand total of 33 people including himself.

All I can say when I think about this is simple.

What the fuck?

What drives someone to do this? Can you honestly be pushed that far or does something have to be wrong in your head? I really don't know. I've never experienced a school shooting personally, thank God. But I really want to know what drives these people. What makes you figure that everything will be solved if you lash out and take your rage out on innocent people. 

This all happening a whole four days before the eigth anniversary of the shootings at Columbine. 

Columbine. Now, I may be obsessed, but I can't help it. Those boys, I understand, for the most part anyway. They were tortured relentlessly, but still, no one deserved to -die- because of it. The boys lost it, but I understand their mindset. They had a motive, well, somewhat. I don't think anyone could ever have a real motive in something that horrible, but those boys just snapped.

It makes you think, a lot. Why do people continue to treat people so nasty and horrible when what it could lead to is right infront of them? Someone killed 32 people because his girlfriend cheated on him. Two kids killed 13 people because they were picked on to no end. 

So why doesn't it stop? Why don't people smarten up and realize that what they are doing is wrong. It's not funny, it's not cool. It's wrong, and it's mean. 

I wish I had an answer, honestly I do. I found myself sinking back into a haze today because I just didn't know what to do. The things that were coming out of my mouth to people who I am just mean to, it shocked me, it was as if someone else had taken over my body and I was watching from the outside, having no control over what was coming out.

It scared me kind of. It was just an automated response with me. Someone says something and I shoot back with something nasty. Is that what those kids had to go through everyday? Is that what  the kids who I say stuff too, or pick on, or "joke" with are going to be lead to?

It's kind of a scary thought if you think about it. And then when I tried to figure out why I was doing the things I was, or why I was saying the things I was, or why I was acting the way I was. I couldn't come up with an answer. Nothing. At all. I was completly blank. So I've come to the conclusion that I do it because it's routine. It's common. I've been doing the same thing to the same people every single day.

So does that mean that's how I am as a person? Or am I putting on a front to come off that way as a person. I don't think it can be a front. Because the things I say are so subconscious I rarely even think twice at some of the horrible things that come from these lips. I am mean. Downright evil.

There is no other explaination than that is how I am. That is how I am. I am that person. I am a mean, cold-hearted, insecure jerk. I don't torture people becuase it makes me feel better, because it honestly doesn't. I just simply do it because I can. Because it's routine. Because people allow me to. That sounds like a horrible excuse, I know.

But it's really not an excuse.

It's the truth.

I do it because I can.

That's the reason for a lot of things in my life I've noticed.

It's not a good trend. But it's true. I don't go to school because I don't have to. I smoke because I can. I'm mean because I can be. I am lazy because I can be. I write because I can. I ignor because I can. I eat because I can. I drink because I can. I do drugs because I can.

It's all the same, same cycle, just a different thing. Now here's the real question.

How do you break out of it?
Can you break out of it?
Do you -want- to break out of it?

I don't really know, and thinking about it too much can be dangerous because the mind is a powerful and wonderful thing, it will take you so many more places if you just let it. I mean look at me. I started out talking about school shootings and I ended on a life question. 

So many people don't take the time to just sit around and think. To let the gears in you brain actually work something out. If they took the time for that, they would find the answers to many of the questions that they have.

It's amazing. Honestly. I find the human mind amazing. I'm kept awake at night because I am trying to figure out life's questions or the answers to the biggest world problems. I enjoy it. That may sound crazy, but I like letting my mind wander and I love seeing where it will end up. Some of the things that come out are just me going in circles. But sometimes I get, real, true answers.

I'm not going to be humble, but I won't be concieted either, I know I'm smart. I'm smarter than alot of my friends. It's mean to say, but it's true and even they tell me on a daily basis. One of my friends told me something one day I'll never forget, it will stick with me forever. 

He said, "The more intelligent you are, the more lonely you become."

That may not seem as if it makes much sense, but it really, honestly does. When your intelligence rises you lose touch with people. You seem to understand things that others don't and it is so frustrating, you realize how ignorant some people are even when they aren't trying to be.

It's horrible.

And that sounds so concieted and selfish. But it's true, not for me, but for many of the people who do nothing but think. For those people who -know- the answers to the world's problems. Those people, have it worse than the rest of us.

Amazing, I started this rant out, to go on about how my life always comes in full circle, with periods of happiness, drama and fun, then dark, bleak, depressing, morbidness. It's awful. But it is the story of my life. It always comes back.

And apparently, it's the story of life in general.

It always comes back.