BOSTON MARATHON SLAUGHTER: ‘Innocent Victims’? Or Simply Victims? Both Demand Justice
Our media talking heads (in reference to the news coverage) while discussing Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s Boston Marathon bombing, federal murder trial, have been busy bantering back and forth in volleys of one-ups-manship terminology in expressing their outrage of Tsarnaev and his bro’s actions. Our media seems to concur that the Boston bombing is especially heinous because of the slaughter of “innocent victims.” The word “innocent” has been inserted in front of the word “victim” so much, that we tend to sit there and shake our heads in agreement. Why are we being conditioned to think that there is a difference between an innocent victim as opposed to – a what, guilty victim? Or is this just a slip of the tongue, of a grammatical double negative? As in, “I ain’t got no”…?
Does Tsarnaev only deserve the death penalty because of his murder of innocent victims? Or does he deserve the death penalty simply because he murdered people, aka victims?
His act of terror was against everything we hold dear. Against our God-given inalienable right of freedom. He stole the freedom of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness of countless victims. Yet heinous murders happen all the time, children kidnapped right out of their beds, raped and murdered. Aren’t these “innocent victims” too? I say all these are plainly victims who all deserve death penalty justice.
On Fox News, Gretchen Carlson was discussing the guilty verdict announcement, referenced the use of the “innocent victims” particularly while referring to the shrapnel-riddled body of the murdered six year old child. Victims are neither innocent nor guilty, a victim is a victim, period. To refer to a victim as innocent, would tend to imply that there are also guilty victims. So are there guilty victims?…such as someone who deserves what happened to them? Gretchen, exactly what would a guilty victim(s) be?
I’m sure, as the penalty phase of the trial approaches, this “innocent” misspeak will be contagious among the talking heads. But let’s be clear: all of Tsarnaev’s victims no matter their age, race religion or sex, are all purely and plainly, victims. And Tsarnaev deserves the death penalty as much as the next person who steals from their victims their freedom to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Somehow referring to Tsarnaev’s victims as just victims, doesn’t satisfy our indignation in this situation, so more verbiage needs to be piled on to express that disdain we feel. Yet, let us not lose focus, a victim is a victim. In the case of the Michael Brown’s and Trayvon’s, they were never victims and certainly were not innocent.
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Image: https://mariamuir.com/boston-bombing-survivor-jeff-bauman-helped-id-suspect-warning-graphic-content/
