http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/02/18/minister.confesses.ap/index.html
(bolding mine)
I glad he confessed, but for fuck’s sake, he’s not a goddamn hero.
What makes them think they have the right to “forgive” him?" Is that a privilege that belongs only to the victims?
Of course he’s a hero- he killed a Muslim.
As horrible as his crime was, how many other people would walk into a police station and say, “Hey, that unsolved killing fifteen years back? I did it.” With all of the purported “role models” of today stonewalling no matter how obvious the emperor’s clothes are, it’s good to see someone step up and take responsibility for their actions.
Personally, I prefer the majority of role models who don’t bother to murder anyone in the first place.
I would hope that most other people wouldn’t fucking kill anybody in the first place. I’m funny that way.
While most people don’t go around murdering grocers, they often do other not so nice things, and fight like badgers to avoid taking any responsibility for their wrongdoings.
I’m with Punoqllads, it’s refreshing to see someone actually take responsibility for their actions, rather than have responsibility crammed down their throats.
I think we all agree that confessing is at least a tiny little bit better than not confessing.
Does anybody think it makes him a hero? Or a role model?
I don’t see the point of the article- Christians, who are taught to forgive, forgive a person they know and love who did nothing to them personally. This is news?
The term “hero” is used very loosely and commonly in the USA.
He’s a role model inasmuch as that proverbial someone out there who’s done somebody wrong, and is afraid of the consequences, can look at this guy and see some part of themselves in him, and use that to take responsibility for what they’ve done. Hopefully without run-on sentences.
Good on him for owning up to his crime, but hero is not a label I would ever apply to such a person.
Whatever he once did, he is a hero today. Heros don’t have to be perfect, and some have done terrible ctrimes. But, when the chips are down, they display courage and fortitude.
In this case, he evidently came to the belief that he ought to face justice for his crimes. He accepted this not only intellectually, but faced up to it. This involves no small measure of public humiliation, the loss of freedom, the the condemnation of the legal system, not to mention the actual physical discomfort of prison, etc. And of course, put himself in a situation where he knows he is at the mercy of others.
There are few braver things I can think of. I’d certainly rather run out and fight in a war or risk my life to save someone else than be in this man’s shoes.
I think you’re using “hero” in the way I might use “person of character” or even “admirable person.” Personally, I require someone to do something beyond the bounds of what most human beings are capable of to be a hero. Merely unusual behavior that is also positive does not meet that requirement. Mere courage or honesty does not meet the requirement, either. The fact that he once did something downright rotten, while a nice contrast, has no bearing on his heroism or lack thereof.
PS: I’m restraining from correcting your spelling because I assume you know better and it would make me look like an ass, but “heros” just grates.
Might I point out his middle name is Wayne? That alone should have tipped them off.
Can you give some explaes of heroes under your criteria?
Freakin batman, dude. Not just anyone can put on tights and jump off buildings.
I think it’s great that he finally 'fessed up. And I know it was a very difficult decision. It’s great that his church is rallying around him.
But ‘hero’? Hardly.
To be a hero, you have to lay it on the line for someone else. I suspect that the reason he confessed was that his conscience was bothering him. He confessed to clear his conscience and atone. And I’m all for that. But he did it for himself.
Can we agree on a definition of ‘hero’ as someone who risks their own personal safety to come to the aid of someone else?
Seriously. I’d rather live next door to a baseball player who stonewalls over whether or not he jabbed steroids into his butt than a minister who stands up for stabbing a 64-year-old store clerk to death.
And part of me is also wondering if the people in his congregation would be calling him a hero if he’d confessed to murdering James Smith, local schoolteacher, little league coach and fellow congregation member, rather than Iqbal Ahmed, convenience store clerk that nobody knew.
I can’t think of a specific individual. How about those guys on Flight 93? Or some of the early civil rights leaders in the American South. I’m not trying to advocate an impossible standard, just a more extreme one – say the 1% at the end of the bell curve rather than the upper 25% I seem to see in the media. Assuming such things had been or even could be quantified.