1 Apr 24
“Never ruin an apology with an excuse”
Ben Franklin
“True repentance,” or merely “excuse-making?”
On 23 Mar 24 in Texas, a twelve-year-old boy entered the garage of an elderly woman and precipitously stabbed her (nearly to death).
The woman surely would have died had her own son not checked on her a short time later.
The perpetrator was arrested the same day.
The mother of the boy who did the stabbing was subsequently interviewed.
She claims her son “struggles with mental-health problems”
She continues, “He’s just a boy… we learn from our mistakes”
Curiously, she expresses not a whisper of sympathy for the permanently disabled/disfigured victim of her son’s vicious attack.
So, a savage attempted murder is now a “mistake!”
A “mistake” is when we forget to dot the “i,” or cross the “t.” Attempted murder is not a “mistake.” It’s a crime, and we don’t call murderers “mistake-makers.”
We call them “criminals!”
“Repentance” describes a deliberate, positive, self-imposed change in attitude and behavior. True repentance is very rare.
“Excuse-making,” which is much more common, merely solicits sympathy for willful misbehavior, which will obviously continue.
Violent criminal behavior is now being routinely rationalized, explained/excused-away as being due to “mental-health problems”
So, a murderous knife-wielding attacker is actually “an (otherwise) nice guy, who just had ‘mental-issues’ that day”
The lie thus begins!
“… no trouble losing, when you have a good excuse… all you gotta do is learn to feel sorry for yourself, one of the best indoor sports… a sport enjoyed by all, especially born losers.”
Bert Gordon (played by George C Scott) to “Fast Eddie” Felson (played by Paul Newman) in the 1961 feature
film, “The Hustler”
/John