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The Boston Marathon Bombing and the Dangers of a Bored Society
Townhall.com ^ | April 24, 2013 | Ben Shapiro

Posted on 04/24/2013 6:20:29 AM PDT by Kaslin

The American public now knows the identity of the Boston marathon bombing suspects. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was a former boxer and Chechnyan immigrant, radicalized in the United States by an Islamist mentor. He turned against the West in liberal Cambridge, Mass. His younger brother, Dzhokhar, 19, was a pot-loving college student at the University of Massachusetts.

Last Friday, Tamerlan was killed during a shootout with police after his brother reportedly ran him over with a car. Dzhokhar was captured hours later hiding in a boat. Few who knew Tamerlan seemed surprised at the news that he had masterminded the bombings of the Boston Marathon. "Of course I was shocked and surprised that he was Suspect No. 1," said Elmirza Khozhugov, the ex-husband of Tamerlan's sister, Ailina. "But after a few hours of thinking about it, I thought it could be possible that he did it."

The story was different with Dzhokhar. "He was so chill ... It's just the last person I expected," said Zach Jamous, a junior at the college. "Completely shocked." Elton Jhon Da Graca, another University of Massachusetts student, said that Dzhokhar was "The calmest kid ever ... Never in a million years would I suspect."

The media immediately leapt to the explanation that Dzhokhar was brainwashed by the more charismatic and fiery Tamerlan. ABC News reported that Dzhokhar's "teen brain" may have led to the bombing -- he was suspectible to his brother, unable to resist him in some way. David Remnick, New Yorker editor, wrote, "Tamerlan maybe felt like he didn't belong, and he might have brainwashed Dzhokhar into some radical view that twisted things in the Koran."

Assume that is correct. Who is more dangerous: Tamerlan or Dzhokhar?

The easy answer is Tamerlan. After all, it was Tamerlan who supposedly planned the event, led the Islamist charge and convinced his brother to participate.

But it's not that easy.

Tamerlan was evil; he believed in an utterly evil ideology. But he believed in something. What did Dzhokhar believe in? So far, there are fewer clues than with Tamerlan. He undoubtedly sympathized with his big brother's Islamism. But at the same time, he was generally described as a good buddy, a directionless loser with slipping grades, a successful high school athlete who had peaked.

In other words, it looks like Dzhokhar was bored, rudderless and without a moral compass. He fell in with his brother. He bought into his evil. And he murdered Americans.

This is a far more disturbing story than Tamerlan's. Angry young men like Tamerlan can be radicalized relatively easily -- it happens throughout the world, particularly in Muslim countries, where young men often find pride and identity in radicalism.

But for Americans, the problem of boredom looms larger. Boredom combined with amorality can lead to murder.

How many teenagers like Dzhokhar become gang members out of sheer nihilism? How many commit crimes because they lose touch with a sense of morality? How many losers are just waiting for their Tamerlan -- somebody to infuse them with a sense of purpose, no matter how evil the purpose?

Human beings want something in which to believe. They will fill that void however they must. But in a civilization where Western values have been derided for generations as xenophobic and intolerant, it becomes impossible to fill that void. When navel-gazing faces down passion -- even evil and misguided passion -- passion wins. Pride -- even pride in evil -- defeats multicultural angst.

No matter how difficult it is to accept, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was not created by xenophobia or hate. He was created by a culture unwilling to defend itself, and he was seduced by an aggressively evil philosophy. Unless America finds the strength to defend her values, there may be many more Dzhokhars in our future.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: bostonmarathon; dzhokhartsarnaev; islamic; radicalization; safetyandsecurity; tamerlantsarnaev; terrorism; tsarnaev

1 posted on 04/24/2013 6:20:29 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

I’ll tell you what’s been bothering me about all this since I found out both he and his brother (and mother and father, apparently) were on some sort of welfare during the period they were here since coming here as “refugees” about 10 years ago.

It appears they were on welfare. Whether TANF, SNAP, EITC, SSI (no prior SS background needed), it really doesn’t matter. This government brought them here with no guarantee of not becoming a public burden and loosed them into our entitlement cornucopia. They were ‘victims’.

Reports say they lost the welfare in 2012 (their parents apparently went back to Jihadistan sometime around then?) They (Mohamhed 1 and Mohamhed 2) became radicalized around then or shortly before?...Did they become discontented because they couldn’t suck off the teat any more or were suspicious they were about to lose it? Whatever. They were leeches, and they were ‘victims’ according to the State Department.

Well, now, thanks to the US State Department, they are still ‘victims’ - and they have created a hundred-plus others. Thanks Hillary.


2 posted on 04/24/2013 6:27:52 AM PDT by Gaffer
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To: Kaslin
We need to stop importing people into this country whose attachment to America and the American system is a lukewarm second (possibly third or fourth) to some OTHER country or system.

THAT is something a properly designed and enforced immigration system ought to accomplish. With follow up and monitoring, a turn to unwholesome and dangerous Anti-American views can be perceived even in people who came here with the most irreproachable credentials.

We're not idiots in this country, so if these thugs get past our immigration program, it is possible only because of apathy, the incompetence of officials OR resulting from the POLITICAL AGENDA of the treasonous Americans... WE elected!

3 posted on 04/24/2013 6:38:13 AM PDT by SMARTY ("The man who has no inner-life is a slave to his surroundings. "Henri Frederic Amiel)
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To: Gaffer

4 posted on 04/24/2013 6:41:30 AM PDT by Travis McGee (www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com)
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To: Travis McGee

I’m not denying they were/are sons of Islam Jihad. I’m just saying our US State Department apparently subsidized it.


5 posted on 04/24/2013 6:42:56 AM PDT by Gaffer
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To: Kaslin

“Idle Hands are the Devil’s Workshop”.

Perhaps if the older brother had held down a job instead of being on welfare and screwing around with boxing this might not have happened.


6 posted on 04/24/2013 7:11:42 AM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
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To: Kaslin
I've raised this point on a number of threads and taken a lot of sh!t for it. You can probably find the same pathology at work in people like Adam Lanza and the Columbine killers.

Robert Bork once said (it may have been in his great book, Slouching Towards Gomorrah that boredom is one of the most dangerous and under-appreciated elements of the human condition in an affluent society. One of the common threads of a lot of these cases is that the perpetrators are stunted misfits who have never been gainfully employed, have no concept of working for someting, and have no idea what it means to pay their own bills.

We can try to blame "radical Islam" all we want for an incident like this, but I contend that radical Islam probably wouldn't even exist among people who have worked for a living since they were kids.

7 posted on 04/24/2013 8:45:32 AM PDT by Alberta's Child ("I am the master of my fate ... I am the captain of my soul.")
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To: Alberta's Child
boredom is one of the most dangerous and under-appreciated elements of the human condition in an affluent society.

Theodore Dalrymple says the same thing. People with no real education, no real interests, no character, and no need to exert themselves do evil and insane things just because they can't think of anything else to do but stare at the walls.

8 posted on 04/24/2013 1:24:44 PM PDT by Tax-chick ("I think amnesty is deader than a Chechen bomber." ~ LS)
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To: Kaslin

What a load of convoluted babble.


9 posted on 04/24/2013 1:49:16 PM PDT by dragnet2 (Diversion and evasion are tools of deceit)
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To: Kaslin

it wasn’t bordom, it was Islam


10 posted on 04/24/2013 1:53:36 PM PDT by GeronL (http://asspos.blogspot.com)
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