On April 19th, 1995, a quiet loner by the name of Timothy McVeigh, blew up a government building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 innocent people. On September 1997, I wrote the piece below in my regular newspaper column, in an attempt to explain how a seemingly normal person could commit such an atrocity. I’m resurrecting this old piece on Substack because the would-be assassin of President Trump fits the profile, as one news account put it, of
Personally, I feel guilt for that. I tell myself that I was just a kid, and just went along with my friends, but I could and should have been a better kid.
"I could have reached out to them, but I didn’t."
Personally, I feel guilt for that. I tell myself that I was just a kid, and just went along with my friends, but I could and should have been a better kid.
I suspect that many, if not most of us, had a similar rationalization. I think for me, it was too much trouble to do the right thing.