Excellent post, BrownFloyd! And welcome to the boards!

Quote Originally Posted by Torog
....the un-provoked attack on the Twin Towers....
Well, there you have it Torog... If you think it was unprovoked then I doubt you'll ever see it any other way, but think about this analargy for a second...


We're in a playground at a Primary School (Elementary School). There's a boy standing alone in the corner of the playground. In the opposite corner there are a large group of boys, obviously the 'popular' kids. One of them spots the lone child at the other side of the playground, and, because he looks different, acts different, sounds different, talks different, then the popular guy automatically dislikes him. As the week progresses this guy starts to bully the other kid incessantly. He tells him what to do, where to go, how to act, and never fears that this little kid might one day retalliate.

The bullying continues without coming to a head, but one day another child sees what is happening and doesn't like it. The next time the big, popular guy goes to strike out against his victim, the other child comes along and attacks him first. He punches and kicks him as hard as he can, though he's alot smaller and weaker than his opponent, but he does his best to inflict as much damage as he can in the only way he can. Then he runs off, and the tough guy is left cut and bruised and shocked.

Obviously he tells his friends what happened, but of course in his opinion this was an unprovoked attack. As far as he's concerned, some random kid just attacked him for absolutely no reason. Of course he'll never bother to link his attackers behaviour with his own behaviour towards his victim.

I could go on but I think you get my point. Does this scenario sound familiar?

Sound familiar?