> > ... and THESE are the children who grow up to be mass-murderers and get sentenced to death.
>
> This is so insidiously untrue as to be offensive.

To try to be fair to Julian, I think he was trying to be ironic and exaggerate the point, which was that we as a society put unfair expectations on the parents to support their children without outside help and then show no mercy to those children who, because of a poor family structure, end up fitting badly into society.

Which is an idea I agree with, kind of (though not to the point of advocating government-raised children a la Plato's _The Republic_ or even the hyperintrusive programs of some far-left Democrats), but the way he said it was incredibly inappropriate, definitely crossed the line, and probably obliterated the point he was trying to make. (No personal offense, Julian. I've said worse things myself without meaning to.)

And it's certainly not an excuse for Tim McVeigh or people like him. (After all, McVeigh had a bad family life, but many people have had much worse and come out much, much better, and many mass-murderers come from fairly affluent backgrounds. I'm really not comfortable with behavioralism; it seems highly unscientific and based largely on prejudice.)

Ar"hey, this post was kind of shorter than the others; or am I just being paranoid now? It feels like freshman English again, trying to pare down to length requirements; I wonder if anyone's made their 'middle name .sig' longer than their actual post? Well, here's not the place to try it"thur