Reply #101: Oh, of course they don't "deserve" to be. [View All]

[tomreedtoon]

Just the same way that children who play in a street full of traffic don't deserve to be hit. But if those kids are playing in the street, see one of their friends hit and killed by a car, and then go back to playing in the street...well, I'm sure there's some kind of continuum between ignorance and stupidity, and with each succeeding incident they edge to the stupid side of the spectrum.

(By the way, the "playing in the street" metaphor came from Philip K. Dick, science fiction author and drug addict. In his book "A Scanner Darkly," he added a nonfictional postscript. And said, "Drug abuse is not a disease; it is a conscious choice, like the choice to step in front of a moving car." I think the same phenomenon is functioning in matters of the heart.)