Excuses, Excuses

Working in an elementary school affords me endless opportunities to hear a litany of excuses for the many and sundry offenses that life offers up in our hallways, classrooms and playground. "Why did you punch him in the head?"
"He was messin' with me."
"Messin' with" seems to cover a large variety of perceived slights, most of which cannot be adequately described by your garden variety eight to twelve year old. I recommend that no one messes with anyone so that no one will end up getting punched in the head.
Another frequently heard line of reasoning is this: "My mom told me I had to (fill in the blank)." Most of the time this is used to explain why a larger student has chosen to inflict some sort of bodily harm on a smaller, but usually more annoying classmate. This, I am told, is "fighting back" because his or her parents insist that they "defend themselves." About half of the time, a phone call home reveals that the kid is simply reflecting back the training that they have soaked up at home.
You get the idea. Kids will be kids. And Congressmen will be congressmen - then send filthy text messages to kids. Former Republican Representative (former for both, I suspect, since the Republicans have already voted them off their island) Mark Foley said, through his lawyer, that he was molested between ages thirteen and fifteen. He declined to identify the clergyman or the church, but Foley is Roman Catholic. At this point, savor our Constitutionally guaranteed separation between church and state.
Charles Carl Roberts IV, the psychopath who shot up the Amish school yesterday, explained in his suicide note that the death of his prematurely born daughter in 1997 haunted him. "I haven't been the same since it affected me in a way I never felt possible. I am filled with so much hate, hate toward myself hate towards God and unimaginable emptyness it seems like everytime we do something fun I think about how Elise wasn't here to share it with us and I go right back to anger." That's why he felt compelled to go to an Amish school and molest and torture young girls before he took his own life. A sad, sick story.
What can we learn from this moral train wreck of a week? Maybe accepting responsibility for one's actions is a lesson best learned early in life. Before age thirteen. Before getting elected to Congress.