Am I the only one who was in the Seed who for the past 30 years has not agonized, berated, belittled, dispaired or beat myself up because of a short 9 month window in my life? If you met me today, you would never know that I didn't arrive where I am by the natural process of growth. I am who I have become because of the sum total of my life experiences, mistakes and successes during this process called life. To blame the Seed and that short window in time for everything that may or may not have gone wrong in my life would be ridiculous. We all make cognizant decisions in our lives, right, wrong or indifferent because we can - check out Adam and Eve. To blame time spent in the Seed as the reason for Jason Walton committing a mass murder is unthinkable to me. He chose his life path, he chose to commit a murder. During my time at the Seed, no one ever raised a hand in violence toward me, nor did I ever see any form of violence toward anyone else. No one was ever a proponent of violence during my time in the Seed. No back rooms, no spitting, no beatings, nothing, never an ounce of physical violence toward anyone. In my simple mind, to compare the Seed to Straight is like running along two parallel lines, that will never intersect. I've read the posts from both, and particularly in the Straight posts, each one is more outlandish than the one before. It's like group hysteria. I just don't buy it. The bottom line for me is, there is never an excuse for murder, never, regardless of someones circumstances or a short window of time spent at the Seed. (Read - A Boy Called It - for a take on changing ones life in the face of extreme agony.) I've spent too many years working for criminal and civil lawyers now to buy into the blame game routine. And as a proponent of the Death Penalty, it will be a good day in Florida when another murderer is gone and the state doesn't have to support him. Jason Walton made his choice, now he dies by the consequences.
