Sorry… this is a rant. I am so sick of people who pop off without thinking about situations about which they know very little.

It’s a pleasantly cool, sunny, Saturday morning here in Germany, and Bill and I have a lunch date for later today. There are probably a whole bunch of inspirational or interesting topics I could write about this morning, but I’ve decided to comment, yet again, on something that happened on Facebook last night. It does have to do with current events, though, so that’s why I’m writing this post today.

If you’ve been paying attention to the news, you might have read or heard, yesterday, about the result of Lindsay Clancy’s triple murder trial. Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse, and Massachusetts mother of three, killed her three young children in 2023. It’s been widely reported that Ms. Clancy had post-partum psychosis and bipolar disorder, and she was taking a vast array of drugs that might have influenced her decision to kill her children. After the children died, Ms. Clancy cut her wrists and then jumped from a second story window. She’s now a paraplegic, and confined to a wheelchair.

I confess that I have not been paying especially close attention to this case. I’ve read a few articles about it, and I know something about post-partum psychosis, bipolar disorder, and psychotropic drugs. These cases usually include other mitigating details that influence how the public sees them, and their outcomes. It appears that Lindsay Clancy’s case is one of those.

Clancy’s story has been very polarizing, in part because American women are fighting to retain their basic human rights, and American men are “outraged” about women having the “right” to kill their children. 🙄 A lot of it has to do with conservative men feeling like women literally get away with murder (ie. choosing abortion)– while they are always on the hook (ie. paying child support).

So, last night, I happened to see a post by KPRC2 Click2Houston, an NBC affiliate out of Houston, Texas. I read through the usual outraged and offended comments from the peanut gallery. Since this was a Texas outlet, it didn’t surprise me that most people who commented on that post are very angry that eleven out of twelve jurors voted to acquit Lindsay Clancy.

The trial ended in a mistrial, because one man serving on the jury refused to side with the majority. It’s been reported that the man stated that he had reasonable doubt regarding Clancy’s guilt, but he could not bring himself to vote to acquit her. The judge declined to remove the juror from the case, so it’s likely that Clancy will have to be retried.

Although I disagree with those who wholeheartedly believe Clancy is a cold, vicious, murderer, I didn’t bother to opine. I figured it would be a waste of time. But then I saw a comment from a man named Bobby:

i hope that every mother that supports this woman that unalived her kids has their kids unalived. Then the killer goes free. Lets see if they will support their kids killer.

🫪

WHAT?!

I mean… just reading that comment, one already knows that Bobby isn’t a mental giant. But then I considered what he was actually saying in those words. And before I knew it, I was responding thusly:

What an utterly nonsensical comment.

Not surprisingly, Bobby apparently didn’t reread what he wrote and consider why I commented the way I did. He wrote this:

idgaf. i dont see how any parent can condone a mother unaliving her kids. Any mother that supports that. Doesn’t deserve to be a parent.

I don’t think anyone “condones” what Clancy did. It’s just that some of us understand that mental illness is a real thing that can spiral out of control, especially when there are multiple psychiatric drugs and healthcare providers involved, as there reportedly were in this case. Moreover, most of us weren’t in the courtroom, and didn’t see or hear the testimony. It’s really something when eleven people decide to acquit in a tragic case like this, even in “liberal” Massachusetts.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, Andrea Yates was tried and convicted in Texas for murdering her five children. And a few years later, the conviction was overturned and she was deemed “not guilty by reason of insanity”. Why? Because, just as it is in Clancy’s case, there was ample evidence that Yates repeatedly tried to get help, and she legitimately suffered from post-partum psychosis. She’s spent the last twenty years in a psychiatric hospital. Like Clancy, Yates was also a nurse.

But anyway, I left Bobby a parting shot, because what he wrote seriously doesn’t compute:

If you are so outraged about those children being killed, why would you wish the same fate for other children? That makes no sense to me.

Yeah… Naturally, he declined to respond, which is probably a good thing for him. As you can see, I have lot to “say” about it.

The more I thought about what Bobby posted, and considered the actual situation he posted about, I realized that his off the cuff, ill considered comment pretty much illustrates why Clancy might have been found “not guilty” by the jurors.

Consider this. Bobby, who no doubt thinks his comment was in support of the innocent children in this case, was actually advocating for more children to be killed. Why did he do that? Because of his supposed “outrage” that a group of people– who were actually in the courtroom, listening to the proceedings— dared to come to a different conclusion than he did.

Instead of empathizing with the potentially killed children of mothers who “condone murder”– living, sentient, innocent beings that they are– Bobby focused his outrage at any mother who doesn’t want to send Clancy to prison for life. He popped off without consideration. He treated those hypothetical children as objects to be used as punishment for “thought crimes”.

He posted a comment that probably felt right at the time, but when you actually think about the words, convey something very disturbing. It’s pretty clear to me that Bobby doesn’t actually care about children. My guess is that, in fact, he doesn’t like women.

Looking at Bobby’s profile, I see that he lives in Houston, but comes from Morgan City, Louisiana. He’s single. He’s publicly posted about the recently dead celebrities, like Tim Curry, Dolly Parton, and Hayden Panetierre. He has a goofy grin, as he poses, seatbelted, in a vehicle. He’s probably “nice” if you meet him offline.

Like so many other members of the American public, he’s indignant about Lindsay Clancy potentially “getting away with” killing her children. It evidently doesn’t matter to him that Clancy had sought help from multiple healthcare providers. He apparently doesn’t realize that mental illness distorts people’s thinking and can cause them to take drastic actions they would not ordinarily take.

Based on what Bobby wrote, he just thinks Lindsay Clancy is a monster who needs to be locked up. Forget about all of the evidence showing that she tried to be responsible, and was so distraught over her actions that she violently attempted suicide. She will never recover fully from what she did on January 24, 2023.

None of that matters to Bobby. To Bobby, Lindsay is the lowest form of life… until the next outrageous case comes along, and he forgets all about her, and what she’s done. 🙄

Bobby is so “offended” by Lindsay’s actions, and feels such a strong need to virtue signal to the rest of us, that he actually called for more children to be killed! Why? Because some people who are parents don’t agree with Bobby’s clearly “correct” take on things. And as you can see, Bobby is a legal and medical genius. 🙄

I’ll bet he really only meant the mothers who disagree with him, too. There have been many cases of men killing their children, but they rarely get the same level of press coverage as women do. Most people just expect women to be “gentler”, I guess. 😏

So… let’s review…

* Bobby thinks Lindsay Clancy is a cold-blooded killer who deserves, at the very least, to be “put away” forever.

* He is likely in favor of capital punishment and would be all for it in this case.

* He is OUTRAGED that other adults… people who can probably write coherent sentences… don’t agree with his assessment.

* He thinks that people who don’t think Lindsay ought to rot in prison “condone” murdering children.

* He believes that those who “condone” murdering children should not be parents.

* Bobby says that those who “condone” murdering children should also experience the extreme grief of having their own children “unalived”, as he put it, and the killer “going free” (which Clancy has not). 🤬

* Bobby ignores the fact that the children whom he thinks should be “unalived” as retribution for their parent’s (mother’s) disagreement with him, also have another parent, friends, and loved ones who might not share the same opinion as the person who has so upset Bobby with theirs.

Have I got this right? Does this make sense to any of my readers?

And I wonder what, exactly, Bobby thinks would be the end result of such an idea? More people outraged. More people grieving. More violence. More people on trial and potentially incarcerated. More people getting a dopamine or serotonin spike from posting about it on Facebook… and in a few months, those same outraged people will have forgotten all about this case. They will have already moved on to the next rage baiting headline that they’ve never bothered to read beyond. 😏

If I had engaged Bobby further, I might point out to him that his response actually illustrates why Clancy’s case wasn’t a “slam dunk”. He, himself, spouted off crazy nonsense in the heat of the moment. It came off as utter bullshit. Someone called him out on it. He doubled down. Then, after a moment of reflection, he backed off and crawled back under his rock.

I might also point out that Bobby has demonstrated why it’s not just us “women” who are emotional reactors… because I’ve seen a lot of creepy conservative types claiming that because of Lindsay Clancy, women shouldn’t be allowed to vote. 🤬 But obviously, there are some unstable, moronic, irrational and impulsive guys out there, too. Being logical and having a clear state of mind is not dependent on whether or not a person has a penis.

People make mistakes. Sometimes, those mistakes are true whoppers. I’m not saying Lindsay Clancy shouldn’t face consequences for her actions, but we have to temper justice with mercy, and we have to consider the actual facts, rather than simply surrendering to emotion and outrage. People need to read beyond the headlines and listen beyond sound bytes before they spout off their bullshit. No matter what, more violence– especially toward innocent children– is not the answer to making things right again.