J. R. Nova

I've seen keyboard jockeys in the last several days disregard the rights given by the sixth, seventh, and eighth amendments to our constitution, as they rail in anger against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

If anger is all the reason people need to throw out the constitution....

Explain to me how the average American is any different from the average political extremist or even mentally ill person. The anger and hatred that drives murderers to murder is alive and well in the hearts of millions of citizens. We're reactionaries, and the only thing that keeps "us" from doing violence to each other is a piece of paper that states we can't.

There are ways around this, of course. Wars are made legal, for instance. But get rid of the document called the Bill of Rights and America would turn into a violent extremist state faster than you or I could get sand in our eyes in an Iranian desert.

We are a violent people. We can control ourselves physically, most of the time (and when things are going smoothly), but if all of the self-righteous hate spewed on the internet every day is any indicator as to what lies in our hearts, we're on tremendously shaky ground. And the irony of that is our wondering what drives people like the Tsarnaev brothers to kill innocent people.

Next time you see someone call a liberal or a conservative an asshole, or hear someone say they'd like to see a criminal tortured, or blame an immigrant or a foreigner for America's problems, you'll have the answer.

Then you'll understand what goes on in the heads of people like Timothy McVeigh and Osama Bin Laden, and hopefully you'll realize that the only difference between people like them and people like "us" is that we can still control our anger.

But the thing about anger is that it's easier to forgive than it is to bottle it up and hope it never gets out.

And unless Americans figure out what the high road actually is, we're going to be pestered by mass murderers until the day this country finally collapses like a cancer from the inside out.

We had a great opportunity to take the high road after 9/11, when the entire world was with us, and we chose to drag the entire world down into war and bloodshed to appease our own vengeful nature. Remember that!