The Art of the Left Hook: Guns, Humanity, and Politics Guest Blog by Joe Katzman "Liberalism, by the inner dynamic of its logic, was forced to become an instrument of social control in order to avoid the chaos which it created by its own erosion of tradition and morals. Democratic man could not be left to his own devices; chaos would result. The logic was clear. If there is no God, there can be no religion; if there is no religion, there can be no morals; if there are no morals, there can be no self-control; if there is no self-control, there can be no social order; if there is no social order, there can be nothing but the chaos of competing desire. But we cannot have chaos, so therefore we must institute behavioral control in place of the traditional structures of the past — tradition, religion, etc. Abolishing tradition, religion and morals and establishing "scientific" social control are one and the same project." — E. Michael Jones, Libido Dominandi - Sexual Liberation and Political Control As I think about the Sandy Hook massacre, I keep coming back to 3 different facets. One is human. One is policy. One is politics. Sadly, in what's left of our republic, they no longer overlap. But they're all there, all the same. Dealing with each of them in turn may help readers tie several posts here at Blackfive together into a larger picture, understand what has gone wrong since the shootings, and get more clarity on the way forward. Consider it my offering as a long-time reader; I trust that it will well repay your time with interest. We'll begin with the human side...(after the Jump). The person who has swelled most in my thoughts over the last few days is the shooter's mother, Nancy Lanza. The one who knew something was wrong with her son, who grew up with that knowing. The one who tried to help him, because he he was her boy. Because she loved him. The one who had no help herself. The one who was left to twist in the wind by a carefully architected system of half-measures and studied inaction. Maybe she was careless with the tools she thought might protect her in the last resort, as media coverage implies. Maybe she took reasonable precautions, and found that they were not enough. Either way, she died at the hands of her own son. Shot 4 times. In the head. It is something inexpressibly sad, something that accuses us as well as her. Maybe that's why you hear so little about it, and almost never as an issue. Certainly not from a President whose agenda would be inconvenienced. Or from memorial services whose bells ring 26 times - but she was victim #1, and that makes 27. So where do you hear about it? From your fellow citizens caught in the same hell, who are beginning to stand up and say "I am Adam Lanza's Mother." Find their stories. Read their stories. You owe them that much. Even as the larger issues beckon, and one notes the trend for these sprees: linear, and upward, consistently upward. Counting only American incidents with at least 2 casualties, there were 18 in the 1980s. Then 54 in the 1990s, and 87 in the 2000s. Why? Guns have become harder to buy, and serious psychoses aren't spiraling in the population. Is it that bad economic times produce despair? Funny, but I don't recall the 1990s that way. So where's the engine? What's different? Where, as they say in the policy trade, is the delta? Mental illness does play a role. A 2000 New York Times study of 100 rampage murderers found that 47 were mentally ill. A 2001 paper from U. Berkeley took things a step beyond, and argued that 1/3 of the state-to-state variation in homicide rates is attributable to the strength or weakness of involuntary civil-commitment laws. After reading Froggy's "Gun Control vs. Teh Crazy," you cam believe that, but he himself points out that the big change in the way we treat the mentally ill happened long before the 1980s, and has been set for a long time. In 2012, I can't see that as the delta, either. So what has changed? Evan Sayet is on to part of it, as he discusses 2 generations of children explicitly conditioned to avoid making judgements, or to use moral norms beyond "obey the rules and those who make them." Iterate that process, and E. Michael Jones' quote above tells us what comes next. Then there's the media, the culture. In "The Dark Night Rises," Peggy Noonan made an insightful point about the culture being something we used to send our kids out to play in. She didn't put it this way, but that kind of culture is also a kind of safety net when personal circumstances don't measure up, offering a refuge of sorts and a view of better possibilities. Now? "Violence is different, I said, because there are unstable people among us, and they are less defended against dark cultural messages. The borders of the minds of the unstable are more porous. They let the darkness in." They do, and Carl Cannon has the research. Did I enjoy all of the Lethal Weapon movies? Absolutely. I'll even give Gangsta rap credit for having its its musical moments, and the Gourds' bluegrass cover of Snoop Dogg still makes me chuckle. At the same time, gangsta rap's trajectory of popularity and influence tracks more or less directly with the rampage murder curve, doesn't it? Yet all of gangsta rap put together is just one creek feeding a larger river. Violence and dehumanization from visual media sources continue to climb in pervasiveness, intensity, and accessibility. Even as 24/7 news coverage elevates each psychotic. The smiling media, Piers Morgan and the lot of them, all broadcasting at full volume the template for the next killer's celebrity, and a simple invitation: Figure out how to...
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Posted
Dec 22 2012, 05:32 AM
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