Monday, October 02, 2006
|
|
Where Do These Killers Come From?
|
|
Posted by:
Hugh Hewitt at
5:37 PM
|
|
Today's massacre in the village of Paradise, in Lancaster County Pennsylvania is just the most recent in a string of killings by individuals on rampages --killers who did not intend on getting away, but who were just out for blood. Last week a high school official was killed at a school in Wisconsin by a 15 year old, and another child was murdered and others assaulted by a homeless maniac in Bailey Colorado. On September 15, a gunman in Montreal killed one and wounded 19 before killing himself. Before that a driver ran down 14 victims and killed one on August 30 in the streets of San Francisco and another shooter killed one and shot six others on July 28 at the Jewish Community Center in Seattle.
Here is a timeline of school shootings worldwide, which begins on February 2, 1996. After a decade of these assaults and similar rampages, is there any consensus on what marks the profile of the non-political killers? "We are reaching that stage of desensitization at which the infliction of pain and suffering has become a source of entertainment: vicarious pleasure rather than revulsion," West Point Professor David Grossman wrote in his 1996 book On Killing. "We are learning to kill, and we are learning to like it."
The execution of Amish little girls is another basement of horror. What has poisoned the minds of these people so deeply as to set off such awful scenes?
UPDATE:
Dr. Helen Smith is a clinical pschologist who has written extensively in the area of school killers, though with an emphasis on teenage gunmen.
And Killology is a web site run by Professor David Grossman mentioned above.
|
|
|
Where does this come from? How about about the fact that the USA worships violence? If Britain had the same population as the US, then that would translate into 500 murders per year. Instead, there were more than 10,000 people killed with guns in the US last year. The US sees violence as the answer to everything. Someone committed a crime, well then let's kill them. Wanna watch a movie, well it's got to include someone being shot. Crimes going up, well I better get a gun so a I can shoot someone before they shoot me. This isn't a single issue problem, but no ones making an attempt to work on any of the real problems. |
|
It's amazing. There is a whole world out there in the drug scene that didn't exist when I was around it in the 70's.
The abuse of these drugs is rampant in Houston. Xanex is called "bars". Those who use them on a regular basis are called "bar babies". They take several at a time, and when they can't get them, go into rages and cut themselves, attempt suicide, etc.
I know of one man who takes 10 a day. He regularly throws his whole family out on the street, only to sob and ask them to come back when he comes down. We have put up his girls several times while he comes to his senses.
One person I know was shooting high powered rifles at 2 AM. My understanding from people close to me who use them, is when you're on them, you have no conscience whatsoever. You see a bracelet in the store, you put it in your purse, you walk out not even remembering you did so. You hit someone on the street in your car, you don't even remember the next day. Everything is blacked out.
Nice, huh? |
|
|
You were right not to totally accept your Budhist friend's statement at face value. In the 1980s I lived in Korea for two years. At that time there was a Budhist temple controlled by a group of monks who were opposed by another group of Budhist monks. The temple was surrounded by a wrought-iron fence with pickets made like spears with each picket having an arrowhead on one end. The opposing monks ripped these pickets from the fence and impaled one another in a brawl on national TV. Budhists are human just like everyone else. The most truely pacifist Koreans I met were Presbyterian. |
|
Few, if any of us in the "outside" world are in a position to help the Amish families affected by this murder spree.
Fortunately, there is sufficient trust between the Amish and Mennonites that something is being accomplished. Read this, from http://www.mcc.org
Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) and Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) express their deep sympathy and prayers for families affected by the Oct. 2 shooting at an Amish school in Nickel Mines.
Both organizations are in contact with Amish community leaders and are offering support through a joint response.
MCC and MDS are accepting financial contributions to assist the affected community. Contributions may be made by phone, by mail or online. (See information below.)
Contributions to the Amish School Recovery Fund will help the affected community with medical care, transportation, supportive care and other needs.
"We call upon churches to unite in prayer and support for the Amish community at this time," said Kevin King, MDS executive director.
Ken Sensenig, assistant director of MCC East Coast, visited Amish community members after the shooting and said he is observing their resilience and is impressed with their response.
Families banded together to provide emotional support and tend to immediate needs, such as milking cows while parents rushed to the hospital, Sensenig said. Many non-Amish neighbors helped by giving rides to hospitals.
"What impresses me is how strong this community is in the face of terrible tragedy," Sensenig said.
For more information, contact Scott Sundberg, director of communications for MDS, at (717) 859-2210, (717) 917-8827 or ssundberg@mds.mennonite.net, or contact Larry Guengerich, media/education coordinator for MCC, at (717) 333-2826 or lrg@mcc.org.
Tax-deductible donations can be made through MCC and MDS.
|
|
I had no idea these antidepressants had any abuse potential. Thanks for the information. Here in Baltimore, the drug problem seems to be heroin and cocaine.
Certainly anti depressants have saved lives when appropriately prescribed and used. Although I do wonder about a world where so many people require medication for what are loosely called mood disorders. Seems to me that perhaps it's the world which is disordered, and that depression is the naturally appropriate reaction to that disorder. But it's easier to change a few thousand people chemically than to make things "right," overall, I suppose.
I'm in complete agreement with you about the desirability of arming teachers, at least those who are willing to defend themselves and their charges.
It's safe to say that whatever horror those little girls experienced, they are now in a state of grace. The loss of innocence for the Amish adult community will be impossible to predict. |
|
Gun control will not stop this. It certainly is not about boys sitting when they pee (although that is a crazy position for any school to impose on young boys). It is not about some weird policy position of the United States.
It is about evil and there is no explanation why it happens. We have school shootings. Iraq has IUDs and lunatics who blow up mosques. Other countries have out of control criminal groups than run wild. |
|
Stan47 says: I have had quite a bit of direct experience with depression and the people who suffer it. I know of NONE who ever harbored thoughts of murdering anyone beside themselves. Nor have I seen any who were made worse by the use of the anti-depressant meds. Some were not helped, but more were.
Stan, maybe you don't know this, but there is an epidemic of street use of Xanex, called "bars". I know of many people who abuse them, and when they take too many, are beyond reason, doing things even they can't believe they did when they come down.
And why does what I said somehow excuse the shooter? If what I proposed as an answer to Hugh's question is true, how does that excuse the idiot who abused the drugs in the first place?
I just wish the teacher had been heavily armed. Maybe it wouldn't have gone the way it did.
Of course, the Libs probably would have labeled the Amish "Right Wing Expremest", and soon the ACLU would have been suing the Amish for excessive force, and the headline would have been "Crazed Amish Militant Teacher Ambushes Democratic Fundraiser" and...
|
|
Writes about "cowardly religious passifism [sic]" without much idea what he is talking about.
There are at least three different flavors of pacifism.
The Cindy Sheehan flavor, in which you talk a great story, but suck up to every dictator who will find your idiocy useful.
The Rosie O'Donnell variety, in which you are willing to hire an armed bodyguard to protect you, while denying self-protection to those unable to afford a bodyguard. There is a particular cowardice in a person who expects to be protected by law enforcement people putting themselves at risk, while refusing to assume any responsibility for her own safety.
The "true" religious pacifism, in which a person decides that the importance of his individual life does not outweigh the harm to be done by forceably resisting an evil-doer.
The Amish in particular expect no "protection" from the police; they assume that their lives, separate and apart from the mainstream, will encounter no evil such as that which occurred yesterday.
A variation on this is the urban Mennonite/Catholic Worker Party variety of pacifism, in which an individual seeks an alternative solution to violence. There's an excellent book about this philosophy, written by Dave Jackson. It's entitled "Dial 911: Peaceful Christians and Urban Violence." Jackson describes a number of examples where his inner-city community was threatened by a bad-guy, and where by refusing to react even by calling the police, and instead attempting to engage the bad-guy, they achieved a favorable result. I have spoken with people who espouse this way of thinking, and I'll tell you there is nothing cowardly about facing down an armed robber or rapist and refusing either to cooperate or resist him. This requires far more courage than I would be able to summon; I'd reach for the nearest weapon, improvised or otherwise. I have tremendous respect for people who operate this way. The Jackson book is out of print, but can be found on Bookfinder. It's worth reading.
|
|
Writes "How long until we pay the extra $20 to fly on American Airlines because they stood by their stewardess when she asked a homosexual couple to refrain from public affection during the flight?"
This statement is completely O.T., but it does bear asking why any particular personal display of affection is more offensive when it occurs between a same-sex couple as between a heterosexual couple. I don't care to watch anything that ought to be kept private, without regard to who is doing it.
|
|
Foxywizard: "I would be willing to bet that behind at least half of these killings was someone on Xanex, or Paxil."
Assuming that were true, would it indicate that the drugs were the cause of the murderous behavior, or that it occurred because the drugs did not adequately "cure" the illness for which they were prescribed?
I have had quite a bit of direct experience with depression and the people who suffer it. I know of NONE who ever harbored thoughts of murdering anyone beside themselves. Nor have I seen any who were made worse by the use of the anti-depressant meds. Some were not helped, but more were.
This is second-guessing, but if the evil milkman had simply wanted to have committed suicide-by-cop, he could more easily have precipitated it by killing his own children.
|
|
It started with a guy shooting everyone in a Montreal Community College; it moved to a High School in Colorado, now some poor Amish girls were gunned down by a sick suicidal man. Two years back it was John Muhammad and John Lee Malvo.
Recently, a female school principal ordered the boys in her school not to stand up while urinating.
We have practically abandoned the education of boys to women.
Many fathers are absent from their boys life
Some feminist even question the need for a father.
Fathers mostly don’t know how to raise a man anymore.
The liberal segment of our society absolutely depends for its very existence on the prevalence of a pacifist attitude.
Men and macho attitudes are constantly debased in the culture.
Homer Simpson is the archetype for a father and the metro-sexual man is the archetype of the single guy.
Some Muslims are waging war over what they perceive as an assault on his manly prerogatives; fighting for the survival of a warrior culture.
And we are supposed to be surprised by the fact that a few men have a violent psychotic reaction at not being able to find a socially acceptable outlet to their alienation and sense of being devalued by their civilization?
These acts represent the cowardice of evil doers who strike at girls for their grudge against grown up women, but they also represent the worst effects of a malaise in the culture.
Men used to be able to freely express their emotions while women had to socially suppress their feelings and sexuality. Men used to have space, sites and institutions in which to socialize their aggression and be at ease with the dark side of their nature.
The terms of the equation have swiftly reversed. Currently, the boundary between being a sexist pig and a manly dude is increasingly blurred.
Man suicide is on the rise. We used to be able to put up with a lot more without cracking up. Now there seems to be many who still have the driven aggression while lacking the manly inner strength.
|
|
I would be willing to bet that behind at least half of these killings was someone on Xanex, or Paxil, one of those miracle drugs that "balance your brain chemistry".
Anyone willing to take the bet?
He was probably "barred up". |
|
...obviously having guns in one's possession facilitates mass murder. A single person can't effectively kill large groups of people in a confined location with knives, cricket bats, rope, or battleaxes. This despicable scum was in legitimate possession of his weapons.
Obviously, the murder rate and incidences of mass murder are far higher in the US than in other Western nations. The only correlate to this is possession of firearms. However, the fact is that a tiny majority of those possessing firearms are completely amoral and will commit horrific acts against defenseless people. So I guess the only prescription is to promote self-defense, especially as the police are so incapable of action (unless you're illegally parked). This is the fatal flaw in the Amish culture.
The guns are out there, and will not be willingly turned in in large numbers, and since criminals, who believe that they are persecuted and misunderstood, will continue to use firearms, we as good citizens have to unite to defend ourselves against this kind of evil.
Yeah, I know "an armed society is a polite society," but it's also a fearful society. I don't like the fact that I have a concealed carry permit, and I don't think it's an aspect of this dying culture to be proud of. I could go on about the seeds of violence, but I'll reserve that for another blog. |
|
|
DavidRands & Mutaman.......................... once again it must be those unregulated guns' fault...guess again, do you have any ideas that make sense? The schools should have figured out that they have failed in many ways and especially in protecting students from this type of murder. As everyone knows Law Enforcement is of no help until afterwards, unarmed School Guards are of minimal help and every other adult in a school are also unarmed. The idiotcy of the gun grabbers ignore the evidence that self defense is the only thing that would have possibly saved lives in these school shootings as well as in many other crimes. Why is NY, Chicago, Detroit and Washington DC rife with crimes against unharmed citizens, could it be that the victims had no way to defend themselves? There's substantial evidence that cities, states and countries that do not enfringe on their citizens right to self defense, ie; to be armed are safer with less crime, especially homocides and as a bonus much less prone to democides, murder by government. When are the gun-grabbers going to wake up. |
|
You can blame influences like culture, video games, naughty pictures, the media and bad parenting, but in the end you assume that everyone is an impressionable idiot waiting to be pushed to murder.
Every murderer murders because he or she is 'offended' at something. They are slaves to their egos, and they will force others to be one too.
Murderers would love for people to become sensitive to violence because that would mean they can more easily control hostages in a situation. So you can forget censorship. What we need to censor is this trailer park fringe-science that claims censorship is the answer to violence.
People are too stubborn to do anything meaningful about violence. And everyone has their own rationalization for being stubborn. Most of the time, I believe, it's pacifism. And many pacifist people read the Bible as a pacifism manual instead of as a motivational guide to fight evil.
Jesus wasn't a pacifist: He threw moneychangers out the temple, and He obstructed a rioting crowd from stoning a woman. He confronted offendable people and offended them until they murdered Him. And nobody tried to stop them.
2000 years later, nothing's changed. |
|
I know it seems that way, but it's really not. Charles Whitman killed 13 people from the top of the Main Building at the University of Texas (Austin) in 1966, four decades ago. And nearly four decades before that, in 1927, a disgruntled school board member named Andrew Kehoe bombed Bath Consolidated School in Bath Township, Michigan, killing 45 people, most of them students.
These attacks seem worse now because there was no instant news in 1966 or 1927; it was either a brief blurb on TV/radio or a spread in the next day's newspaper. CNN and FOX News weren't going wall-to-wall with it, giving impressionable and unstable youths twisted ideas to earn Andy Warhol's 15 minutes of fame.
Think about it: you still know their names. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris are more famous than any of their victims, except maybe Cassie Bernall, whose (inaccurate) story of martyrdom became the book /She Said Yes/.
There is a deep-seated reason why humans do such awful things, and I wish it could be something so simple as to be an easily-fixed feature of our modern lifestyle. But the examples of Whitman and Kehoe prove that it's not. In the end, human beings are all flawed, and all have the capacity to do great evil as well as good. Thankfully, those who do great evil are limited in number. |
|
First of all thank you for the decent and thoughtful discussion that is taking place here. It is discussion followed by action that will ultimately help to make our kids safer and our society more enjoyable. I have been fortunate enough to have lived in Japan for over a decade and have seen the positive side of gun laws. Personally I think handguns should be controlled. However, I don't think that is what the discussion should be about. Falling into the talking points of gun control isn't moving anyone any nearer to actually dealing with the causes of the problem. In Japan, there are no guns, so decapitation or burning victims is used instead. The problem isn't the method of the madness, but the madness itself. The problem is that we are addicted to the smut our society is putting out. Violence and pornography, just like heroin and meth are highly addictive substances. They affect the brain's production of chemicals and the media outlets know it. Movie-makers have hard science telling them that a movie will do better with sex and violence. Television news stations know people will watch the guy acting recklessly, and we in turn reinforce our brains, and the brains of all those watching that this is the whole reality. Now for the vast majority of us this is not terribly upsetting. Our brains are mature enough to understand that we are getting only a part of the story. To others though, that distinction is lost, and we are flooding more and more minds at younger and younger ages with the images of sexy women holding cases of money and all we have to do is pick a number, women doing whatever they can to win a rose from someone they've only said 3 words to and now are sure they will marry, or advertisements telling us that a little pill will make whatever ails us disappear with only the possible side-effects of severe heart problems. We present a picture that shows the world as an extremely violent and sensual place, and alternately as a paradise for those who have it all. When someone cannot see the difference between the real world with all its trials and daily struggles and the extremes of the pictures painted for them, there is a disconnect and we get to deal with increased suicide, drug use, and violence as people try to conform the real world into what they've come to believe it should be. Whether Australia, Japan, Iraq, or the United States it is the same. The media culture is upon us. I think Australia may be a bit luckier because there may be 20 years to act before things get this bad. Japan is rapidly changing and it will be interesting to see what the new Prime Minister can do to change it. When it comes down to it though it is only the masses that can change it. We are the ones feeding the beasts. We are the ones buying viagara like it is the newest flavor of candy. Can the American people turn the tap off? In my humble opinion, it is the people who must speak.
guns are irrelevant. |
|
"Do you honestly believe that not having a gun would have made him decide not to do what he did? "
Ah, it wouldn't have hurt.
|
|
My post actually said that gun laws are not the answer (although obviously the lack of weapons makes it harder to commit the crime!) - I cited the number of cases against the percentage of population - no one could argue that if this were some sort of sad competition the USA would win hands down - time and time again, interupted only by a case here or a case there. Since our gun laws came into place in 1996 there have been no random mass killings the likes of Port Arthur, Queen Street or Hoddle Street (in the 80s) - sure domestic disputes cause murder and there are still some random cases of gun deaths beyond the home but nothing like the events which constantly hit us on the TV news from the USA. Which brings me to David's point - are we just 20 years behind?
Could be. If only those crystal balls were working. We certainly have a culture which seems to thrive on what is the seedier side of US mass media - gangster rap, trailer park talk shows, Punk'd attitudes to respect and life - but we are also very aware of where they lead. Street violence is on the increase, drugs are on the increase, apathy and lethargy are a part of everyday life for so many - where does that take us?
Probably not to mass killings in schools. We struggle to understand that aspect of American culture - we are not raised on a 'right to bare arms' motto which throbs through our heads like a mantra to excuse violence. Farmers use guns, policemen use guns and criminals use guns - very few Australians see that the gun in every home policy of the USA has answered any concerns. And it has certainly led to many deaths.
I do not dare propose that Australia has the answers, I also do not dare think that we are just taggers along in a history of decay story where the USA leads the way. Ultimately I suggest that there is something intrinsic to the American psyche which excuses and allows violence and killing more than our culture. It is not unique to the USA but it is certainly well publicised by it.
Just some thoughts, I'd love to hear what you think. |
|
Where do they come from?
The labs at Eli Lilly...(and all the others who jumped on the Depression freight train....giving killers all the motivation they need to start shooting at a school near you!)
PROZAC
ZOLOFT
WELLBUTRIN
PAXIL
LEXAPRO
CELEXA
EFFEXOR
etc etc etc
http://www.eagleforum.org/educate/2006/july06/columbine.html
Jenny
|
|
----Evidently you did not read the list of school shootings; they included places like England, Canada, and even Yemen, which have far tougher gun laws than the U.S. does . . . and what good did it do? And you mentioned Russia on your list---I'm sure some of the parents in Beslan wish somehow that they could've have some type of weapon.
Last I checked, Australia's crime rate is skyrocketing (even for murders) since the massacre you mentioned created very strict gun laws; are those laws REALLY helping? |
|
I am interested to read David Grossman's site and appreciate the pointer to it.
However, and for what it's worth, he was a West Point instructor and assistant professor during a three-year tour ending back in 1993.
His website describes himself thusly: "Col. Grossman is a West Point psychology professor, Professor of Military Science, and an Army Ranger..."
Nobody in the Army says that they "are" a former job title. His tour as PMS at Ark State ended back in 1998. Thankfully, he still is an Army Ranger -- brother that never goes away.
Presentation counts, and nobody in the Army really begrudges lieutenant colonels who call themselves "Col." (although the old, polite way was that they let others do that for them).
However, West Pointers care about what gets associated with that hallowed name.
LTC David Grossman, USA retired, may be a wonderful American, wonderful leader, and wonderful scholar (I hope he is and I look forward to reading his ideas)-- but he should stop calling himself a West Point professor, plain and simple.
If a guy calls himself a "West Point psychology professor" you look for him at West Point, New York. When it turns out he hangs his hat in Jonesboro, Arkansas, he should put that West Point stuff in the past tense.
Hugh, this devoted reader would appreciate a correction to your pointer to David Grossman's site.
Boy, I hope he doesn't kill me now...
-- Major Steve Barton, USA Retired
USMA 1977, Ranger Class 2-78
|
|
I admire the Aussies safety, but would say, get back to me in 20 years. The cultural revolution that has eroded American ideas of identity and morals will decay Australian society as well. Relativism and secularism may run rampant in the youth, just as it did in the American youth of the 60s and 70s, but when the ugliest parts of this moral conflict turn up, it will be too late. After Aussies start watching Steve Irwin's death in slow motion on TV in some greatest death scenes video you will know that this is not some "American only disease." I have actually been hartened by the response to this crime. People are outraged, and looking at why this has happened. We're not trying to find out about individual causes, but the direction our society is going in.
We are not doomed to self destruction, but have faith in the goodness of mankind and the nobel character of the God who stands to assist us after we have given it our all. My only hope is that this be the catalyst whereby we can make millions of individual decisions to take back our society and turn this terrible tragedy into a social restoration. |
|
In Australia we have a much more secular society than the USA - few people attend church, the thought of prayer in non-religious schools is unthinkable and we don't have God's name on our money. WE have tight gun laws, especially after the Port Arthur massacre in 1996. Relativism and secularism run rampant in our youth - they know of no other value systems.
We do not have school killings.
Look at the number of US killings on the list http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0777958.html - less than 5% of the world population in the USA - what percentage of homicides? Consider the relativist teaching in Europe, the lost secularism of the former USSR, the militancy of Islamic countries - no school killings. I suspect the blame on "the left" or lack of God or guns being available is all to simplistic - there is a deeper malaise in the USA - beyond politics or religion. There is a self-hating, self-destructive streak which will eventually eat the country away. Islam does not need to attack, it just needs to wait. |
|
It is not firearms that are the cause of this.
It is something deeper. We are no longer shocked by evil and media coverage almost guarantees immortality to those willing to do something sensational. So some disturbed individual concludes (prompted by another shooting half a continent away) that he should go out and kill some innocent young girls for some slight that may have occurred many years ago. It feeds on itself.
This is not a merely a matter of police protection or self defense (although those are important points)--it is far more disturbing than that. It is a disease that it is almost impossible to defend yourself against.
It is not just the United States (although North America seems to have the market cornered on school shootings). Even in law-abiding Japan such random violence occasionally occurs. It happens in Europe. I suspect it happens far more often than reported in the rest of the world under the guise of religious fanaticism or secular political/criminal violence. |
|
The older I get, the more authoritarian I become.
Mountain Rose, you made some excellent points about keeping communities intact and safe. We have the responsibility as citizens to keep out those elements that will fester and cause a breakdown in our homes.
What was abundantly clear to me today was that the police are impotent and unwilling to protect the innocent. Listening to the state trooper commander, it seemed to me that he regarded this act of brutality a little flippantly, as if it were a tactical exercise gone wrong.
As I noted above, our culture is in decline, but there may be pockets that are insulated from violence. If you think I'm talking about vigilantism, you're correct. The ACLU and ambitious prosecutors be damned--let the ACLU enforce the edicts on me. And let prosecutors know that they have higher responsbilities to defend our culture instead of going after low-hanging fruit.
|
|
I feel like renouncing my US citizenship...but where would I move to?
The recent murders of children in St Louis, yesterday in SC, and in Colorado are emblematic of a society in SEVERE decline. This self-centered, opportunistic, nihilistic culture is only going to engender more frequent acts of mass murder; the pop culture glamorizes the remorseless sociopath in film and in sado-drama like Law and Order or CSI, while a disproportionate amount of the media attention's focused on a hyperthyroid drug abusing football player or some pederast congressman who's protected by the Prince of Darkness.
What kind of country is this where the defenseless are executed in cold blood by raging psychotics, but the guilty cannot be executed because they might suffer a pinprick during the lethal injection, or heaven forbid they might be insane?
Is there any sort of "legitimate" charity where folks can donate funds for the families and community? |
|
Is that as in Oregon Duck? I'm sure that I don't know all the nuances of Budhism much less the various sub-groups involved. BTW thanks for informing me. We shouldn't think of any religion as being monolithic. I think my point got lost in the broad sweeps of my original note (Cowardly Religious Passifism).
My main point was that religious people of all types often hide behind phony piety in order to avoid confronting evil. Also, in America it frequently masquerades as tolerance. |
|
|
Read Hosea the 4th Chapter which chronicles what was happening in Israel many centuries ago. Compare it to what is happening today in America. One quote "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge". In 1963 the Supreme Court ruled that reading the Bible and prayer in schools were unconstitutional. The homicide rate doubled in the next 20 years. We now have a complete generation that unless their families brought them up with God and a moral anchor have no knowledge of God and the teachings of Jesus Christ. David told Solomon in 1st Chronicles 28:9 If you seek God, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will cast you off forever. Do you think we could learn something from Biblical history? |
|
I think there is something we need to be doing here besides talking about the killings in our schools. Of course these are terrible crimes that show our society has gotten way out of control. But let us take stock in the day's news. Is not Congressman Foley's behavior an equal reminder of our nation's plight? Can we not look to the inner cities with over 50% of single parent families as a similar reminder? If it takes death to shock us into actually rising up and saying that enough is enough, shouldn't thousands of abortions have gotten our attention? Maybe the reason we are so upset by this is that the victims were Amish. They were people who wanted no part of this modernity and sought to live in a secluded and safer past. They, just like the United States until 9-11 and many Americans even today, pretended that the dangers of the world would leave them alone if they ignored it. Unfortunately, they got burned and it is a sickening feeling that things have reached this point. How long will it be before the rest of us wake up and realize that our country's moral fiber has been under attack from a postmodern society that argues that there is no right or wrong, just different perspectives? How long until we have the courage to turn off our televisions and help our neighbors? How long until we pay the extra $20 to fly on American Airlines because they stood by their stewardess when she asked a homosexual couple to refrain from public affection during the flight? How long until we elect men based on their character rather than their promises or tax incentives? Today 3 innocent girls lay in the morgue, but if their deaths can awaken us to the moral deliquency of our time they will not have died in vain. I welcome any comments.
David Rands |
|
The Colo and Penn incidents are what used to be called "suicide by cop." Too cowardly to point the gun at their own head, they point it at a policeman and dare the officer to shoot. Now they up the ante by taking and killing hostages.
We need to discredit this cowardice before more copycats occur. Is it some form of narcissism that makes such a person unable or unwilling to distinguish suicide from murder-suicide?
|
|
There is no mystery here Hugh.
1) Take anti-God school,
2) Mix in anti-God tv,
3) Throw in disengaged parents, a bit of sexual and verbal abuse, misguided emotion and self entitlement and wha-la.
= Recipe for disaster.
When are they going to make it legal to pray again.. Think about that one.
|
|
Hi All!
I wonder if the News Media doesn't encourage such acts by making "celebs" of those who carry them out by endless "analysis" by the "screaming head" shows on CNN,MSNBC,FOX,ABC,NBC,CBS.
Remember,John Mark Karr ? Everything that he did was covered ad nauseum. The same with Natalie Holloway,and others.
While this may not be the case in this situation,one has to wonder...
I'd like the News Media to go back to reporting crimes like they did 30-40 years ago. The crime gets reported,then it isn't mentioned again until some one is charged and the criminal has no coverage other than his name being reported. Next,nothing is reported until the trial and sentencing. Then,nothing more is said...
If the News Media needs to fill their 24/7 coverage,how about a show on what happened in post-war Germany,Japan,& Europe? That has bearing on Iraq today! How about a show on how oil gets priced? How aqbout a show on why tax cuts are good for everyone? What about a show on Social Security & Private Retirement Accounts?
Sorry about going a "bit off-topic",but I just wanted to say it.
In closing,my wife works as a dispensary nurse at the State Prison in Maryland and she says that she gets to see all of the "celebs" as she does the intake interviews of them. "See them on TV today,I'll see them tonight!" And after that,they aren't "celebs" anymore.
|
|
We have become inured to the idea that such a thing as "pure evil" exists, despite the constant evidence of its existence.
I heard a bit of Dr. Smith's commentary. In my opinion, to try to find a pschological root cause for this man's behavior is to attempt to excuse it.
What could be more evil than terrorizing the children of one of the most innocuous and inoffensive religious sects in existence?
|
|
Yet, I would add ...
A healthy relationship with our neighbors must be founded on a healthy relationship with ourselves and both are founded on a healthy relationship with God. You cannot solve the lack of love for ourselves or others that is so clear in these random acts of violence without first opening the channels with God. Only God can change the human heart -- and that includes yours as well as mine. |
|
Why? I don't know. The news says he had no affiliation with the Amish, yet he told his wife he was evening the score for something that happened 20 years ago. I don't know if we'll ever hear that that was. I do know that the shooter at Columbine was reported to have asked his victims if they were Christians and, if they said yes, gave them the opportunity to deny Christ and live. He shot a teenager girl when she told him she couldn't do that.
We expend a lot of air on this site deploring Islamic violence and the way the public schools have systematically pushed Christian faith out of education, but Christians need to be aware that they have also abdicated their voice in the marketplace for a long time and unless we pick it up, we will see more such attacks against more "mainstream" groups of faithful. It's not just that they hate Christians; it's that they have no idea what we stand for because the spinmeisters have been spinning their tales for so long that the gullible believe them. I for one have elected against silence. We all need to decide what we're going to do to make sure the message of Christ is heard. The Amish do their thing and that apparently made somebody angry. What will we more modern Christians do and will it so much as ruffle someone's feathers?
I guess we all have to decide that for ourselves. |
|
We are in the US a society changing. Violence is not acceptable in the public arena, but it is in our zest for free speech on the air waves. We all are only a few minutes away from "meltdown". Failure in business, family and other areas of our lives along with lack of compassion by others and a deep loneliness contribute to this meltdown. If it wasn't a gun...it would be a car or a homemade bomb or a drink of cyanide laced coolaid.
We can't change others only ourselves. I believe by being in a healthy relationship with our neighbors may allow us to live a little more safely. Where do these killers come from?...from broken hopeless lives. |
|
|
Doc Joan: "Fetching" means "attractive and enchanting" as well as "skilled in retrieving sticks." I suspect Prof. Hewitt intends the former meaning. |
|
None of us will know what motivated that creep to shoot those children. Nor should we even try to understand or waste time speculating.
We have particular contempt for pedophiles because they prey on the innocent. The very name pedophile is to revile a person for their inclinations. We have no similar name of revulsion for child killers and we lack a media that will create consensus to find a name that would shame the perpetrator forever.
It's not that the media doesn't work to shame people. They just reserve their contempt for people they want to politically skewer. The Matthew Shepard killing became a cause for the media but the media lack the same regard for our children. Why else are female pedophile teachers who prey on children not reviled for their indecency? Why else aren't child killers called evil? Perhaps because our media does not recognize evil and because they do not, it proliferates. To be morally neutral is to embrace evil. |
|
Dr. Joan,
Hugh is using the word "fetching" as an adjective.
The word means "attractive," or "charming."
|
|
Mutaman/JohnCar- Automobile accidents kill thousands of people each year, let's ban all vehicles. You know, alcohol does too, let's ban it. Maybe you should move to England and see what the crime rate is there. Do you honestly believe that not having a gun would have made him decide not to do what he did?
|
|
Hugh, I thoroughly enjoy your programs!! and I listen to quite a few talk shows - I'm fussy! But I have one question . . . Why do you always refer to your wife as "the fewtching Mrs. Hewitt?" What does she fetch? Do you play this game every night with her? Are they goodies?
All kidding aside, it sounds like your dog! I think it sounds silly. Just my little personal gripe. Forgive me, but I got it off my chest. You're still terrific! Dr Joan |
|
|
|
|
|
Modern education, backed by the news and entertainment media, teaches people that there are no objective principles of right and wrong. There are just the competing wills and metanarratives of different sub-cultures. Old media treatment of terrorism is a good example: Terrorists use diabolically immoral violence and are treated as legitimate combatants with valid complaints.
Dorothy Sayers book "Whose Body" and Hitchcock's movie "Rope" were cultural warnings about what eventually happens when people really start believing they can be "moral supermen" who make up their own ideas and ignore morality and conscience as meaningless chemical phenomena or cultural artifacts instead of gifts from a very real and very good God.
Public schools have been ignoring real morality and preaching relativism for many years. People are starting to really believe it and act accordingly. |
|
ATSeeker -- The Tamils of Sri Lanka would probably take issue with your farmworker (who has probably been the death of more than a few flies, especially if he grows peaches -- $%#%# borers!) and his conceit that Buddhism is inherently peaceful.
Any religion has two facets: its actual teachings (which may be more or less pacifist or belligerent than other religious teachings), and its plain old furnishing of tribal identity. A person of any religion, once he starts to consider himself a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, or a Buddhist, inevitably joins the tribe of his fellow believers. And human nature being what it is (that is, similar to our closest genetic relatives), the urge to be loyal to the tribe and conquer the other tribes is a temptation stamped biologically into our minds.
If a person doesn't join a religious tribe, he generally joins a social or a political one. Self-styled "citizens of the world" (there are few true ones -- Demosthenes and about ten others, by my count) have a tribe of their own, and are pretty much just as hostile to outsiders as members of explicitly religious tribes are to theirs. |
|
Don't lump in the SF and Seattle killers. They were clearly Muslims/ Islamists carrying out Allah's will: shooting, running over and killing the Jewish infidels.
These others seem to be looking for a blazing headline end to their pathetic lives. Pure evil. |
|
Mutaman: You can try. Canada did, and a university in Montreal just got shot up.
The larger point is that weapons have been around since Og Coltchester invented the Model 10,000 B.C. automatic rock. School massacres are not totally unprecedented, but they do seem to have increased dramatically in frequency lately (as have sex murders, but that's another story).
What is new under the sun that this particular evil has become the fad? |
|
|
Maybe you're right. But does a truck driver with 600 rounds of ammo really fit the Leftie profile? |
|
The brutal mentality of these killers is being fed by the systematic replacement of God with the Darwinist's philosophy that we are nothing more than mere animals in the world of survival of the fittest. In fact, the full title of Darwin's book Origin of the Species is, "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life." Darwin's philosophy was one of the main foundations in the rise of Nazism.
We should look no further than the school's text books, the ACLU, and ourselves for the cause of our falling country. Our country's once strong foundation of God, which separated us from the rest of the countries on earth, has broken apart. Once our foundation breaks, it's not long before the entire structure falls down. |
|
The other day, I was talking to a Cambodian fellowworker. He is a "token" budhist in the bible belt heartland where we work. He told me, boastfully (as if an Asian country wouldn't be involved in a messy war like Iraq), that, "budhist's don't believe in war. They are totally peaceful. In fact they won't even kill an insect."
I was taken aback for a moment, and then it hit me. People in the predominantly budhist world don't enjoy anywhere near the freedom and peace that we enjoy in our country. For example: The dalhai lama is in exhile, and who can forget the budhist monks in South Vietnam torching themselves. I postulate that it was the passive nature of budhism that ultimately led to the history of warfare and ultimate bondage the people in these countries have experienced over and over during their history.
A similar thing is going on in Islam. I am sure that most Muslims want to practice their religion in peace and be left alone. I don't believe, and I think facts support it, that the majority of muslims want to kill people in far away countries. However, you see very little outrage coming from their religious leaders. They are happy to act religious, and "be" peaceful while evil has grown up and prevailed throughout much of their culture.
That brings me to the question: Where do these Killers come from? In the U.S. as a society most religious people (the majority of Americans)don't abhor evil as much as we should. We are passifists regarding the evil around us. There's a little too much of the Judeo-Christian God's tolerant nature being emphasized and not enough of the "Judgement of God" being invoked. Like any parent, he is certainly both tolerant and judgemental. It can be thought of as tough love and soft love. We put up with the trash on the television, and around us. Many of us (me included) insulate ourselves, we hide in our own groups or in front of our own television sets.
Recognizing that there is a balance between Judgement and Tolerance requires concentration and courage. The roots of our problems go back many years, but we can turn it around in a decade or so by standing up against evil and confronting it as it occurs. |
|
|
I guess regulating their weapons is out of the question. |
|
|
|