Indifference

One hand I feel bad about people getting killed by deranged rich kids.  It's hard not to feel bad for the victims of crimes, especially when avoiding the incident was not foreseeable.

On the other hand its hard to get worked into a full blown snit about it either.  Seven people are dead in California.  Three were stabbed (no one is big into reporting that cause of death).  Four were shot.  The killer took his own life.  In some crimes we are left wondering what the motive was.  In this case we know.  The killer confessed his motive was not getting laid by the slutty girls at his college. 

Apparently he "played by the rules" but the chicks didn't dig him.  Which is hard to imagine when you are driving a Beemer, have a rich father who gives you cash, and is in "the business" as they say.  So rich boy decides to off as many sorority girls as he can.  Then he offs himself.  He was a looser in life and an even bigger loser in death.

Let the media circus begin.

Lets blame everyone, well not everyone.  Lets blame the NRA.  It's the NRA's fault that guns exist.  It's the NRA's fault that these kinds of crime happen.  Blame the NRA.  Blame the gun culture.  Pay no attention to the fact that California has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the nation.

Let's blame the mental health system.  The parents called the police and warned them about the boy's statements and online posts.  The cops even took the time to check on the kid.  Nothing came from it.

So goes the blame game.  The media will rush back and forth blaming someone.  They are clueless who to blame so they will point as many fingers as they can and pacify as many liberal pressure groups as possible.  The professionally and permanently aggrieved class will get much satisfaction wringing their hands and shaking their heads.

I have a suggestion.  Lets play the blame game a little differently.  Here is who I blame, in descending order.

1.  The shooter.  A morally bankrupt rich brat who has had everything handed to him his whole life, is mad that he couldn't attract a one night stand, or a LTR with a girl that would screw him.  He couldn't hire a whore or invest in a trip to meet a foreign chick that would marry or at least hook up with him.  He decided to shoot people and kill himself to prove how much of "man" he was.  If he had to resort to crime, why not throw a party, get some stripper drunk and slip her something?  Date rape would have done less damage.

2. The parents.  If you are so concerned about your kid that you call the cops and have them do a psych check, maybe you should take time out of your life and go yourself.  Maybe they did, who knows.  That's only part of why I blame them.  As a parent you have a responsibility to teach your kids right from wrong.  Mom and dad, you failed.

3. Madeline Murray O'Hair.  She is more to blame than the NRA.  I don't believe that the United States has ever been a Christian nation. I very much doubt that at least 60% of the population in this country has ever been what is called "a bible believing Christian".  If we ever were, we haven't been for around 150 years or more.  What we were was a nominally Christian nation.  We shared a common morality, not a common faith.  That common morality, call it the judeo-christian ethic, was something we as a nation embraced.  At the center of that belief system was the idea that a universal moral standard existed OUTSIDE a person and that all of us were bound to observe it.  O'Hair hated that ethical standard and the ancient faith that it sprang from.

The judeo-christian ethic was taught in the public schools.  Kids learned to read and write by copying bible verses.  They even had school prayer.  This was too much of O'Hair.  She wanted it all gone.  Well she won her court case and now its all gone.  In 1962 school prayer was ruled unconstitutional.  In 1963 reading the bible met the same fate.  In the last 51 years, public morality and decency has been in free fall.  For over 40 years wages in the United States have been in decline as well.  Societies faced with declining economic realities and no common moral groundwork produce people who truly believe that "man is the measure of all things" and "it's all about me".

When a person believes that they are the highest arbitrator of moral standards, and that they should be at the center of the universe with society in general cratering to them, and there is no real economic benefit to be had from cooperation with others, then why not vent violently?  After all the school system teaches that there is no universal truth, no moral standard required of individuals.  If there is no god, then there is no one higher than the individual and no consequences for evil behavior.

We don't need more gun or other laws.  Murder has been illegal for thousands of years.  We didn't have mass school shootings prior to the gun control act of 1968.  Fully automatic machine guns used to be available for sale via mail order in this country.  There were no background checks, no waiting period, and no school shootings.  What we had was a common national ethic.  That ethic included things like; "Thou shall not kill", "Thou shall not steal", "Honor thy father and mother" and "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you". 

We don't need common core.  We need the judeo-christian ethic taught again as the common moral standard.