Liberal Rampage Killer Chris Dorner

Now, it may well be true that rampage killer Dorner was ousted for ratting on his fellow officers wrongdoing. It could have been a cover-up of police brutality or unnecessary roughness.  But who is the first targets of this aggrievement?  Lots of cops' names on Dorner's list but he kills his nemesis' daughter instead, along with her fiancé.  (Long live the People's Revolution)  All this tactical training he brags he's going to use on cops, and he uses the element of surprise on the most defenseless targets he could find.  Perhaps he got tired of waiting for an officer to wander into a gun-free zone.

Liberal rampage killer Chris Dorner

Rampage killer Chris Dorner praises several liberal talk show hosts in his "manifesto" and advocates gun control in the same.  He also explains that he is taking up arms against what he believes is a racist and corrupt system.

I seem to recall a major news outlet jumping to link the Tea Party to a shooting.  I seem to recall liberals immediately blaming the Giffords shooting on conservative hate speech.  

Hannity said right away that if Dorner had read any books by conservatives like himself or Ann Coulter, “this would be big news” and people would claim Dorner was inspired by conservative pundits. Bozell made it clear that the liberal media figures name-checked by Dorner are not in any way responsible for the horrific things he did, but said the same should have applied to deranged individuals the media tried to link to right-wing causes and pundits. *

Too true. Too true.

This all reminds me of the old Mother Goose rhyme:

Little Chris Dorner
Sat in his liberal corner
Thinking of ways for cops to die.

He found the captain's daughter
And promptly shot her
And said "Oh, what a good boy am I!"  

It appears that Dorner's preoccupation with injustice created its own "climate of hate." Who knows what other innocents he will take out in order to call attention to the injustices he's suffered.  As with Luke ("Life has wronged me") Woodham, life has wronged Dorner, and if some innocents have to die for it, so be it.  Hopefully, when he strikes again, someone like Principal Myrick will be there to stop him.

Opportunism - Let no crisis/atrocity go to waste

Like I said before:

"Among the many misdeeds of British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest."
   — Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi* 

Gun Bullies: Punching Back Twice As Hard

This is an understatement, but kudos to Ben Shapiro for publicly exposing the Left's morbid opportunism over the Sandy Hook tragedy, and using these deaths to characterize their political opponents as uncaring, heartless creeps that are so in love with their guns (gently oiling and cleaning them at night) that they are willing to sacrifice little children to this awful 2nd Amendment idol (a baffling irony in light of the Left's conception of "reproductive rights").

MORGAN: That's what I call bullying.
SHAPIRO: This is astonishing.
MORGAN: What's astonishing?
SHAPIRO: What's astonishing about it is for weeks now, you have been saying that anybody who disagrees with your position is absurd, idiotic, and doesn't care about the dead kids in Sandy Hook. And then when I say that it's a bullying tactic, you turn around and say I'm bullying you for saying that. It's absurd. It's ridiculous. 

Of course, it's easier than pointing out that Obama made a nice soapbox out of little caskets.  You could expect TIME and Newsweek to call that blatant racism.  But this guy... With the combination of the accent with the snootiness, this guy is a lieutenant on the Death Star.  The irony of a British citizen criticizing, not a mere American policy, but a fundamental right of a free people to keep the means of securing their freedoms, the recognition of which right was borne out of a British imperialism that the American Left nominally loathes!

SHAPIRO: Well, we can talk about Britain in a second. I think that the reason it's about left and right here is because fundamentally the right believes the basis for the second amendment, and they believe in the second amendment. The basis of the second amendment is not really about self defense and it's not about hunting. It's about resistance to government tyranny. That's what the founders said and that's what the right believe in this country.
MORGAN: Which tyranny are you fearing, yourself?
SHAPIRO: I fear the possibility of a tyranny rising in the country in the next 50 to 100 years. Let me tell you something, Piers. The fact that my grandparents and great-grandparents in Europe didn't fear that is why they're now ashes in Europe. This kind of leftist revisionist history where there's no fear of democracy going userpatious or tyrannical, is just that. It's fictitious.

Shapiro is making a reference to the gun registration and confiscation measures imposed by collectivist governments in Europe in order to effect totalitarian control.  Trust us. We're your government and we're only here to keep you safe.

Now, Thomas Sowell in his book Intellectuals and Society writes of the many absurdities of the gun control mania of English socialism (or Ingsoc, as George Orwell called it).  A man who lives our in the countryside (where police weren't likely to arrive quickly) arrested for stopping two burglars with a gun.  A man arrested for running off street thug assailants with a fake gun.  As well as the rise in gun crime since the disarmament of the British citizenry.  Piers Morgan might be right that neither political party in Britain appreciates the right to own a gun, but that doesn't say much for the sensibility of the country.

From Farewell to the King (quoted at imdb.com):

Capt. Fairbourne: What do you want?
Learoyd: Freedom, to be like we are.
Capt. Fairbourne: Anything else?
Learoyd: Guns. So they can't take the freedom away.
Capt. Fairbourne: Well, I'll see what I can do.
Learoyd: And grenades, mortars and mines, so they can't take the guns away

Link between Asperger's and violence

I suppose this deserves a post of its own.  I recently mused on a personal reminiscence and discussed how those with high-function ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) might well harbor special resentments about their isolation and ill treatment, while cautioning that this doesn't mean that they are especially susceptible to punishing random, innocent people on rampages.  Even those whose autism manifests in a violent reaction to environmental stimuli that can't be coped with, won't necessarily be likely to plan and execute some vengeful spree.  It is a different phenomenon.

John Elder Robinson has, naturally, published some short articles on the relevance of an alleged Asperger's diagnosis to the Newtown massacre.  He makes some valid points.  For example, he says,
Correlation does not imply causation.

Correlation does not imply causation. . . . It was a random, irrelevant coincidence. . . .How about this factoid: Most school shooters are Caucasian males. You might find that statement a little more shocking than the previous one. But it’s true. Does that mean every white male Caucasian who enters a school is a potential mass murderer? Of course not.  Suggesting a mass murderer had Asperger’s is much the same – it may be true, but stating the fact does nothing to explain the crime, nor does it help prevent other crimes in the future. What it does do – and this is important – is paint a whole swath of population – Asperger people – with a brush that says “potential mass murderer.”

This is a valid point and it puts me in mind of both the irrelevant reminders in media that the Tea Party movement is "mostly white" as well as the recent eagerness of certain journalists to identify (wrongly, it turned out) a shooter as a Tea Party affiliate, as though that connection would be somehow relevant.  A killer's mental diagnosis is a more plausibly relevant fact, though as Robinson argues, it could unfairly bias the public.  He seems to be implying that the information should be filtered as obviously irrelevant.  Maybe, more appropriately, it should be more properly vetted and put into perspective by an expert. 

Robinson elsewhere says,

There is no scientific evidence linking ASD with homicides or other violent crimes. In fact, studies of court records suggest that people with autism are less likely to engage in criminal behavior of any kind compared with the general population, and people with Asperger syndrome, specifically, are not convicted of crimes at higher rates than the general population.

Another good point, although, as Iohawk cautions on an unrelated subject, Simpson's Paradox can fool us.  It could be that a particular subset of ASD people that exhibit violent behavior are more likely than more "neurotypical" people with violent histories to go on killing sprees, but that this is obscured by the much larger subset of ASD people that are much less likely to do violence than their neurotypical counterparts.  In fact, Robinson's citing of statistics on criminal behavior in general may further obscure significant correlations.

Those caveats aside, I think there is much more provocative data supporting a link between psychotic rampages and psychopharmaceuticals than between them and ASDs:

Michael Moore Maligns Civil Rights Hero as Racist

 

In the movie Bowling for Columbine, Michael Moore features an interview with Charlton Heston, and interview that seems climactic for Moore's argument that violence in America and America's enthusiasm for its 2nd Amendment rights are based in racism.  (Moore seems adept at "Critical Race Theory.") 

My #1 Question:  If you have seen this movie, what did you think Heston meant when he said, "We had enough problems with civil rights in the beginning."  Did you think that Heston was talking about the civil rights movement as a problem?  I know I did when I first saw the film.  I thought the interview made it seem that Heston keeps guns to make himself feel protected and safe from minorities.

Of course, this was before I learned that Charlton Heston was one of a small group of Hollywood players that really stepped to the forefront to advocate for civil rights in its true heyday in the 60s (watch video below). 

Also, his role in the 1963 March on Washington.  Now, this is easily confirmed historical fact.  Was Michael Moore simply unaware of all this when he put his movie together?  Maybe this experienced documentarian just doesn't do his homework.  In the 23 minute interview with  Heston (which was pared down to 7 minutes for the movie) did Heston shed more light on what he meant about America's "mixed heritage" but was edited out?  Did Moore deliberately mislead  us about what Heston thought about race? 

Read here for some other interesting facts about Heston's NRA speech featured in the film and some historical oddities about Moore's alleged racist history of the historically anti-Klan NRA, another pivotal part of Moore's gun-rights-are-racist argument.  Also, an interesting link between the NRA and anti-KKK defense.

Incidently, I'd like to thank Michael Moore for helping me realize more quickly just how little Progressivism has to offer and to help me reconnect with conservative thinking.  His blatent disregard for the truth and his utter reliance on non-fact to prove his point made a big impact on me at a critical time in my life.  Thank you, Michael Moore for being such an obvious propagandist. 

What is worth giving up for personal security?

Is there a connection between crazed attacks and pharmaceuticals?  A side worth hearing:

Some thoughts to ponder.  If there is a causal relationship between these mass killings and the unfortunate side effects of psychopharmaceuticals, would it be better to mostly give up the massive availability of these prescription drugs for the populace.   Assuming for the moment that more suicides are prevented by these drugs than caused by these drugs (and many are caused by them), is it better for there to be more adults and teens taking their life (and trying to address this problem through other means) than to have kids turning psychotic and possibly harming several pre-adolescent children?


Let's set the gun issue aside for the moment and try to answer that question honestly.  There are many other causal policies that impact so many other childrens' lives; so many potential laws (concerning medical practice or automobile use or toxic chemical use, etc.) that could mean so many more parents not having to spend a sad Christmas wondering why fate singled them out for this ultimate tragedy.   Of course, it is apparently not sheer numbers of children harmed that seem to foment a demand for action, but the idea of several small children meeting a linked tragic ending all in one foul swoop.  That supposedly must be prevented at all costs, even if it means suppressing serious discussion of 2nd Amendments rights as the "price of our freedom," the availability of arms as our ultimate guarantee against totalitarianism.  Preventing similar tragedies that result from terrorist attacks is however not considered so essential that we need to give up our Constitutional rights of privacy (which Amendment is that?), or at least that is what most progressives and liberals expressed prior to Obama's presidency.

What if the Columbine killers had successfully carried out Plan A, which was to blow up the school and kill every kid inside, instead of the few that they settled for?  Would that have been worth a Patriot Act or more intrusive invasion of privacy to prevent the accumulation of materials that might possibly be used to make a bomb?  What rights of privacy should we give up to prevent sex trafficking in the U.S.?  Would a kind of Patriot Act be worth having fewer women chained surreptitiously in the basements of private residences?  Is leaving these women in hell the "price of our freedom" (as President Obama would phrase it)?

I don't think there is a single issue like this that can't be demagogued and essentially reduced to an emotional argument.  What amount of safety and security is worth giving up essential liberty?  

Post-Newtown Focus on the Mentally Ill

I knew a family a while back with a teenager who, among other things, appeared to be grappling with high-functioning autism or Aspergers' or similar ASD syndrome.  Shane was a very sensitive, loyal sort of boy that wanted friends but due to his social awkwardness had difficulty getting the friendships that he craved.  At an early age, his oddness had made him an obvious target to bullies.  While he was not a weakling, he had no friends to take his cause, and he was always outnumbered.  I've since found that his story isn't close to being isolated among those with an ASD or ASD-related symptoms.  At any rate, as much as he craved social ties, he harbored a lot of anger and low self-esteem from having his dignity taken from him in regular beatings at school.  (Funny, where were all the people concerned with bullying back then?)  The lack of social connection only reinforced the negative feelings of those that made him feel worthless.

One day Shane was walking on the sidewalk (as an older teenager--larger, tougher, and much less of an obvious target), a jerk on a bicycle ran him off the sidewalk and not only didn't apologize but insulted him.  Whatever transpired, it apparently brought back the feelings of being bullied.  He had set up a lawn chair by the mailbox and was sitting there with an axe leaning against the mailbox by the time his father was made aware that there was some situation brewing.

Something I have always wondered about was whether the axe was specifically meant for intimidation or whether it had a more disturbing purpose.  I think that this young man, in a very emotional sense, was not sure whether he was defending his dignity or his life; and this may have been heading in a terrible direction.  At any rate, his father came and talked to him and, having got the story from him, set him upon a different course for reclaiming his dignity.  They found out where the jerk lived and knocked on his door.  This jerk's father was clearly embarrassed and apologetic and seemed to imply that this was not the first situation of the sort that had come up.  The jerk eventually showed himself but at a distance and even though he was invited to work out his hostility in a fair fight he refused and slunk away.

This seemed to satisfy the otherwise troubled Shane, and a similar situation never arose.

I recalled this recently while reading Maggie Gallagher's column about the dark side of autism.  Personally I don't think that this young man was ever in any danger of hurting random strangers, let alone small defenseless children.  He would probably have been deemed a danger under the sorts of risk-flagging that have been discussed post-Newtown.  But this is not to say that Gallagher doesn't have a point about the playing down of the dark side of autism.  When the focus is on not marginalizing those with ASDs (a worthy cause), it becomes natural for many journalists to advance the cause via filtering of the news.  If the preferred narrative is that those with ASDs are just "differently-abled" and valuable members of society, then it doesn't help to confuse matters with contradictory information that hurts the cause.  Or at least, I think this is how many journalists process reality for us.

I disagree with such thinking, but I also think that there was an isolation at work behind the rage.  Without the family support in his life, I think Shane could have been manipulated by a true sociopath, his social rejection channeled into a total retaliation against "society", the way that Klebold manipulated Harris leading up to the Columbine massacre.   Fortunately, I think the unconditional love of his family gave him a center that inoculated him from moral anarchy.  A lot of the violence we see may be a coupling of natural (but largely preventable) rage coupled with modern "blame society" rejection of personal accountability.  If enough wrong has been done to me, my violence is understandable and excusable.  Hey, one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter.  It's all relative.  Or so we're told.

Spree Killers: Why Do They Do It?

Famous school shooting fantasy scene from The Basketball Diaries.

According to Wikipedia, before Andrew Kehoe perpetrated the Bath School Disaster, he had posted the following sign on his farm:  "Criminals are made, not born."

Like the recent Connecticut school massacre, Kehoe's mass murder started with a home killing.  This is also similar to the Pearl High School spree, in which Luke Woodman stabbed and bludgeoned his mother (in contrast to the apparent irony being advertised for Nancy Lanza as a "gun enthusiast and the first victim"--not-so-subtly implying that if only she hadn't kept guns around...) before starting his spree at the local high school.

Uncharacteristic of these other sprees,  Woodman was apprehended by the assistant principal Joel Myrick who, contrary to law, armed himself and held Woodman at gunpoint.  Woodman was on his way to continue his lesson to society at the nearby junior high school when he was intercepted.  (The police hadn't had time to respond--they might not have even been called yet.)

According to Wikipedia, before the police arrived Principal Myrick demanded that Woodman explain why he had killed the kids.  Woodman replied that the world had wronged him.  Before the school shootings, Woodman reportedly sent a message to a fellow student explaining: "I did this to show society, push us and we will push back. ... All throughout my life, I was ridiculed, always beaten, always hated. Can you, society, truly blame me for what I do?"  

What I would like Americans to ask themselves is why in the history of America, a history filled with adolescents and social outcasts who had access to household firearms and knew how to use them, we have had relatively few incidents (compared to the last half century) of killing sprees targeting the public, bystanders, co-workers that did nothing wrong, people at restaurants... until after the 1960s.  

Is the fascination with removing a convenient means of killing (which is also a necessary means of keeping democracy for all and a necessary means of self-defense for many) a canard to keep society from self-reflecting on what has changed to predispose people to blame "society" and take?

We have, for one, a culture that has more and more entertained the idea (and encouraged youth to entertain it) that people that lash out in violence need special understanding, that one man's terrorist is another's freedom-fighter and people that blow up buses of schoolchildren are obviously just reacting to great injustice that has been served to them.  It is a culture that increasingly rejects personal responsibility and diffuses blame around.   We also have more and more children not being raised according to their parents values but rather being raised by television, movies, video games, and the philosophical tidbits of their educators.  We've had repeated attempts to redefine the way society and family work.  We have people simultaneously laughing at those who try to protect abortion survivors from neglect and protect prenatal infants from brain evacuation and curettage, calling it liberty, while acting outraged at teenagers that kill their newborns and demanding life sentences for them.  Why are our teenagers so confused about the sanctity of life?  It boggles the mind.

After a number of killing sprees in China accomplished with knives (there is serious gun control in collectivist states), "[s]ome analysts have suggested that an increase in psychiatric illnesses brought about by rapid social change is behind the attacks."  Well, China has gone through several generations now of the government experimenting with the family structure and promoting social loyalties over family loyalties and otherwise redefining things according to the whims of "central planners."  Why would that affect kids' minds?

You know, bullying is nothing new.  In general, it has possibly gotten worse in the last several decades with the decline of public schools, but insecure children have long targeted other children for anything: being overweight, wearing funny clothes, being effeminate, shy, etc.  For many, many, many decades, bullied children didn't take their dad's guns to school and start shooting.  If there were any fantasies like those in The Basketball Diaries, they stayed as fantasies.  Taking Andrew Kehoe's claim at face value, why is society making more terrible criminals out of teenagers?  Gun availability isn't the variable that has changed.

There was a time, for that matter, when Lizzy Borden's rampage and the events in In Cold Blood were relative anomalies and much more shocking than they are now. What has changed since then?

What you will probably hear in answer to this question (in the rare event it is entertained publicly), that societal changes are too sweeping and complex to analyze and there's no way to roll back the clock to the 1950s (and that would mean bringing back the bad things of that time), we really have no choice but to "just get rid of the guns." It is The Answer.

"For years they spent a lot of money saying, 'There's no other way! There's no other way!' They said it so many times, people actually started believing it."

Our Comforter-in-Chief: The Emperor's New Tears

Since our President has made a tearful entreaty for change in response to the Sandy Hook Elementary tragedy, and since there doesn't seem to be much that is remotely conservative about the positions he takes, I think it is fair game to question where he's coming from.

This statement on its own bothers me:

"I know there's not a parent in America who doesn't feel the same overwhelming grief that I do."

Actually, Mr. President, parents in America are experiencing some deep sympathy and mostly fear--fear that the unthinkable could happen to them as well.  Some parents who have been through the unthinkable tragedy already are re-experiencing their pain.  But there are parents in Connecticut right now whose grief actually is overwhelming them, suffocating them, and your natural sympathy (and that of most of the rest of us as well) is not even close to that.  We don't have overwhelming grief!  Those parents do!  We are in shock, in fear, and have a secondhand hurt and horror at the thought of what it must be like for those devastated parents.  But our grief isn't crippling us like it is them.  Not even close.  That grief is so paralyzing, it is painful to look at.  But you can look away.  You can be distracted. Those parents can't. You have no idea, Mr. President, and I truly hope you never do.







For those who have seen the movie Broadcast News, and for those who haven't, I rewatched that press conference a few times looking closely at Obama's eyes.  Obama wipes the underpart of his eyes which is the natural reaction when your eyes have welled up and then overflowed.  If the eye has not yet overflowed, you have to make near-contact with the eye to check the impending tear, and there is a trail.  There is no glossy smear under his eye after he wipes, there is no visible welling in his eyes leading up to wiping.  To me, it really looks suspicious as an conscious attempt to get people to stop thinking about the issue and emote on the issue instead.  It just doesn't look real.  I'm not saying the Obama doesn't feel bad about this massacre; I just don't think he's as emotionally moved as he leads us to believe.  He's warming up the audience for "we have got to do something about this."

Obama is President.  His children have been (unfortunately) potential targets since he took office--it's an unfortunate problem with that job.  They are constantly protected and they have to be.  He fears as parents do (although our children are much less protected).  But I've lived firsthand watching the day-to-day grief of parents that have lived through the unthinkable, and what I just saw is not someone who is remotely sharing in that grief.

When I wipe my eyes, as I have had to do several times since I started this post, it is a messy affair.  One wipe smears the saltiness around producing wetness and salty irritation and I end up having to press my hand into my eyes to clear the mess.

But only the wise can see The Emperor's New Tears.

Politicizing Tragedy: Another Rampage Killing That Won't Go to Waste

Having had a gun-related death in my family, I have experienced the grief and witnessed firsthand the shattering, paralyzing grief of parents.  It's horrific.  And, in that context, I can say that I don't appreciate the ambulance-chasing Michael Moores that are waiting in the wings to turn the grief of family members into political fodder.  I sure wouldn't have appreciated Bob Costas throwing in his 2¢ (even if someone had 1½¢ to give him back in change) on our personal tragedy.

Now, when Obama declared (or suggested, rather) a very reluctant truce on his attacks on gun rights, I was sure that Nov. 6th was the expiration date for that truce.  He has a history of saying whatever will get him elected.  Whether you knew he never meant what he said about marriage, individual mandates, CSPAN, debt ceilings, etc. or simply have a media-induced case of Obamnesia, that history is there.

It's been less than two months. Obama is tearing up on television and talking about renewing the gun "discussion": “seeing if we can get an assault weapons ban reintroduced, but part of it is also looking at other sources of the violence, because frankly, in my hometown of Chicago, there’s an awful lot of violence, and they’re not using AK-47s, they’re using cheap handguns.”  Yes, in spite of Chicago practically being a liberal's ideal gun-free zone, criminals still manage to get weapons and kill unarmed citizens before the police can answer the 911 call.  And wait, the killings were accomplished with 9mm pistols, so is Obama's segue into cheap handguns mean that ordinary citizens should not be allowed to own cheap handguns for fear that they will walk into a school?

Remember that at Columbine Harris and Klebold were trying to outdo the Bath School Disaster of 1927.  With bombs.  Fortunately, they were not as good at terrorism as Andrew Kehoe, so they resorted to shooting several when what they really wanted a truly enormous death toll.  A bit more practice with their home bombs and they might have pulled off what J.D. failed to do in Heathers.  Most rampagers probably have less narcissism involved in their killing, but remember that Andrew Kehoe seemed to be making a statement that society was to blame for his troubles: "Criminals are made."  Was Kehoe made a criminal by the school he blew up?

As one might imagine, China doesn't like its ordinary citizens to have guns.  (They might have had a revolution long ago.)  So their rampages are mostly accomplished with "melee weapons."

On a related note:
Remember how CNN showed Obama tromping around the Hurricane Sandy devastation (and buried the disturbing follow-up), while interviewing a member of the E Street Band for political commentary on why Romney's nod to the 10th Amendment was all wrong?  (Message: After Romney throws your grandma off a cliff and counts his money as your wife dies of cancer, he'll make sure that your city gets no adequate help after a disaster, because he's rich and doesn't care.)  That sure wasn't politicizing a tragedy to plug a candidate, nope.

What if this school shooting had happened the week before November 6th, and CNN had shown Obama tearing up over the senselessness and then had George Clooney being interviewed as body bags are shown being wheeled off the campus:

"Mr. Clooney, what do you think of gun control legislation in light of recent events?"
"Well, I have to say that anyone that isn't willing to rethink the 2nd Amendment must not be as sick of these senseless tragedies as I am, Bob..."

And then, we could have had Chris Matthews say after the subsequent Obama win, "I'm so glad we had that shooting last week..."  Yes, what are a few lives considering the fabulous opportunity they afford to politicize the event and gain a political victory?

Think of all the lives that could be saved by restricting vehicle ownership and vehicle operation.  Especially in the 18 to 25 age group.  Why don't we do something about that?  The 2nd Amendment at least is about guaranteeing our right to democratic government.  Isn't vehicle operation just a luxury entitlement compared to that?