Columbine II

In a playwriting class at Virginia Tech, Cho Seung-Hui wrote screenplays so luridly violent that fellow students thought he might be another Klebold and Harris:

“When we read Cho’s plays, it was like something out of a nightmare. The plays had really twisted, macabre violence that used weapons I wouldn’t have even thought of,” former classmate Ian McFarlane, now an AOL employee, wrote in a blog posted on an AOL Web site. He said he and other students “were talking to each other with serious worry about whether he could be a school shooter.”

“We always joked we were just waiting for him to do something, waiting to hear about something he did,” said another classmate, Stephanie Derry. “But when I got the call it was Cho who had done this, I started crying, bawling.”

Professor Carolyn Rude, chairwoman of the university’s English department, said Cho’s writing was so disturbing that he had been referred to the university’s counseling service…. She said she did not know when he was referred for counseling, or what the outcome was.

See? That’s what inhabitants of liberal society do when confronted with a young man exhibiting obviously pathological behavior promising murder: Mixed with “serious worry,” they joke about it, but, except for “referring” him to “counseling.” they don’t do anything about it. Later they cry about it.

What would a non-liberal society do, especially a society that has had a great deal of Columbine-type experiences? One, it would recognize that a young man who writes twisted, extremely violent fantasies is mentally disturbed and is highly likely to commit acts of violence. Two, it wouldn’t just “refer” him to “counseling.” It would demand that he go under psychiatric examination and, until it was determined that he was not dangerous, that he be isolated from the community and especially kept away from any weapons.

That’s what a society would do that values life and wants to live. But valuing life requires that people make moral distinctions between that which furthers life, and that which threatens it; it requires that they feel fear and indignation at the sight of that which threatens life, and that they instinctively take action against such a danger. Liberalism cuts out, at their moral and spiritual root, the very possibility of such normal and healthy reactions.

David H. writes:

There is nothing I or anyone else can add to your rational—and quite passionate—dissection of this hideous act of evil. If this weren’t such a vicious and utterly devestating event, I would have great joy over the power of your spot-on analysis. As you have pointed out, liberals of all (yellow) stripes will blame each and every false bogeyman (Racism! Guns! They called him names! Some girl wouldn’t date him! America!) with the exception of the real ones.

I continue to hear excuses for the university, why they did not lock down/cancel for the day. Whether they believed it to be a “domestic dispute” or not, an armed murderer was loose on the campus. Even if he had not committed mass murder like this monster did, had he hid inside one of the university buildings, innocent lives would still have been in grave danger. The administration has a great deal to answer for, and they are not the only ones.

I won’t repeat it here, but your “What would a non-liberal society do…” paragraph—while common sense—is so uncommon in this day and age, it should be required reading.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 17, 2007 06:10 PM | Send