Liberalism and mental illness, II

Here is a staggering, nightmarish story (via Lucianne) of a 13-year-old boy who keeps threatening to kill his mother or himself. The only sane recourse would be to commit the boy to a state mental hospital. But the state mental hospitals were closed decades ago because liberals said they were oppressive, and that everyone deserves to be free, free, free.

Why is there so much mental illness like this in America? The conservative answer is that it is the result of liberal and feminist ideology, i.e. widespread fatherlessness due to divorce and illegitimacy, elimination of male authority, demonization of maleness itself, the condemnation of normal boyish behavior as sickness, and then pumping misbehaving boys full of psycho-active drugs which often help but often make them worse.

Or perhaps, at least in this case, is the problem not liberalism but simply that this boy happens to be dangerously mentally ill, and therefore has to be separated from society? But, as the mother explains, there is no way to separate him from society unless he is convicted of a crime and sent to prison.

Also, I notice that the mother doesn’t say anything about a husband. And Adam Lanza’s problems evidently worsened when his parents divorced three years ago and his father disappeared from his life.

I stick to the traditionalist conservative explanation: through our ideology of radical personal freedom and anti-maleness we have destroyed the familial and social structure needed for a sane human life, and the main casualties of this destruction are young males. As I say about so many contemporary social problems, the only cure is a return to a traditionalist order of society. which is not going to happen as long as liberal society still functions, however poorly, and liberalism remains our guiding ideology. Therefore, like our other terrible problems, the problem of widespread mental illness and dangerously violent males cannot be fixed until after liberal society has largely destroyed itself. To believe that the human and social catastrophes caused by liberalism can be solved while liberal rule is maintained is like believing, as the delusional Gorbachev did, that the social and economic catastrophes caused by Communism could be solved while Communist rule was maintained.

- end of initial entry -

Morgan F. writes:

I saw that same article, but what struck me was the name of the mother’s blog: Anarchist Soccer Mom. Anarchist: obviously she will raise her son with minimal rules and minimal authority; and obviously that leads to a very, very strong likelihood of extreme bad behavior.

But it gets worse. I didn’t read her blog in much detail, and then I just came across this.

Someone else took the time to go through her archives, and found these horrible things she thinks and does that she proudly posted on her blog, and she’s clearly been the type of mother who is asking for insane children.

Thank you for your great work and your valuable contribution to our world.

LA replies:

Here’s the beginning of the blog post that Morgan linked. Clearly Liza Long is some kind of nut, and according to her own account her son whom she described in her now famous article as dangerously insane is normal but messy. What strikes me most of all about her writing is the messes that women tend to become when they separate themselves from men and the normal male influence.

Want the Truth Behind “I Am Adam Lanza’s Mother”? Read her blog.
Posted on December 16, 2012 by Sarah Kendzior

Update: Please see my follow-up post “A brief response on Liza Long”

Liza Long, the woman who wrote the viral post “I Am Adam Lanza’s Mother,” is being held up as a heroic woman warranting sympathy for bring the plight of her mentally ill son to the public.

Her blog tells a different story. Long has written a series of vindictive and cruel posts about her children in which she fantasizes about beating them, locking them up and giving them away. In most posts, her allegedly insane and violent son is portrayed as a normal boy who incites her wrath by being messy, buying too many Apple products and supporting Obama.

I feel uncomfortable speculating about someone’s private life based on a blog. But since these children are likely to be the object of enormous media attention, someone should be paying close attention to the words of their mother.

These children could be in real danger if her goal was to capitalize on the Newtown tragedy by creating a media campaign designed to give her sympathy. If I am wrong about this, I truly apologize. But there is a 13-year-old boy who has already had his reputation destroyed and who may be facing serious harm.

This “national conversation” on mental illness needs to include the mental illness of mothers and the online privacy of their children.

According to the blog, Liza Long is going through a bitter divorce and has violent and paranoid fantasies about her family. The father of the children is also portrayed as abusive.

Below, some excerpts:

[cont.]

Wanda S. writes:

I’m deeply disappointed that you’ve swallowed whole the new “Lisa Long is crazy” meme that’s just sprung up as a result of Sarah Kendzior’s vindictive piece of cyber-jealousy. I’m a parent with three special-needs children, and nothing Long wrote struck me as demented or violent. Talking about “throttling” kids driving you crazy as you drive them is as normal as apple pie—who on earth takes that as a serious threat? Mothers of NORMAL kids indulge in black humour when the normal antics of their children drive them nuts—can you imagine what it’s like to have an 18-year old son who walks around naked half the time, and will saw through the electric cord of the computer monitor if he decides that he doesn’t want to watch a program anymore? (Oops, shouldn’t have let that slip—Kendzior might be calling the cops on me next.) Here’s a post from my blog a few years ago: And here’s the one from the day before: What do you think? Is that enough to tag me with the “dangerous lunatic overflowing with violent imagery” smear? It’s called using humour to cope with a situation that would leave normal people curled up in a ball, screaming for rescue within 24 hours.

Actually, I don’t blog about my kids much anymore, just because I don’t want to become a target for people like Kendzior. What do you know about her, anyway? A glance at her blog shows that she writes for The Atlantic and al Jazeera—where on the political spectrum do you think that places her? I’ll tell you what I think were the motivations for her post: a) sheer jealousy. Here she is, with her PhD in internet studies and Soviet history, and nobody’s ever heard of her, whereas some breeder (Four children? Are you kidding me?) goes viral with one post. b) Leftist irritation at someone gumming their perfect storm of anti-gun agitation with a demand that we turn our attention to the problems of mental illness instead. c) Tribal loyalty: the mother is a conservative who voted for Ronald Reagan, and one of the out-of-context quotes states that the son with the messy room is an Obama fan who drives his mother nuts singing his praises. I expect the local Democratic Party will try to recruit the kid to publicly embarrass his mother (i.e. “the enemy”). I’m really surprised that you would credit such an obvious fraud.

LA replies:

Wanda should not personalize the issue so much. I merely posted, without comment, what came to me and seemed informative and interesting.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 16, 2012 05:49 PM | Send