- Joined
- May 8, 2017
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I started this as a response to a post and decided it needed a new thread. While there may be a bit of Islamism mixed in with Paddock's motives, but without a mental health problem Paddock would not have been interested in converting to a violent ideology and using it to the hilt.
I came to be conscious of this issue with McGovern's cashiering of Eagleton as a candidate in the 1972 campaign. This sorry episode is part of what started my path away from believing that liberals are necessarily good people. I had thought they really believed in love, help and compassion before that. I was 15 at time, and had bought into the "peace, love and helping hand" myth the liberals and Democrats presented themselves as adhering to. I believed strongly then, and still do believe, that people are capable of making something of themselves after facing obstacles. To have unceremoniously tossed such a person off the ticket showed a total lack of spine and leadership we see all too often.
In recent years there have been other mass shootings. Jared Lochner, James Holmes, Elliot Rodger (Santa Barbara) and Adam Lanza (Sandy Hook) come to mind. All of these people were obviously troubled. All of these people, except maybe Adam Lanza, were in regular contact with other students, teachers and administrators at their respective schools. Dylan Roof was in regular contact with friends, roommates and his parents. The societal problem is that it is easier to ignore people who are not sociable and not pleasant to be with than to engage them.
With this horrific church massacre, we are treated to lectures about gun control and about racism. People forget that both in this episode and Sandy Hook parents without any apparent mental health pathologies were the ones that obtained the weapons, not the mentally ill adult-aged children. Guns are everywhere so efforts to control legally purchased guns are doomed to futility. The most those laws will do is prevent people who would hurt no one from owning a gun.
Racism is similarly rife in society. But no one things that Dylan Roof was active in any anti-black political movement.
I suppose that liberals don't want to deal with mental health issues because that would mean getting involved with and spending real time with unpleasant people who don't make good social companions. That takes real time and effort. Learning more about those people and having people who are conscious of their ups and downs might prevent some, though certainly not all tragedies.
I am not saying it is the role of untrained people to be psychologists. Far from it. But when people are left friendless for long periods, and no one reaches out to them a tragedy will sometimes occur. It is our job, as a society, to know our neighbors, students and colleagues.
I feel that forming real communities will solve some of these problems. Trying to remove the implements of crime from people who are far beyond obeying any law of any kind is futile and useless.
It is far easier and more satisfying to inveigh against guns and racism. It feels good and typical for liberals that's what matters as was pointed out here.
I appreciate your efforts to focus discussion on what I see as real causes of Las Vegas, Sandy Hook, Charleston and most similar mass slayings.
I came to be conscious of this issue with McGovern's cashiering of Eagleton as a candidate in the 1972 campaign. This sorry episode is part of what started my path away from believing that liberals are necessarily good people. I had thought they really believed in love, help and compassion before that. I was 15 at time, and had bought into the "peace, love and helping hand" myth the liberals and Democrats presented themselves as adhering to. I believed strongly then, and still do believe, that people are capable of making something of themselves after facing obstacles. To have unceremoniously tossed such a person off the ticket showed a total lack of spine and leadership we see all too often.
In recent years there have been other mass shootings. Jared Lochner, James Holmes, Elliot Rodger (Santa Barbara) and Adam Lanza (Sandy Hook) come to mind. All of these people were obviously troubled. All of these people, except maybe Adam Lanza, were in regular contact with other students, teachers and administrators at their respective schools. Dylan Roof was in regular contact with friends, roommates and his parents. The societal problem is that it is easier to ignore people who are not sociable and not pleasant to be with than to engage them.
With this horrific church massacre, we are treated to lectures about gun control and about racism. People forget that both in this episode and Sandy Hook parents without any apparent mental health pathologies were the ones that obtained the weapons, not the mentally ill adult-aged children. Guns are everywhere so efforts to control legally purchased guns are doomed to futility. The most those laws will do is prevent people who would hurt no one from owning a gun.
Racism is similarly rife in society. But no one things that Dylan Roof was active in any anti-black political movement.
I suppose that liberals don't want to deal with mental health issues because that would mean getting involved with and spending real time with unpleasant people who don't make good social companions. That takes real time and effort. Learning more about those people and having people who are conscious of their ups and downs might prevent some, though certainly not all tragedies.
I am not saying it is the role of untrained people to be psychologists. Far from it. But when people are left friendless for long periods, and no one reaches out to them a tragedy will sometimes occur. It is our job, as a society, to know our neighbors, students and colleagues.
I feel that forming real communities will solve some of these problems. Trying to remove the implements of crime from people who are far beyond obeying any law of any kind is futile and useless.
It is far easier and more satisfying to inveigh against guns and racism. It feels good and typical for liberals that's what matters as was pointed out here.
