Paul Craig Roberts
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/paulcraigroberts/pcr20010117.shtml
January 17, 2001
Liberal culture spawns violence
What is it about guns that causes liberals to
go berserk and blame inanimate objects for
human behavior? Are liberals that much more
emotional and less rational than the rest of
us, or have liberals made guns the scapegoat
for the consequences of liberal policies that trashed our
culture? Guns have been around for a long time, but
"gun violence" has not. As a kid in Atlanta, I grew up in
what today's liberals would call a strong "gun culture."
Every one of my friends had an air rifle. Many also had a
.22 rifle and a single-barrel .410 shotgun. Both weapons
were common presents under the Christmas tree for
12-year-old boys.
If guns were the cause of violence, school shootings
would have been an everyday occurrence, but we never
shot anyone. If a kid had taken a gun to school, it would
have been for our version of "show and tell." Teachers
would not have panicked and called the police.
In those days, a person could purchase a gun in the
local hardware store without showing any ID, and no
one thought anything of it. Criminals were associated
with crime -- robbery, burglary, murder -- not with guns.
We might have heard of criminal violence, but never of
gun violence.
Today, there is still a lot of criminal violence, but the
deaths and injuries from firearms that liberals call gun violence have nothing to do
with robbery or traditional motives for murder. The liberal outcry against guns isn't
provoked by the use of weapons in traditional crimes.
It is not the shooting of a clerk by a bank robber that sets off demands for "gun
control," but the senseless shootings when a rampaging gunman shoots co-workers
or strangers, or students decide to "take out" their classmates and teachers, as at
Columbine High.
Such shootings lack the traditional motives of criminal violence. The perpetrators of
these acts of violence are not motivated by financial gain or even by a drug habit. Their
crimes are senseless in as much as they were unthinkable 30 years ago.
Why did shootings unrelated to criminal gain become both thinkable and doable?
Deranged, frustrated, disappointed and bitter people have been around forever, but
motiveless killings are a new phenomenon in our culture.
In order for a person to take out his frustrations and disappointments on innocents,
he must escape a culture that inculcates traditional ideas of right and wrong, and thus
be "liberated" from a sense of personal responsibility and religious morality. The
result is the "liberated" modern person whose self-esteem is unaffected by his
dishonorable and irresponsible actions.
What other than the influence of liberal ideas produced this person?
Liberals reject personal responsibility, instead teaching collective responsibility ("it
takes a village"). Liberals believe that religion is of anthropological interest, but not a
guide to living a life. Liberals teach that right and wrong are judgmental concepts
espoused by people with authoritarian personalities.
In a recent issue of "Academic Questions," a journal of the National Association of
Scholars, Gertrude Himmelfarb notes the liberals' success in dethroning society's
morals. She cites reports from professors about students who can no longer bring
themselves to pass judgment against the Holocaust, slavery, apartheid and ethnic
cleansing.
Students learn from liberals that everything is relative. In the liberals' view, to pass
judgment is to be an intolerant "moral absolutist," whereas the desired norm is to be
an open, tolerant, nonjudgmental person. Even though students don't approve of such
things as slavery and human sacrifice, they have learned to see moral judgments as
arbitrary, ethnocentric and politically incorrect.
The cause of violence is not guns but people who grow up in a culture that knows no
right or wrong. (Nonjudgmentalism is forsaken only when it comes to animal rights,
minority rights and environmentalism. In these three arenas students are permitted
moral absolutism.)
In the days before people's sense of self became narcissistic, bad behavior could
destroy a person's self esteem, ruin his reputation, and harm the reputation of his
family and hometown. Today bad behavior is rewarded with book contracts and
stardom.
It is the change in culture that explains the shootings. Liberals changed our culture.
Finding no fault in themselves, liberals blame guns.
©2001 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/paulcraigroberts/pcr20010117.shtml
January 17, 2001
Liberal culture spawns violence
What is it about guns that causes liberals to
go berserk and blame inanimate objects for
human behavior? Are liberals that much more
emotional and less rational than the rest of
us, or have liberals made guns the scapegoat
for the consequences of liberal policies that trashed our
culture? Guns have been around for a long time, but
"gun violence" has not. As a kid in Atlanta, I grew up in
what today's liberals would call a strong "gun culture."
Every one of my friends had an air rifle. Many also had a
.22 rifle and a single-barrel .410 shotgun. Both weapons
were common presents under the Christmas tree for
12-year-old boys.
If guns were the cause of violence, school shootings
would have been an everyday occurrence, but we never
shot anyone. If a kid had taken a gun to school, it would
have been for our version of "show and tell." Teachers
would not have panicked and called the police.
In those days, a person could purchase a gun in the
local hardware store without showing any ID, and no
one thought anything of it. Criminals were associated
with crime -- robbery, burglary, murder -- not with guns.
We might have heard of criminal violence, but never of
gun violence.
Today, there is still a lot of criminal violence, but the
deaths and injuries from firearms that liberals call gun violence have nothing to do
with robbery or traditional motives for murder. The liberal outcry against guns isn't
provoked by the use of weapons in traditional crimes.
It is not the shooting of a clerk by a bank robber that sets off demands for "gun
control," but the senseless shootings when a rampaging gunman shoots co-workers
or strangers, or students decide to "take out" their classmates and teachers, as at
Columbine High.
Such shootings lack the traditional motives of criminal violence. The perpetrators of
these acts of violence are not motivated by financial gain or even by a drug habit. Their
crimes are senseless in as much as they were unthinkable 30 years ago.
Why did shootings unrelated to criminal gain become both thinkable and doable?
Deranged, frustrated, disappointed and bitter people have been around forever, but
motiveless killings are a new phenomenon in our culture.
In order for a person to take out his frustrations and disappointments on innocents,
he must escape a culture that inculcates traditional ideas of right and wrong, and thus
be "liberated" from a sense of personal responsibility and religious morality. The
result is the "liberated" modern person whose self-esteem is unaffected by his
dishonorable and irresponsible actions.
What other than the influence of liberal ideas produced this person?
Liberals reject personal responsibility, instead teaching collective responsibility ("it
takes a village"). Liberals believe that religion is of anthropological interest, but not a
guide to living a life. Liberals teach that right and wrong are judgmental concepts
espoused by people with authoritarian personalities.
In a recent issue of "Academic Questions," a journal of the National Association of
Scholars, Gertrude Himmelfarb notes the liberals' success in dethroning society's
morals. She cites reports from professors about students who can no longer bring
themselves to pass judgment against the Holocaust, slavery, apartheid and ethnic
cleansing.
Students learn from liberals that everything is relative. In the liberals' view, to pass
judgment is to be an intolerant "moral absolutist," whereas the desired norm is to be
an open, tolerant, nonjudgmental person. Even though students don't approve of such
things as slavery and human sacrifice, they have learned to see moral judgments as
arbitrary, ethnocentric and politically incorrect.
The cause of violence is not guns but people who grow up in a culture that knows no
right or wrong. (Nonjudgmentalism is forsaken only when it comes to animal rights,
minority rights and environmentalism. In these three arenas students are permitted
moral absolutism.)
In the days before people's sense of self became narcissistic, bad behavior could
destroy a person's self esteem, ruin his reputation, and harm the reputation of his
family and hometown. Today bad behavior is rewarded with book contracts and
stardom.
It is the change in culture that explains the shootings. Liberals changed our culture.
Finding no fault in themselves, liberals blame guns.
©2001 Creators Syndicate, Inc.