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American Spectator
December 16, 2012
God Help Us
Posted by Ben Stein on Monday Dec 17th at 6:10am
Sunday
I learned about the massacre at Sandy Hook elementary school while we
were setting up at Fox News to tape Cavuto on Business. The news was
so horrible that we all felt as if we had lost our legs and could no
longer stand. It was such horrible news that it simply turned the
world upside down.
It still is that kind of news, and it's incredibly depressing about
the nature of humanity. And my wife and I pray all day for the souls
of those dear children and for the peace, if there ever will be peace,
of their families# and for the souls of the adults and the peace of
those who knew and loved them.
As usual, the smartest comment about the whole subject came from John
R. Coyne, Jr. "There is evil in the world. It's beyond mental illness,
beyond gun control. It is evil."
The killer got his weapons from his mother, who apparently had bought
them legally and registered them. That tells us something about what
anti-gun laws would do, although maybe the mother should not have had
them either. In this world, a killer devil can kill his mother and
steal her guns to kill six year olds. That's what some humans are and
I am not sure what laws will stop them.
Second, I read that the killer was socially awkward (putting it
mildly) and "reserved." I know what that often means. He spent much of
his miserable life playing shoot 'em up video games on line or on
machines. I see a troubled young man doing that often.
Up close and personal.
In these games, the "player" just spends his whole day attempting to
exercise and exorcize his loneliness and low self-esteem by shooting
imaginary creatures and creating damage all day long.
At a certain point, just "killing" on the console blurs into doing it
in real life. "Killing" is just what the kid does all his life. How
much of a stretch is it for him to shoot into a movie theater or a
political gathering or a kindergarten in "real life" if his life is so
pitiful that he does not know what's real and what is not? If you are
looking for a villain, try shoot 'em up games.
Third, what motivates "great" deeds? So that a man's name will not be
forgotten and he will be sung about even after his death, goes the
ancient saying. That's what you get if you slaughter 26 totally
innocent people at a grade school. If you want another villain, try
the media itself, which has now given Adam Lanza fame beyond what he
could have dreamt of. It is impossible to blame the media, but evil
men like Adam Lanza have gamed the system to perfection.
Fifth, why are these killers always men? What is it that we teach our
young men in this world that makes them think it's a mark of manliness
to kill the unarmed and innocent? Whatever it is, it's
disgusting. It's not manly to kill any unarmed human. It's miserable,
crawling cowardice.
Finally, a comment that will enrage the beautiful people. The whole
world is rightly overwrought and crazed with grief over the murder of
twenty totally innocent and blameless souls last Friday in Newtown. It
was and is a catastrophe for the ages.
But Mahmoud Ahmadinejad promises to kill every Jew in Israel and then
in the whole world, including babies# and he had his defenders, even
at the Democratic National Convention. And it was daily life in
Nazi-occupied Europe from 1939 to 1941 to kill thousands of Jewish
children every day. But powerful, intelligent men and women in this
country defended Hitler, spoke up for him and for keeping America from
even sending arms to Britain when England stood alone. What are we to
make of that? No one even mentions, no one even knows about the
horrendous Armenian genocide by the Turks in 1915, when well over a
million of the most talented people on the planet were wantonly
murdered - and the world has still not officially called it genocide -
and Hitler explicitly said it was a model for him. Who today even
talks of the purposeful mass starvation of millions of beautiful
Ukrainian children by Stalin? The U.S. did not say one word about it
as a government. The U.S. still will not confront Turkey seriously
about the Armenian children.
Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge killed roughly one third of all of its
people, including children, from 1974 to about 1977 - and it was
U.S. policy to avoid doing anything to stop them - because they were
opposed to the North Vietnamese Communists and Communist Vietnam,
which had just taken over South Vietnam - our ally. What can we say to
that? We cheered the deposing of the President - Richard Nixon - who
would have stopped the Khmer Rouge from taking power. There is plenty
of Cambodian blood on our hands. There is plenty of blood of all kinds
on our hands, especially of the most innocent and blameless among us#
real babies, truly innocent.
God help us. Man is made of such crooked stuff that it is impossible
to set him straight, said a famous philosopher. God help us.
http://m.spectator.org/169477/show/dc64b3616d09d0f148e415fdbbb85879/?
December 16, 2012
God Help Us
Posted by Ben Stein on Monday Dec 17th at 6:10am
Sunday
I learned about the massacre at Sandy Hook elementary school while we
were setting up at Fox News to tape Cavuto on Business. The news was
so horrible that we all felt as if we had lost our legs and could no
longer stand. It was such horrible news that it simply turned the
world upside down.
It still is that kind of news, and it's incredibly depressing about
the nature of humanity. And my wife and I pray all day for the souls
of those dear children and for the peace, if there ever will be peace,
of their families# and for the souls of the adults and the peace of
those who knew and loved them.
As usual, the smartest comment about the whole subject came from John
R. Coyne, Jr. "There is evil in the world. It's beyond mental illness,
beyond gun control. It is evil."
The killer got his weapons from his mother, who apparently had bought
them legally and registered them. That tells us something about what
anti-gun laws would do, although maybe the mother should not have had
them either. In this world, a killer devil can kill his mother and
steal her guns to kill six year olds. That's what some humans are and
I am not sure what laws will stop them.
Second, I read that the killer was socially awkward (putting it
mildly) and "reserved." I know what that often means. He spent much of
his miserable life playing shoot 'em up video games on line or on
machines. I see a troubled young man doing that often.
Up close and personal.
In these games, the "player" just spends his whole day attempting to
exercise and exorcize his loneliness and low self-esteem by shooting
imaginary creatures and creating damage all day long.
At a certain point, just "killing" on the console blurs into doing it
in real life. "Killing" is just what the kid does all his life. How
much of a stretch is it for him to shoot into a movie theater or a
political gathering or a kindergarten in "real life" if his life is so
pitiful that he does not know what's real and what is not? If you are
looking for a villain, try shoot 'em up games.
Third, what motivates "great" deeds? So that a man's name will not be
forgotten and he will be sung about even after his death, goes the
ancient saying. That's what you get if you slaughter 26 totally
innocent people at a grade school. If you want another villain, try
the media itself, which has now given Adam Lanza fame beyond what he
could have dreamt of. It is impossible to blame the media, but evil
men like Adam Lanza have gamed the system to perfection.
Fifth, why are these killers always men? What is it that we teach our
young men in this world that makes them think it's a mark of manliness
to kill the unarmed and innocent? Whatever it is, it's
disgusting. It's not manly to kill any unarmed human. It's miserable,
crawling cowardice.
Finally, a comment that will enrage the beautiful people. The whole
world is rightly overwrought and crazed with grief over the murder of
twenty totally innocent and blameless souls last Friday in Newtown. It
was and is a catastrophe for the ages.
But Mahmoud Ahmadinejad promises to kill every Jew in Israel and then
in the whole world, including babies# and he had his defenders, even
at the Democratic National Convention. And it was daily life in
Nazi-occupied Europe from 1939 to 1941 to kill thousands of Jewish
children every day. But powerful, intelligent men and women in this
country defended Hitler, spoke up for him and for keeping America from
even sending arms to Britain when England stood alone. What are we to
make of that? No one even mentions, no one even knows about the
horrendous Armenian genocide by the Turks in 1915, when well over a
million of the most talented people on the planet were wantonly
murdered - and the world has still not officially called it genocide -
and Hitler explicitly said it was a model for him. Who today even
talks of the purposeful mass starvation of millions of beautiful
Ukrainian children by Stalin? The U.S. did not say one word about it
as a government. The U.S. still will not confront Turkey seriously
about the Armenian children.
Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge killed roughly one third of all of its
people, including children, from 1974 to about 1977 - and it was
U.S. policy to avoid doing anything to stop them - because they were
opposed to the North Vietnamese Communists and Communist Vietnam,
which had just taken over South Vietnam - our ally. What can we say to
that? We cheered the deposing of the President - Richard Nixon - who
would have stopped the Khmer Rouge from taking power. There is plenty
of Cambodian blood on our hands. There is plenty of blood of all kinds
on our hands, especially of the most innocent and blameless among us#
real babies, truly innocent.
God help us. Man is made of such crooked stuff that it is impossible
to set him straight, said a famous philosopher. God help us.
http://m.spectator.org/169477/show/dc64b3616d09d0f148e415fdbbb85879/?