When Will It End?

Column by Paul Hein.

Exclusive to STR

The public schools are dangerous places. I’ve lost count of the number of shootings in those schools, and the number of students killed or injured. It reminds me of space exploration. We were glued to our TV sets when the first Americans went into space, even if only for a suborbital trip. After a while, the fascination waned. Do you remember the most recent space launch? I don’t. The identity of the latest astronauts? Beats me. Ho hum. Will school shootings eventually become so ordinary they don’t merit more than a brief mention on the evening news?

Yes, I think it’s possible. The question is always raised after a school massacre: What can we do to prevent further shootings? The answer: nothing. I think it rather naive to think otherwise. Of course, “gun control,” meaning disarmament, is always advised, but to disarm at a time of mass shootings isn’t likely to help.

As an old man—and probably a curmudgeon to boot--I can remember when there were certain cultural norms and moral principles that were accepted by virtually everyone, and which parents taught their children. They have been ignored for several generations now, replaced by a sort of Gnostic melange of “your truth isn’t my truth,” and moral principles that are not fixed, but relative and personal. At the very schools wherein these shootings have taken place, it would probably be some sort of offense for a teacher to even suggest otherwise. Indeed, one wonders if the teachers themselves have anything but a fleeting acquaintance with the idea of the Ten Commandments. If they did, they would realize that to mention them to their students, or, God forbid!--to actually teach them, would result in their dismissal.

Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain? Why, that’s the ONLY way to take it! Thou shalt not commit adultery? Aw, come on. Sex is for fun; don’t make a big deal of it. Thou shalt not kill? Ok, unless the victim is old and sick, or unborn, or I just have this tremendous urge to do it. Thou shalt not bear false witness? False? What’s false? How can what’s true for me be false? Thou shalt not steal? Agreed, unless it’s from some big company that’s ripping us off.

The idea of right versus wrong seems to have been replaced with well versus sick. The use of words such as “evil” only perpetuates the outmoded idea of fixed values. School shooters are sick, mistreated, abused perhaps, but surely not wicked! Oh, they may have been taking so-called “psychotropic” drugs, but such drugs are needed in our society if we’re not to be depressed or unhappy, and if occasionally one of them produces disastrous results, well--think of it as collateral damage. It happens. Live with it--or,in some cases, die with it.

This moral relativism regarding actions like shooting, sex, stealing, etc., is not limited to such major events. Witness the incredible vulgarity which has seized our culture. Words which might have occasionally been heard in the men’s locker room now are voiced by women, in so-called “polite society.” Modesty in dress, to the extent that it exists at all, may be limited to covering a few square inches of the body. Television commercials leave some of us old folks wondering if we’ve really heard what we just heard. I pity young parents dealing with their children’s questions about the words they’ve just heard in an ad for some drug, for example. “What’s an erection, daddy? What’s a period? What’s a bowel movement?” Good grief!

I’d be tempted to ask “Is nothing sacred?” but I already know the answer. NO! The very idea of “something sacred” is absurd. Whereas we were once taught that we were made--can you believe this?--in the image and likeness of God, now we strive to create ourselves in the image and likeness of the latest celebrity. Our bodies are not temples of the Holy Spirit (could anyone have believed that?) but pleasure palaces to be kept from pain, deformity, discomfort, and, for sure, ugliness for as long as possible, and disposed of when they no longer are capable of pleasing us.

So send your kid to public school. Dangerous? Sure, but man-up and live with it. It’s the 21st Century, for Pete’s sake. These things happen. If it makes you feel better, buy him a bullet-proof vest for his birthday.

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Paul Hein's picture
Columns on STR: 150

Comments

Paul's picture

I've recently taken up watching Chinese, Korean and Japanese romantic comedies on Netflix with my wife. It's nice to see actual chaste behavior on the idiot box, strange as that may sound. You don't end up feeling dirty after watching it. It may be there is some censorship going on to maintain this, or the culture is not as degraded as ours is, or a combination of the two. I don't know, but I like the result.

As to school shootings, they sure are convenient for advancing the ruling class aim to disarm the peons. However, it's not going to work. Americans are arming up. If the parasites manage to touch off a war, that will be the end of them.

John deLaubenfels's picture

When I read a site like zerohedge.com, I'm heartened by the overwhelming rejection of gun-control arguments following this latest school shooting.  Just so I don't get too happy, I'm saddened by the overwhelming rejection of the idea of open borders.  Lock 'em up and toss 'em out is the attitude toward immigrants at ZH.

ReverendDraco's picture

Sounds like smart people over at ZH - 2 for 2 is pretty good.