Excellent, but brief, conservation from from Bret’s Special Report. I found Krauthammer’s comments the most cogent, and he also also comments about what to say to your kids. while disagreeing the most with Kirsten Powers. Overall, a comprehensive discussion on the issue (focusing on the psychology of the issue) with good points.

This whole conservation, however, about our “culture of violence” I find shallow. This is the world’s condemnation of us, and yet nothing is said, and even we pander to, and actual culture of violence in the Islamist world, where school girls are targeted on a daily basis. Yet, there is no general condemnation of that, not does the misogyny and child abuse of the Arab world ever make the front pages of the world’s newspapers.

Perspective here is key. Any shooting is horrible, but in a nation with 300 million, and the problem of the human condition and “evil” as Krauthammer notes, everywhere, the rarity of a horror like the Newtown shooting should be noted.

I’m also pleased with the fact that finally people are generally rejecting blaming inanimate object for violence and bringing up the psychology of what drives this. As I’ve noted on Tammy Radio, and in my book the Death of Right and Wrong, the decline of faith, family, personal responsibility and understanding and embrace of the individual (all delivered to us by the craven left) feeds into a moral relativity that condemns us all. This is what has to be addressed, but the left feeds on godlessness and victimhood and isolation. Our work as conservatives is key to facing this horror down.

Text via RCP:

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: The first thing I think we have to say is: in trying to look at this or analyze this requires a huge amount of humility. The true factors that we do not know often — even after these events are analyzed and thought through, we really don’t know. This is the problem of evil and it’s been struggled with forever.

I mean, what we do know about the current shooting is that people are going to divide into three camps, there are three elements here. You’ve got the psychology of the shooter, you’ve got the weapon, and you’ve got the cultural environment. And people will choose whatever cause they want to blame. They’ll say guns were available, the laws ought to be tightened. Al though, the Brady campaign says that Connecticut has the four strictest laws in the country. And you’ve got the environment people on the right, and to say that our culture desensitizes young people in movies, in video games to killing in the way that older generations would find inconceivable and disturbing.

I tend to gravitate toward the psychology of the killer. I mean, when you think about the details of the crime; [he] began by shooting his mother in the face, taking her weapon and then destroying everything precious to her. Her colleagues and her children, and then killing himself. That is where I think I would start, al though I think all the issues have to be discussed.

###

KRAUTHAMMER: We live in a culture where you can’t escape from these events, which itself is rather tragic. So, everybody is exposed. All you can do is provide them safety and love, that’s all you can do. There are no explanations, I don’t that’s what you want to do. You just show them that you will protect them because you love them and they do not have to fear. That’s all you can say.

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8 Comments | Leave a comment
  1. TX Soldier254 says:

    *Whats wrong with Obama’s other eye?
    *Only one eye sheds a ‘tear’??
    *What no red eyes and or running nose???
    *This President of the United States is so full of Crap, can the camera crew zoom in on his Ears????

    Never mind…

    Thank you Dr. Krauthammer, for giving a brief explaination of what Evil is and does.

    Kristen Powers is still an Idiot.

  2. sourkraut says:

    Just googled gun violence in Chicago…. 400 deaths this year so far..and they project it to go over 500 by the end of the year. Gun violence in Australia jumped over 40% since they banned guns. Whattsup with that? The Israelis armed their teachers thirty years ago to combat terrorists hitting schools. Guess what… no more attacks. Criminals will always get weapons. Oh, just read that someone in Florida murdered his neighbor with a hammer. So I guess only liscenced carpenters can buy a hammer after a background check. Let’s hope the Supreme Court protects our 2nd Amendment.

    • Foreverautumn says:

      I don’t remember who said it, but if I have a claw hammer, I can build a house with it or I can smash someone’s skull in with it. The claw hammer doesn’t make that choice.

  3. midget says:

    It’s clear that the shooter was deeply disturbed, but perhaps his increasing anger and feelings of revenge could have been curbed by an upbringing based on Christian principles at home and in his public education.John Adams once said that if America removed Bible teachings from the schools,there would be an increase of money needing to be spent to handle the increase of crime.
    In 1690, a law was passed in Conn.where people were fined $25 if children could not read. They specifically wanted them to be able to read the word of God to enable them to understand a good law. The founders promoted religion because they knew it was a reflection of the citizens that made the nation great.
    29 of the signers of the Declaration were ministers.They started the first Sunday schools and wrote hymnals.Thomas Jefferson’s first design for the seal of the USA was Moses and the Red Sea.He signed his documents “In the year of Our Lord Christ”.He also started the largest church in America in Wash.DC. at Congress.
    Since 1962 there has been such a decline in our society that it is almost unrecognizable from the days of our youth.I personally relate it to the successful actions of one atheist, Madilyn Murray O’Hare.

  4. TX Soldier254 says:

    Oh yes the Notorius of the 60’s and 70’s, Madalyn Murray O’Hair.

    Mysterious Disappearance of Madalyn Murray O’Hair

    http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/classics/mbb209_kathy_reichs/12.html

    Midget, I wonder where Madalyn’s place in Hell is currently located??

    Just asking that’s all.

  5. midget says:

    TX- My Catholic faith teaches that Jesus gives the greatest sinner access to His merciful Heart.We pray “I expect to obtain everyting promised by Jesus,despite all our wretchedness.Through His heart as through an open gate,we pass into heaven.” When we see His beauty, He gives us a moment of time after death to choose.It may be possible, therefore, that Madalyn finally made a right decision and is enjoying what she once denounced.

  6. trevy says:

    The worlds first recorded murder, Cain killing his brother Abel, didn’t involve a gun. He probably used a rock, a club, or his bare hands.
    Tim McVeigh killed 168 people with a mixture of diesel and fertilizer.
    In 1990 Julio Gonzalez killed 87 people when he took a gallon of gas and set the Happy Land nightclub on fire in New York City.
    Evil will always find a way to work. Taking its tools away won’t stop it.

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