It’s interesting if you think about it, that the computer age that we live in is driven by Logic. (If this, then that, and so on…)
So why is it then, with so much dedication to logic going on in our society these days, that we have such an extreme problem with analyzing cause and effect, on a societal level?
Why are we so afraid to talk about the real causes of all these school shootings by logical means?
I mean, look, prior to 1968 anyone on the planet could walk into a hardware store with cash and walk out with a gun and there wouldn’t be any questions ask about it at all. And yet back in those days these mass shootings were very rare indeed. So instead of listening to the left shrieking incoherently about the supposed “easy availability of guns”, if we were logical we would be asking what’s changed since then.
As an example of our reluctance to actually address the real issue, observe the attempt of Victory Girls [1] to try to explain all of this:
We have forgotten the values that bind us together.
Family, respect for our nation, community, service, helping our neighbors, and respecting our elders and others with more experience and knowledge.
Today, kids are taught they’re special without having to actually achieve anything. They’re told they deserve a trophy merely for showing up. Grades are no longer an assessment of knowledge and hard work, and teachers are discouraged from criticism and issuing fair performance assessments.
Families are broken because we’re encouraged to go for whatever desire happens to strike us.
Exactly. Very good so far. But, watch where the writer takes this:
Some say the elimination of God from families is also a contributing factor. Church fosters community, communities work together to help one another, and accountability to a higher power makes us better people. I have nothing but respect for folks who go to church and who feel responsible to God, and more power to them. I’m not one of those people. My parents tried to instill religion in me; it never stuck. I don’t do the right thing because I’m afraid of going to hell. I do the right thing because it’s the right thing.
Now, understand before we proceed… I’m not going to argue this from a religious standpoint, but rather a practical one.
Consider that the founders, who, while they disagreed rather profoundly about the nature of our creator, agreed just as profoundly that such a Creator exists.
Consider also that the founders thought of our inalienable rights as a moral issue. Therefore, they thought of that Creator as a moral law giver… And so they believed that government, being populated by men and therefore subject to that creator, could not over rule those rights, that moral law. Thus, the passage in the Declaration of Independence regarding inalienable rights.
Now let’s approach the question with the absence of such a creator, with the absence of a moral law Giver. Without what I’ll call “the above”, which is to say a lawgiver is that is insuperable by man, what is to say that any given set of moral laws is more pertinent and valid than any other?
The answer of course is “absolutely nothing”.
Pol Pot, Mao, Adolf Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, all took their actions personally as moral imperatives. They were able to do so because they created their own reference points. In effect, they made themselves out to be gods.
I don’t mean to pick on the author at victory girls particularly. The place is always worth a good read. But the argument that .,.
I do the right thing because it’s the right thing.
… Is patently absurd, and illogical in the extreme. Absent the external reference point, on what basis does the author determine what’s right and wrong? Simply put, they cannot.
Any set of moral laws without the external reference point of “the above” would by necessity be self-referencing, and therefore of equal value to any other moral view, including that of every tin pot dictator in history, every Mass murderer, and so on.
With all that in mind then, let’s really think about this, instead of allowing the anti-gun crowd to rule us emotionally which is what they’ve been doing, really. Let’s take this out of the realm of the emotional and stick to the logical for a moment.
Is it possible that the issue here is the collapse of the morality that the left has spent the last 50 years mocking deriding and dismantling? To say nothing of the underlying basis of that morality, of course.
Like it or not, our nation and for that matter Western culture as we know it today, was built on the foundational idea of our creator being the source of our rights… That whatever kind of government was in place, it was going to be answerable to a higher power at some point.
As a practical matter, what happens to a house when you remove the foundation?
On the other hand is it possible that our nation has been as great as it has been for so very long, because of the morality that comes from the concept of having someone above government that all men will answer to?
Folks, it is no accident that the very people that are trying to separate us from our 2nd Amendment rights are the very same people that by and large have been attempting to separate us from those concepts I’ve listed here. It’s fairly easy to understand their motivation. They believe in big government and believe that government is the ultimate Authority. It is their religion in fact.
Whether or not the consequences of this movement were intentional, is an argument for another time. The theological aspects of all of this are an argument for another time as well.
But it can hardly be ignored that as a practical matter, a cultural shift has occurred to the point where large numbers of people believe that we can no longer be trusted with the rights we once enjoyed.
I’ve mentioned Friedrich Nietzsche before, but I think it worth bringing up here. He understood very well I believe, the implications of erasing the Creator from our existence…. The removal of “the above” from our cultural value. Observe:
THE MADMAN
Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: “I seek God! I seek God!” — As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated? — Thus they yelled and laughed.The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. “Whither is God?” he cried; “I will tell you. We have killed him — you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.
“How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us — for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto.”
Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. “I have come too early,” he said then; “my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars — and yet they have done it themselves.
It has been related further that on the same day the madman forced his way into several churches and there struck up his requiem aeternam deo. Led out and called to account, he is said always to have replied nothing but: “What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?”
Friedrich Nietzsche was the son of a man of the cloth and the grandson of another. He rejected the concept of God, apparently never getting over his rebellious streak from his youth.
But for all that he rejected God, look at the imagery he uses to describe what happens when we no longer have an external reference point for in this case, a creator.
Ironically this writing was the foundation of the God is dead movement in the mid to late sixties… The period in time I referred to earlier, where Joe or Jane average could walk in off the street with cash in hand and pick up a firearm and walk out without any questions asked.
It was that “God is dead” movement which started us down this long destructive path. What is so seldom understood about this is that it was written as a warning, not as a guide map.
And so again I ask the question…
Is it possible that the issue here is the collapse of the morality that the left has spent the last 50 years mocking deriding and dismantling?
In answer I would suggest it’s well beyond possible and most likely a lock sure bet… and for far more of our societal woes than was encompassed by the original question.