Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

The ‘You Didn’t Do That’ Society
Frontpage ^ | 5/28/2014 | Daniel Greenfield

Posted on 05/28/2014 2:30:51 AM PDT by markomalley

First Elliot Rodger murdered his three roommates with a knife, hammer and machete. Then he shot eight people, three of them fatally, and tried to run over several others in his car.

After the bodies were taken away, everyone on television agreed that it was the fault of the guns.

Rodger had been in therapy since he was eight and was seeing therapists every day in high school. He had a history of violent threats and psychical assaults and the police had already gotten involved. He was on multiple prescription medications and had therapists whom he alerted to his plans by sending them his manifesto.

A therapist reacted by notifying his mother who drove out personally. By then even more people were dead.

In a country where a little boy with a pop tart chewed in the shape of a gun triggers immediate action, the professionals who cashed in on the killer’s wealthy family were in no hurry to call the police. One even reassured his mother while the shootings were going on that it wasn’t him.

So it was obviously the fault of the guns… which he bought with $5,000 from his family. The BMW he used to commit some of the attacks was given to him by his mother.

Jenni Rodger, his British aunt, blamed America and guns for her nephew’s massacre. “What kind of a society allows this? How can this be allowed to happen? I want to appeal to Americans to do something about this horrific problem.”

Somehow the parenting failure of her brother is now the fault of an entire foreign country.

Rodger’s father issued a statement through his lawyer in support of gun control and “staunchly against guns.” It might have been more useful if instead of opposing a category of manual instruments; Peter Rodger had spent more time dealing with his son’s problems.

Guns did not kill six people. His son did.

When a teenager stabbed twenty people at a Pittsburgh-area high school there were no easy answers about gun control to take refuge in. If Rodger had stuck to his knife, hammer and machete, relatives who coddled him all these years wouldn’t be able to shift the blame. They wouldn’t be able to politicize the crime and snip their own involvement out of the picture.

Elliot Rodger’s parents, communicating through a lawyer and a talent agent, find it convenient to put up another layer of abstraction between themselves and the actions of their son. And the easiest way to do that is to transform it into a widespread social problem. The more that the smiling people on television talk about gun control, the less likely they are to talk about them.

Expanding an individual act into a social problem manufactures a collective responsibility. The killer’s family has successfully shifted their responsibility to people who live a thousand miles away. Now the villains are the 5 million members of the NRA who are unwilling to give up their constitutional rights because Elliot Rodger’s family failed at their single most important job.

Why is a gun owner in North Carolina more responsible for the Isla Vista killings than Peter Rodger? Does Peter Rodger’s staunch opposition to guns free him from responsibility while dumping it on the majority of Americans who believe in the Bill of Rights?

Elliot Rodger was not a social problem. He was not a gun culture. He was not a national anything. He was an individual and individuals bear responsibility for their own actions.

The left is expert at removing responsibility from individuals and assigning it to the culture at large. Every murder is a failure of society. And society fails every murderer, they insist. We are all murderers because we didn’t vote for the right politicians who would have outlawed guns.

The “You didn’t build that” society is also the “You didn’t do that” society. The flip side of Elizabeth Warren and Barack Obama’s collectivist rhetoric is that just as no one invents the airplane, creates a company or writes the Great American Novel on their own, no one kills six people on their own. If you killed six people, it’s because of the Second Amendment. If you wanted to kill sorority girls, it’s because of Seth Rogen movies. If you’re a half-Asian who beat and stabbed your Asian roommates to death, it’s because of white (or half-white) supremacism.

Everyone but the killer is responsible for his shooting spree. The problem is tackled with public awareness hashtags and zero tolerance legislation that hurts millions of random people.

America’s gun owners, like its machete and hammer owners, did not kill anyone. Every day the vast majority of gun owners somehow manage to get through the day without a killing spree. Their tools don’t have minds of their own. The gun culture that liberals talk about does not sneak in through their windows at night and urge them to shoot up the neighborhood.

And it was the good guys with guns the left sneers at who stopped Elliot Rodger’s killing spree.

We aren’t rethinking the First Amendment because of Rodger’s YouTube videos and manifesto. Why are we supposed to rethink the Second Amendment every time some psycho includes guns in his killing spree? The problem was not with Rodger’s computer, his smartphone, his hammer, his machete or his handguns. They were only the tools that he used. The problem was with him.

Elliot Rodger’s family doesn’t want to deal with their own choices. Elliot Rodger certainly did not want to deal with his. However we won’t achieve a moral society through collective guilt, but through individual responsibility.

A better country doesn’t begin with banning guns, but with holding accountable those who kill.

Even while liberals were puffing out their chests over gun control, the Supreme Court’s liberal justices stepped in to save Freddie Hall who kidnapped, raped and murdered a pregnant woman.

That was in 1978. A decade earlier he had gone to jail for raping another woman and gouging out her eyes so that she wouldn’t be able to identify him.

Like some of the other monsters on death row, Hall decided to plead retarded. His IQ scores dropped. After a long series of appeals, the Supreme Court finally decided that executing him would be unconstitutional.

“Florida’s law contravenes our Nation’s commitment to dignity and its duty to teach human decency as the mark of a civilized world,” Justice Kennedy wrote, speaking for the majority.

America was at its best in decency when it held men accountable for their actions. Liberals like Kennedy instead seek every possible pretext for protecting killers from their choices. We can restore decency by rejecting social problems and instead embracing individual responsibility.

Our choice is between a society of individual responsibility where everyone can be trusted to own a gun and a society of collectivist irresponsibles where no one can be trusted to own a gun.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: banglist
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-42 next last
To: yldstrk

Yes, yes, and more yes.

The only caveat I have with your post is that the Sandy Hook killer’s mother was insane as well - buying that kid guns.

Also, who paid for this Santa Barbara killer’s guns? Mommy & Daddy? Does he get such a large allowance that he can go buy any kind of weapon he wants? When I was a kid the only money I got in college was lunch money and subway money.


21 posted on 05/28/2014 5:30:37 AM PDT by miss marmelstein (Richard Lives Yet!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: markomalley
Well written article, full of facts and logic. And the Liberals will still win the debate.

Until the Conservative movement starts using events like these to ATTACK and DESTROY Liberals, (the same way the libs do to us after events like this), then we'll continue to get our asses kicked.

22 posted on 05/28/2014 6:00:20 AM PDT by IDontLikeToPayTaxes
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: miss marmelstein

unfortunately she is limiting her criticism to white male Hollywood

I guess she considers black entertainment, music and movies, to be real family fare.


23 posted on 05/28/2014 6:22:31 AM PDT by silverleaf (Age takes a toll: Please have exact change)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: miss marmelstein

I know a woman who allowed her mentally ill son to keep knives and chain saws in his bedroom. He’s now serving a life sentence for murdering his social worker. I believe that she is also legally and morally culpable. On the other hand, parenting a mentally ill child can be exhausting. It sounds like they had professionals telling them that he was not violent. But they knew. The mentally ill children I have known were not violent. I hate to see them lumped in with this guy. Asperger and even autistic kids generally withdraw and don’t act out. I have seen someone go from certifiably nuts to sane within 30 minutes of taking the right medication. Hard to know what to do.


24 posted on 05/28/2014 6:23:07 AM PDT by Mercat
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: Presbyterian Reporter

this

sadly

no use saying they did their due diligence to their son or anyone by spending the last decade paying a bunch of useless therapists who were all conned by a psychopath


25 posted on 05/28/2014 6:25:19 AM PDT by silverleaf (Age takes a toll: Please have exact change)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: Mercat

For a parent to allow a mentally ill kid to keep knives, chain saws and guns in his room, to me, is being an accessory to a crime. The parent must pay a price. How else to - at least - stop parents from enabling their sick kids?!


26 posted on 05/28/2014 6:38:32 AM PDT by miss marmelstein (Richard Lives Yet!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: silverleaf

Well, yes, you do have a good point! But it’s mostly men who run Hollywood and they should all hang their heads in shame for the degradation they have brought on American culture.


27 posted on 05/28/2014 6:39:54 AM PDT by miss marmelstein (Richard Lives Yet!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: exDemMom

Not buying. These parents had the money to have the boy committed to a psych ward, if even for a few days of evaluation. Had they done so, the “law” as it exists would have stopped his purchase of firearms during the background check. The family also funded the son’s lifestyle without controlling him, even though he was known to be a troubled kid who refused to take his meds. His father is neck-deep in creating the dysfunctional culture of lurid violent films and commercialism, violent video-game fantasy worlds (note how the son’s “Retribution” is little morem than a bad script for a video game), and shallow materialist obsessions. There is no evidence that the son received an iota of moral grounding, something even nuts can absorb. The values Elliot Rodger learned from his family instead placed appearances over content, and he took to heart the images of success Hollywood sells (fancy cars, blonde bimbos, artificial good-looks, violence as a cool solution, unearned wealth, humiliation if you don’t have it, self-obsession, envying what others have, etc.). Peter Rodger’s solutions: Continue your own selfish pursuits; dump son’s mother and take up with new woman; pay a therapist to fix the boy; blame others. This apple did not fall far from the tree.


28 posted on 05/28/2014 6:56:21 AM PDT by Chewbarkah
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: markomalley

29 posted on 05/28/2014 7:15:31 AM PDT by Petruchio (Democrats are like Slinkies... Not good for anything, but it's fun pushing 'em down the stairs.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: exDemMom

This family had the evidence & the money to house the kid in a private institution & keep him off the streets.

He was a time bomb.


30 posted on 05/28/2014 7:24:48 AM PDT by ridesthemiles
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: silverleaf

Hollyweird quit showing smoking in movies because they said it’s a bad influence on kids... they still show graphic murders in movies.


31 posted on 05/28/2014 9:59:15 AM PDT by TurboZamboni (Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.-JFK)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Boomer One
America’s gun owners, like its machete and hammer owners, did not kill anyone. Every day the vast majority of gun owners somehow manage to get through the day without a killing spree. Their tools don’t have minds of their own. The gun culture that liberals talk about does not sneak in through their windows at night and urge them to shoot up the neighborhood.

And it was the good guys with guns the left sneers at who stopped Elliot Rodger’s killing spree.

We aren’t rethinking the First Amendment because of Rodger’s YouTube videos and manifesto. Why are we supposed to rethink the Second Amendment every time some psycho includes guns in his killing spree? The problem was not with Rodger’s computer, his smartphone, his hammer, his machete or his handguns. They were only the tools that he used. The problem was with him.

Greenfield's amazing - the country can benefit from his insights... and lots of folks I know too...

32 posted on 05/28/2014 11:27:36 AM PDT by GOPJ (>The Mainstream Ministry of Information does not stand for liberty. Freeper Gene Eric)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Boomer One; marktwain
America’s gun owners, like its machete and hammer owners, did not kill anyone. Every day the vast majority of gun owners somehow manage to get through the day without a killing spree. Their tools don’t have minds of their own. The gun culture that liberals talk about does not sneak in through their windows at night and urge them to shoot up the neighborhood.

And it was the good guys with guns the left sneers at who stopped Elliot Rodger’s killing spree.

We aren’t rethinking the First Amendment because of Rodger’s YouTube videos and manifesto. Why are we supposed to rethink the Second Amendment every time some psycho includes guns in his killing spree? The problem was not with Rodger’s computer, his smartphone, his hammer, his machete or his handguns. They were only the tools that he used. The problem was with him.

Greenfield's amazing - the country can benefit from his insights... and lots of folks I know too...

33 posted on 05/28/2014 11:28:08 AM PDT by GOPJ (>The Mainstream Ministry of Information does not stand for liberty. Freeper Gene Eric)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: exDemMom
Guns are not the problem. The broken mental healthcare system is.

Problems arise when you put the power of the State behind that "mental health professional," one who dared not alienate the parents by pronouncing the kid's problems as so serious that he might need to be institutionalized. To do so would be the end of that steady customer.

The same is true of the therapeutic State. Once the State gains the power to decide who is sane and who is not, "sanity" will be defined by fealty to an unlimited state. It will be Catch-22 everywhere: 'Only sane people can own guns; anybody who wants to own a gun is insane.'

The only "mental health" system with no stake in the disease is one run by charity, a function that used to be performed largely by churches and civic organizations. No charity can afford a customer who does not improve. The trial lawyers destroyed all of that, with the blessing of socialists in black robes.

34 posted on 05/28/2014 11:50:03 AM PDT by Carry_Okie (The tree of liberty needs a rope.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: Presbyterian Reporter
If Elliot Rodger was that mentally ill, then why did the parents pawn him off on society by having him move to Santa Barbara and live independently from any medical supervision?

He was under the care of a therapist and was prescribed anti-psychotic medications. He had stopped taking the medications and uploaded several disturbing videos to youtube. His therapist was concerned enough to call the police; the police went out to the apartment and talked to him for about half an hour and took no further action. They should have watched the videos--which would have given them reason to request a search warrant--and had they searched, they would have found the weapons. They also should have taken him in for psychiatric evaluation, since it was not their call to deem him sane.

There is only so much parents can do with a mentally ill child, especially where committing someone indefinitely is nearly impossible. They also probably thought the illness was under control with the medications.

35 posted on 05/28/2014 4:14:07 PM PDT by exDemMom (Current visual of the hole the US continues to dig itself into: http://www.usdebtclock.org/)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: exDemMom
If the parents had flagged the state that their son was seriously mentally ill his background check would have prevented him from being able to purchase a gun.

His family had the resources to commit him to psychiatric care.

His family basically threw him out in the world knowing he had serious problems and simply hoped for the best while giving him the resources to do nothing but stew in his own pity without requiring any job/work on his part.

His family definitely has some serious responsibility for what happened.

36 posted on 05/28/2014 8:55:16 PM PDT by DB
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: miss marmelstein

The Sandy Hook killer reportedly had robbed the murder weapons from his mother. That’s not the same as her buying them for him.

But yeah, I imagine they furnished Rodgers enough to let him live high on the hog. A gun or two was pin money to him.


37 posted on 05/29/2014 12:40:01 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: DB

Maybe they hoped that a college education would get him going in a constructive direction.


38 posted on 05/29/2014 12:41:00 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 36 | View Replies]

To: HiTech RedNeck

OK - but the parents of the Sandy Hook killer allowed him to sit in his darkened room, watch violent video games and generally behave in an insane way. She also took her crazy kid to the gun range. Personally, I think these particular parents were as nutty as hell.


39 posted on 05/29/2014 3:53:58 AM PDT by miss marmelstein (Richard Lives Yet!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 37 | View Replies]

To: miss marmelstein

To take a maddened kid to a gun range was dangerous to everybody there, let alone the kid.

Anyhow, it’s not always the madman who has all the illusions. Sometimes it’s his family too.


40 posted on 05/29/2014 4:14:30 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 39 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-42 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson