There was a national rush to therapy. Hasan was a loner who had trouble finding a wife and socializing with his neighbors.
This response was understandable. It’s important to tamp down vengeful
hatreds in moments of passion. But it was also patronizing. Public
commentators assumed the air of kindergarten teachers who had to
protect their children from thinking certain impermissible and
intolerant thoughts. If public commentary wasn’t carefully policed, the
assumption seemed to be, then the great mass of unwashed yahoos in
Middle America would go off on a racist rampage.Worse, it
absolved Hasan — before the real evidence was in — of his
responsibility. He didn’t have the choice to be lonely or unhappy.
First of all, it’s not like Middle America doesn’t have a history, fuckpuppet. Second, I don’t recall the conversation being so policed thatthis dickhead couldn’t get a hearing. Third, OH MY GOD, it is not the job of therapy to provide you with excuses. If it seems that way, David, I suggest you find a new therapist, because explanations for why you are fucked up and permission to go on fucking up are not the same thing.
I kind of want to send David to my recently-retired doc, whose advice often took the form of, “So that makes you unhappy? Yeah, you should cut it out.” On the other hand, she’d probably slap him in the face with a dildo. I mean, I know that’s my instant desire upon reading this kind of mealy crapola.
For what it’s worth, I think the coverage that attempts to explain “why” someone would go on a shooting spree is always annoying. How you talk to your children about national tragedies is up to you and if you’re looking to Good Morning America for tips, or worse yet David Brooks, maybe it’s time to put down the crack pipe and take the little tykes to the park.
But Brooks isn’t making the point that our journalism is stupid. He’s making the point that, as usual, liberals are pussies and his imaginary scenario is the only one that matters:
And evidence is now mounting to suggest he chose the extremist War on Islam narrative that so often leads to murderous results.
The conversation in the first few days after the massacre was well
intentioned, but it suggested a willful flight from reality. It ignored
the fact that the war narrative of the struggle against Islam is the
central feature of American foreign policy. It ignored the fact that
this narrative can be embraced by a self-radicalizing individual in the
U.S. as much as by groups in Tehran, Gaza or Kandahar.It
denied, before the evidence was in, the possibility of evil. It sought
to reduce a heinous act to social maladjustment. It wasn’t the reaction
of a morally or politically serious nation.
Yes. A morally serious nation would have found some hippies to kick the shit out of and then gone to blow up Pakistan.
Viawhet.
A.