Everyone, it seems, has a magic bullet that’s going to end school shootings. It’s part of our culture. The left wants one simple law passed and the right another repealed. Everyone on Twitter is a policy expert, Facebook is filled with solutions that are foolproof and simple and yet somehow overlooked, at least to the experts posting them.
I have bad news for you. No one is going to end school shootings because schools shootings are not the real problem. So be prepared for them to get worse and to not be limited to schools. When your culture falls apart, the people in it fall apart. Some of them turn into TrigglyPuff. Some turn into Nikolas Cruz.
But what did we expect was going to happen? That’s not a rhetorical question, except in the sense that no one really thought to ask it.
We built a culture in which celebrity is our highest aspiration. From “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” to “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo”, we have taught our kids that being rich, being famous, being glamorous is what’s important. When we cut ourselves loose from any virtue higher than others’ opinions of us, no one thought it would result in a generation of teens who eat Tide Pods for a few Youtube clicks. Because no one ever thought.
We built a culture that promotes confusion. We tore down all barriers related to morality, especially sexual morality. We started with serial monogamy and hookup culture and moved right into married gays and bent genders. Now after 12 years of sex education our kids don’t even know what sex they are. We purposely tore down every protective social wall that humanity spent the previous 5 millennia constructing. No one ever thought to ask why they were constructed in the first place. Because no one ever thought.
We built a culture that promotes unresolvable interpersonal conflict. No more are we one nation under God; we are not under God at all, nor are we a nation. We are but intersectionalities of aggrieved classes, competing for the most oppression points by demonizing our fellow citizens for the original sin of being born white or male or straight or with 2 legs. We have set an entire generation against itself with manufactured claims of oppression. Did we truly not think that some of them would take up arms against the others or that a few would seek to destroy the many? We did not think at all.
We built a culture where drugs could take the place of discipline. Got a boy with ants in his pants? Instead of working with him to build his self control, we give him a drug. He can’t concentrate? Take this pill*. Don’t want chicken pox? Get this shot. Don’t have time to eat right? Here’s some processed cheese food and some deep fried GMO corn chips. Did we ever wonder what would happen to his developing brain when we pumped it full of these chemicals? No, we didn’t.
So now we have raised a generation of angry, bitter, drug-addled, under-developed aspiring rappers who don’t know who they are and never learned how to deal with life’s most common setbacks. We cut them loose without support on an America that has lost its way, lost its finances, lost its vision, and lost its history. Then we are surprised at the results.
What did we think was going to happen if we did this? We didn’t think at all.
We’re in a hole of our own making. It’s a deep hole. It’s so deep and so big that I do not believe we are collectively coming out of it. The monsters are already among us, the barbarians are inside the gates. And our culture creates more of them every day. We will not all escape.
But you can and your family can, if you’re willing to break free from it, to come out of her, my people. If you’re truly serious, you can almost guarantee that while you cannot stop school shootings, at least they will not affect you and yours. And you will raise well-adjusted, decent human beings to boot.
First Step: Homeschool or die. I don’t want to hear why you can’t do it. In three decades as a homeschooling parent, I’ve heard your excuse. Either it’s important enough to you that you work through your roadblocks, or it’s not. Your choice.
Second step: turn off the damned TV. Our poisonous culture is delivered to our kids electronically, and it is parents who fund it. Hollywood has no money that regular Americans didn’t give it. It is a cesspool that is purposely corrupting your children, purposely destroying beauty and virtue and love. Everything you hold dear, it destroys. Cut it out of your life.
Get away from the city. That world is too big for kids. A high school of 3,000 students is a factory. It alienates kids. It harms them in ways that are impossible to measure and difficult to comprehend. Every school shooter you’ve heard of came out of public schools, most of them suburban. Instead find a nice small town where they can establish deep and long-lasting relationships, not only with people their age, but with older people. Find a place where they can know and be known, a place small enough that they matter. They can’t put down roots in concrete.
Build a culture of life in your home and community. Pray for and with your kids. Teach them to hunt and to garden, to train a dog and change a diaper. Teach them that decisions have eternal consequences. Teach them about the importance of sex, of marriage, of faithfulness. They will not be cool in the world’s eyes; neither will they be destroyed by the world’s coldness. Teach them that their happiness is not the highest virtue and they will be happier than any of their peers.
School shootings will not be solved because they are but a symptom of the real problem. They are the hacking cough of a man with lung cancer; cough drops, no matter how strong, will do no good. We are accelerating into a full-blown cultural meltdown. And we cannot turn it around without radical surgery, without monumental effort, without considerable sacrifice. In reality, we are probably going to ride it right through to hell, at full speed, with tens of millions of our fellow Americans cheering the whole way.
Can’t they see where this road leads? What are they thinking? They are not thinking at all.
* No worries that its side effects can include suicidal and/or murderous thoughts. That’s just there because of lawyers.
What Did We Think Was Going To Happen?
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5
Fantastic article. You nailed it.
Sometimes a man’s just gotta rant.
1. Do you recognize that Donald Trump completely embodies all of the above mentioned problems surrounding TV and the ideal of “celebrity aspiration”? and as such do you reject him as a fit leader of this country?
2. Why does any civilian need to own a weapon designed to kill people engaged in war?
3. Even if banning assault weapons is not the “silver bullet” to solve this issue, how would it make things worse?
1. Yes. When you destroy your cultural standards, you get Trump. He is not a cause, but an effect of the left’s half-century war on decency and normality, its promotion of celebrity and shock. And No. Trump is the president, duly elected. Get used to it. He may be president for a very long time, longer than the already-ragged sanity of his opponents holds out.
2. Because he might have to kill people engaged in war on him. “…the security of a free state”, etc.
3. The main criterion for a solution to a problem is that it solves the problem, not that it doesn’t make other things worse while not solving the problem. If it doesn’t solve the problem, it’s not a solution.
1. Yes. No.
2. Fuck you, that’s why. Too harsh? Too bad.
3. Every time a right is eroded by the overreaching State, America dies a little more, the chains are fitted around just a bit tighter. Now, if you want to fit yourself to the Procrustean bed of subservience, go right ahead. Just don’t be surprised when those not looking to be eunuchs of the State don’t fall in line, but push back and push back hard.
“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”
― Samuel Adams
1. Yes. He’s very unusual in that he has actual accomplishment in his record before becoming a celebrity. And it shows now. Very pleased at the job he is doing – and even better, letting his subordinates do.
2. ALL weapons have been used to kill people engaged in war. Free people are distinguished by being able to defend themselves with weapons. Slaves are not. We will not be your slaves. We would rather kill the people trying to enslave us.
3. See #2. Though I suppose killing millions of Leftists in a civil war could wind up being defined as “better,” from certain points of view. I confess, I had never really thought about the issue this way before. I guess I just don’t like the level of general damage involved.
you are a disgusting miserable asshole.
directed at TomC
Excellent article, but I’d go one step further in your language:
Second step: turn off the damned TV. Our poisonous culture is delivered to our kids electronically, and it is parents who fund it.
I’d go so far as to call is “God-Damned TV.” And not as frivolous swearing–the idiot box is central to the decay of American Culture. Even in the age of the internet, people turn it on in a room and walk away. Do we really think that has not subliminal effect on the human mind?
If you then consider the absolute sewage that flows from the television, and realize that seeps into the mind, I truly hope that TVs are condemned by our Almighty, Loving Father, Son & Holy Ghost.
I’ve always considered “God damned” to be redundant, personally.
I’ve thought a lot about that over the years. I remember when “Soap” an old 70s era TV show was considered shocking and cutting edge, although it was really just low-brow naughty boy bathroom humor dressed up as a satire on daytime soap operas. As silly and as harmless as it seemed at the time, it was a turning point in the race — first to the gutter and then into the sewer — and now to unplumbed depths of depravity.
I recently saw a clip from a cartoon show called “Family Guy” that I have never seen (and never want to see) in which the “son”, assisted by his “sister”, brutally and bloodily murders numerous students in a school cafeteria. I was absolutely horrified. What in the Name of all that is Holy were these people thinking about? This is a cartoon! There are kids watching this. It was not the silly slapstick of Bugs Bunny or Wile Coyote and Roadrunner. This was knives, guts, slash, stab, kill, gore… for over a full minute.
This cannot be allowed to continue.
5
Absolutely correct; nailed indeed!
A similar (in root cause) article appeared on the Remnant a couple days ago- why can’t people listen to the voice of truth?
That is damn good! Sharing widely!
[…] No one is going to end school shootings because schools shootings are not the real problem. So be prepared for them to get worse and to not be limited to schools. When your culture falls apart, the people in it fall apart. Some of them turn into TrigglyPuff. Some turn into Nikolas Cruz. But what did we expect was going to happen? That’s not a rhetorical question, except in the sense that no one really thought to ask it. What Did We Think Was Going To Happen? – Men Of The West […]
And when they take the Bible, prayer, and ten commandments out of schools morality evaporates; for the law is the schoolmaster that leads you to Christ.
What about bringing back one room schoolhouses…I have been contemplating that for some time…My kids are homeschooled but I see the need of having them with other kids and being an influence for good…I think it could be a great asset for the Community…What are some of your thoughts on it?
I’m not opposed, but it would need to be a very small community, and probably far from anywhere else. It would hardly make sense for a city of 100k people to have 1000 schoolhouses with 20 kids in each of them.
I don’t know I think you could probably make it work wherever you were if you had enough folks around you that had like values and knew the need of one…We actually have one just down the road that just needs some TLC and then could be up and running if we can find a teacher that just needs to supplement a retirement until we can get enough families on board to support a full time one…
One of the reasons one room school houses worked was that different ages and levels were taught in the same space. Smarter kids absorbed lessons taught to more advanced kids.p, as there were no walls between.
Nowadays if a kid excels they are discouraged from working ahead. More work for the teacher.
Also, there needs to be more teaching of practical skills. These kids don’t know how to open a keyed lock. Or tie a shoe. Technology is dumbing them down to moron stage.
Exactly my line of thinking…Also lots of field trips to learn the history and resources of local areas as well as True American History…
Excellent point! BTW, take a look at the old McGuffey’s readers. The sixth reader had more challenging reading material than students get in college these days. (There are COLLEGE classes on Harry Potter!!)
3.5
Well said. Very very well said. I would have also mentioned the desensitizing effect of violent video games, but you covered the rest of it admirably. Well done. I’m sharing.
4.5
5
One other advantage..
Our home school was NOT a gun-free zone.
I was an FFL7 with 02 tax stamp, MG Mfr.
There were lots of guns and the children
all learned about them and shot them.
Interestingly, the commie nutcases tried
to do legislation to make home schools….
You guessed it, gun free zones.
I bugged out of my life long city, Denver, last year because of the 2nd hand highs I was getting just driving on I-70 and I-25, because of the reports of permitted public defecation, because of the explosives that were being detonated in November at 3 o’clock in the morning. When I approached a Mexican family that had woken me up at night with their large firework displays I was mobbed by the whole neighborhood, threatened with violence and called “f-ing white people.” There’s no way one man can fix that. We tolerate lawlessness and humor mental illness instead of heal it. There is no civilization any more.
[…] El Borak contends that the cause of mass shootings is not actually the existence in the world of guns. We used to have guns in the older America, plenty of guns, but we had other things as well that today’s America dos not have so much. […]
[…] While the professional left and their collectivist herd bleat and low about the government watchdogs that failed again having more power to watch over this or that, the political Right is having an increasingly constructive discussion about how we got here from there. […]
[…] We built a culture in which celebrity is our highest aspiration. From ”Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” to “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo”, we have taught our kids that being rich, being famous, being glamorous is what’s important. When we cut ourselves loose from any virtue higher than others’ opinions of us, no one thought it would result in a generation of teens who eat Tide Pods for a few Youtube clicks. Because no one ever thought. What Did We Think Was Going To Happen? – Men Of The West […]
“That’s not a rhetorical question, except in the sense that no one really thought to ask it.”
ZZZZT! Wrong answer !
Some of us asked exactly that question. I’ve personally been asking it for bloody decades now.
Wanna know what I got called for my trouble ?
Excellent essay. After, or at the same time as, destroying the idea of family, nor subtly, the demons set to work to undermine community. Community is powerful and yet fragile. Community usually comes about but is not purposefully created.
With regards to the author’s opening remarks about tearing down all the moral barriers that had been created by years of civilization, I am reminded of the Chesterton quoted by JFK story about not tearing down a fence if you don’t discover why it was built in the first place. https://www.chesterton.org/taking-a-fence-down/
Thank you for this thoughtful piece.
Very profound. May I post this article at other sites around the internet, with credit to the author, of course?
That’s absolutely fine, so long as it’s attributed and linked back.
Ethan, yes, you can do so. We do appreciate links back.
1
Any time a parent tells me how much they “love” their children but then send them to progressive indoctrination centers I realize they cannot be trusted. They are obviously liars.
As long as good people keep their children in the system they will find those same children grow up to become moderately sympathetic to good values while espousing and passionately pursuing progressive and liberal ideologies. They have been taught that their only value exists in the exchange of fluids and the confusion induced by a lifetime of self-absorption. The addiction of physical, mental, and emotional masturbation making shells of those intended to reflect the glory of God.
Now, tell us what you really think, Heidi.
BTW, When are you going to write another post for us?
In due time.
2
Where is the support of church pastors? Nowhere to be seen. The Income Tithe that pastors rely on to support their church is the wrong tithe. Scripture suggests that a possession tithe calculated from actual wealth makes much more sense if you interpret the Bible correctly. As long as pastors are getting a large portion of their support from income rich public teaching mothers, fathers, coaches, and admins (even though many of them are wealth-poor), the leaders in your communities who could be turning the tide are perfectly silent and are going to remain that way. Tant pis. You would think that with the fruit of this culture being as hideous as it is that they would take a stand and support homeschooling. Nope…
4
[…] After the horrific school massacre in Parkland, Florida last February, a reader sent me a link to an essay entitled “What did we think was going to happen?” […]
Excellent. I have taught in public and private schools and taught homeschool students. Your insight and advice are top notch. The only disagreement I have is that it is very possible to not put one’s children in the civil government schools and teach them all the good things you note without moving out of the city. There are excellent local and organic and fine communities of home educators for you and your children in every city in America and the reality is that only a minority of folks can or will move to the country or small-scale suburbs. Thirty-five years of research on homeschooling shows excellent results in academic achievement, social development, and success in adulthood. See http://www.nheri.org Stop allowing the civil government schools to teach, train, and indoctrinate your children (and grandchildren and those in your church or private-association group).