Peggy Noonan on the VA Tech Massacre

One of the best writers alive today is Peggy Noonan. She wrote speeches for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. She's the one who came up with the brilliant "thousand points of light" term.

Nowadays she writes a weekly column for the Wall Street Journal. Her thoughts this week about the recent massacre in Virginia are simply brilliant. You can read them here. You can also hear her talking more about this on Dennis Miller's April 20th show.

Her major themes are ones of political correctness run amuck and psychobabble overriding all other voices after a tragedy. In such circumstances, when you start hearing someone frequently using phrases like 'we need more' :

• Dialogue
• Support services
• Sensitivity training
• Anger management workshops
  
• Understanding of the challenges of the mentally ill

then you know you're being spun. The coldness and insincerity of such talking heads becomes crystal clear.

For a long time I bought into the notion that all problems could (and should) be solved by the psychology and pharmaceutical industries. And why shouldn't I? This view is supported by countless news broadcasts, TV talk shows, and newspaper & magazine articles.

Certainly these two industries have their place but it has become clear in recent decades that they're each now trying to grab a larger market share by inventing diseases and ailments that never existed before. For example, suppose Little Johnny in Grade One is found to have problems sharing things with his fellow classmates. In today's environment he would typically be found to "need professional counseling" or "deemed to require medication to control his mood disorders". Maybe. Sometimes. Perhaps. But might it also be possible that he's just a spoiled brat who is allowed to do whatever he wants at home?

It was actually longtime radio talkshow host and fellow blogger, David Berner, who first clued me in to the over clinicalization of our society. He talked a lot about the over prescription of Ritalin and the lack of effective rehabilitation for Vancouver's drug addicts. What's funny is that David would describe himself as "leftie", yet it's generally those on the political left that support these very viewpoints he detests. I keep on trying to convince him that he's a Pragmatic Libertarian at heart but he doesn't believe me ... yet!! :-)

Getting back to the VA Tech massacre, Noonan points out that there were obvious signs long ago that the killer should have been locked up in a mental institution, so he wasn't able to harm others. He briefly went through officialdom but slipped on through and out. In most modern countries today common sense is being supplanted by official policy and expensive programs which, sadly, rarely solve anyone's problems ... oh, except for those who are employed by them!