Psycho Navy Pilot Shooting

In addition to politics and history, I have an interest in true crime and criminal psychology:  shows like Law and Order, City Confidential, Deadly Women, John Douglas books etc.  Like everyone from my neck of the woods, I got mesmerized by the Casey Anthony saga.

Most murderers are young, stupid, previously violent, and all around failures.  But failure is a relative thing.   In an extremely unusual crime, a young Navy pilot on New Years melted down and killed three people as well as himself:   his roomate’s sister, as well as a guy they all met at a New Years party, in addition to the roommate, also a Navy pilot. Then he killed himself.  The killer’s name is John Robert Reeves.  I’ve been following the story pretty closely because it is so weird and out of character for this highly selected bunch.

So, as details emerge, there has been speculation the shooter may have been jealous over the sister.  This appears more and more likely.  He was apparently an avid member of an online discussion forum for Isuzu owners. This itself is not that weird; lots of people have hobbies like cars, sports, running, hiking, motorcycles, etc.  Everyone’s into facebook these days.  These online communities can be valuable things.  But a personality often emerges on these.  And this is especially true when a forum on something mundane–Apple computers, knitting, whatever–becomes the center of one’s social world.  Instead of talking Isuzus, he’s talking about how to spend lonely weekends, why people don’t like him, how to succeed with women (which he apparently never does), and pretty much everything under the sun.

From his writings, it’s clear that Reeves was, in a word, pathetic.  He is frequently mocked for being a virgin by his online “friends.”  With occasional shame, but more often resignation, he announces his general frustration with others, women, life in general.  There was even a (now creepy) post from last New Years about what he was going to do.  Like many school shooters, there were even half-joking suggestions he might go on a killing spree someday. A perusal of these forums reveals the keys to understanding this case: this Aspbergerish guy was unhappy and frustrated with life and particularly so with women and social situations.  He couldn’t succeed with women in spite of his superficial professional success.  So he was filled with resentment.  This is a bad combination, usually harmless, but obviously magnified to the point of murder-homicide by alcohol, guns, perceived disrespect by his love interest, and whatever other screws he had loose.

Reeves is somewhat reminiscent of the LA Fitness Shooter a few years ago, a man who also complained of his lack of success with women and was filled with rage and resentment, in spite of having a few bucks and being presentable.

I don’t have the answers. There are none.  There were always be a bell curve of social and sexual success, and there were always be some guys who just can’t get along socially and then become more and more resentful.  Most are harmless or harmful only to themselves.  Some learn from mistakes and figure things out.  Very few, thankfully, go on homicidal rages.  But of those that do, particularly in seemingly “random” rages, we can see that the multiplier effects of failure and resentment have a lot to do with it.

God help these poor families. Reeves’ family undoubtedly did not see this coming; he had all the indicia of a young man in the prime of his life.  And the victims, David and Karen Reis, were also all-American, very close, and well liked.  David Reis, to his and the family’s credit, died a hero trying to save her.  Sadly, Reeves’ toxic combination of alcohol, jealousy, and social awkwardness did them all in.

On to New Hampshire

I don’t get obsessed with politics the way the 24 hour cable news media does.  The end results will speak for themselves.  Reading auguries and following every irrelevant twist and turn until game day seems a huge waste of mental energy.

Romney won Iowa, but just barely. Eight votes in fact. (Notice how in Republican primaries you don’t see anyone demanding recounts or complaining how they were too stupid to figure out the ballots.) Santorum, of all the anti-Romney candidates, made a last minute rally, beating out Bachman, Perry, Paul, and Newt who have all been switching places as the “conservative” candidate.  Other than perhaps Bachman, he’s the best of that bunch.  He’s weak on immigration and, like Bachman, a little too interventionist and fanatically pro-Israel for my taste, but overall he has had a good track record as a conservative.  He seems more sober in tone and intelligent than the alternatives.  Of course, folks seem to forget he got walloped in his home state of Pennsylvania a few years ago, which is not a rousing endorsement for national candidate potential.  At least they were able to figure that out re: Newt.

One of the worst things in Iowa and a few other states are the “open” primaries. A political party is picking its candidates, when the other party has a candidate locked up.  Nothing stops independents and in some places Democrats from coming along and purposely spoiling our races or simply voting their minds and picking a candidate highly unreprensentative of Republican views.  CNN’s data showed that nearly half of Paul’s supporters in Iowa were a) 18-29 and b) registered Independents.  The influence and confusion created by these various non-Republican voters in the Republican primary do much to dilute the quality of choices that would otherwise be much starker in the general election.  Also, insofar as Romney is concerned, this is probably a net positive as he seems the most palatable to independents of an ordinary nonpartisan, moderate streak, whereas Paul appeals to those truly alienated with the mainstream.

On Evolution

Lawrence Auster has taken to discussing the miracle of humanity and how that miraculousness–such as the requirement to use tools even in the times of the cave man–render us different even in the most abject primitive conditions.

It got me thinking of something I read a long time ago by G.K. Chesterton in the Everlasting Man, which I reprint below:

Most modern histories of mankind begin with the word evolution, and with a rather wordy exposition of evolution, for much the same reason that operated in this case. There is something slow and soothing and gradual about the word and even about the idea. As a matter of fact it is not, touching these primary things, a very practical word or a very profitable idea. Nobody can imagine how nothing could turn into something. Nobody can get an inch nearer to it by explaining how something could turn into something else. It is really far more logical to start by saying ‘In the beginning God created heaven and earth’ even if you only mean ‘In the beginning some unthinkable power began some unthinkable process.’ For God is by its nature a name of mystery, and nobody ever supposed that man could imagine how a world was created any more than he could create one. But evolution really is mistaken for explanation. It has the fatal quality of leaving on many minds the impression that they do understand it and everything else; just as many of them live under a sort of illusion that they have read the Origin of Species.

Fighting the Last War

Lying Eyes takes note of Eric Holder’s white collar crime priorities:

It’s not even ironic that in the wake of a massive financial crisis driven by the Federal government’s relentless pressure on lenders to relax lending standards and make more home loans to minorities, one of the few actions Eric Holder’s Justice Department has taken in this sphere is to charge a bank with unfair lending practices to minorities. And not just any bank, of course, but the Typhoid Mary of minority-outreach lending, Countrywide. I’m not surprised – are you? No, I didn’t think so – saw it coming a mile away.

It’s not just that our powerful and otherwise efficient country can’t do anything, allowing riots at its malls, mass illegal immigration, and revolving door justice of violence criminals.  Rather, it does some things well–making sure people with respectable jobs pay taxes, keeping businesses straight-jacketed by regulations, forcing the military to integrate gays–while it does others poorly, if at all.  And it’s worse, the things it does poorly are essential and required of civilized societies everywhere at all times, while the assiduously enforced PC responsibilities are luxuries, if they are goods at all.  And, finally, it’s pretty obvious who the good and bad guys are in this drama.

I think banking and the housing crisis are also intimidating to regulators because of their complexity.  By way of comparison, the EEOC doesn’t even know how to do standard deviations.  In this case, it’s comparatively easy for the DOJ to say:  you, big bank, you are the bad guy for not giving money away to even more broke minorities than you already did.  It’s a lot harder to look at how underwriting was done wrongly or how structural flaws in mortgage securitization led to over lending or how trade with China and low interest rates had much to do with this.  Obama and Holder both do not seem particularly curious or quick to figure things out when it comes to the crimes of Wall Street.  They’re still stuck on the obsessions of their youth, i.e., black power politics.

The inconsistencies of enforcement are far from random.  We have a two tiered society and a two tiered government:  tyranny for the traditional elites, the majority, the wealth producers, the middle class, and the generally law abiding, and preferential treatment and benign anarchy for the newcomers, the antisocial, the parasites, the swindlers (great and small), the lazy, and the crooks and criminals among them.  It’s what the late Sam Francis perceptively described as  “anarcho-tyrrany.”

Pakistan: Not Our Friend

From cutting off our supply lines to harboring bin Laden and funding Taliban insurgents, it should be obvious by now that Pakistan is not our friend.  General Mattis, the commander of CENTCOM, unfortunately did not get the memo:

Marine Gen. Jim Mattis, commander of U.S. Central Command, ordered commanders in Afghanistan to improve coordination of operations along the Afghan-Pakistan border with Pakistani military, and ensure that all border stations are listed correctly on maps.

Mattis also ordered commanders to confirm border post locations before beginning operations along the border. And he ordered commanders to share military practices and procedures with the Pakistanis so they can better understand U.S. operations [no reason not to share that senstive intelligence, I'm sure]

It’s not certain the orders will solve the problems, because Pakistan refused to participate in the investigation [see we just need to make the first move, it's all about "communication" like in a marriage where one party is already a serial adulterer]. It still is unclear why Pakistani troops initially fired on U.S. soldiers who had landed by helicopter near a village close to the border as part of a mission to go after insurgents [details details, like who fired first.  We just need to talk it out. I'm sure the Pakistanis thought that Apache or Blackhawk belonged to the Taliban or some other hostile force]

The Fourth Generation Military

I’ve always thought this was something of a sign of the end times: our military hires contractors to protect its generals and bases, including overseas bases in a war zone.  In other words, our military is too expensive, lumbering, and “valuable” to be used even for the most basic military tasks, such as guarding the perimeter of a military base in a foreign war zone.  It is one thing to hire contractors to handle laundry or repair engines or do other tasks that are either nonmilitary in nature or too expensive to train enlistees to do. But base security? Our reduced force levels are simply a smokescreen for our continued huge military presence overseas, a presence now undertaken by private and DoD contractors largely exempt from accountability to military justice, the chain of command, and other guarantors of American interests.

Malls Becoming “No Go” Zones

This Christmas season there have been numerous riots over Air Jordans, fights in the food court, and other low stakes conflict.  This may not exactly be new, but it seems a little worse this year. People go to malls to relax, shop, and enjoy themselves.  They’re clean, self-contained, and generally orderly environments.  But if too many unemployed and thuggish kids begin to hang around, things begin to go south fast.  People with money looking to shop–mostly women, moms, couples–just won’t go there anymore.  I’ve seen it happen to malls near where I’ve lived after they became hangouts for losers.

One of the most important requirements of a human being is to live in accordance with the truth and to speak the truth.  There is something degrading about not being able to say what is happening and, instead, to say what one knows is not true.  Abuse victims know this well, as they are threatened into shutting up or renaming abuse as something more palatable, i.e., Jerry Sandusky’s frequent talk of “horse play.”  Communists demanded that mass starvation be relabeled sabotage, even by the victims who were dying!  And politically correct commissars today–in the media, at school, on the job–demand that we not notice the race of wrongdoers even when the images are seen with our own eyes.  To do so instantly makes the victim now the perpetrator, the perpetrator of the worst crime imaginable:  racism.  Thus, the victims of violence are compelled not to notice a pattern other than their age. It’s teenagers.  “Yutes.”   This description, as if they have no clothes, style, swagger, hairstyles, gender, and, yes, racial and ethnic backgrounds.

The facts spoken in good faith should be spoken.  It is a moral imperative.  If the facts are wrong or need context, then so be it. This is not the first riot in history.  Nor is rioting something unknown to whites, particularly of a certain age and when alcohol is involved.  But when the media, individuals, and a whole society cannot state the obvious about what happened this Christmas season, or what is happening at the varoius illegal flashmobs, then we are degraded, and our collective ability to address reality is broken.

What has happened at these Air Jordan sales and at the Mall of America riots is obvious to everyone that was there and is obvious from every frame of video footage:  black kids committed crimes in a characteristic way, that they are particularly dangerous when huge throngs of them misbehave together, that this kind of thing is really scary and quickly goes out of control, and this happens fairly often, predictably, and disproportionately.  This is why respectable people of all races live certain places, are fearful of certain people, and want to send their kids to certain schools while avoiding others.  It is a reality that denying will do no good to all of the victims of every background.

I’m skeptical of our ability to restore order, however.  Most of this problem has been avoided with geographic isolation of one kind or another: whites and Asians moving to the suburbs, young professionals having doormen and security at apartments, living in gated communities, sending our kids to private schools.  As respectable people are forced to interact less and less with the underclass, and as the upper class define that respectability in part by their unwillingness to state out loud who belongs to that underclass and how that underclass misbehaves, then the two groups are increasingly separate.  The out group is increasingly unmoored from reality and standards.  They are emboldened and fearless and more brazen and nasty than ever.  The middle and upper classes have disarmed themselves morally and practically.  The more respectable sorts have an increasing unwillingness simply to call out bad behavior by the underclass as disreputable, and their opportunities for doing so are fewer and fewer due to their mutual isolation. 

We are becoming as if two different types of beings, divided like the helpless Eloi and ravenous Morlocks of HG Wells’ The Time Machine.

The Ron Paul Phenomenon

I can sort of understand the Ron Paul phenomenon. I too think the government has grown out of control big, that the Federal Reserve is a mistake, that the Welfare State is bad–both for being expensive and for encouraging idleness–and that our military is spread too thin and our foreign policy commitments are too great.  But why am I so viscerally opposed to him?  Why do I dislike him so much?

Well, a lot of reasons. For starters, he is not of presidential timber. He has no real record of leadership, rhetorical or otherwise.  He has all the ideological purity of a crackpot, along with all of the related ineffectiveness.  Consider how much more effective the numbers-based Paul Ryan has been in showing that our country is about to head over a cliff.

He also consistently shows bad judgment.  His politics overlap with my own at times.  But you don’t see me writing about Race Wars or talking about the virtues of the Articles of Confederation much over here.  Why?  Because I live in the real world, I realize that politics is about assembling coalitions, and I know that tone matters.  We need to be sober, prudent, and intelligent, particularly in public life.  We need not alienate whole classes of people for no good reason. We need not allow our concern for truth and candor to come at the expense of fellow feeling for our countrymen and the less fortunate. Ron Paul has none of these qualities.

Finally, he is all too comfortable with monstrous whack jobs such as 9/11 Truthers.  He shows a skepticism of the government that lends itself to idiotic pacifism and the embrace of our foreign enemies.  Part of leadership is telling the real whackos to bugger off.  Paul has shown no courage to do this, because, truthfully speaking, he mostly agrees with them.

So, while I like a few things he believes in, and I don’t think you need to embrace Bush’s invade-the-world-for-world-peace interventionism that is so fashionable as of late, I still think Paul is a huge idiot and I’m surprised he’s rising to the heights he has so far in the GOP primary.

Clearly much of this has to do with fears that Romney is hopelessly unreliable and wishy washy.  Perhaps.  Romney’s not me, and I know that.  But he’s also not crazy, disorganized and immature, and not being crazy, disorganized, and immature are the first requirements of being president.

Plinkett’s Movie Reviews

I just discovered Plinkett and his movie reviews. They’re really brilliant.  They remind me that fancy language often obscures clear thinking. He breaks down everything from Star Wars Phantom Menace to Avatar in a clear, understandable, and devastatingly critical way.  It’s laugh out loud funny at times.

It also reminds me that there is, ideally, an interplay of critic and art.  That good criticism can deepen the experience of a movie or book and that, contra the bullshit positivism we’re served in middle school, that there is such a thing as a right and wrong opinion, that there are degrees of well formed opinions, and that much of our life depends on the ability to do just that.  I also noticed that a good movie just seems good in a way that a bad one doesn’t. Viewers may be inarticulate about what doesn’t sit right about Phantom Menace vice Empire Strikes Back, but they know something is different and wrong and it goes beyond Jar Jar Binks.  Plinkett does what every responsible intellectual should do:  articulate what others only inchoately feel.

Great Blog Title

I thought this was a great title for a blog entry seen this morning:  Running a Marathon Does Not Make You Mother Theresa.  So true!

I feel in our society’s great moral dissensus and changing of values, fitness has become the “heat sink” of all of our dormant puritanical impulses that have been part of our culture in some form or fashion since Plymouth Rock.