Virginia Tech: Murder by Political Correctness

Who murdered 32 people at Virginia Tech? Cho Seung-Hui. Why did he do it? He was a disturbed, mentally unbalanced man. Those answers are simple. You can not shift the blame to anyone else. The real question is why was it allowed to happen?

Calling for the head of the university's chancellor or the chief-of-police on a silver platter is a ridiculous, wasted effort. Blaming anyone other than Cho Seung-Hui is a futile exercise in Monday-morning quarterbacking. The facts of Cho's life leading up to the event indict each of us. We are the ones who could have stopped his senseless violence.

Campus Political Correctness
Higher education faculty ranks are filled with social liberals. In lieu of an education, college students are bombarded daily with useless, politically-motivated drivel. Political correctness has paralyzed authorities from taking actions necessary to protect the innocent.

None of Cho's victims at VA Tech did anything worthy of death, but no one did anything to stop him. Cho's roommates were wary of him. They never spoke out until after the fact. Others in the dormitory describe Cho as an individual to whom they never spoke and who never initiated conversations. They knew his behavior was abnormal, but they did nothing to intervene.

Cho was the proverbial loner. He was a textbook case of someone on the path of self-destruction bound to take as many with him as possible. All of the signs were there, but political correctness prevented action.

Virgina Tech's own web site reinforces the facts. A poem written by a faculty memeber typifies the leftist, rote teachings that are drilled into college students.

We do not understand this tragedy
We know we did nothing to deserve it
But neither does a child in Africa
Dying of AIDS
Neither do the Invisible Children
Walking the night away to avoid being captured by a rogue army
Neither does the baby elephant watching his community
Be devastated for ivory
Neither does the Mexican child looking
For fresh water
Neither does the Iraqi teenager dodging bombs

http://www.english.vt.edu -- Nikki Giovanni, April 17, 2007

The comparison of the VA Tech murders with other global causes is a non-sequitur. None of these poetic analogies have a cursory connection to a mentally ill, homicidal shooter in Virginia. This illustrates how the college system, laden with left-leaning faculty, pours political bias into the skulls of students. Professors spew political dogma rather than teach critical reasoning. This environment played a part in allowing Cho to get as far as he did.

Are liberals in charge of higher education? By a 3 to 1 majority, yes. Are classrooms the arenas of debate, reasoning, and learning they are supposed to be? Failing grades for students that disagree with their professor's politics say no. Do political correctness and the hands-off, bleeding-heart, emotional treatment of all things abnormal strangle our schools? Thirty-two corpses say yes.

The disease double standard
Society has a double standard about disease. Mental illness is a disease with its own set of rules. The politically correct rules disallow us from sharing information that might protect society. When a mentally unstable roommate buys a gun, the second course of action should be to disarm him. The first course of action should be to make sure he got the treatment required to prevent the purchase. That can't be done while his illness is hidden from those around him.

Our constitution ensures "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Notice that life comes first. Driving 100 miles per hour may make you happy, but you are risking my life and liberty. You don't get to drive 100 miles per hour. If your liberty to allow your mental illness to remain untreated jeopardizes my right to life, your rights become secondary.

The faculty member that penned the above poem, Nikki Giovanni, had Cho removed from her class and reported his confrontational behavior to authorities long before Cho's mental state reached critical mass. Complaints were filed from other sources and Cho's mental state was analyzed and documented.

Cho's documented disease was left untreated. No appropriate action was taken. No one at VA Tech was warned of the danger. The rules of political correctness prohibited engagement. Tolerance of his differences made him untouchable and unreachable. It also left his classmates unprepared.

A school would not allow students with meningitis or tuberculosis to roam campus freely. Why are the untreated, mentally ill allowed to mingle with the student body? The discovery of a student with tuberculosis at the University of North Alabama in December 2006 led to a campus-wide investigation. Ultimately, three other students were identified. Were they left to share the dormitory air? No. They were isolated in the local hospital, treated, sent home and barred from returning to the school.

How was Cho different? His illness was mental. When it comes to mental illness we handle its victims with kid gloves. This "don't ask; don't tell" policy leads directly to tragedies such as Virginia Tech. As with any disease, mental illness can not be treated unless identified and freed from the bonds of political correctness.

Isolationism: the true disease
The true failing of the system was the isolation that Cho, in his abnormal mental state, felt to the n^th degree. He was the weird kid that no one approached. This says less about his odd behavior than it does about how we fail to interact in today's society.

How many people actually know their neighbors? Do we talk to each other any more? We isolate ourselves with Blue-Tooth cell phones and iPod headphones. We avoid eye contact on elevators. We hide behind keyboards as a substitute for real social interaction.

Less than 20 years ago, children played in their neighborhoods without fear. Everyone knew everyone else on the block. Children were taught the rules of behavior. There may have been one yard on the block that every child knew was off limits. Why? Our parents knew the person living there. They knew that they were mentally unstable, a child molester, a drug dealer, or had a vicious dog. Eventually, the community took care of its own.

There were no secrets. We talked to each other, compared stories, and learned who we could trust. Today it is doubtful most people can name anyone who lives in the same apartment building with them. The reason we can't identify the next Cho Seung-Hui is because we won't talk to him.

If someone had taken the time to reach out and interact with Cho, would his illness escalated to the point of murder? A simple conversation was enough to identify him as a potential threat. If that information was unhindered by political correctness there would be 32 fewer graves in the world. This leads to a most ancient question, "Am I my brother's keeper?" We better start answering, "Yes," if not out of the goodness of our hearts for self-preservation.