April 22, 2007
Fear of reality
Mark Steyn applies his rapier wit to the broader implications of Yale's ban on realistic-looking swords in its theater productions, an idiotic overreaction in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech murders.
I think we have a problem in our culture not with "realistic weapons" but with being realistic about reality. After all, we already "fear guns," at least in the hands of NRA members. Otherwise, why would we ban them from so many areas of life?
Virginia Tech, remember, was a "gun-free zone," formally and proudly designated as such by the college administration. Yet the killer kept his guns and ammo on the campus. It was a "gun-free zone" except for those belonging to the guy who wanted to kill everybody.
Had the Second Amendment not been in effect repealed by VT, someone might have been able to do as two students did five years ago at the Appalachian Law School: When a would-be mass murderer showed up, they rushed for their vehicles, grabbed their guns and pinned him down until the cops arrived.
But you can't do that at Virginia Tech. Instead, the administration has created a "Gun-Free School Zone." Or, to be more accurate, they've created a sign that says "Gun-Free School Zone."
And, like a loopy medieval sultan, they thought that simply declaring it to be so would make it so. The "gun-free zone" turned out to be a fraud -- not just because there were at least two guns on the campus last Monday, but in the more important sense that the college was promoting to its students a profoundly deluded view of the world.
[...]
The "gun-free zone" fraud isn't just about banning firearms or even a symptom of academia's distaste for an entire sensibility of which the Second Amendment is part and parcel but part of a deeper reluctance of critical segments of our culture to engage with reality.
Michelle Malkin wrote a column a few days ago connecting the prohibition against physical self-defense with "the erosion of intellectual self-defense," and the retreat of college campuses into a smothering security blanket of speech codes and "safe spaces" that's the very opposite of the principles of honest enquiry and vigorous debate on which university life was founded.
And so we "fear guns," and "verbal violence," and excessively realistic swashbuckling in the varsity production of ''The Three Musketeers.'' What kind of functioning society can emerge from such a cocoon?
The answer, I fear, is a society incapable of defending itself, which seems to suit those elites who relentlessly pursue the ever-increasing infantilization of all Americans, using higher education as a means to finish the years of indoctrination begun in the public schools.
And so the mantra continues: Don't fight back; don't resist; wait for the police; the authorities, with their training, weapons and monopoly on the use of force will keep you safe.
Except when they can't and won't.
Because the hard, cold reality is that each of us is ultimately responsible for our safety, our survival, and no law, no campus rule will shield us from evil men intent on taking all that we hold dear.
Posted by Mike Lief at April 22, 2007 10:14 PM
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