Originally written Friday, April 27th, 2007
BY EDWIN COONEY
It’s been a tough ten days for me—although not nearly as tough for me, of course, as it has been for the victims at Virginia Polytechnic at Blacksburg who were killed or traumatized less than two weeks ago -- as well as their fellow students, friends and families.
My problem is like most of America’s — that of grasping the scope and meaning of Seung-Hui Cho’s selfish and deadly deed. I’ve had plenty of assistance, of course, in my efforts to “get a grip” from politicians, talk show hosts and other commentators throughout America who sit so proudly on my left and on my right. However, somehow my guess is that some politicians, columnists, talk show hosts and their political talking point supporters are less interested in comforting me than they are in riling me. Before commenting further on what I’m expected to take note of or to feel, let me take you back in time for a bit of perspective.
The tall slender man with that mass of reddish-brown hair, sensitive blue eyes and upper crust Boston accent who stood at the Yale University speaker’s podium at around 11:30 that Monday morning of June 11th 1962 wasn’t without his political apologists or opponents. Nor was John F. Kennedy, as politician and our thirty-fifth President, totally free of his own political practicality when it came down to the need for expediency as opposed to absolute truth-telling. After all, he had in part achieved his coveted and lofty position through a deception of his own—his false assertion during the 1960 presidential campaign that the Eisenhower administration had created a “missile gap” in favor of the Soviets which was endangering the safety and security of the American people.
Now, however, he was President and his responsibilities were above any strictly political requirement. That morning, in an effort to explain the nation’s rather sluggish economy to an impatient citizenry, JFK asserted a reality that, regardless of any political or social outlook, one would be well-advised to keep in mind—as its power and truth extended way beyond matters either economic or political. Said the President:
“As every past generation has had to disenthrall itself from an inheritance of truisms and stereotypes, so in our own time we must move on from the reassuring repetition of stale phrases to a new, difficult, but essential confrontation with reality
“For the great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie—deliberate, contrived and dishonest—but the myth—persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forbears. We subject all facts to a set of prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. Mythology distracts us everywhere.”
From that point in his address, the President went on to talk about the truisms, myths and realities of a modern economy. However, his observation of our need to “disenthrall ourselves” from the myths and clichés of past generations so that we might be freed to cope with the realities of today, was—I believe—a most valid and powerful admonition.
I can’t imagine that anyone viewed the actions of Seung-Hui Cho, including members of his stunned and appalled family, with anything but horror. However, many of our social and political leaders have sought to shape the horror and nature of Cho’s act to suit their political and social agendas. Thus they proceed to persuade me that their outlook is superior to that of all others.
Gun control advocates want me to believe that there are too many guns which are too easily attainable. Had there been tighter restrictions on who could obtain guns in the Commonwealth of Virginia, Cho couldn’t have done what he did—they say.
Some opponents of gun control want me to realize that since people rather than guns kill, Cho’s act might well have been limited had some of his victims been armed.
Some socio/political critics, with a clear political agenda, tell me that I should understand that Cho was not stopped from doing his evil deed primarily because authorities have been cowed by political correctness from taking action against an immigrant minority member even when exhibiting strange behavior.
Next, there are those, on both the right and left, who blame the elements of society for everything from parental permissiveness and the profit motive to the existence of violent video games for Cho’s massive brutality.
There are, I believe, truths that support the contentions of most of the critics—both left and right. The problem is that these truths are sufficiently broad so that they don’t adequately cover individual backgrounds, motives and conditions. Critics from most all of the points on the political and social spectrum are at least partially right:
People, not guns, do make the decision to kill; criminals will obtain guns despite whatever the law dictates—after all, criminals are themselves law breakers; there are inadequate laws on the books to deter criminal acts; there is a reluctance on the part of many of our institutions to take critical notice of immigrant and other minorities largely because such peoples have been so shabbily treated in the history of our free society; there is too little attention or money and too few treatment facilities available for the humane and effective treatment of those who suffer from mental illness—and there’s also much public confusion as to what exactly mental illness is; and finally, there was an element of envy and “class warfare” in Cho Seung-Hui’s tortured statement of cause.
All of the above notwithstanding, Seung-Hui Cho was the sole cause of the carnage at Virginia Polytechnic Institute on the morning of Monday April 16th, 2007. Neither liberals nor conservatives, Christians nor atheists, immigrants nor citizens are indictable for Cho’s crime.
There is however a myth being bantered about that says that Seung-Hui Cho, the Korean immigrant and envier of the wealthy, was the champion of all mass murderers in American history. The truth however is as follows.
The champion to date for killing the greatest number of students goes to a native born Midwesterner by the name of Andrew Kehoe. He was the treasurer of the school board in Bath Township Michigan. On Wednesday, May 18th 1927, he first murdered his wife and proceeded to the school which was then in session. He put the charge to strategically placed bombs made in large part from pyrotol, an incendiary used primarily during World War I. When his work that morning was complete, he and forty-three school children between the ages of approximately six and sixteen were dead. In addition, fifty-eight others were injured. (One of the injured, a little girl, later died following hip surgery, thus becoming Kehoe’s forty-fourth victim). Andrew Kehoe’s reason was as senseless as were the complaints of Seung-Hui Cho about drink-swilling rich kids.
What, you may well ask was Mr. Kehoe’s cause? Andrew Kehoe was a disgruntled tax payer. He insisted that his property taxes were the cause of his inability to keep up the payments on his farm.
It might be instructive to keep in mind the date of Kehoe’s outrage—May 18th 1927. If you insist that Kehoe’s act represented the state of American society during the 1920s you might also recall that just two days afterward, Charles Lindbergh --“Lucky Lindy” or “The Lone Eagle”-- demonstrated other aspects of the American character to which everyone was more than willing to subscribe.
Thus the myth that tax-eaters not taxpayers value society was born. No, neither Calvin Coolidge, Ronald Reagan, Teddy Kennedy nor Bill Clinton nor their conservative or liberal minions can be held responsible for individual actions. Even in totalitarian societies, there are, after all, men and women of equal nobility to the most saintly among us.
From the instant most of us are born, we begin experiencing the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” and, in-so-far as I know, there will never be an earthly society sufficiently constructed to provide the individual absolute protection from such misfortune. Therefore, each of us, not society, is ultimately accountable for our sins as well as worthy of praise for our valor. Might that reality be of sufficient solace thus enabling you and me to be freed from our unworthy myths?
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY