Wednesday, February 20, 2008

The Return of the Archons


With the first anniversary of Virginia Tech's mass shootings just two months away and the campus rattled by the recent rampage at another college, school administrators want answers from the federal government about funding to help their community cope with the aftermath...

"It's a sense of powerlessness and a sense of reliving what occurred," Plummer said Monday. "It's a dramatic reminder of this horrific, unbelievable mass homicide that occurred on our campus. It's unfathomable sometimes."
Ah the throw-federal-money-at-it Katrina solution--that always helps, plus, as we all know, the clause authorizing that is right here in the Constitution, section...uhhh...article...ahhh...

Look at this: "the assistant provost...the deputy director of the university's office of recovery and support," the leader, if you will, admits she doesn't have a clue and is overwhelmed and paralyzed, that is, useless. But just mention the real and only solution--the one that annhilates, rather than overturns predominant superstitous assumptions, and watch her all of a sudden act like she's a rational and informed authority who knows what she's talking about.

These aren't educators, this is the priesthood of the flat earth cult, determined to seal their eyes and ears, and burn out all heresy against the established order.

Blind fools. That it's self-imposed and rooted in arrogance makes it all the more inexcusable.

The official helplessness would be kind of funny if it wasn't so pathetic and so dangerous in terms of guaranteeing future horrors, future grieving, future loss.

They remind me of nothing so much as the hooded "lawgivers" of Beta III from the original Star Trek series.

"Landru, guide us!" they plead, absolutely incapable of making a rational decision based on observation, cause and effect.

Introduce something new, something alien to their worldview, and the fixation directs outward, pointing in horror and loathing to reject it:

You're NOT of the body!

And not to beat the analogy to death, but a couple other relevant comparisons come to mind:

Kirk's admonishment: ""You said you wanted freedom; it's time you learned that freedom is never a gift – it has to be earned."

And unless and until that's learned, the next time "the Red hour" strikes, all anyone will be able to do is react mindlessly until the madness runs its course.

[Via SameNoKami]

2 comments:

Boyd said...

Excellent analogy, David. Of course, I think that's the point the writers of that episode were trying to get across.

Anonymous said...

"It's a sense of powerlessness and ....."

DUH! Wssn't that the point of your intentional policy mandating helplessness?

But money would fix it. could that be why you are willing to sacrifice so many? For the "healing money"?

Before anyone tells me, I'm out of line, no I'm not. There is something working here that is not concern for the people killed because of stupid shit like their policy against self defense.