So now the media begins its psychoanalysis of the assailant. Much will be said about 'red flags' that present themselves in the form of writings, dealings with other students,dealings with teachers.
Every host of every network will be asking 'how was this man not singled out and prevented from getting to a place where he could kill'....
I am frankly amazed that the loners of society are not more often the cause of a violent headline.
That being said, It seems clear to me that we cannot go around forcing people whose personalities set them outside societal norms to conform or be removed. Already the talking heads are bemoaning the fact that Cho could not be 'forced' into therapy.
The media, and I suppose all of us to some degree, seem to need to need to say that a problem must have a solution that has here to for gone unnoticed.
My position is that some dangers simply cannot be eliminated by new laws and restrictions. Some dangers are inherent to an open society. One of those dangers, the freedom of one man to be different and still walk daily among us supposedly well adjusted citizens, just cracked open a giant hole in the psyche of an entire college campus. It is a painful lesson in the danger American freedoms sometimes leave us exposed to.
Some dangers simply are not reasonably negated amongst a free people. The occasional reminder of this truth is incredibly painful to bear. Today we are all Hokies. Sometime in the future we will be united by another event, by someone else's pain. The truth though, is that the cost of eliminating such pain from our lives is too great to submit to.
I'll not hold my breath waiting for a talking head to say as much though....
