December 17, 2007 -- Christmas is a time that is tough on lots of people for many different reasons.  It is also a time to reflect on what made the world the way it is today, especially if one went to university before a classical education became well-nigh impossible to obtain and university became trade school.

Lately the USA especially has been plagued with young men whose idea of problem-solving is to take an array of guns to a "Gun Free Zone" and shoot seemingly random members of the public until some blood lust is assuaged (or he realizes what he has done) when he has the good grace to turn the gun on himself and save the taxpayers a lot of money by making his final action on Earth the infliction of maximum inconvenience, mess, disgust and upset.  The kind of people who immediately blame themselves for everything that goes wrong in the world start agonizing how "We failed this Child" in some way shape or form, generally concluding that insufficient taxpayer dollars were expended to make the little Bleep feel "included."

My instant reflex is to deny all responsibility for anything these brats do, and to opine that they are old enough to make choices and what they did is what they decided to do.

Upon mature reflection and upon Christmas shopping this month, I have altered my opinion and I would like to propose that there is a reason that certain segments of society are indeed to blame for this carnage.  Those are the people whose belief is and remains that no child should ever be thwarted or made to realize his limitations, regardless of how many other children and adults this fiction harms or annoys or in fact kills.  From the children acting as a front for hysterical parents and demanding that all the students in their school be frisked for inappropriate lunchbox items, lest Junior and Susie have to learn not to eat things that will kill them, to those children shrieking and flailing in the grocery store, to the kids who receive a trophy for showing up and sitting on the bench -- the same trophy received by the people who won the game.  Finally, the high schools award a Certificate of Participation to those who cannot pass any kind of exit examination or enough classes to get a diploma.

In the protected environment of Mommy's House or the insulated atmosphere of Public School, this trick works.  I think it is instructive that the vast majority of the young killers are in the age group that has just or is near to graduating into the Real World, where there are in fact winners and losers and you do not get everything you want.  (I recall an employer once commenting in a talk to the Education Board that he routinely had to deal with shocked brats who cried when they discovered they had to work in the summer, and I have heard the sons and daughters of my sisters complain that their retail jobs do not give them Christmas Vacation.)  Now, those of us who grew up with even a modicum of discipline, or brothers and sisters, understand even if we do not like the fact that frequently we cannot have everything we want.  Not so the vast majority of Only Children being born today. 

What's more, a tour through the toy department during Christmastide will reveal in every aisle a screaming tot whose helpless Mommy stands by doing nothing but wringing her hands as Junior or Susie shrieks and flails against the very idea that his or her instant desires are not being met.  Saturday I was privy to both a Junior and a Susie (Junior was Black; Susie was White) in this charming attitude.  Junior was hanging onto Mommy's arm in the Limp Rag Doll attitude, shrieking for a toy telephone; Susie, pretty in pink, was rolling on a muddy, wet floor and shrieking in a voice that was already becoming hoarse from a prolonged tantrum.  Mommy, who was apologetic and totally passive, told me "Oh, she'd like me to open the packages and take out the toys."

If Junior and Susie, aged about 3, cannot stand the loss of an instant gratification without shrieking and flailing, think how long the rage will build within them until, at age 16, 19, 24 shrieking and flailing no longer make their point...now it is necessary to get a gun and shoot up the shopping mall, the church, the school ... whatever public institution they blame for the fact that their instant, insistent "need" is not being met, their desires are being thwarted, their Utter Rule Over All being set aside.

Just like their peers who monotonously repeat f*** and s*** without effect, the prolonged overuse of hysteria has left them with no way to express their frustration when they have reached putative adulthood -- save violence.

And of course the solution to this growing problem is -- parental teaching of self control.  Had it been my Susie screaming on the floor of the store, I would have made eye contact with her and said "If you don't stop that and get up this minute, I will give you something to cry about."  Believe me, if she was my little Susie, she would have stopped.  In the car on the way home we would have had a firm talk about screaming and flailing in public NEVER results in a reward, followed by a nap on arrival home.  As for Limp Rag Doll Junior, a simple "I think it's time we went home" followed by instructions to stiffen his legs and walk beside me or I'd dump him in the buggy and wheel him to the car, probably would have worked.  On the way home, the talk would have been that he might just as well get used to the fact that screaming NEVER results in getting what he wants.

Quite possibly then Junior and Susie would grow up to realize that negotiation, hard work, or charm might be better weapons than tantrums ... and that life is full of occasions on which we do not get what we want; so rather than taking a gun and shooting those whom we blame, we shrug it off, get over it and move on.

If a few more kids were thwarted in their playpens, a lot fewer of them would grow up with the idea that an escalating tantrum ending in gunfire and a hideous death was definitely going to work.

Or, of course, you could continue to encourage Junior and Susie to believe that if they cannot have what they want, instantly and in full measure, terrorism is the answer....