CHARLESTON…COMMITTING EVIL WHILE IN A HOUSE OF PRAYER
(…driven by hate-mongering influences…)

Another case of mass murder has occurred, this time in Charleston, South Carolina, by a lone warp-minded youth committing evil while in a house of prayer.

It’s a sad aspect of human nature that there have always been, and probably always will be, such individuals in this world whose minds become twisted and warped by a combination of misperceived grievances and baleful hate-mongering influences. How and why such youthful minds seem so susceptible to those kinds of destructive influences, which lead them to erupt into senseless violence, is the crux of the problem we face with them.

Whether it is in Charleston, as in this instance, or elsewhere such as New York, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Newton, or in so many other places in this country, the pattern with these terribly heinous events seems to be the same: they are mostly committed by young loners whose minds have somehow been warped by a common set of circumstances which cause them to explode into these kinds of episodes. This is not meant to excuse the evils that they do, but just to point out what appears to be the underlying motivating causes for their murderous rampages.

These motivating causes are not spontaneous ones, but rather, much like any other viral infections are “incubated” over a period of time until they reach that virulent point of explosion into violence. So this suggests that it is a cumulative and progressive process before these individuals reach that point.

This leads us to believe that such a process begins early within their family environments, wherein negative biases relating to race, ethnicity, religious affiliation, or sexual orientation, either unconsciously or overtly, create the seedbeds for their later extreme bigotry and intolerance of any who fall into those categories. Unfortunately, with the advent of the Internet, and its easy access to its social media venues, such early warping factors are further amplified by the overt hate-mongering elements found there.

These are the real factors involved here, and that’s where the focus of any efforts to counter such influences should be. Issues about gun controls or imposing restrictions on symbolic displays of the Confederate battle flag, and misdirected emphasis about latent racism because of these, distort our perspectives about such violence, and can only distract and minimize the effectiveness of any efforts we might seek to prevent such incidents from happening.

While there is little we can do directly to counter negative family environments, we might still be able to engage with stronger collective effort to diminish the influences of such environments. Given the increasing diversity of our country’s population, perhaps returning to the former concept of “assimilation” by which the emphasis is made that we are all Americans first, and something else second, might mitigate against such early negative environments.

As for those other external hate-mongering influences, since “hate-speech” is now subject to both civil and criminal sanctions of one kind or another, perhaps the same legal approach being applied against gun manufacturers (making them be liable for civil suits, if those who purchase their products, misuse them for criminal acts), perhaps a similar approach should be attempted to make internet ISPs liable for hosting hate-mongering sites (as they are for other internet misuses such as cyber bullying, child pornography, etc.). This could be a way to reduce such warping influences on susceptible young minds.

There are no easy answers, but obviously something more effective than just yammering about greater gun controls and demonizing Confederate flag symbols needs to be done, if we ever hope to prevent more of such incidents from happening.

CENTURION