A Choice of Scapegoats

Do not try this at home.

Over the past week, some guy in Florida who shall here remain nameless sent pipe bombs, real or bogus, to thirteen famous people on the political left. This morning, I awake to news of eleven people shot dead in a Pittsburgh synagogue.

But more disturbing than the events themselves is the public response to them.

People on the left all immediately blame Donald Trump, who obviously had nothing to do with them, and right-wing ideology, which is thus declared intrinsically violent. This argument is self-contradictory. If sound, it is inflammatory in just the way it claims to oppose: it gives the next guy license to blow up Republicans.

People on the right counter by saying politics had nothing to do with it; these were just nut jobs. This is just as bad: it only scapegoats the mentally ill as violent instead of Republicans. These killers may or may not have been mentally ill, but their mental illness had nothing to do with their actions. The stats show the mentally ill are less likely to be violent than the general population.

All of this is scapegoating to avoid the obvious truth: some people choose to do evil. Some people are bad people.

Rather than admit this, we will slander any number of innocents. And allow any number of innocents to be slaughtered.

For either of these assertions, that is was all the fault of erroneous right-wing thinking, or it was all the fault of mental illness, are at base attempts to avoid the obvious fact that it was the fault of the perpetrator. The guy who did it is the guy who did it.

But hey, nobody is ever responsible for anything. That makes us feel good, if we have ourselves done wrong. Letting the murderer off the hook lets us off the hook. It looks like most people are aware of having done something seriously wrong, and so will insist on this.