Once again, we gather to remember Marvin Heemeyer, the man who was pushed too far for too long and decided to push back on the way out. Cogitate, if you would, on how hard you have to push a reasonable man, which Heemeyer appeared to be prior to his retribution, to get such an out-sized reaction.
We’ve seen similar dynamics elsewhere. I think that we see them in many of the spree killers who decide to go out in a blaze of gunfire and bodies. I’ve long wondered how many of the murder-suicides we see have something of this in them. Even those who commit “mass arson” such as the Palisades Fire, might have a bit of this going on.
We have those on the Left who are taking potshots at presidents and burning down cities–are they similar?
Some might say all these people are crazy. But were they born crazy or driven crazy? It seems that our society is somehow “finding” more and more of these people. I really wonder if we’re creating them ourselves.
I also have this terrible suspicion that we’ve been building up to the Crazy Years for decades now, and that they are just about here.
In Heinlein’s To Sail Beyond the Sunset, heroine Maureen Johnson Smith Long looks back from a distant future and describes the times:
So many casual killings in public streets and public parks and public transports that most lawful citizens avoided going out after dark…
Public school teachers and state university professors who taught that patriotism was an obsolete concept, that marriage was an obsolete concept, that sin was an obsolete concept, that politeness was an obsolete concept – that the United States itself was an obsolete concept…
Cocaine and heroin called “recreational drugs”, felony theft called “joyriding” … felonious assault by gangs called “muggings”, and the reaction to all these crimes was “boys will be boys”, so scold them and put them on probation but don’t ruin their lives by treating them as criminals…
Millions of women who found it more rewarding to have babies out of wedlock than it would be to get married or to go to work…
Sound familiar?
So was Marvin simply ahead of his time? We’re gonna find out…
