Virginia Tech: Nutcase on Campus

Am I out of line in pointing out that college students are (except for the inane prohibition against legally buying beer) adults? If the students of Virginia Tech are anything like I was, they do not want, and resent, efforts of college administrators to coddle them like babies.

Half of the eighteen year olds do not go off to college. Some go to fight and die in Iraq. Most just go out to live, work and boogey in their neighborhood, or some more exciting locale.

But, as we all knew would happen, there is much handwringing over the recent massacre. And the lawyers will not be far behind.

Instead of putting the blame squarely where it belongs, there are attempts to find fault with the college administration. Some are saying the kids should have been locked down after the first shooting. But much of the alarm concerns the failure of the college to do something about what they should have known Cho Seung-Hui might have done.

And the emphasis here is on "might." In America crackpots are legion. No one is ever able to predict what they "might" do.

It is entirely possible this guy might have been able to get a bit of a grip on himself and become a Noble Prize winning poet, or at least been a hit on the punk rock scene.

You just never know, and in America we do not lock up every person who is emo. And we can't imprison those who produce violent and macabre material. Hollywood would have no screenwriters.

The idea of the Gulag is quite un-American Thus the nutcases walk freely among us.

And if this kid had been a full-time employee of Micky D's, rather than a jerk off English major, would the citizens of Blacksburg have expected the town officials to provide them with special warning and protections? No, we all see the guys in tin foil hats. At most this reminds us it is a good idea to lock our doors at night. Sometimes we even keep a gun.

College is a place where young people, with sufficient ability, go to learn and interact. It is not an extension of nursery school. In fact, the purpose of a University is to foster exposure to all kinds of people and ideas. There is more of this at college, than back at the home burb, and that is what makes school cool.

There is a price to pay. These young people are going to be exposed to some bad stuff.

But it is no worse than, you or I, or the kids who did not go on to higher learning, must pay.

It never helps us cope to say that shit happens.

But, it does help prevent us from acting stupid.