THI: AiVlKRICAN PROSCLMUMnAn Active DiseasenIs insanity amoral? Is there no correlationnbetween a demented human actnand its moral significance? Those considerationsnwere somehow absent fromnthe avalanche of commentary and interpretationnof what happened on Marchn30 in front of the Washington, D.C.nHilton, when Ronald Reagan’s “newnblue suit was ruined” (in his own words)nby a bullet from the gun of an assassinnwhose inspiration to shoot at the Presidentnof the United States came from anmovie and from his “love” for a teenagenactress. The most routine reactionnwas an immediate outcry to abolishnhandguns from the American reality—na solution as simple and practical asnturning the moon into a kindergarten.nVery few spoke of the deadly, vicious,nsick sociocultural climate which producesnsinister madmen who plan to bendeclared “mentally incompetent,” andnat the same time assure themselves ofn”a place in the history books,” asnReagan’s would-be assassin admittednin one of his letters. It may be impossiblento avoid producing movies whichncan be reprocessed—by a warped mindn—into an impulse to kill, but it doesnseem to us that it is quite possible tondraw a line between the psychiatrists’nand civil libertarians’ scornful dismissalnof any moral factor and the grim warningsnthat loom after this most recentnattempt on a President’s life. Duringnthe 19th century there were three suchnattempts; two of them were successful.nIn our century there have been sevennof them, and two were successful. Arenonly gun manufacturers and maniacsnto be blamed?nWe think that there are other, additional,nculprits. The most guilty wouldnseem to be the all-encompassing culturalnclimate in which acts of violence, likenshooting a President, appear to flourish;nthey become journalistically structurednlegends by way of the modern liberalnmedia’s unfettered sensationalism. Thusnthe contemporary liberal press seems tonus more culpable than gun manufacturers;nthey herald any criminal event,nfailing to rebuke it with a moral intensitynthat matches their frenzy to inform.nMoreover, the unholy romance betweennthe mainstream liberal press and itsnvicious, left-radical outlets creates annatmosphere of murderousness permeatednby potential, even unavoidable,nviolence. No one rebuked AndrewnYoung when he lied, in print, about then”open season on black people” undernthe Reagan administration; on the contrary,nthe New York Times opened itsnpages to anything Mr. Young wantednto say. It is one thing to disagree with anconservative President on his goals innpolitics and the economy, and quitenanother to create a fog of lies and demagogicallyninflated accusations that makenhis policies sound almost evil. VillagenVoice, a. weekly magazine owned by annAustralian tycoon and staffed withnScottish bolsheviks, ran an ad, “ImpeachnnnReagan!” before the President’s inauguration.nA couple of months later, wenread there:nReagan’s cant often sounds like 1840nKnow-Nothingism, a Nativist movementnpreaching ‘America for thenAmericans,’ that is, ‘No ethnics,nplease.’ Assimilate or vanish. Mynmost paranoid nightmare: all Americansnwill someday carry identityncards declaring ethnic heritage, sonthat when the American Reichnbegins….nThese are no longer political divergencesnof views and polemics, but cynical,nvicious innuendos born of a radicalnperversity within the liberal consciousnessnwhich squirts its Brie-cumpoUtical-ragensaliva into still-feeblernminds and may end up putting gunsninto the hands of “countercultural”ndrifters.nBut the press alone can’t be held entirelynresponsible; it had some morerefinednaccomplices in generating anclimate in which nothing is condemnednand nobody has to be responsible fornwho he is or what he does. The pressnfound support from two civilizationalntumors, both of which have renderednthe law virtually powerless: the judiciarynthat breeds contempt for the law, andnthe chronically degenerated humanitarianismnof psychology, psychotherapynand psychiatry as the most potent legislatorsnof modern morality. In an unheard-ofncooperation, the guardians ofnthe law and the self-appointed guardiansnof the human soul have succeeded innrobbing the American society of bothnits religious sense of sin and its secularnsense of civic responsibility. They wantnus to accept insanity as a factor divorcednfrom any morality based on natural law,nand there’s a deadly mistake in thisnview. Insanity that causes wrong is anmoral factor and, therefore, cannot escapena punitive reaction from society,nregardless of whether the insane perpetratornrealizes why he is being punishednor confined. People must have the rightnto destroy evil, conscious or unconscious.nMay/June 1981n