Saturday, December 29, 2012

America’s New Year Resolution: Let’s Stop Generating Monsters

Everyone can agree that the horrific massacre of innocent grade-school children in Newtown, Conn. was truly monstrous. It was an event that defies the imagination to conceive how someone might do something so cruel and inhuman. Worse yet, this is not an isolated incident. Similar cases are occurring with greater frequency, prompting many to ask what is to be done.

While many will admit that all these shootings are monstrous, few will call these gunmen what they are – monsters. The descriptions that the media circulate generally describe these young men as quiet loners, misunderstood students, misfits, mentally disturbed individuals or other such labels that somehow imply a profound mystery deep inside their souls that we really cannot understand.

Yet there is no mystery. Why not call a spade, a spade? The dictionary defines a monster as “one who deviates from normal or acceptable behavior or character; a person of unnatural or extreme wickedness or cruelty.” These individuals no longer felt constrained to behave normally.

Perhaps the real reason we experience difficulty in calling these murderers monsters is because it somehow implicates the nightmarish course our American way of life as a whole has taken. When our pursuit of happiness is based on the false premise of complete freedom to do as one pleases, there are no limits to the fantasies that can be entertained. There are no social norms that have to be respected. The moral order has broken down. The reason why these individuals acted the way they did is they simply accepted no restraints and took this false premise of doing anything they want to its logical consequences in the monstrous, abnormal and bizarre.

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Moreover, they were raised that way. These are not individuals living in abject poverty. In fact, they were pampered with everything they wanted. These are the spoiled children of a frenetic society without restraint. They were spared every effort or suffering. They were not taught order, responsibility and duty. They were not told “No” at the right times.

We find absent in their lives all the elements that contribute to the mental stability of youth. Nearly all of these young men are the result of broken families, divorce and shattered lives, which we must admit contributed to their mental instability. They did not have the warmth and security of a healthy family to support them and aid them in their journey through life. They rejected the moral compass of religion to guide them in their purposeless lives.

Worst of all, they live and immerse themselves in our general culture that glorifies violence, sexualizes everything and relativizes the sense of right and wrong. They surrounded themselves with movies, video games and entertainment that are full of brutality, vulgarity and sensuality. They believe the purpose of life is the instant gratification of their desires. They lived in the shadows of bizarre sub-cultures.

And yet we wonder why we have these gunmen? Perhaps we might better ponder why we have so few. Among the youth of our days, there is a volatile subset of individuals that we have raised as monsters. They live among us and defy all possibility of detection. They are like ticking bombs ready to detonate with extraordinary cruelty when their lives break down.

The question remains as to what measures might be taken to resolve the problem of this lost generation of monsters. There are already cries for better security, more control on firearms and more federal funding for social programs. However, none of these “solutions” address the problem of how to stop raising monsters.

Where are the calls for stronger families? These young men needed strong father figures together with compassionate and principled mothers. Will no one condemn our culture of violence, sex and death? Will no one dare to teach the duty, restraint and discipline children crave and need for their formation? When will we see role models for these young men to inspire them to moral behavior or heroism? Should we not teach our youth about religion, morals and God’s law instead of moral relativism? Such politically incorrect calls for reform will probably not be heeded, and yet they are urgently needed.

Meanwhile, the public is threatened by this generation of poor monsters that we raised

and who now live undetected among us. It should surprise no one that law-biding citizens seek to arm themselves as a protection against this threat that is turning even a trip to the supermarket into a dangerous adventure.

We need to address the real issues. We need a return to a moral order. If not, nothing will be resolved and we will be condemned to see this tragedy repeat itself. Indeed, the pain of this latest tragedy will gradually fade. All we will hear are new calls for gun control as we wait for the next monster to appear.

12 comments:

  1. Thank you! God is punishing us for our sins. Our Return to Order must include our conversion as a nation.

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    1. Amazing website. A conversion without a Return to Order is not a conversion. And a Return to Order without a conversion is not a Return to Order. Interesting website. When is the launching of this book?

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  2. The book Return to Order shows the bigger picture on how we can get away from the culture of sin and death, and create an organic Catholic society.

    I highly recommend it.

    http://www.returntoorder.org/

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  3. God bless! Let us hope that in the New Year we will see a return to order. The generation of monsters is the result of our embracing of disorder.

    http://www.returntoorder.org/

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    1. Our Lady of Fatima Worned us. Now We Sufer the Consequences.We must Amend Our Life, Pray the Rosary ana Above All "Return to Order"

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  4. Mr.Horvat's RTO ideology appears to be a conduit to lead people who have stopped
    following the basic principles of life, and
    help them re-establish themselves with the
    morals, value of life, and the rhythm of
    stability by his suggestion of following God's
    laws.--Anonymous

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  5. I am so fascinated learning new skills that I can applied to evangelize and helping my family, friends and people.
    God Bless all the people who has been making the book Return to Order.
    I will do my best to encouraged people Love, Serve and Respect Our Father in Heaven, Jesus Christ and Our Bless Mother.

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  6. The slaughter of the innocents in Connecticut was indeed perpetrated by a monster, the same type of monster who perpetrated the slaughter of the innocents in Bethlehem some 2,000 years ago as Herod tried to wipe out any potential threat to his power. While the motives for these two massacres might have been somewhat different, the result is the same: innocent lives are lost because of the actions of brutal and godless individuals. Our government, which is a reflection of us as a people, proposes gun control as a means to put an end to senseless death and violence. Yet in England and Australia where gun control has been implemented, the intended consequences are the reverse of what was anticipated, as is typical of government-imposed solutions. Gun control is not the answer. Profiling monsters is not the answer. Posting armed guards at our schools is not the answer. The answer to the senseless loss of life in our country and throughout the world lies in a return to the order and structure that can only be found in a truly organic Christian society. Our nation and the world are casting off Christian values one by one; the consequences are evident in Connecticut and throughout the world as to what takes place when Christianity and the moral order that God placed on every man’s soul are rejected. When we reject this moral order of God, which reached its zenith in the Christian societies of the Middle Ages, we begin the inevitable march to tribal paganism and anarchy. That is where we are headed unless we return to God’s law, unless we return to Christian order. Banning guns and posting guards are not the answers we need.

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  7. Everyone wishes us a HAPPY New Year! True happiness come from Order, not socialism. Equality breeds contempt and mediocrity. We need a Return to Order with God as the Center of our soociety.

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  8. Everyone wishes you a HAPPY New Year. Happiness comes with order, not socialism which breeds contempt and mediocrity. We need a return to order with a God-centered society. Happiness comes with grace, not government.

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  9. Return to Order looks like a great book. I can't wait to read it!

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  10. Peace is not the absence of war, but, rather, according to St. Thomas Aquinas, it is the tranquility of order. It is this very order which has been the hallmark of Christian civilization which has been all but lost in America. Are we surprised by this? We shouldn’t be. The family, traditional moral values and private property (through excessive taxation) have been under constant assault for at least a half a century. Look at the most recent elections. Grave sins against the natural law are now winning in public referenda. We are reaping the bitter fruits of what we have sown. The propagation of monsters in our society is one of the most disturbing fruits of this disorder. Yet our politicians continue to treat the symptoms, guns, rather than the cause, disorder. We need a Return to Order. Mr. Horvat’s ground breaking book is an excellent compass to point us on the road back to order. Will America have the courage to explore it? Or will we continue to ignore the warning signs like the crew of the Titanic who hesitated to distribute the life jackets until it was clear to all that the ship was sinking?

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