So I have a script idea: “A well off, Ivy League educated boy-man, goes down the rabbit hole of social Justice influencers on social media and decides he will kill a CEO of a large company in cold blood, because his new- found social Justice woke consciousness/values tells him it is the right thing to do.” I know far fetched, I wonder if he made a lot of medical insurance CEO jokes, before he killed?
25+ years ago, we made a big bowl of popcorn and settled in for a Saturday Family Movie Night: my husband & I were big fans of Monty Python. We allowed our kids--enrolled in parochial school!--to watch "Life of Brian."
The next day we had The Talk with them: "Look, some people won't think this is funny. I guess we laugh at different things in our house. So it's probably a good idea if you don't mention to Sister Marie that we watched this movie."
I remain surprised that none of us was excommunicated.
Just visited the PBS X feed - nothing for the last week and now the current gang is the main story. The PBS/NPR clowns had one job - keep the lights on and now, thanks to TDS, they're making PBS and NPR the story as "victims" - while sneering at the people who just won the last election. What a shit show! No more Monty Python here, or in the UK.
I grew up in a small dairy town. The week of Thanksgiving our school basically shut down because nearly every boy over 12 was at a deer camp somewhere. My Sophomore english teacher would play this for the class. Those of us who missed it could go watch it during our study hall hour.
I personally suspect that the creators of Life of Brian were hipper than they let on. If you look at the videos of the protests that occurred in different cities, the signs were identical. Now, that could be a coincidence, or the protesters could have organized themselves across all those different jurisdictions and co-ordinated the signage, or distributed the same signs to the different groups in different cities.
But I also know that protest-for-hire is a thing, and that the Entertainment Industry is in business to make money.
"You can't have a better press agent than a censor. " - John Waters
I don't personally know of any parochial schools where anyone would have given the slightest fuck if you watched Life of Brian. Must have been a weird school.
"New York adopted a new "Son of Sam" law in 2001. This law requires that victims of crimes be notified whenever a person convicted of a crime receives $10,000 (US) or more from virtually any source. The law attaches a springing statute of limitations, giving victims an extended period of time to sue the perpetrator of the crime in civil court for their crimes and to potentially receive damages."
So if there's anything left from the Gofundme after the asshole's conviction, it can go to the victim's relatives.
Of course Matt is right and the typical mother is being sold a lie in terms of thinking their kid is a potential killer. But also, monitoring kids when using psychoactive drugs (especially when changing drugs or dose levels, and in making sure they are not changing dose or failing to take doses themselves) can go a long way.
So, the database tracks mental health involvement in only the cases we're talking about, public shootings. Notably, you can't know if there is NO mental health issue, you can only know if there is one reported or not one reported. The stats on that database break down in a few categories... "Yes", "No" (no known or reported mental health component", "TBD" and no data. The list shows 50%+ "yes". And to be honest I spot checked some of the "no"s and they are very possibly mental health cases. One of the No's was Luby's, where people reported behavior out of the guy beforehand that would qualify as indicative of mental health problems, and his autopsy results were "No alcohol or illegal drugs". Another "NO" was an 11-year old who pulled a fire alarm and shot kids coming out of his middle school. No prior mental illness specifically reported, but was it there?
Here's my hypothesis, stated: there's a very low rate of amok violence from the mentally ill and there is a higher, but still only one in many million, rate of mass homicide as a side effect from certain psychoactive drugs. Antipsychotics are probably worse in terms of the rate, and antidepressants have risk as well but probably a lower rate (but more widespread use). Some chance that it's the combination effect of the drugs and the fact that we reduced institutionalizations of people for mental health reasons by >75%. Meaning the drugs might not only cause it, it might also be that when we keep people at liberty rather than institutionalized under care because we had the drugs available to do that, we no longer kept them away from the public so we allow more attacks now.
Data consistent with the hypothesis:
-incidence of mass attacks like these in US begin shortly after the approval of the first drug, diazepam
-first shooter, famously from the U Texas bell tower, was known to be on diazepam (and others since have been as well, including Vegas shooter).
-Almost every shooter of this type where we have data was on psychoactive drugs (except terrorists). There are many we don't have data for, though.
-Known cases of shooters on psychoactive drugs: UT, Columbine, Vegas, VA Tech, Stoneman Douglas, Newtown, many others
-incidence of mass shootings increases after SSRIs are introduced and start to be used more widely
-strongly delayed incidence of mass attacks in Europe correlates with the slower penetration of the same drugs in patients there
(remember when Europe thought this only happened in the US?)
-all countries have mass attacks, and death rates trend more with gun laws than attack rates do. Rates of death in Europe and in Commonwealth countries from these types of things are now competitive with rates in the USA.
-homicidal ideation is a stated rare adverse event of some of the drugs, and anecdotally reported for many others... listed "rare adverse event" for venlafaxine
-five years before homicidal ideation was stated on the PI for venlafaxine, Andrea Yates drowned her 5 children while on it. She doesn't show up on the gun homicide lists. Lots of non-gun cases like this.
-obviously suicide is a big issue for these drugs as well, but importantly was denied for decades before being categorically proven (and it has been put on the warnings lists, black box warnings)
-extremely low incidence of the side effect would make it very hard to detect and prove, so our situation more likely is “we lack enough data” rather than “we can conclude no connection because no proof yet”
Data irrelevant to the hypothesis:
“NRA talks about mental illness as an issue, therefore we should doubt it.” They could do that to distract unnecessarily, but they would also do that if the hypothesis were true. In fact the politicization of the issue likely frustrates clarity of understanding of it because of knee jerk reactions. But after Mother Jones did their database, even they started to strongly talk about mental illness and the need to consider that.
I haven't seen any data that doesn't line up with the hypothesis yet. There's a strong case for reducing medical privacy rights especially for people who have committed felony attacks, or at least requiring anonymous submission to a central database.
What worries me most about ignoring mental illness as a potential cause is that bombs do a lot more damage then guns, so if we don't address the underlying causes alongside greater gun control, then the death rates could go UP. Mass bombings are up to 3.5x death toll and even more on the injury side I think. The higher potential is offset by the greater difficulty level of execution of course.
One thing I like about the hypothesis is that, if true, it means people aren't total monsters, just people experiencing a very rare side effect of an overall useful drug. I do think that even if this is true, the drugs can easily be doing more overall good than harm.
We had decades without this problem before the drugs. Seems like we should just quit with the drugs. Not monitor. Not rationalize possible benefits. Just stop for 20 years and see what happens.
So go back to a time when cities had snakepits like Dunning in Chicago. Those good old days were about electroshock and lobotomies but mostly about sedating the mentally ill to a point where they were easily managed and out of the eyeline of polite society.
Totally right on, except for missing that antipsychotics came first by decades and have probably bigger effect (but used by fewer people). the increasing incidence of these problems is likely due to widespread use of ssris tho
Most mass shooters have no dad or positive male role model. Yet a certain karen type of belief seems to create this exact condition by way of oedipal smothering. While attributing causation to trifles.
Very true and still it appears we are not capable of an honest conversation about mental illness- not just in children but also in adults- neither the streets nor the jails are the appropriate place for the mentally ill. we need to admit shutting down institutions was not the solution and talk about what will help these people cuz they need help and we are failing them as a society.
You are 100% right. We shut down the institutions to avoid them being abused by shameless profiteers but now they get almost no help and instead the elder care facilities are run by shameless profiteers.
Is that the script where the boy falls off the earth for a few months prior to the alleged CEOicide, maybe for the purpose of programming a la the Manchurian Candidate? C'mon Man! That's way too far fetch for anyone to believe.
I was a huge fan of British TV - I'm convinced the best thing Britain did/does over the centuries for the world is produce media."In the Thick of It" is just one example.
As crap journalism is perhaps the greatest threat facing us, this March 28, 2025 interview on Unherd "How the BBC killed Hardtalk" is very much worth watching.
Most interesting was the funding question, running out money for Hardtalk, which regularly had 170 million views weekly worldwide, and instead pouring money in BBC VERIFY - that's right - disinformation police.
Times were good for "Radicalization consultants' over the last four years. I understand one has to wait months in order to retain a "Moron consultant' now.
I take it you don't know Luigi is specifically on-record as anti-"Woke"; the Wokies are a COINTELPRO-counterfeit pretty specifically brewed up with the hope of PREVENTING him.
Divide, conquer, scapegoat; it's a centuries-old playbook meant for the DEFENSE of people like Brian Thompson.
Just so I’m clear: if kids want to take drugs that will sterilize themselves and/or have their primary/secondary sexual features permanently altered with surgery, Parents must consent or else they’re Literally Hitler™️
But if parents let their kids (who are, understandably, freaking the fuck out and/or depressed about the world they’re living in and the future adults are forcing upon them) enjoy jokes - the humor will turn those kids into Literally Hitler™️
The best clapback I ever heard to an accusation of "man-splaining" was that if she hadn't "she-nored" what he'd said the first time, he wouldn't have had to explain it.
Interesting that the writer of this series knew he wouldn't get produced by Netflix if he presented it in the true context of the story that inspired it... 15-year-old Elianne Andam who was stabbed with a kitchen knife by 17-year-old Hassan Sentamu in south London in an altercation over a teddy bear. Starmer wouldn't be recommending anyone see that version.
"Adolescence" is one of the most transparent instances of propaganda since.....ok well actually not that long ago. This is like the Bill Gates/Microsoft strategy applied to films in the UK - first we make the product, then we collude with government to make the product "mandatory". In this case there's even a bonus, because the government can demand students discuss the propaganda as well.
They're coming for free speech. Germany just proved it, the UK is proving it....hell, basically all of the EU is proving it. They will determine what you can say.
Anybody who lived through covid censorship should be very wary.
“We don’t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don’t want to waste the listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions,” said Terence Samuel, NPR’s managing editor. “And quite frankly, that’s where we ended up, this was … a politically driven event and we decided to treat it that way.”
I can't keep up. For a long time, we all agreed that Judas Priest was responsible. Then Marilyn Manson. Now it's Hitler mustaches. Which are funny as fuck. Why can't it be Justin Timberlake's fault? That's just as likely.
I ran a game store during that time and dealt with more than one kid who was forced to sell his collection by a pastor or parent saying it was satanic.
Ha ha I was just looking at my CD copy of that today, read by the author (as if he actually wrote it). I found it in a thrift store for like a dollar many years ago, remembering how Ralph Nader would describe an Al Gore speech as "the cure for insomnia".
Speaking of Hitler, he wrote Mein Kampf (well, Hess probably wrote it), became Führer, and made it a mandatory purchase, and got rich off it. Sounds like Starmer’s following a good role model.
Progressivism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may have an unapproved thought or tell or laugh at an unapproved joke, which makes AWFLs (Affluent White Female Liberals) scared and anxious, as they are the official defenders of the marginalized and their fragile feelings and need to mother-hen smother them, even if no one asked them to.
Imagine not being able to hear a fire alarm? Others are reacting to a stimulus that simply doesn't reach your leaden ear. Jokes fill the humorless with fear of the unknown. Is this in bad taste? Could pretending to laugh get me in trouble? The humorless want to be good sports but it's . . . just . . . not . . . funny. They know others share their handicap and are standing up to take offense at any source of levity or mirth.
The sides have switched sides and now conservatives are wild, free and funny (though maybe not so conservative?) and liberals are uptight sour and dour prudes. Social Justice is the new Moral Majority and the AWFLs (I call them "NPR totebags") are the new Church Ladies, always trying to scold and control because they feel a deep need to save our souls.
Someone is always marching under the banner of Think of the Children! even if the people and causes change.
Sanctimony/moralism is a drug like any other. A pinch or two can be necessary and helpful, but it's easy to get hooked and OD. Then comes the disfiguring swelling of the head lol and the sermonizing...
I learned to serve quietly when I was in Boy Scouts. When service is celebrated openly, it lacks purity. The reward of helping is a dish best served alone. Shouting out "Look, I gave a beggar 10 dollars" is harmful to both parties. It was a secret investment that may or may not pan out. A gift celebrating the giver is OK but it's not my way.
Absolutely and wonderfully correct. It might be delightful to tell a close friend, partner or parent that you had performed a worthwhile service and that it made you feel good, and you might do so, but posting it on social media is ni kulturny. Great post, thanks.
This is the absurd next step in the helicopter parenting debacle. Don't let them play outside, don't let them take, god forbid, any 'risks', don't let them fail, or be disappointed, protect at all costs. One of my most treasured memories is letting my son and his cousin, who were 12 at the time, swim across Walden Pond (they're in their 30's now so they survived). I was on my own at the pond with a younger sibling and there were other swimmers so I wasn't completely out of my mind. Watching them make it across and sit on the opposite bank, tired and victorious, just the two of them bonding over their adventure is one of the best memories I have of them together. The Covid policies created an entire generation terrified of air. Kids can only grow up into thoughtful, critically thinking adults if they experience challenges - physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual and be given the space to sort things out with the help of an adult who will listen not simply tell them what the 'right' answer is. This attack on jokes/comedy/speech is just another prong on the pitchfork of censorship.
Growing up in the Santa Cruz Mountains in California my best friend and I (1960s) would take off in the morning and hike and explore all day in the ravines, hills and forests, following ancient logging roads and deer trails. We told our parents we be back about dinner time, maybe packed a couple of cookies or candy bars, drank from mountain springs, and that was it. The only telephone was the one on the kitchen counter with a rotary dial. I absolutely think that young persons need that freedom, and the society needs to get its s--t together so that urban youngsters can too, without fear of the multiple facets of criminal and social depredation.
But then, I'm somewhere out there to the right of Ghengis the Khan...
And the misbegotten notion that The Government can create a Safe Cotton Box in which to raise children is total BS. The abandoment of responsiblity, and loss of freedom, in the hope that all will be well, is insanithy.
This post brings such memories. You played with the kids in your neighborhood. No uniforms for every kid activity. As a matter of fact, the parent sent us out the door with the instruction, “Go play.” And we did, all day into suppertime without adult interference.
I have gifted great-grandkids books of puns and jokes. I can’t envision any loving family member doing Joke Police duty. Wow.
This still happens more regularly than people seem to think. In both the neighborhoods where we have lived it was the norm. I still have to track down my kids at dinner time by sending one of their older siblings around to find the house where they are playing. My older ones bike around town - though I do make them give me a basic idea of where they are going in case of emergency. They don't have cell phones, so I need to be able to find them if really necessary.
Great story! I could actually visualize it because we lived near Walden Pond for a few years and enjoyed swimming, paddle-boarding and walking the trail around it.
100% agree with the rest of your comment, as well. My husband and I run a microschool that offers a completely different learning model than the public system, where we provide an environment of (among many other things) minimal adult interaction, allowing the learners to fail often, cheaply and safely, which helps foster their resilience. It's amazing how capable kids are when adults DON'T interfere!
I hope you are not here in Illinois. The legislature recently passed a bill monitoring home schooling (and may even apply to all not public schools, not sure). If the education achieved is not up to the State expectations, you might be investigated by child welfare. Which is so rich when one considers public school achievement in this state.
I think the mass exodus from public schools, due especially to the horrid covid and DEI policies, has the government in a panic. So, they're going after the low-hanging fruit, which are home schools. Here in Virginia we have a legislator who's trying to pull the same nonsense as Illinois. I wrote my state assemblyman about it, and he agrees it's nonsense and assured me he'd vote no if her bill made it to the assembly floor. Because it targets only home schools, our private school wouldn't be affected. But we also have a Republican governor who I'm fairly certain would veto it anyway.
Fight on. This is driven by the teachers’ unions here, which coincidentally just recently released a “bipartisan poll” conducted by the —- teachers’ unions, and you know what? Poll says the people of Illinois think IL education is doing a good job AND/BUT needs more funding. Some sort of wonderful.
If you're asking what microschools are, then a simple browser search. If you're asking about their learning models, it varies greatly depending on the individual schools themselves. Ours is based on the Acton Academy learning model (easily searchable), as well as the Montessori model for our youngest learners.
Watching "Heathers" didn't make me want to kill teenagers and blow up a high school. Humor can be a very effective way of harmlessly blowing off steam. Right?
That may be what they think, but they are going to create more problems radicalizing youth than they solve with this. Systematized prejudice against men is not a recipe for a stable society.
15 - 20 years from now there is going to be a mental illness epidemic among white men who were never allowed to be boys. At some point, you can't fight biology.
If I’m not mistaken wasn’t “Adolescence” based on an actual British incident that had a minority (Indian or Muslim) male kill a white British female? If so, then this totally puts all this guilt-ridden propaganda in a different light. Sort of like MSM in the US ignoring that most black American murders are perpetrated by black males or black on black crime in general.
First they came for the radicalization consultants, and I did not speak out–because I was not a radicalization consultant. And because that’s dumb and not a real thing
I'm tired of the whole "toxic masculinity" thing. When I was19 or 20, many years ago, well before cell phones, I had a tire blowout driving home. I had no idea how to change a tire and the community I was driving towards was sparsely populated outside of summer at the time - in NYC no less. However, many of the few men who lived there were cops and firemen. After 5 or 10 minutes another car did see me, stopped and in about 10 minutes changed my tire, with few words, barely hearing my thanks. Are we supposed to believe there is something toxic about that man? I'm sure he was on his way to his wife and kids.
I have 3 brothers. I don't think any of them are toxic and neither did our parents.
I'm just one lady but I'm surrounded by wonderful, kind, respectful, sacrificial, trustworthy men. My husband, my ex-husband, our priest, our school's headmaster, my son, my dad, dozens of men we know from church and work, dozens more my husband knows from nonprofit work - in fact I don't personally know any men I would consider "toxic." Maybe these NPR types need to move to Texas, put their kids in Christian school and start going to church to improve their social circles. 🤷♀️
Interesting that NPR doesn't see how white liberal women calling young boys "toxic", "sexist", "privileged", and "misogynistic" might be a much worse culprit that Andrew Tate.
My guess is some boys, after eight years liberal women bashing them as pure evil, may develop hostility toward women as a result.
Perhaps NPR should do a follow up piece on sexist white liberal female hate speech. And how that leads young boys toward radicalization.
I’m no fan of Andrew Tate but I agree with where you’re going. Calling males “toxic” creates more problems than it solves and understandably generates resentment toward women who do it, but the grievances start before boys are aware of that kind of talk. In school boys are more likely to be told they’re “hyperactive” and that their brains are broken. School sets them up to believe they can’t learn and then we’re all surprised when they take comfort and enjoyment from video games. It’s ludicrous. School is awful for all kids but it’s especially rough on boys, and it’s only getting worse. Then boys become teens and it’s made clear to them that if they’re not predators, they will be soon. It’s a recipe for legitimate anger and profound alienation, but the pundits and “experts” are too stupid and self-centered to figure it out. They also refuse to critique public schooling, so of course they miss most of the cause of the alienation. These people are useless.
This is just the logical conclusion to the war on boys that had started when my son was in elementary school in the late 1990's. The school was pushing a STEM (Science, Tech, Engineering, Math) program, and it sounded like a great idea! Then I realized it was only for girls. Nobody cared about the little boys -- other than trying to make them behave more like girls.
I wouldn't have thought it went that far back, but yeah. Today, certainly, many teachers see boys as defective girls, and lefties have no problem with that. It's one of the reasons I need to minimize my exposure to orthodox leftists, despite being leftwing myself. Every group of humans has real flaws and shortsightedness, and for the American left it's the entire topic of children. Quite a massive blind spot and utterly inexcusable.
That's the whole point of the exercise, another tool in the communism arsenal to break society down until it's dysfunctional - easy pickins at that point.
The irony of your comment is that it's predatory capitalism that's given us the public school system we have in the U.S. Why can't we have a system that honors every kid's interests and needs instead turning education into a competition? Why do we instead have an industrial system that forces every kid into a box? Because there's a TON of money in industrial schooling: Pearson, the big publishers, remedial everything, and on and on. Education spending is a deep trough and predatory capitalists are the pigs feeding at it. The idea that capitalism doesn't want everyone to be dysfunctional--and fat, and divorced, and addicted to anti-depressants, and working two jobs--is absurdly naive. Don't be fooled by the woke trappings of rainbow flags and teachers willing to help kids socially transition: the public school system is where the American left went to die.
So I have a script idea: “A well off, Ivy League educated boy-man, goes down the rabbit hole of social Justice influencers on social media and decides he will kill a CEO of a large company in cold blood, because his new- found social Justice woke consciousness/values tells him it is the right thing to do.” I know far fetched, I wonder if he made a lot of medical insurance CEO jokes, before he killed?
Then the govt cslls for the death penalty leading thousands of swooning girls to bankroll his gofundme, which tops $1million
25+ years ago, we made a big bowl of popcorn and settled in for a Saturday Family Movie Night: my husband & I were big fans of Monty Python. We allowed our kids--enrolled in parochial school!--to watch "Life of Brian."
The next day we had The Talk with them: "Look, some people won't think this is funny. I guess we laugh at different things in our house. So it's probably a good idea if you don't mention to Sister Marie that we watched this movie."
I remain surprised that none of us was excommunicated.
Good parenting always involves Monty Python!
Just visited the PBS X feed - nothing for the last week and now the current gang is the main story. The PBS/NPR clowns had one job - keep the lights on and now, thanks to TDS, they're making PBS and NPR the story as "victims" - while sneering at the people who just won the last election. What a shit show! No more Monty Python here, or in the UK.
Always look at the bright side of life ☺️
When you’re chewin on life’s gristle, don’t pout, give a whistle!
Watched it as part of my Confirmation Study Group sleepover…
50 years later, the religious satire in that movie is still razor sharp.
I dont recall any white boy running around with a knife, yelling "look on the brighter side of life"..
humor is needed now, more than ever. poking fun at others is not a bad thing. Being mean and hateful is.
Not sure why you rebutted me this way. I'm noting the scathing religious humor of this movie still lands 50 years later...
"We must follow his way with the gourd!"
"No! We must all wear one sandal like our messiah Brian!"
What’s so special about the cheese makers?
Well, obviously it’s not meant to be taken literally; it refers to any manufacturers of dairy products.
Someone I know who is Jewish watches it every Good Friday. Don't know what to think about that.
My junior AP US History teacher-at a Jesuit HS-said it was his duty to show every one of his students Monty Python and the Holy Grail in class!
I grew up in a small dairy town. The week of Thanksgiving our school basically shut down because nearly every boy over 12 was at a deer camp somewhere. My Sophomore english teacher would play this for the class. Those of us who missed it could go watch it during our study hall hour.
Life of Brian came straight out of the Vatican Catacombs.
Comes out of the Vatican Catacombs
Cool and slow with plenty of precision
With a back beat narrow and hard to master
To the tune of: The Wasp - Texas Radio and the Big Beat.
HA ha ha! You might be better off excommunicated.
I personally suspect that the creators of Life of Brian were hipper than they let on. If you look at the videos of the protests that occurred in different cities, the signs were identical. Now, that could be a coincidence, or the protesters could have organized themselves across all those different jurisdictions and co-ordinated the signage, or distributed the same signs to the different groups in different cities.
But I also know that protest-for-hire is a thing, and that the Entertainment Industry is in business to make money.
"You can't have a better press agent than a censor. " - John Waters
Sister Marie was smoking a fatty and watching Life of Brian in her room...
I don't personally know of any parochial schools where anyone would have given the slightest fuck if you watched Life of Brian. Must have been a weird school.
From Wikipedia.org:
"New York adopted a new "Son of Sam" law in 2001. This law requires that victims of crimes be notified whenever a person convicted of a crime receives $10,000 (US) or more from virtually any source. The law attaches a springing statute of limitations, giving victims an extended period of time to sue the perpetrator of the crime in civil court for their crimes and to potentially receive damages."
So if there's anything left from the Gofundme after the asshole's conviction, it can go to the victim's relatives.
Any rich white liberal woman who thinks her son is a potential murderer should read this and see if there are actual correlations with their experiences: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/i-am-adam-lanzas-mother-mental-illness-conversation_n_2311009
In reality, many or most of the shooters we're talking about, and especially the younger ones, suffer from significant mental illness.
Of course Matt is right and the typical mother is being sold a lie in terms of thinking their kid is a potential killer. But also, monitoring kids when using psychoactive drugs (especially when changing drugs or dose levels, and in making sure they are not changing dose or failing to take doses themselves) can go a long way.
Here's the Mother Jones database of the types of shootings we’re talking about: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/mass-shootings-mother-jones-full-data/
So, the database tracks mental health involvement in only the cases we're talking about, public shootings. Notably, you can't know if there is NO mental health issue, you can only know if there is one reported or not one reported. The stats on that database break down in a few categories... "Yes", "No" (no known or reported mental health component", "TBD" and no data. The list shows 50%+ "yes". And to be honest I spot checked some of the "no"s and they are very possibly mental health cases. One of the No's was Luby's, where people reported behavior out of the guy beforehand that would qualify as indicative of mental health problems, and his autopsy results were "No alcohol or illegal drugs". Another "NO" was an 11-year old who pulled a fire alarm and shot kids coming out of his middle school. No prior mental illness specifically reported, but was it there?
Here's my hypothesis, stated: there's a very low rate of amok violence from the mentally ill and there is a higher, but still only one in many million, rate of mass homicide as a side effect from certain psychoactive drugs. Antipsychotics are probably worse in terms of the rate, and antidepressants have risk as well but probably a lower rate (but more widespread use). Some chance that it's the combination effect of the drugs and the fact that we reduced institutionalizations of people for mental health reasons by >75%. Meaning the drugs might not only cause it, it might also be that when we keep people at liberty rather than institutionalized under care because we had the drugs available to do that, we no longer kept them away from the public so we allow more attacks now.
Data consistent with the hypothesis:
-incidence of mass attacks like these in US begin shortly after the approval of the first drug, diazepam
-first shooter, famously from the U Texas bell tower, was known to be on diazepam (and others since have been as well, including Vegas shooter).
-Almost every shooter of this type where we have data was on psychoactive drugs (except terrorists). There are many we don't have data for, though.
-Known cases of shooters on psychoactive drugs: UT, Columbine, Vegas, VA Tech, Stoneman Douglas, Newtown, many others
-incidence of mass shootings increases after SSRIs are introduced and start to be used more widely
-strongly delayed incidence of mass attacks in Europe correlates with the slower penetration of the same drugs in patients there
(remember when Europe thought this only happened in the US?)
-all countries have mass attacks, and death rates trend more with gun laws than attack rates do. Rates of death in Europe and in Commonwealth countries from these types of things are now competitive with rates in the USA.
-In China and Asia in general, there are a ton of school knifings, usually tied to mental illness, it's just that not as many people die due to lack of guns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_attacks_in_China
-strong correlation of increased violence towards others with all of the relevant drugs: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0015337
-SSRIs strongly associated in a cohort study with criminal violence in ages 15-24 http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1001875
-homicidal ideation is a stated rare adverse event of some of the drugs, and anecdotally reported for many others... listed "rare adverse event" for venlafaxine
-five years before homicidal ideation was stated on the PI for venlafaxine, Andrea Yates drowned her 5 children while on it. She doesn't show up on the gun homicide lists. Lots of non-gun cases like this.
-obviously suicide is a big issue for these drugs as well, but importantly was denied for decades before being categorically proven (and it has been put on the warnings lists, black box warnings)
-extremely low incidence of the side effect would make it very hard to detect and prove, so our situation more likely is “we lack enough data” rather than “we can conclude no connection because no proof yet”
Data irrelevant to the hypothesis:
“NRA talks about mental illness as an issue, therefore we should doubt it.” They could do that to distract unnecessarily, but they would also do that if the hypothesis were true. In fact the politicization of the issue likely frustrates clarity of understanding of it because of knee jerk reactions. But after Mother Jones did their database, even they started to strongly talk about mental illness and the need to consider that.
I haven't seen any data that doesn't line up with the hypothesis yet. There's a strong case for reducing medical privacy rights especially for people who have committed felony attacks, or at least requiring anonymous submission to a central database.
What worries me most about ignoring mental illness as a potential cause is that bombs do a lot more damage then guns, so if we don't address the underlying causes alongside greater gun control, then the death rates could go UP. Mass bombings are up to 3.5x death toll and even more on the injury side I think. The higher potential is offset by the greater difficulty level of execution of course.
One thing I like about the hypothesis is that, if true, it means people aren't total monsters, just people experiencing a very rare side effect of an overall useful drug. I do think that even if this is true, the drugs can easily be doing more overall good than harm.
We had decades without this problem before the drugs. Seems like we should just quit with the drugs. Not monitor. Not rationalize possible benefits. Just stop for 20 years and see what happens.
what would big Pharma do for those 20 years? sit around and really produce a bunch of junk vaccines...
So go back to a time when cities had snakepits like Dunning in Chicago. Those good old days were about electroshock and lobotomies but mostly about sedating the mentally ill to a point where they were easily managed and out of the eyeline of polite society.
SSRIs are part of the problem.
The Substack A Midwestern Doctor has several articles on SSRIs, including this one:
The Decades of Evidence That SSRI Antidepressants Cause Mass Shootings
https://www.midwesterndoctor.com/p/there-is-decades-of-evidence-that
Totally right on, except for missing that antipsychotics came first by decades and have probably bigger effect (but used by fewer people). the increasing incidence of these problems is likely due to widespread use of ssris tho
Thanks for all this info.
Most mass shooters have no dad or positive male role model. Yet a certain karen type of belief seems to create this exact condition by way of oedipal smothering. While attributing causation to trifles.
“many or most of the shooters we're talking about, and especially the younger ones, suffer from significant mental illness”
This seems obvious, tragic that it needs to be said.
Very true and still it appears we are not capable of an honest conversation about mental illness- not just in children but also in adults- neither the streets nor the jails are the appropriate place for the mentally ill. we need to admit shutting down institutions was not the solution and talk about what will help these people cuz they need help and we are failing them as a society.
You are 100% right. We shut down the institutions to avoid them being abused by shameless profiteers but now they get almost no help and instead the elder care facilities are run by shameless profiteers.
It is frequently the calling card of well off, Ivy League, etc., etc., killers.
It is so easy to spot too. We need common sense restrictions on well off ivy leaguers.
How many more health care CEOs need to get murdered before we do something?
it's kind of you to be concerned about them but i think as a group they've probably already upped their own security precautions considerably
Could be. I was just goofing on an argument made by some that if only this or that law, the tragedy would not have occurred.
meh, sorry, completely missed the tone there
04/08/25: Perfect! Hallmark Cards TV is on line 2, they want to buy the script.
Perfect comment for this piece.
Don’t forget, he hurt his back surfing? And he couldn’t surf anymore.
Is that the script where the boy falls off the earth for a few months prior to the alleged CEOicide, maybe for the purpose of programming a la the Manchurian Candidate? C'mon Man! That's way too far fetch for anyone to believe.
I was a huge fan of British TV - I'm convinced the best thing Britain did/does over the centuries for the world is produce media."In the Thick of It" is just one example.
As crap journalism is perhaps the greatest threat facing us, this March 28, 2025 interview on Unherd "How the BBC killed Hardtalk" is very much worth watching.
Most interesting was the funding question, running out money for Hardtalk, which regularly had 170 million views weekly worldwide, and instead pouring money in BBC VERIFY - that's right - disinformation police.
https://unherd.com/watch-listen/how-the-bbc-killed-hardtalk-2/
Monty Python - I Claudius - Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Black Adder - Brideshead Revisited - so much great British TV - what's to be scared of?
Benny Hill
Times were good for "Radicalization consultants' over the last four years. I understand one has to wait months in order to retain a "Moron consultant' now.
I take it you don't know Luigi is specifically on-record as anti-"Woke"; the Wokies are a COINTELPRO-counterfeit pretty specifically brewed up with the hope of PREVENTING him.
Divide, conquer, scapegoat; it's a centuries-old playbook meant for the DEFENSE of people like Brian Thompson.
Brilliant comment!
Interesting, and a good question. The IC knows his complete joke history, why don't we ask them?
That seriously nails it.
His family got rich of rehabs and he was probably pissed that their peer reviews cost them business.
PERFECT!! Except its so so so far fetched!
Just so I’m clear: if kids want to take drugs that will sterilize themselves and/or have their primary/secondary sexual features permanently altered with surgery, Parents must consent or else they’re Literally Hitler™️
But if parents let their kids (who are, understandably, freaking the fuck out and/or depressed about the world they’re living in and the future adults are forcing upon them) enjoy jokes - the humor will turn those kids into Literally Hitler™️
That about sum things up?
I suspect that the person that wrote this comment might be the reincarnation of Literally Hitler.
I’m pro-humor so by NPR standards I must be
Good question. If he is you'll be hearing from his attorney for trademark infringement. Let us know.
Are you a Leftist? Apologies if not, but they all say “Literally”.
I literally cannot believe you asked me that! I think you must be literally insane
Hahahaha! Good one.
Don't allow your son to say, "You throw like a girl."
Do allow your son to join the girls softball team and pitch no-hitters.
Don't allow your son to say, "You throw like a girl."
Also: do allow your daughter to accuse people of "explaining like a man"
The best clapback I ever heard to an accusation of "man-splaining" was that if she hadn't "she-nored" what he'd said the first time, he wouldn't have had to explain it.
Brilliant comment.
Interesting that the writer of this series knew he wouldn't get produced by Netflix if he presented it in the true context of the story that inspired it... 15-year-old Elianne Andam who was stabbed with a kitchen knife by 17-year-old Hassan Sentamu in south London in an altercation over a teddy bear. Starmer wouldn't be recommending anyone see that version.
You see the same "treatment" in Law And Order. I'm in Canada, and saw Toronto 50 most wanted. My jaw dropped.
I see what you mean shocking! But I'm sure the bigger problem in Canada is 14 year old Incels...
"Adolescence" is one of the most transparent instances of propaganda since.....ok well actually not that long ago. This is like the Bill Gates/Microsoft strategy applied to films in the UK - first we make the product, then we collude with government to make the product "mandatory". In this case there's even a bonus, because the government can demand students discuss the propaganda as well.
They're coming for free speech. Germany just proved it, the UK is proving it....hell, basically all of the EU is proving it. They will determine what you can say.
Anybody who lived through covid censorship should be very wary.
Like all propagandists, NPR is relentless.
“We don’t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don’t want to waste the listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions,” said Terence Samuel, NPR’s managing editor. “And quite frankly, that’s where we ended up, this was … a politically driven event and we decided to treat it that way.”
(04/08/25): His very statement is a politically driven event. "But we're the GOOD guys, you see, so it's OK!"
It's "Video-games cause violence" all over again.
I can't keep up. For a long time, we all agreed that Judas Priest was responsible. Then Marilyn Manson. Now it's Hitler mustaches. Which are funny as fuck. Why can't it be Justin Timberlake's fault? That's just as likely.
Well obviously, it was THE FLYING SPAGHETTI-MONSTER all along!!!
POKEMON IS THE DEVIL
I had a friend growing up whose fundie parents made them smash their pokemon game boy cartridge.
I ran a game store during that time and dealt with more than one kid who was forced to sell his collection by a pastor or parent saying it was satanic.
I had a friend who burned all of her Led Zeppelin Albums to please the Pastor.
In the same way that STAR WARS became the herald for "The Monster That Ate Hollywood", kinda!
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0416371/
I may be dating myself, but for me it was the whole heavy metal/suicide link from Tipper Gore. The video games/violence was the redux for me...
It started a long time ago. Al Gore's 1992 screed Earth in the Balance was taught in schools.
Ha ha I was just looking at my CD copy of that today, read by the author (as if he actually wrote it). I found it in a thrift store for like a dollar many years ago, remembering how Ralph Nader would describe an Al Gore speech as "the cure for insomnia".
Speaking of Hitler, he wrote Mein Kampf (well, Hess probably wrote it), became Führer, and made it a mandatory purchase, and got rich off it. Sounds like Starmer’s following a good role model.
I didn't know he made it a mandatory purchase! That's.....exactly on brand.
04/08/25: Once you get the sheep to pay the BBC TV license, all the rest follows perfectly.
It was also given away as a wedding present to newlyweds, for free.
Paid for by the state, to boost sales, as one does.
Jumpstarting the Hitler Youth.
Even China and Russia aren't openly trying to censor speech in the US.
But our "allies" in Europe are trying to do it openly. With friends like these...
"first we make the product, then we collude with government to make the product "mandatory.""
Gee, I wonder if there are more recent examples of this business model?
Was there a huge clamor for HPV vaccines prior to Gardasil coming to market, just to throw something out there?
Gates learned during his Microsoft days that government was the best customer. He applied that during covid as well.
Jokes are violence! Ban knives! Blame whitey!
Time to defund NPR. At least we have a first and second amendment, unlike Britain which is making policy based on fictional agitprop of Adolescence: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/hamilton-adolescence-race-swapping
Oh good I was going to write a whole article about this and now I can just forward yours!
Updated Mencken:
Progressivism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may have an unapproved thought or tell or laugh at an unapproved joke, which makes AWFLs (Affluent White Female Liberals) scared and anxious, as they are the official defenders of the marginalized and their fragile feelings and need to mother-hen smother them, even if no one asked them to.
Imagine not being able to hear a fire alarm? Others are reacting to a stimulus that simply doesn't reach your leaden ear. Jokes fill the humorless with fear of the unknown. Is this in bad taste? Could pretending to laugh get me in trouble? The humorless want to be good sports but it's . . . just . . . not . . . funny. They know others share their handicap and are standing up to take offense at any source of levity or mirth.
The sides have switched sides and now conservatives are wild, free and funny (though maybe not so conservative?) and liberals are uptight sour and dour prudes. Social Justice is the new Moral Majority and the AWFLs (I call them "NPR totebags") are the new Church Ladies, always trying to scold and control because they feel a deep need to save our souls.
Someone is always marching under the banner of Think of the Children! even if the people and causes change.
Funny how saving the souls of others always comes with a heapin' helpin' of sanctimonious virtue and a disfiguring swelling of the head.
Sanctimony/moralism is a drug like any other. A pinch or two can be necessary and helpful, but it's easy to get hooked and OD. Then comes the disfiguring swelling of the head lol and the sermonizing...
I learned to serve quietly when I was in Boy Scouts. When service is celebrated openly, it lacks purity. The reward of helping is a dish best served alone. Shouting out "Look, I gave a beggar 10 dollars" is harmful to both parties. It was a secret investment that may or may not pan out. A gift celebrating the giver is OK but it's not my way.
Absolutely and wonderfully correct. It might be delightful to tell a close friend, partner or parent that you had performed a worthwhile service and that it made you feel good, and you might do so, but posting it on social media is ni kulturny. Great post, thanks.
NPR totebags......excellent!!!
lol thx
LOL NPR tote bags…. I’m going to steal that one..
feel free
Brilliant take.
Thanks!
"Think of the Children!"
Only because We Must Protect Our White Women went out of fashion.
There will be no laughing. There will be no giggling. You will not grin.
Pardon this obscenity (what, does that still exist?):
Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke!
Certain subjects are off the table. Anything that gets a laugh, verboten!
You will not collapse with wheeze-snorting silent laughter. Pretending to cough only sometimes works.
You do realize, of course, you just determined that these Northeast and West Coast women should be called AWFuLs. Which is brilliant.
wish i could take credit:
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=awfl
LOL
This is the absurd next step in the helicopter parenting debacle. Don't let them play outside, don't let them take, god forbid, any 'risks', don't let them fail, or be disappointed, protect at all costs. One of my most treasured memories is letting my son and his cousin, who were 12 at the time, swim across Walden Pond (they're in their 30's now so they survived). I was on my own at the pond with a younger sibling and there were other swimmers so I wasn't completely out of my mind. Watching them make it across and sit on the opposite bank, tired and victorious, just the two of them bonding over their adventure is one of the best memories I have of them together. The Covid policies created an entire generation terrified of air. Kids can only grow up into thoughtful, critically thinking adults if they experience challenges - physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual and be given the space to sort things out with the help of an adult who will listen not simply tell them what the 'right' answer is. This attack on jokes/comedy/speech is just another prong on the pitchfork of censorship.
Exactly. Kids need to learn how to lose early so they don't think a single loss at 19 is the end of the world.
Growing up in the Santa Cruz Mountains in California my best friend and I (1960s) would take off in the morning and hike and explore all day in the ravines, hills and forests, following ancient logging roads and deer trails. We told our parents we be back about dinner time, maybe packed a couple of cookies or candy bars, drank from mountain springs, and that was it. The only telephone was the one on the kitchen counter with a rotary dial. I absolutely think that young persons need that freedom, and the society needs to get its s--t together so that urban youngsters can too, without fear of the multiple facets of criminal and social depredation.
But then, I'm somewhere out there to the right of Ghengis the Khan...
And the misbegotten notion that The Government can create a Safe Cotton Box in which to raise children is total BS. The abandoment of responsiblity, and loss of freedom, in the hope that all will be well, is insanithy.
Yeah, but the trails where I live are homeless camps. Took my kid on a hike, saw a guy shaving his head - no hair - just skin... Horror show stuff.
This post brings such memories. You played with the kids in your neighborhood. No uniforms for every kid activity. As a matter of fact, the parent sent us out the door with the instruction, “Go play.” And we did, all day into suppertime without adult interference.
I have gifted great-grandkids books of puns and jokes. I can’t envision any loving family member doing Joke Police duty. Wow.
This still happens more regularly than people seem to think. In both the neighborhoods where we have lived it was the norm. I still have to track down my kids at dinner time by sending one of their older siblings around to find the house where they are playing. My older ones bike around town - though I do make them give me a basic idea of where they are going in case of emergency. They don't have cell phones, so I need to be able to find them if really necessary.
Great story! I could actually visualize it because we lived near Walden Pond for a few years and enjoyed swimming, paddle-boarding and walking the trail around it.
100% agree with the rest of your comment, as well. My husband and I run a microschool that offers a completely different learning model than the public system, where we provide an environment of (among many other things) minimal adult interaction, allowing the learners to fail often, cheaply and safely, which helps foster their resilience. It's amazing how capable kids are when adults DON'T interfere!
I hope you are not here in Illinois. The legislature recently passed a bill monitoring home schooling (and may even apply to all not public schools, not sure). If the education achieved is not up to the State expectations, you might be investigated by child welfare. Which is so rich when one considers public school achievement in this state.
I think the mass exodus from public schools, due especially to the horrid covid and DEI policies, has the government in a panic. So, they're going after the low-hanging fruit, which are home schools. Here in Virginia we have a legislator who's trying to pull the same nonsense as Illinois. I wrote my state assemblyman about it, and he agrees it's nonsense and assured me he'd vote no if her bill made it to the assembly floor. Because it targets only home schools, our private school wouldn't be affected. But we also have a Republican governor who I'm fairly certain would veto it anyway.
Fight on. This is driven by the teachers’ unions here, which coincidentally just recently released a “bipartisan poll” conducted by the —- teachers’ unions, and you know what? Poll says the people of Illinois think IL education is doing a good job AND/BUT needs more funding. Some sort of wonderful.
Where would I find some information on the microschool concept??
If you're asking what microschools are, then a simple browser search. If you're asking about their learning models, it varies greatly depending on the individual schools themselves. Ours is based on the Acton Academy learning model (easily searchable), as well as the Montessori model for our youngest learners.
Let’s all gather at a plaza in D.C., pound our fists and scream “HANDS OFF OUR JOKES!”
That’ll change things for sure! 😉
Nerf guns? Really?
Watching "Heathers" didn't make me want to kill teenagers and blow up a high school. Humor can be a very effective way of harmlessly blowing off steam. Right?
It's a classic.
Hell, Rambo 2 was not only violence-inducing, it was cathartic for me. After seeing that many bad guys wasted, all aggression was rinsed from my soul.
NPR should give me a call.
Netflix and NPR have a new motto: Cuck ‘em while they’re young, that way you won’t have to castrate them when they hit high school.
That may be what they think, but they are going to create more problems radicalizing youth than they solve with this. Systematized prejudice against men is not a recipe for a stable society.
15 - 20 years from now there is going to be a mental illness epidemic among white men who were never allowed to be boys. At some point, you can't fight biology.
Hello? It's already here.
Or they’ll volunteer to be castrated when they get that age.
If I’m not mistaken wasn’t “Adolescence” based on an actual British incident that had a minority (Indian or Muslim) male kill a white British female? If so, then this totally puts all this guilt-ridden propaganda in a different light. Sort of like MSM in the US ignoring that most black American murders are perpetrated by black males or black on black crime in general.
I think both the killer and the girl he killed were black, but it had something to do with a teddy bear. Beyond belief.
Wow!!! Double jeopardy!! Not only misrepresented but black on black crime.
And a Teddy Bear!
First they came for the radicalization consultants, and I did not speak out–because I was not a radicalization consultant. And because that’s dumb and not a real thing
I'm tired of the whole "toxic masculinity" thing. When I was19 or 20, many years ago, well before cell phones, I had a tire blowout driving home. I had no idea how to change a tire and the community I was driving towards was sparsely populated outside of summer at the time - in NYC no less. However, many of the few men who lived there were cops and firemen. After 5 or 10 minutes another car did see me, stopped and in about 10 minutes changed my tire, with few words, barely hearing my thanks. Are we supposed to believe there is something toxic about that man? I'm sure he was on his way to his wife and kids.
I have 3 brothers. I don't think any of them are toxic and neither did our parents.
I'm just one lady but I'm surrounded by wonderful, kind, respectful, sacrificial, trustworthy men. My husband, my ex-husband, our priest, our school's headmaster, my son, my dad, dozens of men we know from church and work, dozens more my husband knows from nonprofit work - in fact I don't personally know any men I would consider "toxic." Maybe these NPR types need to move to Texas, put their kids in Christian school and start going to church to improve their social circles. 🤷♀️
Interesting that NPR doesn't see how white liberal women calling young boys "toxic", "sexist", "privileged", and "misogynistic" might be a much worse culprit that Andrew Tate.
My guess is some boys, after eight years liberal women bashing them as pure evil, may develop hostility toward women as a result.
Perhaps NPR should do a follow up piece on sexist white liberal female hate speech. And how that leads young boys toward radicalization.
I’m no fan of Andrew Tate but I agree with where you’re going. Calling males “toxic” creates more problems than it solves and understandably generates resentment toward women who do it, but the grievances start before boys are aware of that kind of talk. In school boys are more likely to be told they’re “hyperactive” and that their brains are broken. School sets them up to believe they can’t learn and then we’re all surprised when they take comfort and enjoyment from video games. It’s ludicrous. School is awful for all kids but it’s especially rough on boys, and it’s only getting worse. Then boys become teens and it’s made clear to them that if they’re not predators, they will be soon. It’s a recipe for legitimate anger and profound alienation, but the pundits and “experts” are too stupid and self-centered to figure it out. They also refuse to critique public schooling, so of course they miss most of the cause of the alienation. These people are useless.
"but the pundits and “experts” are too stupid and self-centered to figure it out." -- I sometimes wonder if it isn't actually intentional.
https://www.memedroid.com/memes/detail/2969104/Whites-are-evil
This is just the logical conclusion to the war on boys that had started when my son was in elementary school in the late 1990's. The school was pushing a STEM (Science, Tech, Engineering, Math) program, and it sounded like a great idea! Then I realized it was only for girls. Nobody cared about the little boys -- other than trying to make them behave more like girls.
I wouldn't have thought it went that far back, but yeah. Today, certainly, many teachers see boys as defective girls, and lefties have no problem with that. It's one of the reasons I need to minimize my exposure to orthodox leftists, despite being leftwing myself. Every group of humans has real flaws and shortsightedness, and for the American left it's the entire topic of children. Quite a massive blind spot and utterly inexcusable.
That's the whole point of the exercise, another tool in the communism arsenal to break society down until it's dysfunctional - easy pickins at that point.
The irony of your comment is that it's predatory capitalism that's given us the public school system we have in the U.S. Why can't we have a system that honors every kid's interests and needs instead turning education into a competition? Why do we instead have an industrial system that forces every kid into a box? Because there's a TON of money in industrial schooling: Pearson, the big publishers, remedial everything, and on and on. Education spending is a deep trough and predatory capitalists are the pigs feeding at it. The idea that capitalism doesn't want everyone to be dysfunctional--and fat, and divorced, and addicted to anti-depressants, and working two jobs--is absurdly naive. Don't be fooled by the woke trappings of rainbow flags and teachers willing to help kids socially transition: the public school system is where the American left went to die.
I was trying to write a comment with similar line of thinking.
The only problem with defunding npr is we wouldn’t be able to slag them endlessly for their idiotic ideas
04/08/25: Of course you will. They'll all journey en masse over to 30 Rock, new members of "Saturday Night Live Propaganda."