Insanity is part of being human – and we’re all potentially unstable

By David McElroy · March 17, 2021

Robert Aaron Long murdered eight people in Atlanta Tuesday. That’s what police tell us.

Why did he do it? Some people say it was a hate crime since most of the victims were Asian. Others say this introverted 21-year old is just crazy. And there are other wildly different explanations.

Those who knew him in high school in Woodstock, Ga., just a few years ago are shocked. They say the boy they knew was caring and kind. He was an active member of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and he talked about wanting to share God’s love with others.

“From what I can remember he was a really smart kid,” a former student told Fox News. “He was really quiet and kept to himself the majority of the time.”

I’m not inside Long’s mind, so I can’t say exactly why a caring teen became a cold-blooded murderer just a few years later. But I’d like to suggest that you or I could have done something similar. The civilization we see all around us — with our outward calm and polite behavior — is a thin veneer over something far more savage.

At least a touch of hidden insanity is born into each one of us. The interesting question isn’t why Long suddenly murdered eight people — but rather why more people don’t act more like him.

At a Wednesday morning news conference, Capt. Jay Baker of the Cherokee County, Ga., Sheriff’s Office gave us a little bit of insight into what Long is telling police.

“He has an issue that he considers a sex addiction and sees these [massage spas] as something that allows him to go to these places,” Baker said. “It’s a temptation for him that he wanted to eliminate. … He was pretty much fed up and kind of at the end of his rope, and yesterday was a really bad day for him, and this is what he did.”

Did you ever see a 1993 movie called “Falling Down“? The movie didn’t appeal to me when it first came out, because I saw it as some sort of action adventure. When I finally watched it years later, I realized how wrong I had been.

“Falling Down” is a cautionary tale about what can happen to a normal person when he’s pushed too far by the other normal human beings around him. On this horrible day, the character played by Michael Douglas turns violent in the pursuit of what he considers simple decency from those around him. The film’s director didn’t intend for the character to be the hero, but I’m not so sure he isn’t a dark hero for a modern age.

I believe we are all seething masses of contradictions and insanity. Most people have an internal view of themselves as good and righteous — by their own standards — but a different side comes out of all of us under certain types of pressure.

Earlier this week, I dealt with a woman at work who I’ve known for several years. I’ve known her as a kind and loving person who was soft-spoken and avoided conflict. I would have described her as caring and loving.

But during a conflict she had with another person this week, I saw another side of her which was completely unlike what I had known of her. She had reason to be upset with someone, but what I saw was over-the-top, irrational anger. She even mentioned that she wished she had a gun to display openly in the room when she saw the man she was angry with — as a not-so-subtle warning.

Do I believe she would get angry enough to kill the man? I like to believe she couldn’t do that — just as I like to believe I couldn’t kill people — but I also wouldn’t have believed she could have been this irrationally angry.

There are some people who choose to go down an evil or violent path — and they know what they’ve become. But I think most of us have the capability to mentally break down — to go crazy, so to speak, and suddenly do things nobody would possibly expect.

I know that something of this sort could happen to me. I hope not. I don’t expect it to happen. But I know myself — and the hidden inner thoughts which I don’t share with others — well enough to know that I could crack and become violent.

And I also know that everybody who knows me would tell reporters that this was something they never saw coming from me.

We’re all potentially unstable, under the right circumstances. The veneer of civilization that’s all around us helps to keep us in check — but that layer is thinner than most people imagine.

None of this is to justify or excuse Long, of course. In order to live together in a society, we’re forced to hold those horrible impulses inside and not act on them, so he’s responsible for his actions.

Was Long crazy? I can’t possibly know his mental state on Tuesday, but I’m certain that some form of insanity is built into every one of us — including you.

I am most afraid of the people who have hidden their dark sides so successfully that they don’t even know what’s lurking inside. I’m less afraid of those who can say — as I can — that we’re capable of reverting to violent savagery under certain circumstances — but who can say each and every day, “I’m not going to kill or become violent or evil. Not today.”

We’re all more like Robert Aaron Long than we want to believe.

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A state legislator in Maine has been stripped of the ability to speak in the state Legislature — and her votes are not being counted on legislative issues — all because she made a truthful social media post. Rep. Laurel Libby (R-Auburn, Maine) opposes allowing boys to compete against girls’ teams in school athletics and she’s become known for making an issue of it. On Feb. 17, she posted on Facebook about a recent example that she found outrageous. She posted side-by-side photos of a boy named John who competed last year in a state track event and won fifth place against other boys two years ago — and a photo of the same boy (now called Katie) who won first place in the same event this year against girls. Whether you find this outrageous or not, Libby is clearly being honest and truthful about the objective facts of an issue of public importance. But the state Legislature censured her. Democrats decreed that she could not speak in the House and that her votes would not count on legislation — until she apologized for the outrage of telling the truth. She refused and her constituents have been unrepresented in the state House since then. The people who promote this ideology are out of touch with reality and won’t rest until they force the rest of us to join them in this delusion. But even if you agree with “trans” ideology, you should be appalled at this heavy-handed attack on political speech.

The late Steve Jobs was at the center of our culture’s transition from analog to digital. He co-founded Apple Computer. He led the team that revolutionized personal computing with the first Macintosh. As CEO of Apple, he led the development of the iPhone and later the iPad. You would think the children of such a man would be surrounded by technology. But Jobs and his wife Laureen didn’t let their children use iPads. Their home had few screens of any kind. Even though Jobs spent most of his time developing and selling Macs and iPhones and iPads, he was home with his wife and children for dinner when he was in town. The family ate together at a simple wooden table in their kitchen — and there were no digital devices or focus on popular culture. Instead, he’s said to have guided his family toward deep discussions of art, philosophy and education — with no iPads to be found. If the man who guided the development of such products chose a different path for his own children, does that suggest that his digital experience taught him that children need human connection, not screens? And does it suggest the possibility that we might be better off if we made the same choice for our families?

For four years, Donald Trump’s supporters screamed that everything that went wrong was the fault of Joe Biden. They were sometimes right and they were sometimes delusional. (Anybody who knows me understands that I can’t stand Biden any more than I can stand Trump, just for different reasons.) But for two months, Trump has rampaged through U.S. political life — vandalizing pretty much everything in sight — and the vast majority of his supporters are silent at best. Many watch as he blows up the world economy and they make excuses for him. They’re in absolute denial, even about things that Trump is doing very intentionally. Anybody who understands economics and history knows that tariffs are a terrible idea from a pragmatic point of view. Anybody who values individual freedom knows that tariffs are massive taxes on individuals — and they’re a tool of political control over the ability of people to trade freely. Trump is the antithesis of everything which political conservatives stood for just a few years ago. It’s far past time for people who claim to be conservatives to reclaim the principles and values which they used to claim — and stop this mad man before he can accelerate the day when we experience economic and social collapse. Open your eyes to reality and reject this lying narcissist.

On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

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