Goodbye Mr. Cho

Much has been said about, and by, Mr. Cho, the Korean whack -job that massacred 32 fellow students and instructors at Virginia Tech. But what has been said, speculated or inferred is dwarfed by what is not being said. The Dumbplumber is here to fill in the sensitive, politically incorrect gaps.

In typical knee-jerk reaction, families, reporters and lawmakers are trying to speculate where “the system” went wrong in detecting and “counseling” the emotionally flawed “prince” of the Cho family. Cho himself left behind a rambling manifesto of perceived grievances against the “you people” where he laid blame directly at the feet of EVERYONE but himself for his pending carnage.

Now that all the experts, psychiatrists and talking heads have blathered on ad nauseum about the signs that should have been read, should have been seen and all the things that should have been done to intervene in this young killer’s life. Quiet, morose, sullen, angry and loner have been over used and abused describing his life. But I remind you, none of these are a criminal offenses.

There is a good reason that the parents of this monster have gone into hiding. My guess is they if not were directly to blame for the developmental stages of his madness, they had a front row seat. Now I am going out on a pipe wrench here, but many studies have shown that withholding love and affection in a child’s early years contributes to anxiety, loneliness and sociopathic behavior, among other worms in the can. Treating him like a “prince”, as family members claim, merely fed his sense of entitlement rather than any obligations to personal responsibility or self-determination.

My guess, and this is only a guess, there wasn’t a person throughout Cho’s developmental years that didn’t notice bizarre behavior from him. Indeed, the recent news cycles have developed a whole host of doctors, counselors and instructors that had direct contact with him and to a person said he needed counseling, psychological help and, oh yeah, more counseling.

No, what this man needed was a swift kick in the butt at an early age. He needed to learn respect for others and what it means to be a productive member of this society. Cho may have well been a casualty, a victim of parents who had high expectations but low parenting skills.

Forget Cho’s behavior just prior to the executions or even back in high school. You can bet the dye had been cast, well before then. But let there be no mistake, Cho is just today’s point man in an army of twisted sisters that like to characterize themselves as angry young men.