The sad events in Connecticut cause us to remember an even sadder collusion between the civil rights left and the tight-fisted right that occurred many years ago. It resulted in the disappearance of most mental hospitals.
On the left, the ACLU and its fellow-travelers decided that people had every right to be insane if they chose. They believed that such individuals need not, and indeed should not be incarcerated for the protection of society and themselves.
On the right, fiscal conservatives saw the enormous cost of warehousing the mentally ill and chose not to spend those funds. In a truly evil (and very unusual) collaboration between the two, they closed down the mental hospitals and left the mentally ill to wander our streets and live under our bridges and on our park benches.
Now and then, one of these confused individuals decides to work out his (or rarely her) rage on society with mass murder. Then we are shocked, shocked.
We shouldn't be shocked; we are at fault. As a society we've sown the wind and we reap the whirlwind.
