I was trying to understand Scott Roeder, the man who murdered the abortion doctor and is still defiant even though sentenced to life in prison. To me, this is a totally alien mindset. Then I started thinking about those Venn diagrams we used to work with in jr. high math, and that gave me some insights.
There is between a large or very large, depending on your point of view, group of nut cases in this country. While these people aren't technically psychotic, they are at the least quite reality challenged, often having trouble distinguishing between the voices in their heads and their telephone answer machines. So, make a dot for every 10,000 of these folks and draw a circle around them.
Then, there is a group as large, if not larger, in this country that, and there is no suitable euphemism, are assholes. They seem to have no problem with reality, just with people who interpret that reality any differently than themselves. So, again, a dot for every 10,000 and circle those.
Now, like in any good Venn diagram, there is an area where both circles overlap. This area represents people who are both nut cases and assholes, exhibiting the worst characteristics of both groups.
Finally, I'm beginning to understand Scott Roeder.
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