I've always thought dismissing violent people as mentally ill is the society's status quo way of defending itself from charges that the establishment isn't the best of all possible worlds.

  But of course now that civilization is unraveling and everything has gone wrong, our authoritarian leaders can't rationally make the case that only mentally ill commit violent acts. On the contrary, if you aren't angry at everything, from endless wars and irrational greed of the NRA and the military-industrial complex to the political and economic systems, you must be crazy.

  What irrational crazy thoughts, for example, would make an American or a Frenchman join the army to go and slaughter defenseless people in Iraq or North Africa? Maybe their entire civilization is mentally ill or maybe it's just evil.