It's not your fault -- you have a disorder

My old man was a cranky sonofabitch. Well, in his day it was just called being 'bad-tempered', at a later date he would be deemed a rage-aholic. But now, and it's too bad he's not still around to be let off the hook, he would be told he suffers from intermittent explosive disorder (IED), and he would, like anybody who suffers from anything some 'experts' deem to be a 'disorder' would be let off the hook.

Anyway, it's a relief to know that my father wasn't just a real bastard sometimes (most of the time he was OK) but that he was unwell, and therefore I should be retrospectively sympathetic to his malaise and should only remember him with the utmost of fondness.

So, what is IED all about is, yes, uncontrollable rage of the sort that makes you pull a gun on the slow guy in the fast lane in front of you, or push the dork on the bicycle over the embankment. That's right, it's really-really bad temper that you -- wait for it -- cannot control. So, the moron who gets pissed up and terrorizes flight crew and passengers on a a plane and manifests what has popularly come to be known as 'air rage' can't be deemed responsible for revolting and horrifying behavior, because he has IED. And you can bet, now that this puppy has been both 'invented' and identified, that there are hack lawyers already rubbing their hands together thinking how they are going to get some freeway prick off charges in the courts of the land.

"Yes, your honor, while it would seem that my client forced the tour bus off the road killing all 35 passengers and the driver, he cannot be held responsible due to diminished capacity."

"Hah? Howzat?"

"Well, your honor, my client suffers from IED, and the tour bus had cut him off a while earlier and left him in a state of uncontrollable rage."

"Oh, well, in that case we'll just let him off with a darn good warning and advise him to get some counseling."

The point is, we seem no longer capable of taking responsibility for despicable behavior. We do not need to because somebody out there in the government-grant supported pseudo-scientific world, has decided to give what we do a name, and therefore an excuse.

We now need take no responsibility because if you state your case, and give all sorts of pie-in-the-sky reasons for behaving badly, then you'll get a walk -- metaphorically or actually.

Your kid's an asshole in school, disrupting other pupils and not getting his work done? Well, no longer is he a rotten kid, he suffers from ADD and therefore extra attention must be given to him in his plight.

Your deadbeat brother-in-law holds up a liquor store. Well, there is a reason, right? He is a heroin addict and he wouldn't have committed that crime except the pains of his addiction drove him to do so.

You grabbed your next door neighbor when she was hanging out the wash and fondled her breasts. Well, you shouldn't be charged with sexual assault because you are a certified sex-addict and you happened to have missed your 12-step meeting that week.

And so it goes. Eventually it will come to pass wherein none of us will have to take responsibility for anything bad that we do, because somebody else will offer a 'scientific' reason for what we did.

Never among those reasons does the matter of 'making positive choices and having respect for our fellows' ever seem to arise.