A little bit of Seriousness

[Darkesia]

Sorry to be a buzzkill.  But I wanted to bring up a serious, sad topic. 

 

Is anyone else noticing a scary trend in some of our (human kind = our) young men?  What could possibly be causing them to turn into monsters that want to kill innocents?

 

The hunt for the final Boston Marathon bomber is still underway.  He is 19.  His co-conspirator and brother is dead.  He was 26.  They killed and injured just under 120 innocent people.  One of them was this man, Officer Sean Collier http://www.odmp.org/officer/21777-police-officer-sean-collier.  He was 26.

 

It's not all of our young men.  But certainly some of them are going so far off the rails that their very humanity is vanished in a haze of violence.

 

Yesterday a friend of mine had her own frightening day, when a student of hers who has been obsessing over her and was banned from campus, was spotted in the elevator on the way to her office.  He was carrying an unloaded shotgun and rounds.  Only someone's quick thinking on seeing him and his erratic behavior and the equally quick response of campus police on his apprehension kept this from becoming another tragedy.

 

School shootings where the targets are chosen because they are less than 10 years old?  How is that even a thought in a young man's mind?

 

The US isn't the only nation suffering from this disease.  It's happening all over the globe.  Sometimes the media calls it terrorism.  Sometimes they call it criminal insanity.  But no matter the label, it is all the same, sad and frightening deterioration of...  something.  

 

Please don't tell me gun control is the answer.  It's not about the weapons. It's about the...  soul(?) of humanity.  Near the same time that Newtown happened, a young man in China walked into a grade school and started stabbing children and teachers. 

 

Laws won't fix this.  If it is even fixable.  I have heard theories from over population to emasculation. 

 

What do you think?  Can we find a way to save humanity's young males or will this trend spread until we devolve into something less than what we are now?

How did they get so lost?  How did we get so blind that we can't even name what it is that is wrong?

 

Here ends my depressing rant.  Now I will get back to talking about chocolate.

 

[Westwind]

I'll be even more depressing.....I don't think it's anything new or different.  I don't think it's anything that's changed.  Some individuals lose it.  It's a part of life.  Not all Human beings all well balanced, and unless we're prepared to let science choose our dna before we're born, and arrest people for pre-crimes I don't see it changing.

 

And with more population, there's going to be more people that lose it.  Just simple population pressure.  There's always been a percentage that freak out.  The percentage doesn't change, but the population is rising, so there appears to be more of them.  And when social pressures increase, more of them lose it.

 

Humans used to be rural, now we're urban.  Mass attacks will be more frequent beacuse that's how we live now....in dense population centers.

 

I agree, it has absolutely nothing to do with guns or gun laws.  If they don't have guns, they'll buy Castor beans at the natural food store and make Ricin laced envelopes to mail to schools, or whoever, whatever.  Or go on a knifing spree...or beat their victims with a baseball bat.....or set off home made bombs.  Lock the door and mix bleach and amonia together to gas everyone in the room...much cheaper than buying a gun.  Gun control is a red herring and a knee jerk "there outta be a law" from the busibodies that want to tell everyone else how to live (which is the nature of all politicians of all parties). It has absolutely nothing to do with safety.

 

A bad economy doesn't help (50% unemployment in high school/college graduates).  A future with no prospects or hope doesn't help.  Just adds to the pressure.  Governments that have parties where one wants to steal from the rich to give to the poor, while the other wants to starve the poor and protect the rich is destroying personal liberties and economic opportunity for everyone.  Left/right, conservative/liberal.....they're all fruitcake nuts that are only out for their narrow busibody worldview with a total disregard for all others. They want to tell you when you can have sex and when you can't.  They want to tell you what to eat and what not to eat.  (Castor Beans which contain deadly ricin is legal while cannabis which is harmless is illegal ?) Since when was any of this the business of these busibodies politicians?  The more pressure you put on the society, the more that pressure will seek release, and set off those venurable individuals. Basic sociology and psychology.  The politicians are playing games with things they don't understand.....because we elect idiots....because it seems only busibodies run for office.

 

Religion is another sociatal pressure.  "My god is better than your god, and if you don't believe then you're going to hell so It's okay if I kill you in the name of my god."  What the hell is wrong with human beings ?  What a terrible sickness !  Self-righteous bigots wear their robes and make their pronouncement of hell, sin, death, fatwa.....rather than focus on the teachers truths of love, hope, compassion and respect.  So venerable individuals cling to the inspiration to bring death to those they don't understand....after all, it's easier to kill what you don't understand than to learn respect for your fellow humans.  And religion can give you an excuse and absolve you for your shitty behaviour towards your fellow humans.

 

*sigh*

 

Now, where's that chocolate you promised.

[Libetarian Republics]

I'm 17 years old. It's honestly a tough world out there to be honest. The pressure of succeeding in school only to realize that after you graduate, you're unemployed is devastating to the minds and the hearts of us. It's sad when pretty much my whole life has been based on tragedies one after the other. The OKC Bombing of 1995 then 9/11 Attacks in New York. Virginia Tech Massacre, Columbine High School. Sandy Hooks. Now this.

 

I'm not going to say anything really what causes us to be so...yeah. But I can say that younger people, overall, can be more exposed to a lot of things thanks to technology (I wouldn't blame technology though) and tend to suck in a lot of things more than the older generation do. 

[Tweedy]

One thing I have learned in my approaching old age, is try your hardest not to pin an adversary against the wall with no-way-out. There must always be a way-out. People with no-way-out will strike anywhere and anything with frustration and hate. Yes, easier said than done.

[Westwind]

Yeah, there needs to be at least one alternative way out. Iceland took the alternative in their economic crisis and they've recovered after a tough few years.  I expected Cyprus to be smart and take that route but they didn't. 

 

LR, I hear you about it being tough out there. I have four step-sons....ages 19 - 26. None have a decent job. And they all have kids to raise. The oldest is a stay-at-home Dad, his 4 years in the Air Force didn't helped him afterwards. His wife is a Geologist that finally got a job with a paint company.  Teachers are already pressing my daughter about college and she's only 11.  IMO, what's the point in college when the unemployment rate for graduates is 50% ?  Learn a trade instead....there's a shortage of applicants in the trades.  College is worthless when you need a roof over your head and bread on the table. Survival comes first.

 

But the tragedies....they're nothing new.  Just the 24/7 instant media has made it all so immediate that it has that greater emotional impact on more people.  When I was growing up, it was the bloody Vietnam war every night on the evening news, assasinations of Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King....other assasination attempts.......Kent State....oil embargo and gas lines and rationing...18% mortgage rates....Cold War, knowing that the end of the world is always only 20 minutes away when you live at 'ground zero' because your dad works on nuclear missles and our home phone wiretapped by the FBI, DIA, CIA, KGB and who knows who else...plane hijackings by terrorists....cruise ship hijacking....

 

But the pressures on the young and inexperienced.....my daughter is learning things in 5th grade that I didn't have to learn till 8th grade.  We're expecting our children to grow up faster, and that's a worry.

 

Speaking of 8th grade....I've gone to 21 different schools.  I was always the new kid that gets teased and bullied.  But 8th grade was the worst.  I was chased home from school by bullies every day.  Punched while casually walking down the hall between classes.  Teased mercilessly in class. Girl in the desk in front of me would turn around and pop pimples on my face "Pop a zitty?  Hahahahaha" and the whole class would laugh with her.  Teachers ignored it all.  I'd sit alone at lunchtime, and wonder how exactly I could place explosives in the cement block walls to make it all come down on top of them all.  There was no 'way out' for me.  The thoughts would end up at the idea that I couldn't get them without getting myself in the process, and I only had to get through the year and we'd move again. But still.....suicidal thoughts too ?  Oh yeah. Life was not worth living.  My only refuge was in religion, because humanity offered me no refuge.

 

Take someone like that, and give them religious ideas that it's okay to kill those people because they don't believe in the god you believe in....and voila....you've got alot of messed up young people.

[Papercuts and Skittles]

I hate the increased news coverage, I blame it as much as anything. It glorifies the deeds to some of the people who think about doing that kind of stuff. I blame parents who let their kids play violent video games and watch violent movies all day, instead of having them go outside and play violent games, you get the same rush, but are on the receiving end of it too, which I believe makes a difference. I blame stuff like the healthcare act that pretty much guarantees no one it was aimed at will have health insurance paid for by their employers because their employers won't hire them full-time, no point in paying benefits when you can hire 5 people for a 4 person rotation. Means they'll need to work 2 part-time jobs, and get no benfits anywhere, I know, this is me. College degree, not even liberal arts, in a dead end minimum wage job that's not even full-time. There's nothing out there for me.

 

I was similar to Westwind, a dozen schools before high school. Kept testing in to gifted programs, and getting kicked out for behavioral issues (read Aspergers, but that wasn't a very big thing in the early-mid nineties). Was picked on for being that big, clumsy oaf in the class, who was also a know it all, who never knew when to shut up. Not sure when, at some point I did just shut up, and no one's been able to get me to open up since really. I'm fairly black and white, I have an on off switch for saying stuff, with no in between. I often thought about how I'd go about doing stuff in high school, and had what some might consider friends, I never considered anyone friends, who thought the same. Looking back, I think it was just a lot of dark humor stress relief type of stuff, but anyone over hearing would have flipped their lids.

[Westwind]

The endless global news cycle feeds the copycats, IMO. After Sandy Hook, there were school lockdowns in Montana from HS kids making prank threats on Facebook. False reports of a 'gun on campus' calls to the local police too. When there was no internet, no cable, no cellphones, you got a half-hour of news in the evening, and a bit more detail in the morning newspaper. And alot of those 'new' stories were weeks old. And no facebook or twitter stage to play out your fantasies in the general public. Instant gratification has moved to instant celebrity status and the ability to get an immediate thrill from getting authorities to respond to your threat. And they don't stop to think before acting on impulse. There's nothing to force them to stop and think before acting. You can terrorize the world at your fingertips from your keyboard at home.

[Papercuts and Skittles]

Ugh, don't even get me started on those Annonymus guys, whole operation is cyber terrorism and an embarassment.

[God-Emperor]

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter...I think that's total bullshit for actual terrorist, but the jury is still out on cyberterrorism.

[Westwind]

There is cyberterrorism, cyberprotests, and cyberwarfare.  And alot more of it than is generally known.

 

Anonymous is protesting of CISPA today.  That I agree with. But I don't agree with hacking and defacing websites. 

[God-Emperor]

Neither do I, but, as a form of protest...

[Eli]

fanaticism is bad for society no matter its form, it seems young men have a corner on the market, with exceptions of course.

 

 

anything that becomes an obsession is bad, listen to whom this is spoken by, The Obsessive Compulsive Bicyclists of Wickedly Evil People.

 

 

That name isn't because I'm calm, but I do think I've changed a lot the past ten years, life is good

[Westwind]

*nods* Fanaticism tends to forget to respect others.