Friday, August 23, 2013

23 August 2013 The worst generation?


Cassi Creek:  There are more generation gaps than we ever imagined.
“(CNN) -- A juvenile has been arrested by Spokane police in connection with the beating death of an 88-year-old World War II veteran this week, police said Friday.
“It's the second time in a week that a seemingly random attack by teenagers has claimed a life.
On August 16, a 23-year-old Australian baseball player attending college in Oklahoma was gunned down in the town of Duncan.
One of three teens police arrested in that shooting said they carried it out because "we were bored and didn't have anything to do."

I find it impossible to understand why anyone would randomly select and kill another human.  The increase in such crimes since the WWII and Boomer generations is sufficient to make me wonder what are the primary factors that have spawned a generation so contemptuous of the rights of others. 
          There is often blame affixed to video games – increasingly violent, movies that are simply acts of violence daisy-chained together, and the two-job family/single parent family, resulting in unsupervised children.    I grew up in a 2-job family.  While I did my share of stupid teen-ager things, I never felt any need to cause harm to another person. 
          The ease of access to firearms, legal or illegal, is in part a major contributing factor to the widespread violence that has spread beyond the urban cores to the small towns.  The political party propaganda designed to polarize the populace is a source, as it dehumanizes our view of others. 
          We’ve watched our populace change from “The Greatest” to the currently apparent worst.  We’ve reached the point where gang leaders will beat entire families to death over a video game player left behind during eviction of squatters.  We now see murders committed to relieve boredom.  We now see WWII veterans and anyone else who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time beaten to death.  Some of this violence is driven by racial hatred, bi-directionally.  Some is stoked by religious fanaticism.  Some is generated by people who are just plain mentally ill.
          I know each generation has a component, which will complain about the following generations.  I’m in that cohort for my generation. 
          The percentage of people involved in such violent crimes is small compared to our overall numbers.  Our 24-hour news cycle and improved means of gathering local news events of note make it seem as if the frequency of such crimes is climbing rapidly.  But when we compare our nation’s frequency of such crimes to that of other industrialized nations, we see the U.S. as the leader in such crimes. 
          We need to find some way to identify causation and to eliminate these acts of senseless violence.


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