WTSHTF... is it coming? - Page 5

[lil_earthmomma]

Originally Posted by sanguine_speed

No, we don't all know that. I sure don't.

And, violence, abuse and "immorality" have been around for a very, very long time. They're not modern. And they aren't due to technology.

:

I'm much more convinced by history that people will survive. Period. Human's have an incredible will and determination when it comes to survival, and an adaptability that serves the race well in times of hardship, no matter how great.

[velochic]

Originally Posted by lmonter

I just returned it to the library a week or two ago. Definitely made me think. For some reason it was also easier for me to get into than TLE - it never hooked me before I had to return it.

Glad you liked it, too.

[p.s]

freespirited:
thanks for your thoughtful post. You articulate many of the similar thoughts that i have been pondering. Very interesting re: Bush's purchase of land with aquifer rights.

... thanks for the link on Jim Kunser... very interesting. Funny how , to me now, he does not seem quite a tin foil as he sounded last fall.

[marimara]

freespirited, I really liked your post, it made a lot of sense to me. I didn't know that about GWB and his place in Paraguay, I"ll have to read about that. I thought you put together a well thought post, thanks!

[marimara]

Originally Posted by p.s

freespirited:
thanks for your thoughtful post. You articulate many of the similar thoughts that i have been pondering. Very interesting re: Bush's purchase of land with aquifer rights.

... thanks for the link on Jim Kunser... very interesting. Funny how , to me now, he does not seem quite a tin foil as he sounded last fall.

Ok I looked all thru this thread for the link to the article by Kunstler, the one mentioned here? the one where he is not too tin foily? Where is it?

[freespirited]

Originally Posted by marimara

Ok I looked all thru this thread for the link to the article by Kunstler, the one mentioned here? the one where he is not too tin foily? Where is it?

He has a column that comes out every Monday. If you go to his website http://www.kunstler.com/ you would just scroll down until you see the column, it's under "clusterf*ck nation". The most recent was April 6th. I haven't read it in ages so I'm getting ready to catch up a bit.

[freespirited]

Originally Posted by sanguine_speed

No, we don't all know that. I sure don't.

And, violence, abuse and "immorality" have been around for a very, very long time. They're not modern. And they aren't due to technology.

I didn't mean to convey that violence and immorality is modern phenomena. My point was that these things are increasing in ways and on levels previously unseen. Sure if you go back to the Dark Ages, it would seem that violence has improved, maybe, I think it would be a strange comparison. I was comparing today to the last century. That gives us a better understanding of where we are heading. We know that there are many more broken homes and kids growing up with less guidance and less identity. Many of the shooting sprees of late were done by kids in their early 20s. Something isn't right with the way younger generations are growing up. These shooting rampages were rarer decades ago. School shootings were unheard of in the 80s, workplace shootings were beginning then but virtually unheard of in prior decades. There have always been murderous people around, it's just that more and more people seem to be snapping rather than methodically murdering people as a hobby. People are snapping at younger ages. Suicide rates are up too. The economy is probably a factor, but with peak oil, does anyone see the global economy surpassing what we had years ago? Immorality has also been around forever and is not due to technology. My point was again that as we become more technologically advanced, we seem to be going backwards socially. I am not talking about things like gay marriage or anything else I think it harmless but deemed immoral by some. I am just seeing a lot more corruption, cheating, lying, hurting others for personal gain, and a lot of people who seem to be growing up with no moral compass at all. There were social consequences to these things when my parents were growing up and people cared more about them but now it seems a lot of people have not a lot to lose. The whole system has changed and it's a lot harder to get ahead in this life. I think that fact has a lot to do with the angst brewing out there. My employer has turned down a large number of applicants who otherwise would have gotten the job because they had poor credit scores. If people are not getting jobs because of past financial mistakes, I don't see how that is going to help the situation we are facing with a lot of disgruntled people. Lack of parenting isn't helping with the younger kids growing up, whose world seems to be in cyberspace and futures uncertain in these changing times.

There are a few things that might have contributed to some of these issues and they are technological. Child pornography on the internet has given child predators an outlet to further their agendas, porn in general has hurt a lot of relationships and its availability and ease of covering your tracks has made it simply "a thing all guys do". Social "networking" sites have replaced actual socializing which I don't see as a good thing, imho. To some extent it may be harmless but there are a lot of teens out there who eat, breathe and sleep Facebook or Twitter or whatever. I think the evidence linking cell phones to brain tumors is pretty compelling. Maybe they are also causing changes in behavior of some people, who knows. Abuse towards women and children has been going on forever but I think there has been a rise in the number of cases. Too many people killing their own children these days, and children killing parents too. I won't say that is caused by technology obviously, but we are negectling our social progression as we strive for greater technology. Every technological advance has proven to further isolate individuals from the rest of the world in a sense, and from families. Maybe not in theory but physically it has. I don't think chatting on message boards is anything close to having coffee with people or sitting down and talking with people in real life. This is extreme, but people have even died from being online too long. Mostly it seems to be people on video game marathons that drop dead, but is anyone wondering what the health effects of such an unnatural pastime might be? I think it can be argued that modern day socializing trends are not good for society as a whole nor families nor individuals. I don't know how much of it is directly to blame for the rise in violence but I do believe it has its root in society which has been so greatly altered by technology.

I like to think we are resilient and mostly good as a people and a nation, but I wonder what the effects of dwindling resources and threats to our way of life will have on our self-beliefs. The ugly side of humanity rears its ugly head when people are put under pressure, and we are being out under some great pressure these days but I don't think we've seen anything, only isolated cases. We need a major breakthrough to get us back on track, something to do with energy or transportation, to propel us into economic prosperity once again. Until that time I think we are in for a long overdue period of reflection and re-prioritizing. I hope so anyway. I like to think of this as a breather for us. We can do good things with these challenges, or we can allow them to break us down further. I still believe we can do good things, but it will have to be pretty radical. We can't just hang on desperately to the status quo and live in denial. I think Obama realizes this and I think he freaks a lot of people out with his messages of change, especially the kind of change that is going to cause a lot of discomfort before it the good is felt. Maybe like boot camp, this can create focus and discpline and give people a greater cause and bring us together for real, not just in cyberspace. Just my two cents. We need to get off our butts and get to work just like in the old days, lol. Especially the young people. Put them to work. I hope the infrastructure rebuilding helps achieve some of these things.

[JTA Mom]

Freespirited, I think you are making a lot of cause & effect relationships when they are really correlation. Believe me, the violence in the past was real and bad. Ask any African-American living in 1950. Even today, African-Americans still experience violent reprisals. Child predators haven't 'gotten better'. In fact, I think they are finally being brought out into the open & punished. Back in the good ole days, little Jill or Johnny just had too much imagination. And was sinful due to thinking of such 'horrible, sexual things'. Think of all the Catholic priest molestation charges brought in the 80s by GROWN men & women. Men & women who would have otherwised suffered in silence. Violence against women was much more widespread, and worse, ACCEPTED as normal. Maybe she shouldn't have 'angered' her husband. As far as parents killing their own children--always happened, always will. The only difference? Back 'then' it would be 'unthinkable' to question the parents. Now, due to research, we realize that when children go missing, the parents are the first suspects. Ugly but true. Anyway, I can go on & on. Violence & doing horrible things to each other is not new, nor has there been a recent 'upsurge'.

Oh, and you whole "shootings increasing since the 80s" meaning the weakening of the moral fiber? Nope. If you go with the theory that less resources equals greater competition and violence (and I agree it does), then it's not surprising that all of this started in the 80s. Real American wages stagnated in the 70s. They haven't kept pace since then, no matter the inflation rates. Think about it--the 80s were the beginning of this stress. No moral fiber involved. If you don't see a way out, then most people give up caring. Wage stagnation has only gotten worse since then. And the less people can maintain their level or stay ahead, the more will become violent. I know, because I can see, that my son will have a harder time staying middle class than I will. And I, as a 27yr old, have a harder time than my parents did. College degrees are being required for everything, and they no longer qualify you for a 'good paying job' upon graduation. So now, we are paying to be further behind than someone in 1960 with a free high school diploma was. Not good.

Something has to give, but I'm not sure what. Personally I think it's more about families, really. I know my mom grew up in the 70s living with her parents & her grandmother. Extended families have been frowned upon since after WWII. It's sad, because the support & help & safety net family provided is no longer there. Young people, who are currently out of work or working in low paying jobs, are the ones having babies. And that's NATURAL. Any society should be worried about the next generation. The thing is we have thrown these young families to the wind. Low paying job, on top of having kids is hard. How many are worried about daycare? How many parents are forced to let strangers watch their kids the majority of the day. And grandma, who is slowing down & needs help, is on her own too. Before, Grandma & Grandpa knew they could live with their kids. They might not be able to run up & down stairs, but they could definitely deal with young children. It was a good, symbiotic relationship. It wasn't all roses, and for some people with toxic families, unattainable, but in most cases it helped those who were vulnerable--children, young adults and grandparents. I think that until it becomes acceptable and expected for extended families to live together again, not much will change.

Ami

[BellinghamCrunchie]

Great post, JTA mom. I totally agree with everything you said, only I couldn't have said it nearly as well.

[p1gg1e]

Originally Posted by freespirited

I still believe we can do good things, but it will have to be pretty radical. We can't just hang on desperately to the status quo and live in denial. I think Obama realizes this and I think he freaks a lot of people out with his messages of change, especially the kind of change that is going to cause a lot of discomfort before it the good is felt. Maybe like boot camp, this can create focus and discpline and give people a greater cause and bring us together for real, not just in cyberspace. Just my two cents. We need to get off our butts and get to work just like in the old days, lol. Especially the young people. Put them to work. I hope the infrastructure rebuilding helps achieve some of these things.

That to me is radical. WHO decides what is the right way to live? Other Governments had camps also....

[freespirited]

Originally Posted by JTA Mom

Freespirited, I think you are making a lot of cause & effect relationships when they are really correlation. Believe me, the violence in the past was real and bad. Ask any African-American living in 1950. Even today, African-Americans still experience violent reprisals. Child predators haven't 'gotten better'. In fact, I think they are finally being brought out into the open & punished. Back in the good ole days, little Jill or Johnny just had too much imagination. And was sinful due to thinking of such 'horrible, sexual things'. Think of all the Catholic priest molestation charges brought in the 80s by GROWN men & women. Men & women who would have otherwised suffered in silence. Violence against women was much more widespread, and worse, ACCEPTED as normal. Maybe she shouldn't have 'angered' her husband. As far as parents killing their own children--always happened, always will. The only difference? Back 'then' it would be 'unthinkable' to question the parents. Now, due to research, we realize that when children go missing, the parents are the first suspects. Ugly but true. Anyway, I can go on & on. Violence & doing horrible things to each other is not new, nor has there been a recent 'upsurge'.

Oh, and you whole "shootings increasing since the 80s" meaning the weakening of the moral fiber? Nope. If you go with the theory that less resources equals greater competition and violence (and I agree it does), then it's not surprising that all of this started in the 80s. Real American wages stagnated in the 70s. They haven't kept pace since then, no matter the inflation rates. Think about it--the 80s were the beginning of this stress. No moral fiber involved. If you don't see a way out, then most people give up caring. Wage stagnation has only gotten worse since then. And the less people can maintain their level or stay ahead, the more will become violent. I know, because I can see, that my son will have a harder time staying middle class than I will. And I, as a 27yr old, have a harder time than my parents did. College degrees are being required for everything, and they no longer qualify you for a 'good paying job' upon graduation. So now, we are paying to be further behind than someone in 1960 with a free high school diploma was. Not good.

Something has to give, but I'm not sure what. Personally I think it's more about families, really. I know my mom grew up in the 70s living with her parents & her grandmother. Extended families have been frowned upon since after WWII. It's sad, because the support & help & safety net family provided is no longer there. Young people, who are currently out of work or working in low paying jobs, are the ones having babies. And that's NATURAL. Any society should be worried about the next generation. The thing is we have thrown these young families to the wind. Low paying job, on top of having kids is hard. How many are worried about daycare? How many parents are forced to let strangers watch their kids the majority of the day. And grandma, who is slowing down & needs help, is on her own too. Before, Grandma & Grandpa knew they could live with their kids. They might not be able to run up & down stairs, but they could definitely deal with young children. It was a good, symbiotic relationship. It wasn't all roses, and for some people with toxic families, unattainable, but in most cases it helped those who were vulnerable--children, young adults and grandparents. I think that until it becomes acceptable and expected for extended families to live together again, not much will change.

Ami

Most of what you said, at least in the second and third paragraphs is what I said. I said the breakdown of the family was leading to a lot of this violence. It isn't surprising that the percentage of black men in prison is nearly half when you consider the sheer numbers of black single mothers. However, I have to disagree that a poor economy is a big factor in violence. That's because Costa Rica has been a poor yet peaceful country for some time, and there was little violence to speak of for most of my FIL's life growing up there. Unfortunately, the level of violence there now has progressively increased since around 2000 and has reached a rather shocking level now. What changed? The middle class strengthened, the rich got richer and the poor became a little better off. The gap widened between the rich and the poor although the poor were not worse off, they just felt poorer. It wasn't poverty in and of itself that caused violence. It was a feeling of hopelessness among the poor as they saw more and more people doing better and better as they stagnated. During that time of increased crime, the economy of Costa Rica exploded. It's those who felt left behind in the boom that turned to crime, or so it seems. They were not stealing and robbing to put food on the table but to buy material things from another income strata, and of course, some bought drugs, but the druggies tended to steal smaller things and didn't have the armed bandits thing going on. What also changed in that country was the family unit. Again, they moved away from the extended family to one of separate lives, divorce becoming common, and young people choosing not to get married and many choosing not to have children. The family has lost its importance there. Taking its place is financial success and materialism. Personal success over family. People there did actually go beyond their standard of living, even the poor, but it wasn't good enough to prevent a major increase in crime amongst those who felt entitled to more.

I also never implied pedophilia hasn't been around and prevalent and I certainly never said it was getting better. I said they pedophiles have a greater access to children via the internet and a lot of them who were not in positions where they had access to kids, unlike priests and teachers, could still engage in their exploitation. I think this brings more of them out of the woodwork. Porn is an addiction and like all addictions, the addict will often seek out a greater high. I don't see how anyone could argue that the internet hasn't raised child expliotation to a whole new level. As for African Americans, I am well aware of the violence they suffered at the hands of racists. The violence I am talking about today isn't about racism, it's about people snapping and going postal. What is causing that? It's been pretty steady now through recessions and booms since the 80s. It has to be about more than stagnant wages. Other countries have stagnant wages and people don't go on these sorts of rampages. In Europe, there has been some pretty heinous ones and these are countries where the per capita income is higher than the U.S. I think it's more about the dissolution of the family and strong social ties. A lot of these angry people have been bullied or teased. No one was there to support them. As a society I fear we aren't doing much about these sorts of things beginning in schools and carrying in through the workplace. People are more sensitive and adrift and it takes less and less to set them off. Canadians have way more guns than Americans and yet very little violence and I don't think they are particularly prosperous. The answer has to lie in society.

[freespirited]

Originally Posted by p1gg1e

That to me is radical. WHO decides what is the right way to live? Other Governments had camps also....

You misunderstood me. I didn't mean FORCE people into anything. I meant we need to direct young people into jobs instead of idleness and pleasure-seeking. I mean, I know too many younger people who spend literally all their waking time online and are losing a lot of motivation to do something more with their lives. I am not into forcing anyone to work. I think it would be a good thing for young people, as well as for anyone out of work who wants that kind of job. Dh and I have both done hard physical labor and to be honest, at the end of the day we felt satisified and good about ourselves even if the work itself sucked. Geez, you couldn't have taken my thoughts more out of context. This was nothing close to the camps of other countries. I do think there is nothing wrong with putting prisoners to work though. Otherwise, we are all free to choose whether to work or not and when I was a teenager in the 80s/early 90s, all the boys in their teens and early 20s really wanted to work, anything they could get their hands on. Not so sure about the young ones today. I just think one is going to get a lot more self-esteem and character by working than by collecting 500 "friends" on Facebook.

[lmonter]

Originally Posted by JTA Mom

Personally I think it's more about families, really. I know my mom grew up in the 70s living with her parents & her grandmother. Extended families have been frowned upon since after WWII. It's sad, because the support & help & safety net family provided is no longer there. Young people, who are currently out of work or working in low paying jobs, are the ones having babies. And that's NATURAL. Any society should be worried about the next generation. The thing is we have thrown these young families to the wind. Low paying job, on top of having kids is hard. How many are worried about daycare? How many parents are forced to let strangers watch their kids the majority of the day. And grandma, who is slowing down & needs help, is on her own too. Before, Grandma & Grandpa knew they could live with their kids. They might not be able to run up & down stairs, but they could definitely deal with young children. It was a good, symbiotic relationship. It wasn't all roses, and for some people with toxic families, unattainable, but in most cases it helped those who were vulnerable--children, young adults and grandparents. I think that until it becomes acceptable and expected for extended families to live together again, not much will change.

In my little winning-the-lottery-dream world I'd have a few little yurts for the grandparents within throwing distance of the main house if we had a few acres (like 5). I couldn't share a kitchen with MIL without us killing each other, but she and the kids would love being able to spend more time together. Until then, we're all hours away from each other due to jobs and the housing markets.

Community, IRL, at any rate is a huge thing. Whether by family relation or friends or whatever.
I love hearing stories about the kindnesses my grandparents did for people in their towns during tough times... Like in the 40's in a teeny farming town, my wheat farming grandparents with several kids had things pretty tough. There was an elderly widow in town that ran out of heating oil one particularly harsh winter. According to family lore, my grandparents were one of the many townspeople who would leave full containers of heating oil on her doorstep under the cover of night. So she couldn't turn it down/away. It was those stories and the close-knit communities that I tasted when growing up and visiting family that make me really like small towns.

[JTA Mom]

Freespirited, you said so yourself what changed in Costa Rica. Yes, everyone got better, but the rich got A LOT better than the poor. So while the poor may not be *as bad* off as before, they still look around and see that they haven't gained nearly as much as the rest. And yes, that is a cause for anger. Even here in the US, the rich have gotten richer. So while the poor may technically be a bit better off than 20yrs ago, they aren't really, not in relation to everyone else. Whereas before there wasn't much difference, now it is starkly apparent the gap between the haves & the have-nots. And it's constantly being broadcast everywhere. So while they may be better off, they realize, for the first time, just how *much* behind they really are. That's a huge shock in the system. As far as entitled to or not, what entitles the richest 1% to having 50% of the assets in a country, or more? Why such HUGE inequalities? I can understand them having more, I'm not for a whole 'everyone is equal' thing, but really, why such a HUGE discrepancy?

As far as pedophilia & violence, it may *seem* that there are more, but there really aren't. It just wasn't talked about in the past. It may seem like more, but that's because you hear more about it. Remember, we used to have mob rule in places such as Las Vegas, Chicago, etc. Those 'mobs' are now what we call 'gangs'. The violence hasn't changed, just our perception of it has. As for pedophiles now having access to children more so than before, not true. Most pedophiles start abusing their relatives first. And unless all of them were sequestered somehow, they had plenty access to children. The only difference now is that it's in our faces exactly how *sick* these people are.

I think the difference between say, Canada & US is that there are a lot more social support in place. People are supported in having children & caring for them. Socialized health care is paramount. No one is left out, like here in the US. Unlike Europe though, the employment situation is different. In Europe, the young adults are either UNABLE to find jobs (it's notoriously hard to get into a good job because of how hard it is to let go of workers), or if they do, when there are layoffs, they are the first to be let go. My dad is in Germany and he asks, each time he calls, if dh is still working. Know why? Because with what the US is broadcasting about the economic slump, ALL the young people should be out of jobs. Since dh is still working, my dad thinks everything is ok. Different realities. (as for per capita income being higher, costs there are higher too. You can't compare them like apples to apples)

The truth is that when you increase the standard of living for a small portion of society, to the exclusion of the rest, there WILL be an increase in outlash. No one likes to be left behind, or to have to work harder to attain the same old level. You also make those at the bottom MUCH more vulnerable. Those poor people may be a bit better off, but how much have prices risen? Since the middle class, and especially the wealthy, have more $$ the cost of things HAS to have gone up a lot--simple law of economics. So did the poor really better their station? Or is it more like 'well their income went up too?'

It's also offensive when you say that young people don't want to work. That's so not the case. A ton of us do and are trying to find a way to do so. The sad thing is that the majority of my graduating class in college KNEW they most likely wouldn't find a 'good' job--you know, the one where there are benefits, like basic healthcare. Doesn't mean they didn't try, just that they started looking at options outside of the 'normal' track. It's disheartening to find out that all that schooling, all those student loans don't mean squat. I graduated in 07, btw. A few of my classmates, after working hard to get their degree, found that it made more financial sense for them to take up bartending. That's sad.

As for your derision about facebook & myspace--sorry to tell you, it's a social networking site. Notice networking? A lot of us are using it to make connections to FIND jobs. Everyone is on the lookout for a good job. Once one friend is able to get into a good company, other friends usually inquire if there are any openings--you know, the ones that are never advertised. Unfortunately, the days of graduating and applying to a good company are OVER. Plus, it's a lot easier to put out that you are looking for a job among 500 friends at once, friends who aren't all in the same area as you are.


Ami

[p1gg1e]

My point is that Obama is talking about volunteering being required for graduation. Its forced. Not that I don't think that volunteering is needed for people but motivation or lack there of is relative. Just like religion you cant force people to motivate or change unless they want to. You bring federally funded camps into the mix and it is vary concerning. We already have camps...military.

[freespirited]

JTA Mom, you got a lot of things wrong wrt what I said and I don't have time to address them all. I never said there are more pedophiles today than there used to be. I was trying to say that where they may have suppressed their feelings or as you said, molested relatives, they now have a lot more resources in which to live out their twisted fantasies, and I do think the internet has made pedophilia sex tourism a much bigger business than it ever was before. Networking can be used in bad ways too. I also never said young people don't want to work. I didn't have time to more clear on what was a subset of other topics I was mentioning, but I was talking about teenagers and I am guessing you are not a teenager, are you? Face it, if experienced adults can't find work, young people aren't going to be able to either. I am hoping that the "rebuild America" plan will get a lot of young people to work because I think it sets a solid foundation for them to grow on. I can see where today's youth have fallen into a bit of a trap with so few prospects and the internet becoming a larger part of their reality. I have several teen relatives who spend entirely too much time socializing in cyberpace, and they are not networking. My "derision" of Facebook didn't have to do with the networking aspect of it. Yes, I'd imagine it could help some people find jobs. I am talking about how it is replacing real life socializing and also filling up a lot of time. I'm sure there are many who use the internet for various social purposes and can control the amount of time they spend. I just personally have seen an awful lot of youth who spend an inordinate amount of time chatting via internet, phone and texting. I just don't see how that can be a good thing. Call me old-fashioned. If you were offended by the things I said, I am sorry, maybe you should read a little more closely because I think I tried to specify that I think teens need more options in life and that if they didn't have the internet, they'd do what my generation did, and that is probably move their butts a little more, or, what a lot of teens did back in the day was join the military. I hate to think that is the only option for those who can't afford college or can't find work. I do think parents are probably even less involved with these "millenials" than parents were with my generation (Y or X). My own mother was not very involved in my life, and my father was MIA, so I think I had to work through some serious self-identity issues, and getting my self-esteem from my peers didn't work out so well and I made a lot of painful mistakes in my life before I finally learned. The impact of lack of parental guidance and closeness cannot be overstated. It can't be made up for by friends or money or anything and there are a ton of examples of that out there in the world.

I don't know what the real cause is behind violence. The gap between the haves and have-mores has been widening for years. I still think it's more social than economic. It's good that we can share our own thoughts about this topic and have differing opinions because it's probably some perfect storm of changes that is causing this to happen and not any one single cause. How has the media influenced all of us, especially those young people who have little self-identity and latch onto outside influences to shape themselves? I'm sure the media hasn't helped a lot. I don't blame it entirely but we as a society have become perhaps a bit too apathetic to the power it wields, couple with the disintegration of families. A lot of bad apples turn out despite being raised by good parents, so it seems to be a number of things. I also sypmathize with the aloneness a lot of people feel when they lose a job and go broke and have a family to care for. No one steps in to help. We don't live in that kind of society anymore. yes, you do hear the occassional feel-good stories but I think in general, people are very much on their own, and that lack of support is frightening and despairing and drives people to do terrible things. The social support network is really disappearing.

[sanguine_speed]

It is just factually untrue that violent crime is on the rise. You can certainly argue that immorality is on the rise, because it's so subjective and you can define it yourself.

[freespirited]

Originally Posted by sanguine_speed

It is just factually untrue that violent crime is on the rise. You can certainly argue that immorality is on the rise, because it's so subjective and you can define it yourself.

I'm afraid it is fact that violent crime is on the rise, and as for immorality, I don't think it's as subjective as you say. For starters, our system of law certainly defines immorality to an extent, and I think most people have that sense of right or wrong, at least in this country. Some aspects of morality are pretty gray but most are black and white. Of course, it's human nature to justify our own actions however wrong, but I think one can detect when the basic moral fiber of a society is weakening. It's easy to say the Nazis had become immoral people capable of killing and torturing millions, but to them, it was a matter of the survival of their being, their identity and culture. That justification/subjectiveness doesn't make the holocaust any less of a betrayal of morality. It is one's selflessness and the will to live for one's God. No religion that I know of condones mass extermination of other humans, but humans are very susceptible to fear and uncertainty, and these are times that encompass both emotions and I think that leads to a willingness to abandon one's own moral code in favor of survival.

[JTA Mom]

I like what you said, freespirited, about this being a 'perfect storm' of sorts. It really is. I think the social and the economics can not be pulled apart from one another. After WWII it became necessary to move a lot to find jobs. Whereas before communities needed to be self-sustaining to a certain level (like each town needed a lawyer, a doctor, etc), now they no longer need to. Socially, a lot of support systems disappeared or were weakened. It's sort of a self-sustaining cycle, kwim? The more mobility needed to chase the fewer 'good' jobs, the less stable social networks become. The less stable social networks become, the less important it is to 'settle down' in an area & so on & so forth.

As for parents not 'being' there, it has a major economical portion (not necessarily for you, but in 'general'). I mean, most nuclear families have both parents who work because they HAVE to. It's very hard to have one parent stay at home with the kids (I don't necessarily think only women should be SAHM, men should have the option of SAH too). Also, with the loss of 'good' jobs (the ones with set hours, and benefits), there is a loss of stability. In a way, the glorification of being independent and a nuclear family is a side effect of the economic necessity to be mobile to find paying jobs. Before, with one parent home, or grandma/grandpa home, someone was ALWAYS looking after the children. There was no unsupervised time for goofing off.

As for violent crime, it goes up as population does. Small towns rarely had violent crime issues (unless you want to count domestic violence, then it was probably the same). Bigger cities had the same problems as now. The thing is, the wider the gap between the haves & have-nots, the higher the crime rate. If you look at places like Brazil, or South Africa, where there is a small, privileged group that is doing all right/well and a large chunk of the population barely scraping by, the violent crime rate is insanely high. This is why, for example, crime rates (not only violent, but all types) here in the US are lower in good times. Statistically, this is true. When the economy starts going down, crime increases. Also, if you look at the hot spots for violent crime, you'll see that they correlate to large metropolitan areas, many of which have a sizeable population living in poverty. You have the ability to be anonymous coupled with having little/nothing to lose.

As for morality, it's a slippery slope. I think a lot of publicity is given to the big slips (like Enron & AIG), rather than the smaller, everyday ones. It does feel like there is widespread acceptance on the whole 'cheating to get ahead is normal' view. I don't think we are morally any different than our forefathers though. Like you mentioned the Nazis. Well, a lot of people here in the US supported Hitler before they found out about the camps. The 30s are seen as some moral high ground, when they really never were. I don't think people are any different now than before. We just have a lot more information, and much better communication than we did before. The actual (im)morality of people though, is the same. We just have tools now for greater destruction.

Ami

[sanguine_speed]

Originally Posted by freespirited

I'm afraid it is fact that violent crime is on the rise,l.

Would you care to share your source for this? It's just not true. It's a common misperception. It's a better news story to say "Violent Crime on the Rise!" than "Violent Crime isn't on the Rise!"

And police, FBI, and other agents have an interest in conveying an increased need for their services, and to validate their funding..