It's called good parenting. Many Americans don't know what it is.

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An unwavering defender of those I see worth protecting.

"promote the general welfare, not provide the general welfare"

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

That's one of the factors. Do you think we are just unlucky that our parents cannot parent as well as parents in other countries?

I know you guys are doing your best to lay the blame on "individual responsibility". That way you don't mind when the politicians throw their hands up in the air and say there is nothing they can do about the problem, or better yet, they do not even acknowledge there is a problem at all.

But there are things that can be done by the government to fix this problem, or at least to make it much better. No country has a 0% murder rate, but somehow all of the other industrialized countries have managed this problem better than we have.

The problem of gang violence was brought up before. Well, there has been great success in the inner cities with various neighborhood programs like the Boys & Girls Club, and other after school programs. Kids do not join gangs when they are playing basketball or doing other such activities. The problem is that such programs have seen their budgets slashed in recent years, and after school programs do not even exist at all in many inner city schools, due to budget cuts.

So as taxpayers, instead of paying for after school programs which will result in fewer kids growing up to be criminals and gang members, we are paying for increased law enforcement and the building more prisons to deal with these criminals after they already grow up. That is simply foolish and in the long run, much more expensive.

People are a product of society. Nobody is born a criminal. They grow up and learn to be one. But we need to be doing more to prevent people from becomming criminals, instead of only dealing with them after they already are criminals. Then it is too late.

As for the problem of murder, much of that lies in our attitude as a society about murder. As long as some murders are considered by our socity to be good, then murder in general will be seen by society as an acceptable thing given certain situations, and each individual will make their own judgement as to whether it is appropriate in a given situation. We will only see the murder rate drop to that of other countries when we, as a society, decide that murder is not acceptable in any situation, and we stop glorifying killing, whether by the military (war), or by the state (capital punishment).

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my experience on X5world when I spend too much
time posting in political threads in the lounge...

It's incredible that the law in VA allows every citizen to buy one Handgun every month.
How can such a law exist in 2007, backgroud check done while you wait.
Come on now let's be serious! Nobody sees a problem here.

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X5 4.4
E46 M3 Vert

Nope. I don't. If you don't, start talking to your representatives. It's called representative republic.

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2010 528Xi
I demand justice.
Or, if there must be injustice, let it be in my favor.

Reynold's Wrap: it's not just for hats anymore.

Whe wasn't this guy stopped?

The shooter was one very disturbed young man. He displayed tell-tell signs of mental disease; have written very disturbing literatures for his classes, plus stalked some girls and scared them shitless, and the list goes on.

It is not possible that this troubled young man wasn't noticed at all. Why was he left alone to commit this masacre? Any takers?

Because people don't want to get involved.

__________________
2010 528Xi
I demand justice.
Or, if there must be injustice, let it be in my favor.

Reynold's Wrap: it's not just for hats anymore.

The law does not allow us to lock people up indefinitely just because they are odd. Would you really want a society where you were subject to incarceration just for being "different", if you had not actually done anything definitive?

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I love how people run around to place blame: oh teachers knew this, police saw that, people reported this....that is all crap. You know how many people could be singled out as "suspect" with those types of reasoning. I remember when I was in 5th grade my teacher sent a letter to my parents, the first day of school, saying she thought something was 'off' with me. Why?? Because I didn't laugh at the jokes she told in class. So what, should I have been indefinitely tracked? Please......why is it sooooo hard to understand that this is NOT utopia and crazy people do commit crimes.

And I would place 90% of the blame, for almost any issue, on parenting. I have seen some stuff in my life where I don't know how I wasn't arrested...all I can summarize is that my parents did a great job in guiding me on where to be and what to be doing when I was young. The 'good' parent in the US is like the Polar Bear, marching into extinction. Parents have been replaced in our society by MySpace and reality TV..plain and simple. Parental supervision, replaced by a cell number and e-mail address. Kids today probably know more about their friend then their parents and more about life from what they saw Paris Hilton do then what their mom is doing.

My father works in the educational system and listen to what he told me yesterday:

" I was walking through the hall to the guidance office when I heard a young voice yelling 'f_ck you, you don't f_cking tell me what to do. I'll kick your f_cking @ss'. I came around the corner and saw a 8 year old boy, who then looked at me and said what the f_ck are you looking at?"

That was an eight year old!! That..is what leads to crime, shootings, and almost every other conveniently named 'society ill'. Along with the follow up question of 'why couldn't the government protect us from that'? It takes a village people.

__________________

An unwavering defender of those I see worth protecting.

"promote the general welfare, not provide the general welfare"

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.