. . . And it isn't "Our Violent Culture" or some such twaddle. It is the culture of entitlement that began with LBJ's "Great Society". Scratch that. It started with the institution of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
And actually it is a sub-culture of that culture, the people who have dived into the pool of "government entitlement' and now look to the government to resolve every little boo-boo they get on their precious punkin' haids.
Lay down your arms, give all your money to the government according to your ability and trust the government to distribute it according to the needs of ordinary people like you. And carry enough money so the robbers won't get mad at you and shoot you before the cops can come save you. . . .
......:banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead:
You know Alex, I think that what you say here is wrong.
It is, nevertheless, very interesting to me because it gets at a difference between us in outlook that is really more fundamental than party affiliation, or political/economic philosophy, and certainly any differences that we may or may not have about guns. But now I see how this difference effects the different way we approach all of these things.
I have always thought of you as an old hippy who had some kind of political epiphany in early adulthood -- maybe from driving a cab -- maybe from something else -- that caused you to retch out your liberalism.
If you would have seen me in the early 1970s, you might have thought from my long hair and extracurricular activities that I was a liberal too. I certainly was not that, although I was very young and not yet "politically conscious" enough to have a name then for what I was.
I recognize it now as a form of radical libertarianism, or anarchism. Another related word that you might have used to describe me -- with some justification -- would be "criminal."
Why was I a criminal? It was not because of:
. . . the culture of entitlement that began with LBJ's "Great Society".
And I certainly was not one of:
the people who have dived into the pool of "government entitlement' and now look to the government to resolve every little boo-boo they get on their precious punkin' haids.
Negative.
I think now that a great deal of it was because my young friends and I had found certain physical locations -- like near the railroad tracks that ran half a mile from my house -- where we could be completely free of any effective adult oversight or guidance.
So we started to do there what boys that age are naturally inclined to do -- like throw rocks at things -- at whatever the hell we wanted -- like trains, trucks, and stuff stored behind factories, for example. There was also nobody there to remind us not to take certain risks -- so we took unbelievable risks -- with our own, each other's, and other people's lives. Because our parents were not there, and there were no good adult surrogates, we replaced these social structures with structures of our own, headed by whatever kids were the highest in the social pecking order of the moment. We were sometimes "led" by these kids to do whatever it was that they wanted -- overcoming certain inhibitions that stop most people from doing bad things in many other circumstances.
That was pretty bad for me in my young life, and it definitely could have been deadly for me or someone else.
But it inclines me to wonder, how much worse would my early, youthful, explorations have been if there weren't just a few anarchic hangouts like this in my life, but if there were many such dangerous and "ruleless" places.
What if my school (outside of the classroom) was like that?
What if my neighborhood was like that?
What if my home was like that?
I have no way of knowing for sure, but I strongly suspect that if that was my background, I would be busy laundering my t-shirts in the toilet in my cell right now, and not having this pleasant conversation with you.
I suppose one could argue that part of the cause of the anarchy that exists in some schools, neighborhoods, and homes is the "culture of entitlement" that you speak of, or perhaps for others, the "culture of permissiveness" and there might be some truth to that. On the other hand, those kinds of arguments are kind of esoteric when you think carefully about these problems: Junior is not really mugging people because Junior's mother receives food stamps or Medicaid. Junior is mugging people because Junior's mother is not there, or if she is, does not care, or will not invest the time and energy necessary to guide the kid not to do things like that.
More fundamentally, what these environments lack is adult moral authority. And while a few, mostly white guys, cruising through the area with guns can help provide some moral authority in some of these environments, there is only so much that they can do.
Ultimately somebody has to step in and assume authority if parents can't or won't, or most of these kids will grow up being criminals. Some good folks in the community may volunteer, but obviously that is not enough, because if it was, there would not be a problem, and there is a problem.
So that means we need institutions: churches and community groups, to be sure, but also schools, and the evil officials who you appear to hate. It means, in certain cases, that government can be part of a community's response to addressing failures of moral authority.
Government's role in imposing moral authority where it does not, but should exist, need not necessarily be limited to hitting the kid about the head and neck with a nightstick, and throwing the kid into a cell, either. There are other more creative and effective ways to address these problems.
In my case, a trip downtown in the back of a cruiser helped, but did not resolve my issues, and after my arrest, I still sought out the freedoms that existed in the area by the train tracks.
More effective for me were the words of an old man, who observed my friend and I on the way back to our neighborhood from the tracks one day. My friend was throwing rocks at street-lamps high above the senior center parking lot, as we non-chalalantly strolled through it. The man burst out of the senior center, walked up to us, and said:
"what in the hell is wrong with you boys? Don't you have any respect for anything old?"
D)