Children are taught self defense is bad, all morals are relative, and that nothing is worth fighting for.
Mind that the "morals are relative" is slippery slope going either way.
Actually, I'd say children were murdered by criminals, not some abstract, disembodied principle.
I have to agree with this. I think "our problems" have a lot to do with blame-transferrence, on both sides of the coin.
I love how people try to find the motive behind mass shootings. Was the person molested as a child? Did they grow up in a mixed or blended family? The answer is under their nose... the person was EVIL. I mean cripes, who cares WHY the person shot a bunch of innocent people. The point is that they did.
Eh...
Well,
I care why. Because I want to understand why and prevent it from happening if possible. I'm not comfortable with saying, "it's all because he plays video games and was molested" OR "he's just Evil and that's all there is". There's more to the issue than that.
Granted, people may just "go off the rails", but that's not always the case. Was there something, anything that could have been done to help the killer before they became a killer? If they'd have known they could be counciled somehow, would they have taken that option? I'm not talking about touchy-feely stuff, I'm talking about real help that people can find (not necessarily forced upon them, though).
Let me be more specific -- I want to know if the guy in PA could have talked to someone about his reported "molestation dreams", assuming reports are true, and if the resulting help could have stopped him from killing anyone. If that help is there, did he just not take it or was he too embarrased to take it? If he was too embarrased, why? Can we examine and maybe teach new values so that the stigma with getting the help needed is gone? Did he need a happy pill? A beer? A cigarette? A fudge sundae? Do we need to modify how people can access these so that getting help is a more efficient and satisfying process?
Trying to understand
why really is more than Monday-morning quarterbacking, even if the news spins it into sensation to sell advertisements.
When I look around at the world, and especially in my country, I see a lot of anger. Angry teachers, angry workers, angry bosses, angry husbands, angry wives, angry old folks being adminstered to by angry nurses and angry doctors. There's joy, but it's fleeting, and it isn't shared. It's shared by rich and poor. This is a problem, because it's making angry kids.
Are those angry kids blameless for commiting acts of anger? Hardly. They still walked that path, they share the greatest portion of blame. However, for us to all stand around and say that we are not in any way complicit and it's all the actor's fault and no one is influenced by anything is as short-sighted an act as blaming it all on rock 'n' roll ya-ya music. And, I really do mean "we." Not the devil. Not Xenu. Not Evil. And, an angel isn't going to drop down from a crane hook and save us all.
I'm not saying we need to get involved in each other's lives. We have enough of that. Too much even. Maybe we should just leave each other alone for awhile and stop screwing each other up. I don't have a solution to propose, only a voice to say "we're not doing it right" and that pointing fingers at everyone but ourselves may not be the best solution.
I'm a little unclear on something. How can you be certain that someone is mentally sound if we cannot tell when a person is likely to snap? Even those who are otherwise upstanding citizens are subject to the occasional brain fart of one degree or another.
There's no way to tell unless they're rubbing poop on themselves. However, sometimes people know that they, themselves, are on the edge. The problem is that they may not do anything about it until it's too late, for myriad reasons.
The students still turned it in, and the parents came to get them.