Teens who killed Man after throwing sandbag from overpass wont serve jail time
This is what is wrong with our society. An insane society allows this to happen and has no responsibility, no way to restrain other morons from doing the same thing. Now, more kids do this, and their attorneys can point to this and say "you didn't punish them then, why now?" and scream racism or whatever. Insanity....
Obama made these people feel entitled BECAUSE they were black. I never used to think this way until Obama, but at least in Las Vegas, one can see entitlement written on the faces of many, many black people now. Not all of course, but I would say a clear majority.
rights before having sex.
My wife and I comment to each other how often
Shows present as super common one night stands . Regularly couples have sex and then try to get to know each other after . Emotional reaction and then deal with consequences later.
Never a good way to have control of your life.
The reason this is so ghastly is 13 y/o is right on the edge of developing full reasoning. I have the unusual view that around age 15, we're adapted to what to go out on our own and we develop the capacity to commit adult crimes. So I think we should accept that and give people all the rights and responsibilities around 15. But 13 is still sort-of a child. I don't have a clear answer.
Reason is the norm.
I have not personally seen this issue where the state interferes, but I believe it happens. I actually see cases where I wish the state would interfere, at least to some extent. There are people who are really troubled. Their kids will likely either be troubled and criminal or neurotically successful, driven by a desire to escape their horrible childhood. I hate to see that. I certainly loath letting the government try to fix it. When the kids grow up and and commit crimes, the gov't will have to act. I wish they could help those kids sooner, without becoming intrusive. Those desires are in conflict, so I don't have the solution. Groups like Big Brothers and the YMCA can help, but only so much. It's an ancient problem that won't go away in my lifetime.
Yes. It's probably higher than 1% b/c it's not just about paying jobs. It's about exposing the children to violent situations, serious drug/alcohol abuse, or abusing the children directly. Those can happen regardless of a good-paying job.
To make matters worse, when we create structures to help those people, it can result in people turning to charity who otherwise would have risen to the occasion and solved their own problems. For example, my kids' public school offers a free makeshift dental clinic for kids whose parents are too poor or dysfunctional to take their kids to the dentist. Then middle-class people who don't have a major problem in life begin to rely on it. The school is sort of a hub for all kinds of services for people who don't have their act together.
I would much rather pay taxes to help some abused child at age 9 than to pay for police to catch him and prisons to warehouse him ten years from now. But I obviously don't want a gov't managing everyone's lives.
I knew a troubled person 20 years ago who said the best job he ever had was this job that provided uniforms, a free cafeteria, free housing, and free insurance. It paid very little cash. He immediately spent his entire paycheck on drugs, but that was okay because his job provided the necessities. In other jobs he was miserable because regardless of the size of his check, he'd blow it all on drugs and literally go hungry when the money ran out before his next check. He liked his employer providing everything for him. I lost touch with him, but I heard he got off drugs and turned his life around. I hope that's true. Anyway, my point is that's an extreme example of what happens people abdicate responsibility for taking care of the business of life. I see well-meaning programs like that dental program having that effect, just not as badly.
I in no way see our society as falling into chaos. I see Americans as having built a wealth country and feeling like we have the ability to solve ancient problems. I like that attitude, and I don't see it as alms.
We may be talking about two different things because I have never seen even traces of "good parents afraid to do anything." This may be a problem that exists but I haven't encountered yet.
The number of single moms and fathers not paying child support are enormous. All your taxes and money do NOT go for what you think they do, Oregon is clear proof of this, they get billions for health care (20 Billion in 2yrs) but still scream they need more
...”
I’m curious, what to you specifically not understand?
1. Number of people not paying child support is enormous.
2. Taxes do not go where I think they do. (Where do I think they go?)
3. Oregon is clear proof of this. (What's this?)
4. Someone (state tax payers, fed govt, or someone else?) gives Oregon 10 billion a year.
5. They (who? Oregon legislature and governor?) say they need more.
I suspect this would be obvious to me if I worked in public policy surrounding this issue. As it is I'm lost.
"To make matters worse, when we create structures to help those people, it can result"
In high crime rates, high rates of teen pregnancy, high rates of high school dropouts, high illiteracy rates, high gang membership rates, high juvenile delinquency... The list just keeps going on. And want to know a few of the policies that contributed to this? The welfare state is #1. Affirmative Action. Subsidized housing and rent controls. Minimum wage laws. Subsidized meals at schools. And look into who passes these laws. It is predominantly Progressive Democrats.
"I in no way see our society as falling into chaos."
Then to be quite blunt, you need to open your eyes. We have a national debt over $20 trillion - more than our entire annual GDP - with unfunded liabilities over $100 trillion. The Federal Reserve lists consumer debt at another staggering $13 trillion (https://www.newyorkfed.org/microecono.... Most of our industry has moved off our shores, meaning that we are dependent on other nations for basics like steel and even circuit boards for military hardware. Our prisons are overflowing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarce.... Our rate of illiteracy - especially in math and science - is growing despite funneling more money than ever into our education system. The rest of the world isn't much better. Europe is either going to bankrupt itself because of their social spending, or get overrun by immigrants who have zero desire to adopt European cultures. Africa is a war-torn mess and not getting better. Russia, China, and North Korea are growing more and more belligerent and held in check only by a strong US President's rhetoric. And the Middle East is about to descend into partisan Islamic civil war.
I don't mean to be apocalyptic, but we are one step from falling off a cliff. And it's a long way down - for all of humanity.
Below even though it sounds simplistic (to me), all of these social problems you describe can be traced back to progressive Democrats. If progressive Democrats, voters and politicians, dropped out of the political process altogether, how much would the problems improve?
Other problems you characterize as chaos
National Debt - A huge looming problem. I'm convinced we only fix it when it becomes a crisis even though it would be simple to fix before the crisis. Just freezing gov't spending at current levels would help.
Foreign Trade - Trade creates value. It allows producers to focus on what they're good at. Nations being interdependent reduces the risk of wars. National borders are almost like state borders when I was a kid. I send value across them for free and visit foreign colleagues without giving it much thought. The world is getting smaller.
Prisons - It is embarrassing for a country that prides itself on freedom to have > 5% of its citizens under the supervision of the criminal justice system, mostly for non-violent crimes.
Illiteracy - I think that's over-stated. I don't think people are more illiterate than they were in the past or that other countries are all more educatied.
Europe being overrun - My colleagues there still develop cool technologies. I go jogging for exercise in Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, England, and Iceland, and I don't see obvious problems that different from what we have here in my corner of the world.
Africa is a war-torn mess - It's a large continent, but trade as brought more opportunities. Its used to be Africa was mostly "poor countries". There still are a lot of poor people, but many people there are now making money.
Russia - I'm not sure what to think about Russia. I think their gov't is a greater threat than we realize because they have so many nuclear weapons.
China - I think they're so dependent on trade that they won't be a military threat. I think they'll liberalize because freedom and openness deliver the goods.
North Korea - They're the most insane country imaginable. I don't think they'll deploy a nuclear weapon or relinquish their nuclear weapons no matter what other countries do. I am surprised they're absolute totalitarian system has lasted as long as it as. I do not think they listen to foreign leader's rhetoric as much as you might think. I think their focus on is on keeping their entire population under the ruling party's thumb.
Middle East - There's been conflict in the Middle East all my life. I don't see current conditions as unusual.
" it's a long way down - for all of humanity."
That's true, but it's another way of saying humankind has made a level of progress that would be unthinkable to people who came before us.
I think the fundamental misunderstanding is what actually comprises "help". It is not help to create long-term dependence, which is what many of these policies and programs are specifically designed to do! Take the welfare state and the phenomenon of wage traps wherein a person moving up an income bracket then actually is forced to pay more in taxes, receive less in aid, and as a result despite making more money is less well off! That is a specific design consideration of the system and its intent is to trap people into long-term dependency. The same with removing the work requirement for welfare recipients, among many others.
"You list a bunch of policies like subsidizing meals for poor kids, and it's hard for me to see that all of them lead to social problems."
I see them. I live in a neighborhood filled with "poor" people (having been to other nations, I laugh when anyone calls an American poor). My kids go to public school with many other children who take advantage of free breakfast at school, reduced prices for school lunches, etc. What is interesting is that these very same students are the worst achievers and the biggest disciplinary problems in the school because they take everything for granted: they don't have to work for what they earn. It is a very real problem that - although it may not stem from this particular policy - is exacerbated by it. I can cite other examples or better, refer you to Thomas Sowell's economic analysis on any one of them.
"I find it laughably simplistic to blame them on one group of people, e.g. progressive Democrats."
It is both laughable and simple - and completely justified. Look up the history of any of these programs. They were instituted by Democrats nearly without exception. LBJ bragged about how the institution of the Great Society would make every black a Democratic voter for generations to come!
National Debt - If $20 trillion in current debt and more than $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities isn't a crisis, give me come numbers at which the situation will become serious.
"Foreign Trade ... Nations being interdependent reduces the risk of wars." Only when both nations still need each other. If we're not selling anything to China, who is beholden to whom on trade?
"Prisons .. mostly for non-violent crimes." - According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&t..., "More than three-fourths of felony defendants had a prior arrest history, with 69% having multiple prior arrests." Our problem isn't the type of crime committed, but the fact that the criminals keep committing them!
Illiteracy - Even the Huffington Post had this to say about illiteracy (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...) "The link between academic failure and delinquency, violence, and crime is welded to reading failure. The stats back up this claim: 85 percent of all juveniles who interface with the juvenile court system are functionally illiterate, and over 70 percent of inmates in America’s prisons cannot read above a fourth grade level, according to BeginToRead.com."
10 years ago. I think we have been lucky that there has not been another crisis related to debt.
Think about the physics of it. Say the sandbag is 20 pounds. the car is going 55 MPH.....plus the sand bag is accelerating downward from being dropped. I do not have a good enough grasp of algebra to calculate the foot pounds of energy....But I guarantee that it exceeds the energy of a high powered rifle bullet. These "Children" are vicious thugs and an example needs to be made of them. At least the older kids...who are likely the instigators will be tried as adults. Every one of the younger ones needs 30 days in Juvie as a warning to everyone not to hang out with scumbags.