Lost?? Agreed!!!

" It seems surprising to me intuitively that a sand bag could kill a healthy passenger."
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.

I'm not getting some of the antecedents and am not connecting the dots.
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.

“...
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?

I don't follow what you're saying, and I don't even understand enough to speculate.

You must be on a different earth than I am, as I see it just in the little town of 1000 I live in, and in the bigger ones around. 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. They funnel it to where they want (free abortions for illegals is the latest) and it is not a choice of the people, but the Kommunist Governor.It is a horrible clash of lies on a continual basis.

"The 1 parent family is also an issue"
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.

That is one of the problems, a state that insists on interfering, restricitng parent rights to stop a small minority of bad parents, and they end up creating a situation where good parents are afraid to do anything. The 1 parent family is also an issue especially if that parent is not in a well paying job. It all contributes to the chaos our society is falling into, and they still want to inject more rules and laws into it,

I see what you're saying. Young adults by default are not responsible for themselves and increasingly parents can't take responsibility, which means the state is responsible for them, which is obviously bad.

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.

I have a harder view, the moment you take the step to do an action, is the moment you take the responsibility for it. Part of our dysfunction is we have decoupled responsibility by children to a n arbitrary age (18) and have to make exceptions to try them as adult. Yet, the system does not take the obvious reverse position and give both authority and responsibility to parents when they are below 18. I know a lot of parents who say " I cant do anything because the state will take them away". I also know a lot of single parent families, and a lot of that is do to the lack of personal responsibility and a sense of ownership of yourself. They want the fun, not the bill.

The whole idea of looking at people as group communities is wrong. The community doesn't commit crimes. These people did. The article doesn't say whether the experienced family breakdown. It matters if it happened to them but not if it happened to people who look like them.

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.

They are in the care of "Juvenile Services", one until 21 the other for 3 or 4 years, but until it becomes clear this animal behavhior cannot be tolerated then it will continue. I firmly do believe it is the family breakdown, and fathers absent and spawning with several women and then leaving, that causes this stuff, yet the black community seems immune from criticism and the left has taught them te excuse is always "racism". That is what is so wrong with the lefts tactics, they breed this stuff.

That's ghastly. It seems surprising to me intuitively that a sand bag could kill a healthy passenger. I could clearly see it causing a fatal accident. 13 y/o. It's so young. It's just at the point where I really think they may have been too young young and stupid to realize what they were doing. I don't know what to think. I don't know the right thing to do. Letting them go doesn't seem right, but locking them up for years doesn't seem right.