What is wrong with people

[Crippled Caddis]

Dano wrote:

<I am in that business of trying to figure young people out and what we have is a large number of parents who are apathetic to the issues of their own children.>

Yes, in your official capacity you see far more evidence of parental shirking of responsibility than does the average citizen. Somehow I suspect that such incidents come as far less of a surprise to you than the average Joe. Sorry that you wound up with such a *&^%$ job but I would remind you that no good deed goes unpunished.;o) You obviously need to step back and gain a bit of perspective, So when are we going fishing?;o)

Wayne wrote:

<I fear that as a society and as members of humanity we aren't as prepared to shake the bounds of family, church and community as some think we are.>

The dissolution of family and religion were cardinal focal points of Socialist theory and efforts to subvert Western society. Takeover of the school systems was a primary objective and was finalized in the US @ the early '70s by the NEA, a union founded by avowed Communists. The relationship between the Democratic Party and the NEA is so incestuous that no one truly knows who 'is on top'. Whatever the case the NEA is the leading union financial supporter of the Democratic National Party.

Secularization of our society has been and is led by academia. Long the stronghold and refuge of Socialist theory inimitable to Constitutional and traditional American principals and values the academic community has led the attack on religion. Academics who espouse religious and conservative values haven't been able to achieve tenured chairs in the leading colleges and universities for almost 2 generations at this point in history. To be hired at university level it is neccessary to hide a traditional American value system. Check out the on-going legal issues surrounding just that that plague such institutions as the University of North Carolina and Michigan State as well as the Ivy League schools. And FWIW, as an undergraduate at Yale Hillery Rodham's campus nickname is reputed to have been 'Little Miss Communist'.

"Give me your four year olds and in a generation I will built a socialist State."---Lenin

"Destroy the family, and the society will collapse." --Lenin

"To achieve world government, it is necessary to remove from the minds of men, their individualism, loyalty to family traditions, national patriotism and religious dogmas".----Brock Chisolm, former Director of the World Health Organization

Norman Thomas and Gus Hall, perennial U.S. Communist Party Presidential Candidates, both quit American politics, agreeing that the Republican and Democratic parties by 1970 had adopted every plank of the Communist/Socialist Party and they no longer had an alternate party platform on which to run.

KFF wrote:

<Andy, the Walton's, the Beav! Those shows were good entertainment that always had a message attached.>

Cast your memory back in time------when did such programs espousing traditional family and American value systems go away? Have you seen them in rerun recently? Does that suggest anything? I'll leave it to your own good sense to examine the implications. CC, the old cynic

[gonefishin]

I agree with most everything you guys have said. I think however what will happen here is we will get another bunch of anti-gun laws maybe have gun ownership totally banned. The anti-gunners are already squealing like pigs caught in a gate. Of course anti-gun laws will, as usual, do nothing to address the real problem.

[jdmidwest]

Yes, another tragic day in our history, and a field day for the media. I just read Reuters slant on the story. Amazing that it happened on a liberal campus where no guns are allowed like all campuses. Had it have happened where some of the individuals would have had a chance to defend themselves, who knows. They say guns are in the wrong hands, well he could have done the same with a knife or a chainsaw or an axe in this case. Apparently he locked them in with chains on the doors and slaughtered them. One well armed citizen could have put an end to it but you can't be armed on a college campus. But some nut ball got loose and now all of us law abiding gun toting citizens are to blame. I will venture a guess that there will be a copycat in the next few weeks because of all the publicity from the media. The more press he gets the more the killer wins. Just print the headline "Pyscho Nut Job Runs Amok Killing Alot of Innocent Students". Shot himself to save the taxpayers alot of money feeding him the rest of his poor pathetic life. No need to make him a martyr for the gun control guys.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070417/ts_nm/..._shooting_dc_11

[gonefishin]

I think it disgusting that the anti-gun people and some of the press would like to make a political issue out of a tragedy.

[Crippled Caddis]

< Amazing that it happened on a liberal campus where no guns are allowed like all campuses..

Amazing? Where else could the nutcase be assured that he would have defenseless victims?

How did it happen? Seems like the VA General Assembly is guilty of reckless endangerment and denial of civil rights from this article. As is the school itself. Any attorney worth his salt should be able to make a case.

<http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/wb/xp-50658>

[Don]

Lots of good commentary on this sad issue. The anti-gun liberals started preaching in the workplace within minutes of hearing the news. Some even smiled, as if they just experienced victory of some sort. Were any of them willing to take one second to listen to a rebuttal? Heck no!

C.C. Love those quotes. Keep them coming.

Don

[Crippled Caddis]

gf wrote:

<I agree with most everything you guys have said. I think however what will happen here is we will get another bunch of anti-gun laws maybe have gun ownership totally banned. The anti-gunners are already squealing like pigs caught in a gate. Of course anti-gun laws will, as usual, do nothing to address the real problem.>

To ban guns will require a Constitutional Amedment or simply ignoring Constitutional rights. The latter tactic has been working well to date with over 25,000 laws or ordinances that 'infringe' on the 2nd Amendment 'on the book' at all levels of government around the country from local or city to national.

For a better understanding of 'original intent' see Guncite.com for a good overview. See <http://www.guncite.com/gc2ndpur.html> for specifics of why the Founders reserved your right to be armed at all times. One of the best and most often cited explanations is from the 1803 Appendix of 'Blackstone's Commentaries' by legal scholar St. George Tucker:

"The right of self-defense is the first law of nature; in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Whenever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction."

William Rawle, a contemporay of the Founders wrote in his 1829 book,"A View of the Constitution of the United States' which was adopted as the textbook on the subject by various institutions:

"The prohibition is general. No clause in the constitution could by any rule of construction be conceived to give congress a power to disarm the people. Such a flagitious attempt could only be made under some general pretence by a state legislature. But if in any blind pursuit of inordinate power, either should attempt it, this amendment may be appealed to as a restraint on both."

Associate Supreme Court Justice Story weighed in with: "The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them."

So it should be apparent that those guilty of disarming the faculty and students at VA Univ. are culpable in the deaths and injuries today through denying their Constitutional right to be armed.

Anyone expect the ACLU to take them to court?

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In 1931, a congressional report of the Special House Committee to Investigate Communist Activities stated:

"The American Civil Liberties Union is closely affiliated with the communist movement in the United States, and fully 90 percent of its efforts are on behalf of communists who have come into conflict with the law. It claims to stand for free speech, free press, and free assembly; but it is quite apparent that the main function of the ACLU is to attempt to protect the communists in their advocacy of force and violence to overthrow the government, replacing the American flag by a red flag and erecting a Soviet government in place of the republican form of government guaranteed to each state by the federal Constitution."

-----------------------------------*-----------------------------------

"I am for Socialism, disarmament, and ultimately for abolishing the state itself as an instrument of violence and compulsion. I seek social ownership of property, the abolition of the propertied class, and sole control by those who produce wealth. Communism is the goal".--------ACLU founder Roger Baldwin

[Terry Beeson]

Now that the smoke has begun to clear, the media is moving towards a feeding frenzy of assigning blame. The first victim - the president of VT... The "armchair quarterbacks" have blamed him in that he did not immediately shut down the school when the first killings were reported. Had he done so and the result had been no more shootings, I'm sure he would be "called to the carpet" for shutting down the school for no reason. He is in a "no win" situation because it "makes news."

In my line of work, I am charged with "root cause analysis" of problems. This means getting down to the REAL reason and ROOT CAUSE of something that "went wrong." It is difficult at best to do this because we have been brainwashed to lay blame on and find fault in someone and ignore the underlying facts that resulted in the problem. As I told a former boss in a scathing memorandum years ago, "The problem is we do not know what the problem is!" We continue to look at any situation and take credit for anything "good" but refuse to take responsibility for anything "bad."

Is this "human nature?" Not really. It is a "learned dicipline" for the most part. Our "Dr. Spock" approach to child rearing has instilled in the generations at this point under 50 to accept no blame for their actions with the mentality that these actions will have no consequence other than a kind "now, Honey, don't do that" from our mom. And now with that, our "Jerry Springer" hungry society has found a way to "lay blame" for ANY situation on our parents and/or ANYone else we can. Just as long as we do not have to take ANY responsibility for our own actions.

Family? Church? Community? Those terms are ancient. What is a family? Are there any real "families" left in the US? I tend to think they are only in very remote locations in very small numbers. Unsupported and unscientific "best guess" is that the average child today has three dads, two moms, 14 sets of grandparents, and spends approximately ten minutes a week with any pairing of these as a "family unit." No wonder kids today are so confused. (I admit and take responsibility for being in just such a situation myself.) And responsibility? How can a parent teach a kid responsibility? The dishwasher does the dishes, there are but one or two pets to feed, and with soccer, softball, karate lessons, etc. who has time anyway? And don't use the cop out that sports teaches these things. No sir... You as the parent are responsible for teaching these things and should not rely on a "coach" or "teacher" to do it for you.

As for church, I agree. However, we can not say there is no "religion" in the family today. There is plenty of worship. We worship money, sports, cars, or whatever. That takes priority in our lives. What does this teach our kids? We want to live our lives through Shaq, Junior, Albert, whomever. We wear tee shirts, stickers on our vehicles, posters in our homes. And it is no longe sufficient to "keep up with the Jones's." We have taken on such a competative persona that we must "bury the Jones's in the dirt!" And if we DO go to church, there is a feeling that we must be "entertained" instead of taught. The last four churches I attended seemed too focused on making you "feel good" without the true depth of what church should be. Church is a place to be taught and fed, not a place to be seen and entertained.

Community? These are even more scarce than the family. The "community" I live in might be considered the subdivision I live in. It is not really a community, but merely a housing development. There are no neighborhoods anymore to speak of. I sat outside in my front yard for a while after work yesterday. It was a pretty day to be outside. I live at the entrance to the subdivision, so I saw most of the residents as they entered or exited. A friendly wave from me was greeted 3/4 of the time with a look of "who is this nut?" I know the first names of three people in the subdivision other than those that reside in my house. As I sat in my yard, I noticed there were a total of three kids outside playing. One of them was riding an electric toy car in the street. The other two were on bicycles riding in the street. The oldest could not have been more than 7 or 8. There were no parents in sight. Nobody sits outside unless they are in their own backyard surrouded by a privacy fence. There is not attempt to get to know your neighbors. Who cares about them anyway? The only interaction I have had with anyone other than the mother of my daughter's friend, my next door neighbor who invited us to an Amway meeting, and the local Avon lady is the chairwoman of the subdivision residents association who scolded me for having a basketball goal, garden hose, and bird feeder in the front yard in violation of subdivision "rules." No wonder nobody wants to sit out front. Community? Yep, it is dying a horrible death.

The beginning of the demise of the American family? I support one theory other than the books by Dr. Spock. That would be January 12, 1971 when Norman Lear premiered "All In The Family" on CBS. For the time, that was the most controversial television show leaving Elvis', Mick Jaggar's, and Jim Morrison's performances on The Ed Sullivan Show to be fit for Captain Kangaroo. Since that time, television programming has whirlpooled into a vortex of mindless and meaningless escapism aimed at brainwashing society into a mass of people who will no longer think for themselves.

What's the solution? I wish I knew... and maybe I do. But the hopeless feeling in my chest won't go away...

[TexomaOkie]

Guns aren’t the problem. It’s the deviant individuals produced by the moral decay of our society that are the problem!

Saw an interview last night with a guy who was a school murderer at the age of sixteen. He claimed to be frustrated with being bullied and "picked on". He thought his rampage would bring him respect and put an end to his troubles. When asked about his feelings just prior to the killings, he claimed the only thing he felt was euphoria that his problems were about to end. He said he didn't consider the fact people would actually die because video games had distorted his view of reality to the point he believed people could be gunned down and would simply get up and "run away" without dying.

I understand he could be lying to try to justify his actions. However, I've observed how children can become consumed by video games. I understand how the violence and immoral behavior portrayed by many of those games can desensitize people to violence and immoral behavior and distort their view of reality.

Obviously, ridding our society of sensationalized and glorified violent behavior won't solve all our problems. However, I believe their acceptance is a perfect example of our society’s willingness to allow negative influences. More importantly, I believe it's a clue about where a society is headed when it can't draw a distinct line between right and wrong on any moral issue. There is an answer to our problems! History has documented what happened to the great cultures who didn't seek THE answer.

Just my two cents. Now I feel better!

[Brian Sloss]

This is not meant to draw anyone's ire, but a lot of people here seem to be politicizing this tragedy. Blaming directly or indirectly Democrats or liberals for the crazed acts of one individual. Do you think major corporate offices allow people to be armed in their offices? No, of course not. Why should a university. If that person had a knife, the death total would not have been 33. It is a lot easier to get away from a guy with a knife or chainsaw or over power him with force than dodge a bullet or outrun it. But before you say I want to just ban guns, I don't. But think about it rationally, history class is not a place you should be packing. Now should the administration have responded earlier when the first incident occured, in hindsight definitely! I am not trying to insight anyone's anger or get into a big gun control debate, I have no problem with responsible gun ownership, but just thought I'd address the knee jerk "it is the Dem. or liberals fault".