|   WTF is up with people these days??? | skiahh
Mar 26, 2002 11:10 PM | | On the news tonight: A 50-something Pastor, training for the Seattle-to-Portland bike ride today was PUSHED over by a teenager in a moving car as it went by him. They arrested the douchebag, but I guess he's out on bail or something while they investigate. All I can say is what goes around, comes around and I hope it comes around, so to speak, when he's in jail.
Sorry for that rather vulgar outburst, but I'm just fuming. |
| You have the right to fume | jjrider
Mar 27, 2002 12:23 AM | | Bro,
you have the right to fume. I don't know what's happening to people these days that they seem to be getting more selfish and meaner by the day. It seems that they derive fun from other people being hurt, or maybe cruelty is second nature to them.
Similar incidents happen all over the world too, it's just that they don't get reported. |
| re: WTF is up with people these days??? | ldf
Mar 27, 2002 1:04 AM | | Maybe that Pastor had previously molested that teen?
Like you said...what goes around comes around. |
| good point, but it wasn't a Catholic priest.... nm | skiahh
Mar 27, 2002 7:06 AM | | nm |
| good point, but it wasn't a Catholic priest.... nm | Zyzbot
Mar 27, 2002 7:15 AM | | You think only Catholic priests molest kids? In my area it is Baptist preachers who are famous for those type molestations. It happens in all religions. |
| That was a very "tongue-in-cheek" response.... | skiahh
Mar 27, 2002 10:29 AM | | However, to address the original point in a more serious manner, had that pastor molested that kid it STILL DOESN'T JUSTIFY WHAT HE DID!!!
As the old saying goes, 2 wrongs don't make a right. We are all responsible for our actions and saying, "oh, well this happened to me in the past excuses it" just doesn't cut it in my book. We all have to play the hand we were dealt and sometimes you get dealt a shitty hand. That doesn't mean you can shoot the guy next to you and take his cards and it's OK.
If that pastor had molested the kid, the response should have been (a) for the kid to have defended himself at the time, up to, and including (in my opinion) killing the molestor or (b) report the molestor to the police and let the justice system (and, in reality, the media) prosecute the offender. Coming back later, and doing something like leaning out of a moving car and pushing an unsuspecting rider over is wrong, no matter how you look at it.
There is no justification for an act like this. None. Period. |
| Horrible parenting, thats what. | Stine
Mar 27, 2002 4:12 AM | | Ignore your kids and that is exactly what happens. They turn into mean young adults willing to do just about anything discusting to get attention. |
| Thank you... | mtnpat
Mar 27, 2002 5:51 AM | | ...the lack of the family structure in this day and age is the root of all problems - IMHO.
Many people are to blame, INCLUDING the parents. |
| if ya really wanna know...... | Dave in Md.
Mar 27, 2002 4:37 AM | | It's the latest in "PC". Liberal thinking has gone so far overboard that the perpetrator has become the victim! Seems like everytime a horrific crime is committed, all we hear about is how hard a life the criminal had, or how the criminal had been mistreated by a drug-addicted father, or whatever. You hear more about the "poor criminal" than you ever do about the victim(s). I'm sure you know the first name of the Yates woman who killed her children-quick now, give me one of the children's names. Maybe she does have mental problems- I'm not qualified to make that judgement-but you get my point. People need to be made responsible for their actions, instead of making excuses for them, then maybe we can get some civility back into civil living. |
| Word. | Burny Lung
Mar 27, 2002 5:46 AM | | I hate the lack of personal accountability these days. A true victim is a true victim, but when people try to blame someone else for their actions, it burns me up. |
| Their names were... | WarrGuru
Mar 27, 2002 6:40 AM | | Mark, Luke, Paul and Noah. I think the father is culpable. |
| dad ended his role by giving Biblical names? | gonzostrike
Mar 27, 2002 11:41 AM | | hey Wilma, if we name 'em after Biblical figures, they'll be good boys, right?
irony is so sweet. |
| I've often wondered | Rev Bubba
Mar 27, 2002 4:53 AM | | Are things really worse today or just better reported? Were there just as many idiots 100 years ago but less media to tell us of them?
This does not excuse the present idiots, of course. |
| I've wondered the exact same thing for about 10 years now.... | easyRider
Mar 27, 2002 6:06 AM | | are people really worse than they were 100 years ago, or has technology and the instant comunication that the world has come to know just made our world increadibly small. I think comunication has much to do with it as well as the rise in the population. Percapita,are there really more a$$holes out there or the same percentage as 200 years ago just more visable? |
| not PC, but.... | skiahh
Mar 27, 2002 7:23 AM | | 100 years ago, a lot more people still carried a gun. And in more remote areas - outside the cities - were more inclined to use it. So, you always had to wonder if your "helpless victim" was, in fact, really helpless.
Not that the victim in this case would have been able to do anything in retaliation with his broken clavicle or ribs, elbow and a partially collapsed lung. |
| not PC, but.... | ridinwild
Mar 27, 2002 5:00 PM | | Agreed. Good guys with guns is a STRONG deterrent! |
| Food fer thought... | Schlubbe
Mar 27, 2002 8:56 AM | | I've been thinking about the role of the media in present day affairs-
Clearly American media revels in telling stories about the terrible acts of a few members of our society, and as Americans, we gobble it up (it's like a train wreck- you can't help but look). From Dateline to Montel to even our local broadcasts in Montana, the line between "News" and "Entertainment" continues to blur. The problem, as I see it, is that these shows are broadcast around the world to people who come away with the idea that everyone in America is like that (killing our own children, digging up corpses and tossing them in the woods to make more money, leaving struck pedestrians in our windshields to die while we binge on more drugs). It's similar to how after 9/11, when footage of some MiddleEasterners celebrating was broadcast on American news outlets you heard people saying "they're all against us". The vast majority of people in the world are decent and moral, just as most Americans will never appear on Rickie Lake or Jerry Springer. We're just too boring- busy going to jobs, taking care of our families, and for a fortunate few of us, getting out to RIDE!
I do worry, though, that people in our own country who grew up without a moral center- people who weren't taught about right and wrong, what goes around comes around, and do unto others, etc.- are just as susceptible as people in other countries to seeing this glorified immorality as being an accurate depiction of how the rest of the country or the rest of the world really is.
I wish I had an answer on how to change it- one thing I've started doing myself is being much more selective in what I watch and read. Information is one thing- I think it is important to know what is happening where and why. Celebration (for example, a 2 hour special on Andrea Yates) of horror is quite another, and I'm doing my best to avoid that sort of sensationalism. No more National Enquirer for me.
I feel like that's doing something in some way.
Just stuff to think about- sorry if I ramble too much
McSchlubb |
| worse today, Rev, but living in NJ makes it hard to see... | gonzostrike
Mar 27, 2002 11:49 AM | | ...because everyone there is so focused on their own activities that it's hard to imagine a world where people ever were respectful, considerate and giving.
one of the best features of moving from the Right Coast to western Montana was the leap in civility. of course, in the 4 years I've been here, I've watched the erosion of civility too.
personally, I think it starts with parents but it is something that ALL OF US must do. When parents allow their kids to listen to things like Limp Bizkit, KORN, etc. and do not try to help their kids understand the force and power of music and why they should be able to distinguish among good and bad types of music (example, if you want good messages with power, listen to Jawbreaker and not Limp Bizkit), and do not have real conversations that addresss discernment as a critical feature of life, then what else can you expect except rudeness.
I'm glad I don't live in NJ anymore, but that doesn't mean the American culture as a whole is getting better. in fact, it's getting worse. a sure sign of this is the way Bush is trying to ram his own morality down our throats - he's so tired of the permissive nature of our culture that he wants to be dictator of all morality in the USA. I don't agree with Dubya's politics, and I disagree with some of his moral stances (including the ones in which he commits gross hypocrisy), but I understand his moral outrage.
sometimes I feel like one of the inexcusable present idiots! |
| Society is to blame..... | FreeRangeChicken
Mar 27, 2002 8:52 AM | | We're all products of the society we live in and shouldn't be personally responsible for anything we do. Nothing is our fault, it's just the way we were socialized.
For example, look at Mike Tyson.... he's not really a bad guy. He's just being persecuted by "the Man".... you know, "tryin' too keep him down". It's not his fault he bit off Evander Holifield's ear.... Raped how many women? ....Assaulted how many people? It's society's fault, of course. Poor little Mikey isn't to blame. Let's promote him and reward him for his behavior. Lets let him fight another multi-multi-million dollar fight in the US because he's really not a bad guy, society (and "the Man") has just done him wrong. ......and he's such a great role model for our children.
DL |
| It's not my fault... | gonzostrike
Mar 27, 2002 11:50 AM | | ...society made me do it... |
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