Is Society Degenerating?greenspun.com : LUSENET : Countryside : One Thread |
We're country people, yet there is as much crime, drugs and people who know nothing of the word "work" as in the city.We know someone who had a bumper sticker that said: Work Harder -- Millions at the Public Trough are Depending on You! (Their car was keyed.)
Could the answer be that welfare & crime DO pay?
What's it like where you live?
-- HV (veggie@ourplace.com), February 22, 2002
sounds the same here,,, drugs, ,making and dealing , a bunch of kids got caught on a "crime spree",, they wre breaking into seasonal houses,, been going on for 6 years or so. Your going to have crime and laziness whereever you go
-- Stan (sopal@net-port.com), February 22, 2002.
I think society is degenerating at an alarming rate. I also feel there is nothing we can do to stop it, just hold on to our hats and hang on to the railing, it's gonna be a bumpy ride.
-- Harmony (harmonyfarm57@hotmail.com), February 22, 2002.
I've been living in the country for about 9 years and in the last 2 there have 6 busts for meth. labs in my area. Rather sad that they want to come out here to produce their drugs and leave all the bad chemicals laying around for others to clean up.
-- Sherry (tlnifty@ecenet.com), February 22, 2002.
We have an entire generation of people who have had little if any rules placed on them. None at home, None a school, Little enforcment of laws outside in the real world. The "belt" has been replaced with a timeout chair, The paddle in school has been replaced with detenion or in most cases nothing but a stern warning. Youth are given everything they ask for with little need to work for it. Youth with Cars, credit cards, phones, control over most of their own life. Little home life, little parental interaction! Parents who want to be good parents feel that money equals love. Then they wonder why the kids are stealing credit cards from them.And you wonder is Society is degerating!
I am betting that many of these dont apply to those using this fourm, but to the masses its true. I remember the paddle, Not only that, I remember why it was used on my behind all these years later.
I know corporal punishmnet can be abused, but I think it needs to be brought back in school and homes.
-- Gary in Ohio (gws@columbus.rr.com), February 22, 2002.
Degenerating as in getting worse than what it used to be? Do some reading; it used to be a lot worse. I think society goes in cycles, some things are getting better right now, others are getting worse. It's easy to think that things are getting worse and worse and soon the world will self destruct, but history tells that in many ways,it has been much worse than it is now, and we now have some improvments. In other ways it may be worse. I think it all balances out.
-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), February 22, 2002.
It is my absolute belief that if we spent more time PARENTING our children, more time with them, guiding and teaching them the way to be a decent, hard-working member of society, the fewer problems we would have.I actually was told of a situation with a friends neighbor, where both parents worked and they DIDN'T ALLOW their two teenage sons to go home before they got home from work BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T TRUST THEM IN THE HOUSE ALONE! Of course, alone on the street (or breaking into OTHER peoples houses) is okay, but don't wreck your own house! My theory on this is if you have two teenagers that you can't trust to be alone, you either get them help or you make every effort to be home when they get there. Some firm parenting is called for, not unleashing them on the unsuspecting public.
Is society degenerating? Yes. As a society we've decreed that the two-income family is required, that those who stay home to take on the role of parent and homemaker shouldn't be recognized as having made a responsible decision ("There's no reason why she can't work now that the kids are in school..."), that if you don't keep up with the Joneses with the fancy house and fancy car, you must be unambitious or a failure.
Our society values material possessions above family and children. Is it any wonder that belief has shaped it into what it is?
-- Tracy (trimmer31@hotmail.com), February 22, 2002.
Yep, unfortunately I have to agree. I think it is just every where now. Drugs has been this country's downfall for years now and has caused crime to be rapant. I live the absolute middle of nowhere and read in the paper all every week about all the crime and drugs in this area. Guess it is all part of the degeneration of families we will see in the end times.The good news is that it is still not as bad as it is in the city and I still feel a lot safer. Even though neighbors are far apart, I can get help here quicker, and more of it, than in the city!
Which bring up another good point for homesteading frugally -- you don't have any really great things to steal anyway..LOL! They just pass over you and go on to farmer Jones with the $125,000 John Deere and equipment shed!
-- Karen(mountains_mama@hotmail.com), February 22, 2002.
Rebekah is right. It is all cyclic. Think of the bootleggers, organized crime, etc., of our parents / grandparents' era.Think of Emperor Caligula and the Roman Empire.
Then think of YOUR neighborhood and your perceptions of it AS IF YOU DIDN'T WATCH TELEVISION! I have students in a small, practically crime free. rural school who think it's a dangerous world where they live, but their perceptions are so skewed by television that they aren't aware of the peaceful and safe reality that surrounds them.
Most of us here still don't lock our front doors at night or our car doors in parking lots.
-- Rose (open_rose@hotmail.com), February 22, 2002.
Gary said, almost word-for-word, what I was going to post!
-- Ardie/WI (ardie54965@hotmail.com), February 22, 2002.
I believe that for the most part, as far as where we live, that crime is still in the bigger cities. We live 18 miles from a town of 750 people and when we drive through anytime after 8:00 P.M. the whole town is shut down except for 1 cafe/tavern. Everyone is at home, nobody roaming the street etc. You can drive by the houses and see the lights on, people are at home. We often comment, how quiet, how peaceful, how nice. We moved here almost 7 years ago and 3 years ago my children joined the 4-H club and I was most pleasantly surprised. At every meeting there are at least one parent (often both) or even grandparents that come to every meeting for almost every child. Younger brothers and sisters, babies are welcomed to stay. The meetings are conducted orderly and so much is accomplished. It is like a family reunion. The realities are this: My husband has to commute to a city (Pop. 60,000) 45 miles away in order to make a living. The usual crime and drug problems are evident there. However in our book the price is a small price, to enable us to give our children a childhood where there is trust and security. They will face the big cities soon enough in life. Hopefully they will recognize that there is a better way.
-- Marie in Central WA (Mamafila@aol.com), February 22, 2002.
Corporal punishment heck! It is rapidly approaching the stage where they'd need to introduce capital punishment into the schools to regain control. Why? Because parents aren't doing their job.Humans are naturally wild animals - no conscience, even though we have intelligence. There is a certain pack mentality built in, but that extends to about seventeen or twenty people in "our gang" or "our clan" or "our pack" or even "our family"- anything bigger than that and we start treating them as "others" and potential victims - resources to be harvested - not "one of us" - "outsiders".
So - children need to be civilised - need to be taught to extend their pack mentality to include a wider group of people - a village or a tribe or a medium primary school (say a couple of hundred people - maybe five hundred). Then to expand it again (a small town and the surrounding district, a confederation of tribes, a large high school). And again and again - districts and states and nations and worlds and the entire galaxy and the entire universe.
But parents need to teach all that. Teachers can't do it alone - it needs to be inculcated AT HOME, ON THE SPOT. Do something wrong - get an explanation of why "we don't do that" - do it again, get a swat on the tail. Actually, just the swat would work - makes THEM think about it too - although talking first is nicer if the behaviour is not immediately life-threatening and plain common-sense. Still, it's better to have them freezing-up than jumping into the road first (or robbing the neighbour first), then thinking about it.
In fact, the educational system is part of the problem - SOME teachers (and social workers) have decided that what has been proven to work for thousands of years in civilising people - in making civilisation POSSIBLE - is a bad idea. Actually, corporal punishment (smacking) is a VERY GOOD idea. It makes use of built-in mechanisms - animals (and people start that way, even if we can end up as more) avoid repeating behaviour that results in pain. That's fairly basic, and it always works. Whether you believe in evolution or in God the Creator and Good Engineer making use of existing mechanisms: still sparing the rod will spoil the child - it will guarantee a criminal child, and if enough people do it (as is happening today) then you will guarantee a criminal society.
OK, most people have enough common-sense to know all that. Why aren't they doing it? WHY AREN'T PARENTS DOING THEIR JOB? Well, basically because they're not allowed to. All this common-sense is becoming uncommon. The inmates have taken over the asylum, and they've decided that what has worked for millenia is no longer allowable. What we've been building towards for millenia (a universal civilisation) falls by the wayside because someone got their bottom stung as a child, and decided they'll make sure that can never happen to anyone ever again - that's their power trip.
And they've made very sure that it can't happen in schools either. For a couple of centuries there we've had public schools implementing public standards. We still do. However, someone's pulled the mat out from under those public standards, and it is no longer permissable to enforce morals on amoral (that means without morals, rather than actively bad) children. We used to have the schools back-stopping society, and if the parents didn't do the job then the kids would learn what was not acceptable at school. Now the public standards we implement are basically "do as thou wilt is all of the law". Unless of course what you will is civilising wild humans - that isn't allowable.
Which is a long-winded way of leading up to what someone else said - hang on to your hats, it's going to be a Hell of a ride.
Unless you can get together with like-minded people and take back civilisation. Big ask, big task - but the rewards are big too - things like survival of civilisation.
-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), February 22, 2002.
Yes it is going downhill fast. Parents are the number one reason. The schools want to teach "My Two Mommies" and "My Daddy's Best Friend" among other topics and most parents don't care. Many other parents are afraid of spanking their children because the local police may arrest them for child abuse. If all the parents were to band together to change what and how their children are being taught then we would see some improvement. Comparing society today with past cultures doesn't work. The only fair comparison to make is within our own lifetimes (IMHO) and in my lifetime I have seen the office of the President shamed, "alternative" lifestyle becoming a normal class beginning in kintergarten, and many/many/many other items that are too numerous to list.
-- Mike (uyk7@hotmail.com), February 22, 2002.
While I whole-heartedly agree that parents are the # 1 deterrent for children misbehaving, today's' society doesn't let us parent as effectively as our parents and grand parents did. You can't punish your children without being threatened to have them taken away and you tossed in the hoosegow. I mean honest punishment, not beating within an inch of their life.I know many great parents that have faced jail for spanking their children in public. One woman, was an upstanding Marine, who happened to be a single parent. They were in the mall when her son started running around and knocking over mannequins (sp??). She swatted him on the butt once, was reported by the non-child having clerk for child abuse and spent the night in jail, while her son was taken to a foster facility. Doesn't' make any sense. Why is it that its normally people who don't have children that tell you how you can and cannot deal with them? because they are educated? I think not.
When society gets it's noses out of our business and off our backs and allows us to parent, then everything will go back to the way it was, or as close to it as possible. Until then, we have to live with younger people who don't respect anything, or even themselves, because they weren't effectively taught right from wrong.
-- Wendy A (phillips-anteswe@pendleton.usmc.mil), February 22, 2002.
Again I have to say, I'm 19, was never spanked or even grounded and I think I turned out pretty well. I love and respect my parents and have yet to get pregnant or arrested! In regards to the current policies on child abuse, when my father was a child, his stepdad beat him and broke his nose and when he told the local sheriff, he was laughed at. So I guess it just depends on your upbringing as to how you view the policies. It's hard for the state to tell the difference between a man beating a child for fun, and a beating when the child has done wrong. very hard to prove in court, so I guess they are trying to err on the side of the childrens physical safety.
-- Elizabeth (Lividia66@aol.com), February 22, 2002.
"When society gets it's noses out of our business and off our backs and allows us to parent"Sorry, Wendy, ain't gunna happen - at least not just like that. A lot of - using the term loosely, people - have put a lot of effort into ensuring that you aren't allowed to parent normally, but instead must act the way they dictate - again, that's their power trip. You're right about most of what you said, but the fact is that society won't just butt out - they've had just about a generation (20-25 years) of propaganda that the right thing to do is to NOT civilise children. It will actually take a large amount of work to reverse the mind-set they've taught to most people of parenting age.
SETI - Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence - one of the big questions is - since their must be SO MANY intelligent races out their - why can't we hear any sign of them? Well, I'm beginning to understand - we've had radio in one way or another for about a century - what odds that we'll have it in a century more? Or two centuries more?
It would take a really positive effort on many people's part to keep civilisation moving forward. It's a FULL GENERATION ALREADY since man last walked on the moon, and if we started trying hard again tomorrow it would take a decade before we could do it again. No hope, no dream, no future - that's what you've delivered yourselves to - that's the mind-set you the USA have allowed to take over your country, and our world.
At the moment you have a president who might be amenable to recapturing some dreams. I'm sure he's by no means ideal either, but he probable has to be at least a little better than someone whose main aim in life was to take advantage of little fat girls who grew up with an inferiority complex, and would deliver their selves, and their idea of self-worth, to the President of the USA's cigar. It has to be up to you - my nation, and my nation's government, simply can't do that job. China might, and Japan is well on the way, but if not them (and I don't regard them as ideal) then it has to be you.
-- Don Armstrong (from Australia) (darmst@yahoo.com.au), February 22, 2002.
If the government handles it, crime really would NOT pay...
-- joj (jump@off.c), February 22, 2002.
I've always liked this quote I read somewhere. "Children aren't little angels to be guided, their rebels who have to be taught to lay down their arms."
-- debra in ks (windfish@toto.net), February 22, 2002.
The fact of the matter is that a good portion of those parents who don't parent are part of the generation that wasn't parented itself. They simply don't know how. Or they were raised in the "ME" generation and have come out of it with the idea that what they want is paramount, be that a career, family, money, possessions, etc. People no longer take into consideration that every decision they make for their life affects their children, should they have them. God forbid procreation should get in the way of people having what they WANT.I heard a line once in a movie -- I forget even what movie it was -- but it was about teenage pregnancy. The teenage father was talking to the girls mother about why these things happen. In a burst of enlightened intelligence (of which not much had been shown) this rather dim young man said, "the fact is, anybody can have a kid. You have to buy a licence to have a dog, but ANYBODY is allowed to have a kid."
People wonder why I homeschool. They ask me about "socialization" for my children. I nod, and smile, and then pleasantly tell them that in my opinion, sending my little boys to public school would be akin to sending them for jail-training. I would have no control over what they see, hear, and accept as fact for eight hours out of every day. Further, I am their mother -- and I didn't have them for someone else to raise.
I seldom punish my children -- simply because as toddlers they were not told they were "cute" every time they misbehaved. Now that they are 8 and 6 -- it's very seldom that I have to lay down the law. They know right from wrong, period. I have been lucky in that my husband shares the view with me that material possessions mean nothing if our children are not happy. Therefore, we go without some things -- but I am home raising my children. I understand that this is not possible for everyone -- society has decreed it -- but I do feel it is optimum.
-- Tracy (trimmer31@hotmail.com), February 22, 2002.
Hello Folks,I have to say that probably one of the most dangerous places in this country is in nearly everyones living room! Television! This is where nearly everyone of ALL generations have developed their moral and social skills! If most would just remove that trouble maker out of their lives, they would soon see what is causing most of the countrys ills.
Around here, we have no crime to speak of. Most people never ever take the keys out of their vehicles or lock their doors at home. Everyone waves as you drive by! Its a large county but, there is less than 9,000 people living in it. We all know each other.
The nearest town has about 600 people. Out of the population there is probably 100 motorcyclists. They are great people and bother no one. Even they, leave the keys, helmets, and leather jackets on their bikes without worry of someone ripping them off.
Meli and I were pretty fortunate to find a place like this. It is such a contrast to the City of Orlando, from which we moved from a few years ago.
Sincerely, Ernest
-- Http://communities.msn.com/livingoffthelandintheozarks (espresso42@hotmail.com), February 22, 2002.
The short answer is; Yes, and has been for some time (a 2000yr old Egyptian clay tablet said "the young people are today inferior to their parents"), but especially since we began to look down on mothers who preferred to stay at home to raise their own children. I have two married nephews in Silicon Valley, each of whom pays their child's nursery school about what I was paid as a tool and die maker (in Oregon) before I retired. They feel trapped into that lifestyle by mortgages, credit card debts, SUV payments etc., etc. and both say that they would go nuts if they didn't get up to Oregon every year.I remind them that nearly 30 years ago I was in the same place, in the same trap, that I chewed my foot off and with my wife and two kids (6 and 8 yrs), moved to Oregon. It lamed us financially, seriously in the Reagan Recession when all my kind of work went back to CA and I declined to follow, but we wanted the kids to grow in a quality of life similar to our own childhood (wife; rural So.Cal., me; rural southern pre-WW2 England) and to form their own opinions. Both girls got through college (largely through their own efforts) drug-free, pregnancy-free and after the first college hangover, pretty much beer-free. They fled immediately like homing pigeons to big cities; one into teaching and the other, after 5 years Peace Corps, to nursing but they still love to come and back up to the woodstove. Country living is highly addictive.
Now, as to drugs: Unlike some species it has rubbed against, the human race can hardly be considered to be endangered (inner-city dwellers apart) as far as numbers are concerned, but the quality is undoubtably diminishing, due in no small part to drugs.
Here's a tentative suggestion/proposal that could solve more than just the drug problem: Legalise all drugs! For these reasons; (1) The price of drugs will implode. (2) Dealers and manufacturers will have to get real jobs. (3) We will save literally billions of dollars in taxes because the Drug Enforcement Industry* will become obsolete. (4) Rentals, motel rooms, junked trailers, forest trails and creeks will no longer be poisoned by the residue of thousands of small meth labs. (5) The resources freed up would be more than adequate to rehabilitate the casualties of the "drug war" and the surplus could help those that have become unemployed/homeless because their jobs were exported. (6) Don't mean to ruffle any religious feathers, but a certain amount of - dare I say it? (I deleted "Darwinism") natural selection would take place and a better society would emerge. Civilisation may reverse direction - up, instead of down.
Sorry to vent like that, but some of the previous posts tripped my switch. I will now lie down and expose my throat to those I've offended.
-- Griff in OR (griff@hangnail.com), February 22, 2002.
I won't assault you Griff because I agree. I agree with the others too who lay the responsibility on the parents but the media is also to blame. Some of the mindless stuff you see on the tube is such garbage. People wring their hands, wondering why there's so much mindless violence. All you gotta do is watch the tube and you'll get a clue.
-- john (natlivent@pcpros.net), February 22, 2002.
Yes, society is degenerating. It is a natural result of our country's rebellion against God. "If my people, called by my Name, will turn from evil, I will heal their land".The current trend will continue unless their is wholesale repentance. If man does not submit to God's authority, he will have to submit to man's authority and that is historicaly tranical and despotic. Consider human nature. AKA: sin nature.
I say this not to be dogmatic but just as a statement of fact and truth as taught in Scripture. If any culture would follow the principles for goverment and society and rule set forth in God's word there would be a measure of success for that culture. The Golden Rule.
-- LBD, Maryland` (lavenderbluedilly@hotmail.com), February 23, 2002.
ONE of the things that I have noticed is ppl cant seem to do anything for themselves. I work for a lawn care co. we mow grass & have a lot of very wealthy ppl we do work for.Now there is nothing wrong with having lots of money & a nice BIG!! home. But most of these ppl cant or wont do anything for themselves. Wil not mow their own grass,will not rake leaves,will not shovel snow. wont even clean doggy doo off their front porch!! It just makes one wander what will these ppl do if the Arabs decieded no more oil for us.no more gas for their 40thousand$ cars.what will they do when theres no more krogers or big bear stores or malls for them to go to!! Look to the gov to take care of them i guess. Yes society is messed up.
-- DAVE COYNER (DKOINER@WEBTV.NET), February 23, 2002.
Loke many other situations, the best thing about our country causes one of the worst things about our country. The best thing is its tolerance and inclusion of diversity. I don't know about y'all, but I'd fight to keep from turning AMerica into a monoculture country just as I fight against monoculture cropping. It's bad for everyone in the long run. However, the downside to this is also tied up in another of the great things about our country - the fact that we peacefully change governments on a running, cyclical basis. New presidents, congressmen, etc. This means that the government cannot afford to enforce morality, because it quickly becomes "Whose morality are we enforcing this administration?" Yours, mine, Christian, Pagan, Jewish, Agnostic, Atheist...? Since the popular opinion and beliefs of this ocunty swell and blend like a giant lava lamp, what is moralistic one day (slavery, anybody?) is tomorrows evil. So, the answer is harder than it appears. If our government does enforce morality, we have to settle for whoever gets elected. Big diff between living with the news reports of the morality of Bill Clinton and George Bush, and ENFORCING it. Personally, I'm interested in neither the skirt chasing nor the elitist drug culture of white politians. Would hate to have these morals enforced nationwide.
-- Soni (thomkilroy@hotmail.com), February 23, 2002.
Dave, if there weren't people willing to pay for services like that, a lot of people would be out of work. Not all are rich, some are just extremely busy, or have other commitments (an elderly parent, children to care for, etc.).When you make $$$ an hour, it is no longer cost effective to do certain things (and everyone has their own opinion about what those things are). It really is no different from swapping babysitting for checkbook balancing, except money is changing hands. I'm willing to bet that most people CAN do those things if they had to, or would simply get rid of (the pet, or get a house without a pool, for example) the item requiring the extra care.
It is the market that determines which jobs are worth more money than others, and what allows a lot of people to be employed in service businesses where they can set their own hours. Now, as the population gets older, there will be lots of opportunities for service businesses, or people will just switch to low-maintenance yards, houses, etc. So, more opportunities for enterprising, honest people. Always two sides to it.
-- GT (nospam@nospam.com), February 23, 2002.
ok. i'm late, as often happens. yes, crime pays. criminals who get released often commit another crime b/c life inside is so much easier than outside. they have satellite, free room, board, weight lifting, etc. and they don't have to do anything. outside they have to work. horror of horrors. da's won't prosecute many times b/c they know the bad guy will just get a slap on the wrist and they don't care to go to court unless they have an unbeatable case. cops arrest drunks, etc just to have them back out a few hours later. i'm real close to a cop or two, so i know some of the inside stuff. it's an ugly world, and will only get uglier as long as the criminals have more rights than the victims. and most cops will tell you there are very few innocent victims that they run into. a few are, but some victims are somewhere doing something they know they shouldn't be, and then cry when they get hurt, then refuse to testify and go right back to the same situation.
-- laura (okgoatgal@hotmail.com), April 09, 2002.