March 06, 2007
Freedom, Jessica Lunsford, and America
She was 9 years old. Abducted from her bed in the middle of the night by a pedophile with a record of such crimes, she was terrorized, tied up with speaker wire, sexually molested and tortured, and suffocated. The perpetrator then discarded her body like garbage, used up, and no longer of any use to him. Jessica Lunsford is no longer with us.
We as Americans should never forget this young girl's name or, the terror and horror she experienced in her last remaining hours with us, her society, charged with her protection and care. America failed this innocent young girl, and many, many thousands of other boys and girls, women and men, who are subjected to similar kinds of terror, torture, humiliation, degradation, and too often death, at the hands of a society that profits in the billions of dollars each year from the exploitation of desire and want.
Let me be absolutely clear here. The perpetrator of Jessica Lunsford's horrible end, made a decision and acted on it. There is no defense for his actions by trying to blame society for who he became. For even if the case is made that the perpetrator is a product of the society in which he was raised and conditioned, that case in no way alleviates his responsibility as the decider of his own actions. At best, the argument can only be made that both the perpetrator and his society are responsible for Jessica Lunsford's last terrible night alive. We can punish the perpetrator, remove him from society, but do we not also bear the responsibility for insuring others like him are not produced allowed to roam free amongst us?
Every great society since the earliest recorded times, which fell, saw its fall preceded by a decay and abandon of responsibility (the ability to respond appropriately) by growing segments of its population who mistook freedom as freedom to appease their appetites in any manner that sated them. Gluttony was a hallmark of Rome in its decline, open and state sponsored enslaved prostitution of children and adults of both sexes preceded the fall of Ancient Greece and Rome. All great societies saw abandonment of basic human dignity which evolves from close knit communities and agriculturally based family neighborhoods, precede their decline as a society.
America's advertising and marketing industry has created the greatest exploitive industry of human dignity the world has ever seen. One cannot watch TV, listen to radio, drive a highway, or walk a city street without seeing the pedaling of sex, desire, and want in the vast majority of commercials, billboards, and advertising signs. The psychological effect of billions of dollars spent each year to whet but, not satisfy, appetites for wealth, sexual gratification, and gluttony take a toll on members of our society who for whatever reasons, have lost or, never acquired self-control and selective discrimination regarding what influences their passions, motivation, and behavior.
This effect of our marketing and advertising industry on the mentally and emotionally weakest of our population, is treated as the cost of doing business. Jessica Lunsford's life was the cost of doing business in a society overwhelmed and inundated by sexual advertising and teasing. This industry touts wide eyed baby faced, and under-developed models as a beckon to arousal toward the youngest in our society. This industry has made youth a commodity to be sought and yes, tragically, consumed and discarded as Jessica Lunsford's lifeless body was. Our divorce courts are filled with couples painfully yielding to the weaker partner's desire for a younger more unspoiled partner.
Freedom to exploit human beings for personal gain comes in many forms. Many Americans would argue that America, since the Civil Rights Act, no longer engages in slavery or exploitation of fellow Americans based on race, gender, or creed. But, they are deluded and factually wrong. Corporations exploit labor. Union leadership often exploits union members. The marketing and advertising industry exploits the gender of women and girls for profit, and our government exploits illegal immigrants for political purposes.
The ACLU exploits the Bill of Rights to defend pornography and pedophilia in marketing and advertising as "freedom of speech", failing to recognize that freedom comes with responsibility at all levels of society, not just the individual. Our politicians exploit the criminal behavior within our prison and jail system as a deterrent to citizens ever risking arrest and detainment, all the while turning a blind eye to the violence, gangs, and rapes that take place within our so called, correctional institutions.
America began as a dream of uplifting and protecting human and individual dignity and worth. It remains a dream unfulfilled. To herald and revere monetary success while depriving access to it to the majority of its citizens, is a catastrophe in the making. To market and sell products based on models appearing underage and ripe for seduction through the purchase of a product is a clear path to growing child molestation and exploitation. To herald democracy and majority rule by every politician at every level while governing according to the whims and desires of the most wealthy and influential is political revolution in the making.
It is long past time Americans united to create integrity in what America stands for, lives for, and acts according to. We can no longer afford to keep prostitution illegal while marketing sex on every billboard and commercial. Either make prostitution a legal, safe, and responsible industry, or end the marketing of cars and toothpastes based on sexual excitement and desire. We cannot afford to have it both ways anymore. The terrorized, tortured, and murdered Jessica Lunsfords of our society demand that America grow up and become responsible for this nation's actions and consequences of them.
Decadence precedes the fall of all great nations in history. Is decadence and the decay of the value of human worth a necessary component of America's free enterprise system and its entrepreneurial paradigm? Is the degradation of fellow Americans a natural and predictable consequence of freedom of speech and protecting individual liberty? I don't think it needs to be this way.
But, I know that this issue is up to the people to correct at the ballot box. Those who make billions exploiting human psyches, sexual appearance, and youth have the best lawyers money can buy to insure they continue to make billions of dollars in this manner. They will fight us, the people, with every dollar at their disposal. After all, what is the cost of Jessica Lunsford's torture and death to them?
Posted by David R. Remer at March 6, 2007 10:42 AMNot sure if I entirely follow the argument; The sexaully charged images are bad because they dehumanize women and girls. We can’t combat it so let’s legalize prostitution so that the perverts that are being created have an outlet? Isn’t prostitution dehumanizing?
Not saying that I disagree with the legalization question but the argument that is made seems quite defeatist.
Posted by: Mike at March 6, 2007 01:06 PMIn many Muslim countries this is the rationale behind the lay forcing women to wear a veil; it prevents men from having impure thoughts. Only, it doesn’t work - there are rapists in those countries too in even higher numbers.
Posted by: Max at March 6, 2007 01:21 PMI think we all know what the problem is.
Who are the pedophiles?
Who are the rapists?
Who responds to sexy females in advertising?
Who is the sexy advertising aimed at?
Posted by: womanmarine at March 6, 2007 01:29 PMMike, I didn’t say we couldn’t combat the marketing and advertising industry. You may want to read the article again. Combating the marketing and advertising industry and other industries which exploit humans as meat for consumption, shaping the values and subconscious thinking of children and young people is what this article advocates for.
Personally, I think prostitution should be made legal, regulated, contractual and taken out of the public eye altogether, instead of alluded to as in Las Vegas commercials which state “What you do here stays here”.
Posted by: David R. Remer at March 6, 2007 01:32 PMMax, care to back that claim up with some authoritative resources?
Posted by: David R. Remer at March 6, 2007 01:33 PMwomanmarine, since the disco era, marketers and advertisers have been incrementalizing their appeal to females with advertising as well. Sex ads aimed at females is also now a very lucrative industry. The approach is different, the exploitation is the same.
Posted by: David R. Remer at March 6, 2007 01:35 PMDavid:
But, the result you imply in your article is not the same.
Posted by: womanmarine at March 6, 2007 01:37 PMWomanmarine,
Your conclusion is that all men are evil and women are pure and saintly?
David,
You think rape and exploitation of women and children is less in societies that cover women’s body and faces and encourage shame based killings of women who are raped? Do you have data to back that?
Posted by: gergle at March 6, 2007 01:40 PMGergle:
Absolutely not. But they are the majority of the offenders.
Posted by: womanmarine at March 6, 2007 01:41 PMgergle, it is illogical to deduce anything from my asking for data to support a position. My asking for data to support a position says nothing about what I believe to be true or not.
Do you have data? If I had data, I wouldn’t be asking for it. Duh!
According to the most recent UCR publication, 95,136 forcible rapes were reported in the United States for the year 2002 (FBI, 2003). This equates to an incidence of 64.8 reported attempted or forcible rapes for every 100,000 women and girls. Approximately 91% of these victims reported rapes by force, with the remaining 9% reporting attempts to commit forcible rape.
Note, these statistics from the FBI DO NOT include rape of males, nor statutory rape, nor the large number of unreported incidents.
Posted by: David R. Remer at March 6, 2007 01:56 PMThe Justice Department says that 8 percent of all American women will be victims of rape or attempted rape in their lifetime.
Posted by: David R. Remer at March 6, 2007 01:59 PMDavid:
The psychological effect of billions of dollars spent each year to whet but, not satisfy, appetites for wealth, sexual gratification, and gluttony take a toll on members of our society who for whatever reasons, have lost or, never acquired self-control and selective discrimination regarding what influences their passions, motivation, and behavior.
Check the statistics. The majority of offenders, i.e. pedophiles, rapists, etc. are men. This is not conjecture. While there seems to be increasing advertising aimed at women, I suspect (I do not know, only my own response) that it is less effective and less of a trigger for these types of problems. I really think the advertising would NOT be effective at all if the “never acquired self-control and selective discrimination regarding what influences their passions, motivation, and behavior” were addressed early in both the home and school. We are too much a society that wants to keep these things from the schools and aren’t being addressed adequately in the home.
Please don’t get me wrong like gergle was wont to do. We all realize it is not all men, and that there are women in the same group. But we are not being honest about what the real problem is, in so many ways.
Posted by: womanmarine at March 6, 2007 02:00 PMwomanmarine, while I agree with you an all your points, there are multiple headlines and incidents of female teachers raping male students “statutorily” in the last 18 months.
It is no longer the unique province of males. Though as you say, males account for the vast majority of such crimes. That said, you may want to research female rape of females in our correctional institutions. It is an eye opening body of data.
Posted by: David R. Remer at March 6, 2007 02:24 PMDavid:
I’m not sure of your point? I am aware of the data. I have never said that females weren’t affected or perpetrators. The gap is still quite large.
I also recognize a significant difference between forcible rape and “statutory” rape.
Posted by: womanmarine at March 6, 2007 02:28 PMwomanmarine
Who are the pedophiles?,/blockquote>
Sometimes I think it’s the ad executives and the company executives that use little kids dressed like adults to sell their products.
Who are the rapists?The scum of society.
Who responds to sexy females in advertising?Just about every straight male. And a whole heap of females. It’s easy to figure why the males respond. The females respond because they want to be like the female in the ad. BTW, They also use ‘sexy?’ males to get responses by females.
Who is the sexy advertising aimed at?Everyone that sees it.
I took a college course in advertising a few years ago. The first thing the teacher told us was sex sells. The whole direction of the course was to use sex to get your targeted audience attention.
Posted by: Ron Brown at March 6, 2007 03:08 PMwomanmarine, we seem to be in agreement.
Posted by: David R. Remer at March 6, 2007 03:22 PMDavid:
I’m not so sure we are, although we are many times :)
I don’t think legalizing prostitution will prevent these crimes. I don’t think changing the advertising will prevent these problems. What about films, books, magazines? I don’t think these problems are triggered that much by any of these things. The problem goes much deeper.
Posted by: womanmarine at March 6, 2007 03:34 PMRon, quite right. There isn’t a marketing course in college that doesn’t stress that marketing to biological needs sells - HUGE! If people have an appetite, marketing to it regardless of how foreign the product is to that appetite, sells big time.
Which is why cigarettes were marketed as having sex appeal, and British Petroleum markets itself as air friendly. Lies, lies, and more lies, and consumers respond by purchasing. The goal of marketers for corporations is design the ad in such a way as to lull the audience into suspending their disbelief. BP and Exxon/Mobil are notorious for this type of marketing.
Having spent 12.8 million dollars refuting global climate change data, Exxon/Mobil is now marketing itself as a foe of global climate change pollutants. It is truly amazing how most of our citizens are gullible to such techniques and susceptible at the subconscious level to wanting to emulate the actors/models by purchasing the product they advertise.
Vanity! It is the greatest marketing tool ever. Sex is the second greatest. Hunger is third, in this country. Not so in many other countries. Try selling vanity in Somalia or Darfur. There hunger and security would be the tools to use, if there were a consumer base and for-profit food and security services.
I would go so far as to say, one can measure the affluence of a society against others by its relative marketing use of vanity and sex as sales tools.
Posted by: David R. Remer at March 6, 2007 03:35 PMwomanmarine, Now we do disagree! Las Vegas is not even in the list of top 100 crime cities along with Detroit, Miami, Atlanta and many smaller ones. Yet, Las Vegas has legal prostitution.
Raging sexual hormones in males are a bit like a pressure cooker. If release is not found which leaves self-esteem and pride intact, then release which degrades self-esteem and pride will follow in a great many cases. Marketing and advertising shape to a large degree what males deem as outlets which uplift and degrade self-esteem and pride.
China is having to address this issue in a monumental way, due to the fact that their one child policy resulted in less preferred female children aborted in deference to culture preferences to male children, which has left 10’s of millions of Chinese males without the hope or prospect of finding a mate for marriage. It will be a fascinating sociological study to see how effectively and humanely China deals with this.
Posted by: David R. Remer at March 6, 2007 03:47 PMDavid, womanmarine
While prostitution is legal in the Nevada it’s not legal in Las Vegas. According to a friend that lived there for around 18 years Nevada law makes prostitution illegal in counties with a population of more than 200,000. Clark County, where Las Vegas is, has a population of more than than 200,000. That makes prostitution illegal there.
I doubt very much that making prostitution legal will lower the rape statistics as rape from everything I’ve been told isn’t really a crime that all about sex. But a crime of exercising power and control over someone else. Either way it’s among the most revolting crimes there is and rapist need to at worst spend the rest for their miserable lives in prison. At best they’d be executed.
Ron,
You are technically correct, but legal prostitution is available by a very short drive to a neighoring county. So anyone in Las Vegas who would rather pay for sex than go without or be a bit overagressive with a date can quite easily avail themselves of that service.
Posted by: Rhinehold at March 6, 2007 04:34 PMRaging sexual hormones in males are a bit like a pressure cooker. If release is not found which leaves self-esteem and pride intact, then release which degrades self-esteem and pride will follow in a great many cases. Marketing and advertising shape to a large degree what males deem as outlets which uplift and degrade self-esteem and pride.
Now we really disagree. There is no such thing as “raging hormones” causing rape. It is a power issue. And way too many good men can handle thier “raging hormones” without being affected in the way you imply.
I could say way more, but then you’d ban me :)
Posted by: womanmarine at March 6, 2007 04:35 PMDavid,
Unless laws have recently changed prostitution is illegal in Vegas. It’s legal in Nevada in general but I believe certain counties and municipalities have outlawed it. I believe there’s also a “population limitation”, but I’ve not been to Nevada in many years.
Good article though. I agree that we, as a nation, are slipping into a dangerous state of affairs, although I’d add narcissism to your list of ills, both as cause and effect.
Posted by: KansasDem at March 6, 2007 04:39 PMI have to agree with KansasDem that narcissism is much more of an issue than anything else with the current state of our society. I’m not sure if it is genetic or we are teaching our children to be this way but the very real mental condition of narcisssim is increasing in ‘popularity’ it seems.
Posted by: Rhinehold at March 6, 2007 04:59 PMRhinehold,
I have to admit I spoke too soon about their being more rapes in Muslim countries. I have no doubt it’s true, but the numbers are not accurately reported. Rape is common in these countries, but any women who admits to being raped is stoned to death. Also, there is literally an epidemic of Muslim men raping women in western Europe. Apparently, they feel the women were asking for it, because of the way they dress. With all due respect, this logic is not too far from your own. This guy was a sick man. TV didn’t force him to do what he did.
Posted by: Max at March 6, 2007 05:30 PMwomanmarine, I don’t know if you are female or not, but, as a male experiencing raging hormones during adolescence and my 20’s, I can tell you from personal experience it is powerful and unrelenting, especially when augmented by cultural expectations of the male to prove himself viable between the ages of 15 and 30.
Do some research on it. My psychology degree required that we review some research on the matter and there is a ton of it out there. Hormones can and do influence behavior. Many clinical researches have been performed demonstrating this accepted fact of human behavior. In severe cases hormones can be a major contributory cause of acts like murder and suicide, as drug induced high testosterone levels prove in both animals and humans.
At issue here however, is the social and cultural conditioning that works on people’s value systems and expectations of themselves and others.
I am not arguing that our society can do away with acts of violence or other crime. I am arguing there is much our society can do to minimize it, not the least of which is to stop glorifying and role playing it in young people’s games, on TV and in print media and advertising.
Posted by: David R. Remer at March 6, 2007 05:46 PMKansas Dem, you may be right about the Nevada vs. Las Vegas law. Legal in Nevada, not within Las Vegas city limits. I saw a program however, where prostitutes work the hotels in Las Vegas, frowned upon by hoteliers officially, but, who turn a blind eye to high roller customer’s preferences.
Posted by: David R. Remer at March 6, 2007 05:48 PMBill O’Reilly brings up these things all the time, usually in the context of some judge who gives a child molestor probation or an ACLU lawsuit that lets one out.
This kind of behavior is nothing new. The evil is always with us and always has been. It probably always will be. We can control it, but not elimiate it. It becomes more of a problem when we try to blame television or “society” in the macro sense.
Limit the molestor’s opportunities, catch them when you can and make sure they stay punished and under control.
You cannot remove all the sexual cues from society. Little boys and girls are no safer from sexual exploitation in strict religious societies where women are covered and cloistered. I sure would not let my little boy play alone in Osama’s camp.
Posted by: Jack at March 6, 2007 05:50 PMRon Brown, be careful about your comments about rapists. A little known fact is that our soldiers are routinely court martialed in other nations for rape.
Are you really advocating we throw our soldiers in Japan in jail and throw away the key for rape? It is a horrible crime, but there are environments and conditions that make some individuals more prone to the crime than they would be under other circumstances and conditions.
I agree, control and power are big parts of the act of rape. But to say its not sex, its power, does not truly represent the full context of the crime. It is sex. And the act is gratifying to rapists.
Posted by: David R. Remer at March 6, 2007 05:54 PMDavid
You do not need to bring up U.S. troops. I bet they have a lower incident of that crime and most others than a comparable group of young males outside the service. They are certainly better behaved than UN troops or those of most other nations.
Posted by: Jack at March 6, 2007 08:54 PMJack, of course you would like to think that. And our government would not want to release comparative statistics if in fact, the incidence is higher per capita of men among soldiers. I searched and could not find any statistics. That is remarkable.
And don’t you think, given military law, that we should expect to hold our soldiers to a higher standard than the civilian population? They are after all, our ambassadors to other peoples in other nations in which they are introduced.
Posted by: David R. Remer at March 6, 2007 08:59 PMAccording to the FBI’s crime clock, there were 95,563 forcible rapes last year. (that’s reported forcible rapes, the actual number could be significantly higher).
893,371 aggravated assaults reported.
444,169 robberies reported
16,222 murders reported
and a whopping 7,008,000 larceny-thefts. (May include Congress and other politicians. Might explain the high number. :-)
Posted by: David R. Remer at March 6, 2007 09:43 PMJack, if we are talking about rape, why should I not bring up rapes committed by our soldiers? Just curious - do those not count because the many of the victims are not American, but Japanese, S. Korean, or other nationalities?
Posted by: David R. Remer at March 6, 2007 09:45 PMJack, so you think there is no role for our society in shaping non-criminal behavior in our schools, media, and marketing?
Odd, even for a Republican.
Posted by: David R. Remer at March 6, 2007 09:47 PMDavid
You could bring up our soldiers. Or you could bring up students at Ivy League universities, or you could use workers at fast food restaurants, or you could choose any number of groups of young males. I have not actually looked it up, but I bet you the crime rate (and rape rate) among men 18-22 in higher in most those other walks of life. Making U.S. soldiers the example implies a special problem.
Re society shaping behavior - of course it makes a difference, but how is hard to tell. The crime rate jumped in the middle of the 1960s. I am sure the looser morality of that time had something to do with it. But then it began to drop in the early 1990s. (Although still not as low as the pre-1960s levels). People argue re why that happened.
In any case, crime rates today are lower than they were in 1990, so what society has been doing for the past 17 years is evidently better than what it did from 1965-1990. Of course, there is probably a significant lag time, so we cannot say exactly when we started to do the right thing again, much less what that was.
Posted by: Jack at March 6, 2007 10:03 PMWoman marine and David:
My point is that all males are not the problem. Sexual attitudes are. Rape is a crime of violence and domination. In a largely heterosexual male dominated society…Surprise!!!..it’s male’s who commit most of the crime.
The wishy washy and prudish attitudes of society toward teenage girls leads to some of the pecularities of the statutory situation.
It is highly likely that rape is much higher in strongly male dominant societies…including morally upstanding and proper ones. However given the likelyhood of the victim being honor killed, stats are a little difficult to find.
Recognizing sexuality as a non-shameful behavior of all human animals, instead of repression, will lead us away from forcible and innapropiate behaviors. Japan, though not without it’s own violence and male dominating societal features, has much more open sexual attitudes and far lower rape rates.
While not at all excusing the creep who killed Jessica, I am disturbed by the new pedophilia devils we are creating in the media, and the “can’t say anything too bad or do anything too bad to ‘em attitude being promulgated in the name of decency.
Posted by: gergle at March 7, 2007 02:25 AM“Raging sexual hormones in males are a bit like a pressure cooker. If release is not found which leaves self-esteem and pride intact, then release which degrades self-esteem and pride will follow in a great many cases. Marketing and advertising shape to a large degree what males deem as outlets which uplift and degrade self-esteem and pride.”
This reminds me of the “Blue Balls” excuse of young teen boys to get into the pants of young girls. We are expected to control our hormones.
David, I absolutely agree with you re the sexualisation of children, particularly teenage girls. It seems that in western countries we have largely discarded the foundation of the moral order that informed peoples values, ie, Christianity. Now, all too often its ” If it feels good, do it”, or perhaps our personal individual fulfillment is the highest ideal we can strive for. We always talk about rights, seldom about responsibilities.
As some of the above contributors have mentioned, marketers cynically use children or seek to influence them regardless of the damage they can do. Just for example, take teenage girls. The magazines, the TV programs, the popular music, the advertising, all seem to be attempting to drive our young women to a sense of compulsion to behave in a certain way, to think in a certain way, to look a certain way. No wonder eating disorders are raging through the young. If they don’t conform to the ideal image presented, they are left to feel inadequate and insecure, uncool. We allow this filth to target the minds of our young people when they are at very vulnerable ages. And yet, at least most of us, do nothing. Have we as societies lost any sense of outrage? Or is it that, having discarded the simple truths of the past, we no longer have the confidence to decide what is right and what is wrong, in situations where the commercial interests are promulgating overwhelmingly images that equate peoples intrinsic worth with the capacity to consume and to conform.
Is Western civilsation falling into decay and decadance and dissolution? Funny, with education at its most widespread throughout the western world, we seem to act increasingly like sheep. Gandhi, once asked what he thought of Western civilisation, replied that he thought it would be a good idea. As the father of a teenage daughter, I am well aware of the pressures upon her to conform to what the hers peers and the media require of her. I remember myself, as a teenager, struggling to find meaning and my place in the world, how difficult that was. But I didn’t face anything like the difficulties that todays young people have to negotiate. And those difficulties are there because we allow our children to be targeted as commodities and sexual beings long before they are ready. Because we are unwilling to shout stop. I think maybe the west is in decline, because it seems only a minority of people can stay free of the dictatorship of conformity, and the rest follow the shallow culture like lemmings over the clifftops.
Posted by: Paul in Euroland at March 7, 2007 09:13 AMDavid
As you might have guessed from previous post I have a whole heap of respect for our military personnel. But that doesn’t mean that I’ll condone a GI raping someone.
If they’re guilty of a crime they should be treated the same as a civilian. Maybe more harshly because they have brought disgrace on the military. And if they committed the crime overseas they have also brought disgrace on their country. I’m not for cutting any breaks for someone that disgraces their country. If anything they need to be treated more harshly.
I don’t know if you were ever stationed overseas when you were in the Army, but the one thing they stressed before we shipped overseas is that we were representing the United States of America and our actions would reflect on the country as well as our branch of service and the military in general.
Jack
I think David was bringing up the military because he knows I’m retired military and have a whole heap of respect for our fighting folks.
And given the comment I made about rapist should be put in prison for the rest of their miserable lives I reckon it’s a fair question.
Fact is I have less use for a military person that commits a crime than other criminals.
Ron Brown,
I concure wholeheartedly. and Thank You.
Posted by: tomd at March 7, 2007 11:20 AMtomd said: “We are expected to control our hormones.”
We are expected to vote too! Look how that turned out. Just a little over half participate. We are expected to drive to the speed limit. More than half exceed it. More than 20 million Americans use illegal drugs. So much for expectations. Now on to something that might actually have some effect.
Stop marketing human beings as consumables.
Posted by: David R. Remer at March 7, 2007 11:31 AMRon, we agree entirely. No, I did not get shipped overseas. But, I was nonetheless made acutely aware of my ambassador role as a non-com in an Army base within a metropolitan city, San Antonio.
Posted by: David R. Remer at March 7, 2007 11:35 AMThe advertising goal of a corporation is to get name recognition for its product or products and by doing so, hopefully increase market share for the products.
The goal of advertising on the whole is to convince the American people that conforming to a hedonistic society is moral and good. A devotion to pleasure and self-gratification as a way of life by consumers is essential to corporate capitalism. Rugged individualism is no longer a major part of the culture and indeed it is frowned upon. If you want to move up today, it is far more important to look good and be well liked. Conformity is the name of the game today. So, don’t worry, be happy. The best way to be happy is to go out and buy something, especially something that will make you look better in the eyes of your peers.
Posted by: jlw at March 7, 2007 11:58 AMIndividuals are responsible for their own actions. The way to deal with all this is not to generalize back to society, but to recognize that we cannot eternally externalize our behavior, doing poorly unto others, exploiting others, without having things feedback towards us.
There seems to be two equally erroneous approaches to this at each end of the continuum, one being the hyper-puritanical denial of human impulses which nonetheless remain, and the other being the mindless, heedless denial of rules getting in the way of self-gratification.
We have to realize that we can both choose actions, and be compelled towards them, and that both are part of being a functional human being. Sex is part of what we have to deal with in society, and we end up dealing with it whether we try to surpress it or indulge in it to excess. the roots of other behavioers are the same.
What’s my approach? Integration and moderation. I say, don’t take the sex out of the media. take a richer, more mature perspective on it instead. Don’t remove the violence- violence happens. But don’t just eternally replay fantasies of unbridled violence. Deal with the consequences. Deal with times where people choose other courses of action. Deal with how it’s not appropriate, acknowledge the troubles.
In the end, we’re only human. We can’t banish sex and violence, we can’t hide from all the dark realities. What we can do, however, is not makes such idols out of them, false gods that become our demons.
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at March 7, 2007 12:16 PMStephen:
I agree. And this needs to occur in the home and in the schools. That is where values need to be established and taught. To blame society is a cop-out.
Posted by: womanmarine at March 7, 2007 12:53 PMStephen, womanmarine
WHAT’S GOING ON HERE?
I agree with both y’all at the same time.
Is the world coming to an end or something?
womanmarine, the home and schools are a huge a part OF the Society. Try running a society without either. They are included large in my call for society to wake up and address these issues.
We agree, you just don’t want to, but we do, anyway.
Posted by: David R. Remer at March 7, 2007 06:21 PMStephen D. Whoa! Bud! You said: “Individuals are responsible for their own actions.”
Are the mentally ill responsible? How about children? How about folks who are abused over years, are they responsible for their actions? How about our soldiers with PTSD, are they responsible? If so, why are we taxpayers helping them with 100’s of millions of dollars, if they are responsible.
How about the mentally challenged? Are they responsible? You sound like a Libertarian Republican, everyone is responsible and deserves whatever happens to them regardless of the circumstances or social conditions they find themselves subjected to.
And you call yourself a Democrat? Most people can and should be held responsible for their actions, but, that in no way alters the demonstrable truth that people’s behavior is shaped immensely by the society they are conditioned to. There is a reason most Arab Countries are Islamic and the U.S. is mostly Christian, and it is not Free Will or Free Choice. It is mostly determined by what country and neighborhood and family you were born and raised in.
Posted by: David R. Remer at March 7, 2007 06:28 PMjlw, well said, like lemmings over a cliff we consumers happily go.
Posted by: David R. Remer at March 7, 2007 06:30 PMThe death penalty should be mandatory for murderers and sex criminals. The mentally ill/challenged need to be supervised. If they commit these barbaric, atrocious acts, then they must bear the consequences.
Posted by: stubborn conservative at March 7, 2007 07:44 PMDavid R. Remer-
A person’s capacity and their past should be weighed in legal decisions, but weighed with a discerning eye towards what circumstances do and do not speak to concerning what they have done.
A soldier with PTSD should get treatment. The traumas actually create physiological changes in the brain, which cause, or at least add to the misery of the person.
I think you’re reading far too much into my response. I would be remiss if I said that you would let every killer, rapist and pedophile off scott free. You obviously don’t. I don’t believe we should discount neurological impairments, or psychological ones, if properly tested for and and established. However, I do believe that while group behavior can have a formative effect on its members, the influence can feedback in the other direction.
People think differently in groups, but they still have their own minds to some extent. What I advocate is that people break free of the group think for a time and reconsider their moral positions, what they’re doing and why they’re doing it.
I don’t think sentiments decrying sex and violence in the media help. The world isn’t that linear. Violence in the media can have an influential effect, but people can resist and choose to resist such influences. Additionally artists can create works where the sex and violence are not employed to sensationalist ends.
What we grow up with can be a starting point, but what we choose in the mean time can influence us as greatly, or even more greatly. Is it free will? Yes, I think so. Free choice? No such thing. All choices are constrained by means and opportunity, and all choices, once taken, make certain others more likely. The trick is, the environment in which these choices are made is incredibly complex, and so is the human mind.
I am a Democrat not because I believe society is responsible for everything, or that individuals can act as complete free agents like the libertarians and some Republicans say, but because I believe that government should be an actively engaged force in society, restrained by civil liberties and due process, but effectively able to serve the public interest.
Given that, I think the biggest mistake we can make is to take the utopian view that government can perfect society and we can simply prescribe an ideal society. Society is emergent, chaotic and while there are Islands of order within it, there are few things a government can perfectly determine.
But hey, that’s the reason to have a liberal democratic republic. Our good government is not created by a set of ideally written laws, but by the self-correcting processes that the constitution and its subsidiary laws allow and encourage. I believe we refine towards good government rather than define to it, because what divides good government from bad is so complex and particular to local events.
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at March 7, 2007 08:44 PMwomanmarine
No, welcome to the light side :)
David
Anyone with the ability to know right from wrong is responsible for their actions. It doesn’t matter if they were abused, have PTSD, 1 year old, or mentally ill. If they know right from wrong they are responsible for their actions. And yes even a 1 year old knows right from wrong even though they are still learning it. Why do you think they’ll look to see if your looking or not before doing something you’ve told them not to. Your daughter did it, my kids did it, my grand kids did it, and still do. You and me did it.
There are those though who for some reason doesn’t have the capacity to know right from wrong. A new born baby doesn’t, a severely retarded person doesn’t. Maybe they suffered brain damage that left them without the ability to know right from wrong. In these cases they aren’t responsible for what they do.
But most folks, even the very young do know right from wrong. And that makes them responsible for they’re actions.
Not to hold them responsible is making excuses for them. And excuses are nothing more than bald faced lies given for a lack of a reason.
Stephen D., thank you for the thoughtful response and I agree with most everything you said.
Utopia? No. Perfection? No. These are the aims of authoritarian regimes with the absolute power to command and enforce behavior or eradicate those who refuse to be coerced.
But, so many aspects of our popular culture, driven by profits and appeal to the least noble passions within us, is a violent one. My daughter is drawn to Anime with its mythical warriors and magic powers and destruction and merciless abolishment of foes. Better than TV, for sure, where deceit, beatings, murders, abductions, hostage taking, blackmail, rape, seduction, intimidation and corruption are everywhere to be fought, resisted, defeated, blown up, shot down, cut up, smashed, and destroyed. Letting the good guy win over the bad guy is a perfunctory obligation of writers to justify otherwise appalling content.
If one is a working church goer, one is likely to get one hour of socially redeeming and uplifting inspiration in the nobility of humanity each week on Sunday Morning. But, the rest of the week is spent at the water cooler discussing who screwed who (literally or figuratively), watching about 10 hours of mayhem and dregs of human behavior on TV, reading or watching news which focuses intently on appealing to our “aint it awful” empathies, and being bombarded by sex in advertising and incessant reminders that we are not attractive, wealthy, fit, able, comparable, nor appealing as the models hired by marketing firms. All in the name of the subliminal message that we could be if we will give up our money for their product.
These influences have a profound effect on people, young people especially who have not developed fine tuned filters to screen much of this out as irrelevant, unreal, and largely untrue.
But, our culture spends 100’s of billions of dollars attempting to seduce us into subconsciously motivated behaviors with the constant message that it is appropriate and OK to allow ourselves to be seduced with promises of big payoffs in weight loss, better sleep, less wrinkles, more vigorous sex, and of course more appeal to be loved.
There are millions and millions of unattractive people in any large society - ours is no exception. When our society puts an ultimate value and acceptance on “being loved”, and if not being loved, then getting sex, what is going to be the consequence on at least some of the millions and millions in our society who have been conditioned to see themselves as unlovable, unattractive, and unappealing? Compensating behavior is the answer.
And if one is not creative or above average in intelligence or gifted with some other talent that inspires respect or regard, that compensating behavior is going to take some twisted and even demented routes toward fulfillment.
But, you know, the truth is, as a society, we have an obligation to find the worth in every child, and nurture it, help it develop, and protect it until it can stand on its own with pride and satisfaction. But, when we look at the personal histories of violent criminals, pedophiles, and rapists, in a great majority of them we find an all to common background, opposite that described in the previous sentence.
This is where our schools could and should be participating in insuring that the value and worth of every child regardless of deformity, infirmity, or averageness, be found, nurtured, and developed. And community organizations where neighborhood children can safely and freely come on weekends to engage in extra-curricular activities supervised and designed to enhance and build upon the positive experiences in schools, can be achieved.
But, unlike China and Japan, India and Taiwan, we as a nation do not invest in our children the way both parents and the larger society do in these other societies. Our society can compensate for an awful lot of bad parenting. But, we barely even try to structure our society around the protection and development of our children.
We vastly underpay and under resource very large numbers of teachers, our developers completely ignore children in the planning of housing communities, and city planners don’t even give a nod to community resources designed around children needs to integrate and interface with the community in safety and with developmental activities.
It is not utopian to consider, raise awareness of, and generate these concepts into reality for our society. It is both common sense and in future terms, a highly competitive shift we must engage in if we are to retain global competitive advantage with other societies which are focusing on their nation’s future by focusing on their children’s needs and development.
Posted by: David R. Remer at March 7, 2007 10:48 PMRon said: “Anyone with the ability to know right from wrong is responsible for their actions. It doesn’t matter if they were abused, have PTSD, 1 year old, or mentally ill. If they know right from wrong they are responsible for their actions.”
Ron, you really must research the topic of obsessive compulsive behavior. It will be a real eye opener for your view expressed above. Far too many people in our society from kleptomaniacs to pedophiles are obsessive-compulsive. They know right from wrong, but, are incapable of resisting their obsessions or compulsions over time and for very long, without medical help. And that is where our society really drops the ball. We imprison obsessive compulsive personalities without addressing the cause of their aberrant behaviors.
I am not saying obsessive compulsives should not be held accountable in our courts for their actions. I am saying as a society we are shooting ourselves in the foot to support our nearly highest recidivism rate in the world by ignoring the mental health needs of many we send to prison, only to let them out 10 years later to obsessively and compulsively reenact their crimes again, only more evasively.
Posted by: David R. Remer at March 7, 2007 11:00 PMDavid,
I do not agree that we underresource teachers. In Utopia, we might obtain perfection, but I have yet to understand why people think our education system is failing. We have rising expectations to be sure, and we should, but I hardly think it’s failing us. Could more resources be spent on the undeprivileged?
Sure. But, they often need parenting that is neither easy nor simple to replace. Public schools will likely never be able to make upfor that.
I’ve also seen some quite violent and sexual anime, though I claim no real knowledge of the subject.
What troubles me most with the issue you raise about teenage girls, is the leap we make from hating the influence of pop culture, much as our parents derided the Beatles and hippy ethos, to promoting the idea that pedophiles are lurking behind every tree, every teenage sexual relationship is abuse, and the almost Salem like vilification of those who prey upon teenagers.
I am not saying I am for allowing predation of minors, but the particulars of each case should be evaluated by a somewhat disinterested party. My grandmother was married at 15. My cousin was a mother at 14. Most women of my grandmother’s age were married before 20. They weren’t “victims”. Now we make it criminal and completely abhorent if a teenager is sexual. That’s a bit on the extreme side, in my opinion. It doesn’t recognize the hormonal realities of teenagers, and while understandable coming from a fearful parent, is more emotional and political and religious populism than good law.
Posted by: gergle at March 7, 2007 11:12 PMI’m with womanmarine and Stephen and Ron here.
When you think about it, this entire subject always comes back to taking responsibility. I mean, the people who become anti-social enough to become rapists most likely didn’t have parents raising them responsibly. If your kid is showing signs of violence, and of being mentally disturbed, aren’t responsible parents going to notice this, and then do everything they can to get them the help they need?
Same goes with raising sons to know how to respect women. And raising daughters that know exactly how demand to respect from boys. Doesn’t it take responsible parenting from day one, and discipline, and heart to heart talks when parents see things turning out poorly? I think so.
What we need to be most worried about is getting help to the kids who don’t have responsible parents. And holding parents who aren’t being responsible truly accountable for their laziness and inaction. This is where the schools and the community at large can make a huge difference.
re: Boys with raging hormones: To put it as delicately as I can, they can always be “self-employed” to let the steam off the valve, if you know what I mean. I don’t consider hormones as really an excuse to go out of control.
re: Advertising. I think it’s a good idea to actually educate kids about Madison Avenue and Hollywood. Talk to them about how advertising is used to manipulate people, and that their ultimate goal has always been to extract a peoples money. Period.
I know these days kids can be awfully cookie-cutter and consumer-guided in their tastes, but parents do have the ability show their kids that throughout history the people who have achieved great things, and the people who others have always wanted to emulate, didn’t follow fashions and trends, but MADE them.
Finally to give a personal anecdote, I’ll tell you about something my mother always said to me and my siblings right before we left the house to go out with our friends or on a date. She’d tell us what time she expected us home, and then she’d say: “Remember, know what you’re doing.” That might sound kind of useless, but it’s funny how all of my siblings and I have agreed that it actually kept us from getting into a lot of trouble over the years. We’d be with our friends, and somebody would suggest some stupid thing that was bound to get us all in trouble, and rather just go along willy nilly, that often-repeated reminder would just pop into our minds. Know what you’re doing. Which lead all of us to think: What am I doing? What are we doing? This is stupid, and I’m out of here.
I think it was an especially brilliant mantra for our teenaged years.
David R. Remer-
If you look at the way society actually operates, you don’t see most people fighting or murdering each other. Kids who play guns, play violent video games, watch violent movies do not necessarily go out and become violent people. There’s a line between pretend and reality most people observe.
Sex typically happens to more people than violence, but I think the best thing to do there is emphasize a connection back to real life, and that sex is almost never without consequences. Looks have long been a determining factor in society, and we are not the first society to confront it.
We live in an industrialized mass media, consumer-economy driven society. Of course we will be bombarded with advertisements. Our best way of dealing with this is to step back and ask ourselves what we really want and need, independent of some television commercial, and teach our children to do the same.
Marketing is a reality, We have to learn to adapt to it, learn how to distance ourselves from it. To lament it is to misunderstand the truth that for the most part, people don’t set out to ruin or debase society. To them, it is supply and demand.
Now you talk about people taking twisted routes towards fulfilling their desires. My reading of history and other cultures is that this is nothing special to our culture. Much as we would like to think that we are fallen from some Eden in this situation, we aren’t the first nor the last culture to experience this.
As for teachers? I think the problem is that we’re trying to pretend that we’re still an agrarian/manufacturing based society for the most part. Our attitudes towards teachers were appropriate for older times, but no longer. Education is a necessity now, no longer a luxury.
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at March 8, 2007 10:42 AMStephen D. said: “Marketing is a reality, We have to learn to adapt to it, learn how to distance ourselves from it.”
It is a reality. But, not sacrosanct. It can be regulated just like the marketing of pharmaceuticals. Those who profit from society should be regulated to insure their activities maximize benefit for society, and minimize harm.
Posted by: David R. Remer at March 8, 2007 11:56 AMAll of you saying our teachers are NOT under resourced, have not researched the issue. Many teachers fear for their personal safety in the classroom - that is under resourcing teachers. Many teachers dip into their own meager salaries (compared to private industry) for supplies for the students. That is under resourcing.
Many teachers have too many students in too small classrooms, that is under resourcing.
But Most Important, teachers are not being given ongoing education themselves to remain current and competent in both their area of teaching as well as teaching techniques and strategies. Ongoing education upgrade is an integral part of all private sector professions. Not so for a vast number of our teachers.
Posted by: David R. Remer at March 8, 2007 12:00 PMDavid
Far too many people in our society from kleptomaniacs to pedophiles are obsessive-compulsive. They know right from wrong, but, are incapable of resisting their obsessions or compulsions over time and for very long, without medical help.
While these are mental problems, and they might not be able to resist them, they still know right from wrong. And I’m sure they know they have the problem. It seems to me that these folks would try to get help before they land in prison. Once there caught they should be incarcerated. Like you said they know right from wrong and that right there makes them responsible.
Society does drop the ball though. Once these folks are incarcerated they should be given the help needed to over come the problem. But until then I believe it’s their responsibility to get the help they need.
Of course some of them might like their condition and want to use it for a crutch to excuse their actions and getting the help would take their excuse away.
womenmarine
If your kid is showing signs of violence, and of being mentally disturbed, aren’t responsible parents going to notice this, and then do everything they can to get them the help they need?
Same goes with raising sons to know how to respect women. And raising daughters that know exactly how demand to respect from boys. Doesn’t it take responsible parenting from day one, and discipline, and heart to heart talks when parents see things turning out poorly? I think so.
Your beginning to sound more like a conservative than a liberal girl :) Welcome to the right side :)
Your absolutely right. Responsible parents will notice anti social behavior and do whats necessary to get their child the help needed. The sad fact is it seems we have a whole heap of irresponsible parents that if they do notice a problem won’t do anything. Then when the kid ends up in trouble they act surprised and make excuses for the kid.
Boys do need to be taught to respect females. And girls need to be taught to respect males. It’s a two way street here. How can a girl demand and expect respect from from boys if she doesn’t have any respect for them? The same with boys. How can they demand or expect respect form girls when they don’t respect them?
Responsible parents will teach their children to respect everyone regardless of sex, race, religion, age, national origin, etc.
The problem is that a whole heap of parents don’t teach their children respect. And I believe this is the main cause of the problems we’re having today.
It all boils down to taking responsibility. The parents taking responsibility to teach their children to respect others and right from wrong. And the individual taking responsibility for themselves.
Ron, that bit you quoted was me, not womanmarine. And I fully agree with what you wrote. But this isn’t liberal vs. conservative though, it’s just plain old common sense, don’t you think?
Posted by: Adrienne at March 8, 2007 01:08 PM“All of you saying our teachers are NOT under resourced, have not researched the issue. Many teachers fear for their personal safety in the classroom - that is under resourcing teachers.”
Any more than some other professions? I worked for a while as a service technician for a communications company and had to work around Harlem on occasion. Sometimes I feared for my safety. That didn’t make me under resoursed.
“Many teachers dip into their own meager salaries (compared to private industry) for supplies for the students. That is under resourcing.”
Many times teachers dip into the meager resourses of parents for their own good also. My grand daughter’s kindergarden class required each parent to supply a large bottle of Purel antibacterial lotion. Shortly after the begenning of the year, a student made a big mess with it and the teacher quit using it. The parents didn’t get it back. I’ll bet the teacher has a years supply at home. The same goes on with other things too I’m sure. So it works both ways.
Teachers aren’t the only ones to dip into their own pockets for the benefit of their job. I think most of us do it in one way or the other. If that’s undersourcing, I guess we all are victims.
“Many teachers have too many students in too small classrooms, that is under resourcing.”
I agree that many teachers have a heavy load and unpleasant working conditions, but I wouldn’t call their workload and conditions excessive. Many people suffer far worse.
“But Most Important, teachers are not being given ongoing education themselves to remain current and competent in both their area of teaching as well as teaching techniques and strategies. Ongoing education upgrade is an integral part of all private sector professions. Not so for a vast number of our teachers.
My profession don’t pay for my ongoing training unless I negotiate it as part of a contract. I don’t know of many that do. Should that not be a barganing point with the union?
Posted by: David R. Remer at March 8, 2007 12:00 PM”
Ron said: “It seems to me that these folks would try to get help before they land in prison.”
And if they are unemployable due to their neurosis and one of the 45 million uninsured in this country?
Leaves a lot of room for a lot of obsessive compulsives to get a whole lot worse in both illness and consequences of their actions. Society has some responsibility toward itself to aid such persons before society is harmed by them, don’t you think?
Posted by: David R. Remer at March 8, 2007 02:47 PMtomd, you have not refuted my argument, thanks.
My wife works for an insurance company. They pay their employees for ongoing education. Including acquiring a degree in an area that would benefit their career or job at the company. This company resides in a right to work state.
Many large companies offer such programs to varying degrees of reimbursement.
The central point however is, in America we have a lot of underqualified and bad teachers incapable of producing the kinds of results America would like to see. One HUGE reason is that folks like my wife, and corporate trainer, makes almost 3 times the salary at an insurance company as she could make in the school system. And she is a great teacher. ERGO, our schools are losing and failing to attract many who would be outstanding teachers to far better paying private industry.
ERGO, our teachers are under resourced. This is logically a true statement given the difference between school and private educator pay ranges.
Posted by: David R. Remer at March 8, 2007 02:52 PMDavid,
I’m not trying to refute your argument. I’m pointing out that other professions besides teachers have the same problems.
It’s a personal opinion that I can’t back up, but I think most of the problems with our schools comes from the teacher’s unions
Posted by: tomd at March 8, 2007 03:03 PMAdrienne
My bad, Sorry.
It’s not a political issue. Like ya said it’s just plain common sense. Something that seems to be in short supply lately.
tomd, I will agree some of the problems come from the union. But to scapegoat our nation’s dropping educational product quality on the union is to fail to address all the problems affecting that drop.
We need national testing and curriculum standards, settting a baseline below which administrators of schools must not allow quality or output to drop below - not just for students but for teachers as well. And we need pay parity with comparable positions in private industry in the region of the school system, so we can attract the best and brightest and most innovative teachers back into our schools.
We need to demand and expect our schools to recognize special needs students whether those needs are emotional, mental, learning, or physical, and accommodate those needs.
We need barriers and extreme legal protections for our schools, teachers, and students, from bus to classroom, which destroy any motivation individuals may have to sell drugs, intimidate students or teachers, or bring instruments of violence into our schools. And we need to establish specialized schools to deal with abusive or violence prone students, removing them from the general school population and addressing their specific needs to re-socialize as productive and achieving students.
And finally we need local, state, regional, and national recognition for outstanding teachers whose results help establish new benchmarks to shoot for, and new techniques for all to aspire to.
This is how we can leave no child behind.
Posted by: David R. Remer at March 8, 2007 04:12 PMDavid,
I’m not trying to scapegoat the union for all the troubles of the schools. I recognize that we have some serious problems caused by other forces. I was trying not to stray too far from the topic of the original post, so I didn’t elaborate.
I have said for ages that good teachers should be among the highest paid people in the country. On the same note, a bad teacher should not be teaching. But, how do we determine the “good” teacher from the “bad” teacher, and how could we possible get rid of the bad ones with tenure and such a strong union. We would also have to find a better way to pay for it. Our schools now are financed by property taxes and I don’t think the local property owners could stand the increase in taxes.
As far as special needs students, I believe there are federal laws on the books now to provide the things you mention. I agree that we should enforce them.
We are working on barriers to protect our schools. We have metal detectors at most local schools around here now, They lock the doors except for the front doors at the local schools. Some schools have security guards. We have mandatory punishment for drug use and distribution in school zones. Unless we build domes around the schools I don’t know too much more we can do.
I do think the schools themselves could handle things a lot better though. A 7 year old who draws a picture of a gun don’t seem too dangerous to me, and a ball chain from a key ring don’t make too much of a weapon. I think teachers and school officials could use their time in a more effecient manner than looking for such violations.
It seems in the back of my memory we used to have special schools for abusive and problem students…I think they were called Reform Schools and were run by the Sherrif’s Dept.
Who’s job would it be to give special recognition to outstanding teachers? Don’t we have special recognition for them now at some levels?
Posted by: tomd at March 8, 2007 05:03 PMAdrienne,
Teenage girls have raging hormones, also. My point is that teenagers are being prosecuted sometimes for being teenagers.
No one is advocating violence, predation or rape.
This federal law guidlines and hysteria over child predators is leading to the same stupidity as drug laws that put 20 year olds in prison for 20 years for having more than 2 ounces of weed. Not all teenage sexual situations are predation. Judges need discretion here.
Posted by: gergle at March 9, 2007 02:39 PMJessica Lunsford’s killer was issued the death sentence this week. As a father, I rejoice in the justice of vengeance that sentence encompasses and am relieved that there will be no chance of his ever committing such a heinous act against another child like mine.
As a citizen and Buddhist I still object to the State taking a life. No wonder our nation is divided over the death penalty. It is a truly insoluble cognitive dissonance our nation faces in cases like this.
The answer has to be preventing such monsters from ever being created in the first place, to the best of our ability.
tomd, all the things you mention exist in some schools. That is the part of the problem. They don’t all exist in all schools. I want security guards in the schools. If our Movie Theaters are capable of a security staff, is our children’s safety worth less?
I also want security on busses. The amount of violence taking place on American school buses is appalling and getting worse each year. We are forced to pay for them, we should insist that they be safe zones for our kids in return. And where are the seat belts in those buses. Mandatory for one child in a car, but, non-existent in a bus of 50 students? That is absurd.
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