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Health & Fitness

Reaping a Savage Whirlwind

In this installment of 'A View From the Deck', J. Wiley Dumas looks at the disturbing trend of Youth Violence and mulls over the causes, and possible solution

NOTE: The following is OPINION. It is the Point of View of the author and he alone takes full responsibility for the content therein

It’s little wonder that people in other countries have such a dim view of America. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love this nation, but there are certain aspects of it that really make one wonder exactly what we are becoming.

Here is one example:

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A young Australian exchange student named Christopher Lane was gunned down in Duncan, Okla. His alleged attackers were 3 teenagers who told police they were bored and killed the college athlete for “the fun of it.”

The local police said they found an unsettling message on one of the alleged killer’s Facebook pages: “Bang. Two drops in two hours.”

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In other words, the teenage boys were hunting humans.

Savages. That’s what America’s ‘leaders of the future’ are becoming. Savages with a need to satisfy a bloodlust.

You doubt my observation? Allow me to give a further example:

In Brunswick, Ga., two teenagers are accused of shooting a young mother and murdering her 13-month-old child. She was taking her baby out for a stroll when the boys demanded she give them cash.

She pleaded with them to spare her child, but one of the boys took a gun and shot the 13-month-old between the eyes.

A 13-month-old BABY! Where, I ask, is the manhood in such an abominable act such as this? Where is the humanity?

What then must others think when news such as this reaches their ears? It’s small wonder that so many other nations have turned their backs on our country.  How can others ever hope to ally themselves with us when our youth have become such savage animals as to brutally shoot an innocent baby, or to gun down a young man simply out of having nothing better to do?

We live in a nation that celebrates and glorifies violence. The proof is in our movies, our music, and our athletic pastimes.

We reap that which we sow.

Violence has become the ‘designer drug’ for those young people seeking a new thrill, or to alleviate the boredom of what they see as their ‘mundane, purposeless lives.’ It has desensitized our youth to the idea of taking a human life.

And the willful taking of another’s life is far from a trivial act.

But can we simply put the blame on the manufacturers of video games, the Hollywood film producers, the music producers, or others? Do we, as parents, not bear a certain responsibility for raising a generation of thugs roaming the streets in search of their prey?

“No, not my child. He’s a good boy.”

How often do we hear that in connection to an inexplicable act of savagery upon another human being?

Far too often.

We, because we wanted them to have it ‘better than us’, gave them the video games to entertain them. We sat them in front of the TV and allowed them to absorb the culture of violence it demonstrated, because, in our quest to make our children’s lives better than how we had it, we foolishly allowed ourselves to become too busy with work to monitor what our children were watching on TV or playing on video games.

We have ourselves to blame in that respect.

We reap that which we sow.

We stood idle as the government bowed to ‘Special interests’ and took God out of the schools and then we turned our backs on our respective faiths, worshiping instead the idea of ‘Big Government’ as the eternal ‘Savior.’ As a result of this foolishness, we’ve misplaced, if not thrown away, our moral compass, substituting the moral absolutes of the Almighty with the highly-questionable, if not outright immoral, whims of an ‘all-knowing, great, and powerful’ federal government.

What we once knew to be right is now wrong, and what we once knew to be wrong is now ‘right.’ Violent criminals have become the victims, and the victims have become nothing more than postscripts.

We reap that which we sow.

But rather than lay the blame where it truly resides, we hear others screaming out against ‘Racial profiling’, or calling for ‘Gun control.’ Some lay the blame at what they call ‘the Establishment’, while others blame their Social-Economic situation.

Some scream out for ‘Tolerance and understanding,’ while having none toward those with differing points of view. Others call out for ‘Justice’, but only when that same blind justice agrees with their views.

We, as parents, and grandparents, have a responsibility to the youth of this nation. We must reverse the trend toward violence. We must make ourselves available to them during their formative years. We must get involved with them, talk to them, with them, and do all we can to be understanding toward them.

Let it be that they turn to us for entertainment and excitement, rather than to the vehicles of violence.

Our youth are our most precious natural resource. Only by their actions will the rest of the world judge our nation.

We have sown the seeds of violence and discontentment among our youth. Now, we reap the whirlwind…

…and wonder why

Si vis Pacem, Para Bellum

 

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