Violence and our teenagers
So, while we sit back and watch our country turn into a COMPLETE frenzy over women being safe from even a hard word, we need to ask ourselves “Do our youth have a hope for a future?”
My 2 eyes and ears have been watching and hearing some really disturbing facts.
Over the last week I have been discussing with young males aged 15, 16, and 17 the implications of them taping kitchen knives to their calves when going out to the city to listen to a band or to the plaza to watch a movie. I do understand why they are doing this and I do not misunderstand the fear they feel. I mean, it has become life threateneing for our young men to leave home on an outing especially at night . But I can’t help but see the innocence in their eyes and wonder if they could even use a knife to lunge into another human being’s body.
There is no way it would be easy to cut someone but then they are starting by explaining to each other that you need to stab and twist else the perpertrator will get back up even with the knife lodged inside them.
Do you know that these are good boys. They are not the one’s whose father’s are involved in gangs but have father’s and mother’s who would love to give luxuries but can only afford the bare essentials. These young guys are the kids getting the high marks at school, love sports and can cook and clean, wash they own clothes, clean their rooms, read books, are computer savvy and more. They are the next generation of University students, polititions and parents.
But today they live in fear and the adults don’t seem to care. The fear is not just from gangsters in their colors parading the streets looking for victims or driving around in their cars looking to jump one or a few unsuspecting young males but it is the females who males normally wouldn’t fear because they are not supposed to be able to harm as bad as a male. But these women have no fear, no consequenses to keep them accountalbe and they have knives in their bags ready and waiting for the opportune moment. And the boys know they are powerless to the females.
Only last week I sat at a train station with around 20 other adults listening to 3 teenage girls in high school uniforms loudly discussing how they punch and kick males and one had stabbed a young man, got caught but with no real consequense. How ugly these girls looked to me but then to them it was all one big joke and nothing to be ashamed of for they were proud and it was as if they had no shame to carry on infront of all the adults.
Just for a moment I will tell of even the younger generation. While sitting at the library, I saw and heard a lovely librarian female walk up to a 9 year old boy who was using the computer and asked if he needed some help. He turned to her and said, “You can’t assualt me.”
Little does this young man know of his future from 3 years on.
What is going on??????
Julie,
I think that political correctness has become ingrained in society that it is affecting the core beliefs of our children.
It seems to me that ‘PC’ is the result of extreme paranoia of a fraction of our society, yet somehow the ideals of those few impact the whole of society – including our children who look to society to learn about thier the world.
PC is an immauture rot that we as mature an intelligent adults must eventually come to realise is eroding the psyches of our youth, and limiting the freedom of people.
Comment by Moose — Fri 20th October 2006 @ 9:42 pm
Julie,
an intesting question.
Here in South Korea the kind of behaviour you describe would never be acceptable.
I can and indeed do walk the streets of ANY CITY HERE AT ANY DAY OR NIGHT HOUR IN COMPLETE SAFETY.
So despite it’s problems I think this place has lessons to teach about social harmony.
Perhaps you should talk to some Koreans resident in nz.
Comment by Stephen — Sat 21st October 2006 @ 12:07 am
Good point Stephen. This is because in that part of the world, it is mainly Buddhist. Having spent years in S.E.Asia, mainly Thailand, I have never been threatened or attacked by the local people. Westerners, yes.
Here is an interesting link to an article published on a site from a well known Kiwi in the Land of Smiles…
http://www.stickmanbangkok.com/Reader2006/reader3091.htm
Maybe this gives some insight into why society in the West is so dysfunctional…appears to be related to Lawyers.
Comment by Freethinker — Sat 21st October 2006 @ 9:59 am
Thanks Freethinker.
The attached article from Stickman was interesting reading.
Seeing it I realise yet again that when living in nz we’re oftentimes ‘so far into the woods we can’t see the trees’.
My life is enriched upon exposure to other cultures whereby I come to see there are other ways which seem fairer and more humane. The cultural smugness then gets superceded by a kind of humility as it’s realised kiwi culture isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
The part which really hit me hardest although pertaining to California shows that nz with it’s western style divorce is sadly much different from the apparently superior Thai system.
This quote speaks volumes to me.
Comment by Stephen — Sat 21st October 2006 @ 12:31 pm
Thanks Stephen. I saw this on Dadsontheair.com from Australia. It might help to explain why there is increasing violence and social unrest in our democratic?? free?? Western society..
Thursday 12 October 2006 House of Representatives Page 37
Quote:
Mr SCHULTZ (Hume) …
The next thing I want to talk about is, I know, an issue that many in the community have raised. I know the minister has had it raised with him. I have certainly raised it with him, I have certainly raised it with the government and I intend to talk about it here today because it gives me an opportunity to highlight how some legislation can create enormous problems for some sections of the community – and, in this case, no other section of the community is subjected to this particular draconian inconvenience. I am talking about what is commonly referred to as the capacity to earn process of the Child Support Agency which not even the Taxation Office is able to impose on Australians who are out there earning wages. Not even the Taxation Office can do it.
I can give you an example of the impact of the capacity to earn process, for those who do not know what it is. A member of the public who is employed in a particular job, getting $70,000 a week, has a marriage break-up and is then subjected, quite rightly, to child support payments for the children of that marriage based on his wage. He then finds that, due to various circumstances and perhaps some pressure from the former partner or wife, he cannot cope mentally with the pressure. For example, the former partner of the individual became so vindictive, putting complaints to the person’s employer, that he had all of his career path opportunities removed from him; he was getting nowhere. He could not cope with the pressure. He resigned from his job and took up another job, which paid in the vicinity of $57,000 a year, from memory, which was significantly less than the wage that he got in his previous occupation.
And what happened? I will tell you what happened. The Child Support Agency assessed his child support payments on the basis of his previous wage, as his capacity to earn. His child support payments are still being assessed according to that previous wage level, despite the fact that he earns only $57,000 a year. He has gone into a new relationship. He cannot keep up with the payments. He falls behind in the payments and the interest rate increases, because there is a penalty imposed on him through the system. He then gets to a stage where, as in many such instances, the debt is between $30,000 and $70,000. He will never be able to pay it back. In some instances – and there are cases of this in my own constituency – that person may take his own life to get away from the system.
The point I am making here is that capacity to earn is a supersensitive issue to the Child Support Agency and the system, but it creates enormous social, psychological and economic pressures for individuals and the community itself. More importantly, it can lead to heartbreak for the families of such an individual. But it does not stop there. If a person, for whatever reason – perhaps through pressure from the Child Support Agency – takes his life, and there is a debt, the Child Support Agency has the habit of then targeting the mother and father of that person because he may not have any money in his estate. That is the sort of nonsense going on in the Child Support Agency that is creating massive problems out there that we really do have to think very seriously about addressing in the not-too-distant future.
In closing on that point, the capacity to earn issue – because of the way it is applied and the anguish that it is causing through the mental, social and economic pressures it places unfairly on individuals – is, I believe, because it is the only government agency in the country that practises it, unconstitutional. I am getting some constitutional lawyers to give me some advice on that. I put the minister on notice that at some stage I am going to challenge it in the parliament unless the government thinks very seriously about looking at it and changing it in the interests of fairness for the whole of the community in every area of taxation.
Some of the recommendations of the Parkinson task force accepted by the government have already been adjusted and refined. I compliment the minister on that. I know it is a very difficult issue. I know I am a bit of a pain in the butt from time to time when I raise these issues with the minister and the government and talk about them publicly. But I happen to believe that it is time for changes and there are more to be made – (Time expired)
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Comment by Freethinker — Sun 22nd October 2006 @ 9:31 am
I see from this article on stuff that things are about to get a whole lot worse..
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3836583a11,00.html
Comment by Freethinker — Sun 22nd October 2006 @ 10:13 am
Dear Freethinker,
Yes in a host of countries the state likes to force fathers to pay their former higher wage’s support payments. Glenn Sacks in the US has covered this extensively. In Canada the supreme court (known to legislate from the bench all the time) has now allowed former wifes to get more money, if the the husbands starts to earn more. Yet left the down grading of support, if a husband ( as in the case you pointed out above) earn less untouched!
The state has another way to tax the main source of revenue (men) with little fear for they are disunified, rationalized into passivity and more. From some in our own ranks(let alone the huge forces outside the movement)we have men saying we are to blame, it is our own fault or we shouldn’t generalize etc.
Dear Julie,
Did you get my reply to your email?
Comment by Intrepid — Sun 22nd October 2006 @ 12:41 pm
Intrepid,
Yes, I did.
Comment by julie — Mon 23rd October 2006 @ 10:32 am