<p>It is very upsetting to read about recent incidents of atrocious and head-scratching violence from young adults in America today. Babies and adolescents have been killed in New York City and Los Angeles County in recent days. Now comes word of a grave assault in Florida when a former marine stood up and got involved to protect a 14-year old from three older marauders.</p>
<p>Where is this sense of nilhilism and total rejection of societal norms by the young people regarding violence coming from? </p>
<p>Perhaps I am naive, but without the internet reporting every story from everywhere you would never have heard about these crimes 10 years ago (or is it 20 years ago). That is an ugly incident - the 3 young men beating up the former Marine, but not the type of thing that would get national headlines. Our local news affiliate is constantly rebroadcasting odd/disgusting/disturbing stories from all over the country. Stories that would upset me if they occurred down the street from me, but I can’t get worked up over crazy stuff that happens in Kansas or Mississippi. Crazy stuff is going to happen. </p>
<p>Unless proven otherwise, I believe atrocious head-scratching violence from young adults in America has been going on forever, it is just more widely reported now.</p>
<p>^^^I’ve often wondered if youth crime is increasing or it it is actually just more reported. Most news outlets are reporting stories 24/7 or very close to it. Our technology has made it very easy to learn of any and all incidents, and then to report it promptly.</p>
<p>One day, I turned on my computer to read: Entertainment News: Jennifer Anniston was observed having drinks with friends after a day of filming her latest movie _____." I thought, “REALLY? A person having a drink after work is NEWS?!” Note, nothing was mentioned of any drunkenness or odd behavior, just that she was having a drink after work with crew from her film. And someone felt this bit of nothing was deserving of its own headline. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Also, that was NOT a dig at you, Lake. It was a commentary on our sensationalist culture. </p>
<p>Remarkably, the things we SHOULD be alarmed about getting swept under the rug. Look at our maternal mortality rates compared to the rest of the developed world. Absolutely, despicably unacceptable. Yet when’s the last time you heard a news story about how pregnancy and birth are far more dangerous in the US than anywhere else?</p>
<p>Romani, it wasn’t long ago that some doctors often reported that infant and adolescent mortality rates in some NYC neighborhoods was worse than that of some just awful countries you could name.</p>
<p>And yes, our media (probably true all over the world) promotes the sensational tragedies, but I do believe that there is much more of this stuff happening in our time than in days past. Crime in metropolitan areas has gone down since the Clinton Administration (though it is rising somewhat now, according to whom you believe) but my casual observation tells me that there is more outrageous and horrifying crime in the rural and small cities of America today. I don’t know where Juno Beach, Florida is but I doubt it is large as Miami or Orland. And the truly bizzare murder of the exchange student-athlete from Australia was in small town Oklahoma. I don’t think these kinds of “I don’t give a damn about society” murders happened so frequently 40 years ago. And certainly such atrocities were not often committed by people under 21. Leopold and Loeb was a sensation because it was so unique and disturbing. Baby killers have always revulsed us but we’ve had two truly insidious child murders in the news in the past year; Brunswick, Georgia and Brooklyn, New York. Both by young men seeking to rob or maim others.</p>
<p>Honestly, I suspect these things happened long, long ago (and probably more often than you’d think) but the media wasn’t as concerned about reporting them. I also feel as if this is one of those ‘kids these days…’ type of things that perpetuate how youth are horrible people and are going to run the country into the ground. Just my two cents, however.</p>
<p>I’ve been amazed at the way local tv spreads stories of violence. In a country of 300 million … plus that they now show stories from all over the world as though they were next door … bad things will happen.</p>
<p>Without being political, when immigration reform became a topic back in 2008 and then after I heard lots of stories about violence, most centered either around uncheckable rumors or a handful of actual events (like the murder of a rancher), so I checked actual crime stats - including county level stats for places like Arizona (where the only county that didn’t report - and which required $5 for a photocopy - was the one where the anti-immigration sheriff turned out to be a closeted gay man in a relationship with an illegal immigrant!). What I found was that crime had dropped precipitously everywhere. From Tuscon all the way across along the Rio Grande. Way down, even as the number of illegal immigrants soared. El Paso even reports crime stats by precinct and you could see easily why it’s the safest city in the US: not much crime at all though it’s on the border. But people talked about crime as though what was happening across the river was here. Or that the problems of a relative handful of ranchers in the Arizona desert could extrapolate to the rest of the country. </p>
<p>I’m not sure what the moral is. It’s easy to say we distort facts to fit our biases but I think there’s more to it, that we have an inherent attraction to bad stories, both as cautionary tales and for the same reason we like horror stories. Maybe we need to feel some form of danger exists. Maybe the more we’re actually disconnected from so much of the world we experience daily, the more we use stories about bad things as connections. I say this in a context where I see almost every day tourists from other parts of the country who are so unaccustomed to the street life of a busy, old city that they’re dislocated by the jostling, the smells, the odd characters, etc. I know that so much of my life when I’m visiting relatives is air conditioned house to air conditioned car to parking lot to air conditioned mall or restaurant.</p>
<p>I think it is silly to generalize from one incident in Florida to Florida or youth in general. </p>
<p>The above hate crime occurred in NYC. I don’t think you can generalize to anything in NY other than there is at least one complete jerk now in lock up.</p>
<p>Razorsharp, I think we have to distinguish between genuine lunatics like the mental patient who attached the senior citizen, from nihilists whom are in their right mind and don’t give a second thought about endangering infants or their innocent parents.</p>