Op-Ed by Otis Lewis –
AMERICA has lost respect for human life! It really is this simple and these shootings are all predictable! It starts with removing “prayer in school”, and then legalizing abortion. That pushed America’s morals into decline and puts us where we are as a society today.
Today, too many people feel that there is nothing more to life than what is here; folks no longer worry about being judged after death, or at all. Too many men/women make their own rules with the individual deciding for themselves what the rules will be.
Check German history and the rise of Hitler. This is what brought Hitler to power and the German people put him there. Germany had lost their way then and abortion and lack of prayer caused their moral decay. These were the determining factors for the rise of the Third Reich.
Also, go get the book: When “Society Becomes An Addict”, by Anne Wilson Schaef. Read that book and it will become crystal clear why this country is behaving the way it is.
Otis
PS: The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing people he didn’t exist!
“I’m always amused at an older generation that looks back at this “perfect America” that never really existed. I’m not saying the current generation is perfect but they’re also dealing with a world no generation has dreampt of existing in.”
Actually, it really did exist for a majority of people. We did have our Richard Speck’s of course, they were in retrospect far and few between.
While the media today connects us a lot faster, and farther outside our community, we were not totally bereft six decades ago.
It was after all, a different society in terms of our idea of community and what acceptable behavior was. Back then, we did not ignore unusual events, and were not afraid to report same. We could actually shoo someone off of our corner if they did not belong there, without fear of reprisal.
Today, you call out a litterbug, and there is a good possibility that they will turn violent and do bodily harm. Kids curse at you worse than an old gutter snipe ever could.
But there again, we as a society have spawned it. Look out your window and see what people try to get away with! Try driving the speed limit over 12th Street NW overpass, and not have someone tailgate or give you dirty looks and gestures. Same goes with 5th Street SW downtown.
What I am getting at, is we become our own arbiter of what rules we want to follow, and those we don’t. Some people here seem to think it’s OK to drive drunk. Other’s think that it is OK to get high, and drive or work. They boast about it right here on these pages! Then there are those who feel it is alright to disturb the peace of others in the name of recreation. In all such cases, society lets it happen. So those who thumb their noses at our rules, do so with greater impunity.
Just as in the economy today, produced by the American Consumer who wanted it cheap, we became a course society thinking we can do as we want without consequence. The problem is, living on such terms and beliefs has no future. And an examination of history proves that point.
Read this article to see what it’s like to be the parent of a child like Adam Lanza. Our mental health care system does NOT work. Parents know their children are time bombs for tragedy, but their hands are tied.
http://gawker.com/5968818/i-am-adam-lanzas-mother
Shootings have nothing to do with prayer in school, this is a mental health issue. There isn’t much help for mentally ill people, they take meds at will, then feel better, go off meds, go batshit crazy! There needs to be more resources to help them or perhaps shots of meds to last a month then return to Dr for shot again. The mental health programs need to all be revamped to protect society, & also the mother of the shooter shouldn’t have had guns around with a mentally ill person so close.
It is a good article. It’s scary, too. How this woman copes with this every day is unbelievable. How must his two siblings feel when they have an emergency plan when older brother goes extreme? The comments after the article are also interesting.
The previous reply was meant to go with Katie’s post with the link to “I am Adam Lanza’s mother:
We have bred a society of non stop whiners every time they think their rights have been violated or they think they can file a law suit. Also common sense manners have all but dissapeared. This summer was the first time in my life I saw two instances of people who needed their egos inflated by carrying holstered exposed hand guns. Oh my god I mentioned something against their right to bear arms. Too often common sense intelligence and compassion does not go with that right.
Alright, I’ll bite…
There are three things to consider when examining such a tragedy:
1. Our culture glorifies violence. We love it. We love our violent sports, we love our action heros, we love our military, and we love this idea that problems can be solved with physical contact. It’s a very American idea. You don’t run into this near as much while traveling overseas.
2. Guns are appallingly easy to get your hands on. 2nd Ammendment fan or not, this fact can’t be denied.
3. Mental health treatment is a joke in this country. If you’re poor, you don’t have access to it. Not only that, but it’s stigmatized as well. It’s embarassing to admit you suffer from depression or are bipolar or hear voices or whatever. You cannot wear your depression like an obese person wears his pounds. Hiding it means you don’t get it treated which means it’s going to get worse and that, my friends, has consequences.
People ask how days like this can happen. We have a country that glorifies voilence, makes getting weapoins easy to get, and doesn’t treat it’s mentally ill. How does it NOT happen more often??
America used to have extremely lenient gun laws( Tommy guns at the local hardware store and guns by mail order)not quite like that anymore, right?
The reason there have been massacres like this in the last few years has little to do with gun availability and LOTS to do with the fact that the “Entitlement Generation” has hit adulthood and the hard cold wall of reality. They just cannot cope with the normal disappointments of adult life because they all grew up thinking they would be rock stars and divas without trying. Add to this the facts that they had Freddy Krueger and Chuckie instead of Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Rogers for childhood viewing, grew up in impersonal daycare centers, have never learned to interact face to face due to social media, have access to any kind of violence and porn on the net, and have never had any moral or ethical instruction. When they realize life is not going to be their own private reality show, instead of getting down to real life survival like older generations did, they decide to get a gun and go kill innocent people before offing themselves like some live game of Grand Theft Auto.
I’m always amused at an older generation that looks back at this “perfect America” that never really existed. I’m not saying the current generation is perfect but they’re also dealing with a world no generation has dreampt of existing in. It has it’s own challenges and while some struggle, there are a lot of good kids out there. I suggest you take some time to get out there and interact with them.
So when was this perfect America? The 40s and 50s with its world wars? The 60s with it’s racial segregation? 70s with Vietnam? Let’s keep in mind that violence has always been with us…we just have 24 hour news channels to report every single little incident now.
The people who bombed the trade center prayed everyday.
What does anyone else think about a gun and ammo tax to build more prisons and criminal rehab centers? Would that tax violate the 2nd amendment? Would most people who support the 2nd amendment support such a tax to put away the criminals who get guns illegally?
I’m not aware of those who support another or even more taxes on guns or ammo. Maybe we should consider raising taxes across the board on everyone so we can build more prisons but, as always, it’s us, the LAW ABIDING CITIZENS that will end up paying the price for the actions of a few.
In my opinion, the simple fact of the matter is, whether it’s a gun a car (DUI)or a knife used to kill others, there are those people (like you mentioned earlier) that are just wired wrong. So, how do you protect an entire county or world from a handful of idiots?
My take on a jail or gun tax is that criminals eat out and spend money on clothes and bling, unless they steal all of it. They would be paying at least part of the taxes for incarcerating their sorry a$$e$. And the rest of us have to think of it as a public safety tax.
Here I go off on a tangent again. We need to bring back a luxury tax on BLING. If you buy a pair of shoes that costs over $300, BOOM, a luxury tax. Same with expensive watches, clothing, jewelry, cars, you get the idea. That is how you tax the rich. There used to be what was called an excise tax back in the 50’s. I remember it being charged on jewelry. Now an excise tax is included in the cost of tobacco and other items. It would not work if only one state had this tax because people would go elsewhere to buy their bling. It would have to be a national tax. I hate anything national because the federal government wastes most of it. It has to be paid to and managed by the states where it is needed.
Taxing guns and ammo is a part of the UN Small Arms Treaty that obama signed the day after he was re-elected. According to the treaty the Globalists ( their term not mine) will have 6 years to disarm americans and it all starts with the taxes.
@Katie-I would not be in favor of a extra tax on guns and bullets or any other tax the targets one specific item. What are you going to do? Put a tax on knives. They have killed almost as many people or the weapon of choice when guns or knives are not available, baseball bats. Maybe we need to put a tax on cars as they are used to likk people too. I think you get the idea. Why should decent gun owners pay the price to put crminals away when other people don’t? Not fair in my opinion and you can’t tax everything that it is popular not to use at the time.
katie i totaly agree with you on the permisive society. quite a few parents today would rather be freinds with their kids and expect the schools and the government to keep things in check. and woe unto the parents that do try and discipline their kids. there are all kind of organizations willing to step in and tell you what you are doing wrong
Another COWARD with a gun. They’re a dime a dozen these days.
The biggest problem is our permissive society. Too many parents are lax and have no backbones. When a kid gets to the age where a parent has to finally put his foot down because the kid is breaking the law, the kid rebels and goes nuts against everyone. You can’t let them get by with crap when they’re toddlers and then expect obedience when they’re 14. And some people are just plain wired wrong like the kid from Minneapolis that murdered the convenience store workers in Humbolt. His parents knew he was a time bomb from the time he was little, but they weren’t allowed to lock him up and throw away the key and the state wouldn’t. They didn’t rear him to be a criminal and did everything they could to change the path he was on, but he was just plain defective mentally from the time he was born. These people who are reared wrong, choosing the wrong path, or wired wrong are falling through the cracks and are polluting our society. We need to lock them away.
are you people all insane on here!!! How many more inocent people have to be killed with guns before you come to your senses? We call ourselves a civilized nation yet something like this happens almost weekly. It’s like we are living in the wild west. It is time we revisit the 2nd Amendment and get some common sense gun control laws passed. I believe that saving a childs life is worth not being able to buy a clip that holds more than 6 shells or being able to buy an assault weapon. Wake up people. The guns that you carry don’t seem to be helping at all.
@Happy Guy-I shouldn’t say this as it just might ruin my reputation, but I tend to agree with you on the clip size and even on assult rifles. We are not going to war here and there is really no reason to have them other than the people do not trust the government. They feel if they give up these war weapons the government will just take more until they have no way to defend themselves. There is a history behind this. They did it in Canada and California. The other side of this tragedy is that the East Coast and Chicago have the toughest gun laws and the worst gun crimes. What does that say? Who knows?
All rifles are assault rifles. Better to concentrate on how an object is used than to vilify it by using a “scary label”. SOME mentally ill people will and always have killed people. That being said, my heart goes out to the families of the victims and the kids that will have to live with this horrible memory for the rest of their lives.
hey gayguy, if you want the government to take away your guns thats fine but I will never give up mine, I will use mine to protect my family. The government will use these tragedies to take away our only means of defense and then turn our country into a communist state. Then the only people that will have guns will be law enforcement, military, CRIMINALAS. Think about it before you sign your life away.
@Maybe-I agree with what you are saying here. The problem is not really the guns. There is something basically wrong with some people today. They don’t seem to understand or care about other people or kids. I really think some of it is the age we live in and all of the influances they are exposed to. They play vidio hgames where everyone gets killed and the next day they are all playing again and I think that becomes their thinking. Guns don’t kill, it is the people that kill and they will find away to do it with or without a gun. The bible people say it is because we don’t pray anymore but the terrorist pray several times every day and still kill.
As the saying goes, not all muslums are terrorists but most terrorists are muslums. As a Christian my beliefs are that the god of muslums is a false god, no wonder he doesn’t answer their prayers. Muslum is a peaceful religion so these people that pray to their god then kill people are nothing but the span of Satan.
Whatever Maybe! You are nothing but a typical christain who thinks you know it all about God. You like every other Religion know nothing. If God exists no one knows for sure. I know you better than God because I read what you write and not what someone who says they where inspired by you wrote. You come on here bashing gays and liberals and anyone else who doesn’t agree with you. You would have loved being alive during the crusades so you could kill just like the Muslums you complain about.
I agree 100% with you Mr. Lewis, but you left out another reason for this moral decay. That is, the government taking discipline away from parents.
I would still rather live in this country than anywhere else. Having said that, I’ll be acquiring a gun soon to protect myself. Yes, I know how to use it.
Well Otis-what you say has some truth to it but there are crazy people everywhere. I would guess you are talking about the school killings that are all over the news today. What a terrible, terrible thing to happen to some young people just starting their lives. However, I just read that there were 22 young students and one adult injured in China by a man with a knife so I guess it is not just here. I agree that people seem to have lost respect for life and also for other people property. I talked to a policeman today and he said they are breaking into cars and houses all over town. They just don’t seem to care. Not everyone certainly, but enough to be a problem.
Does it make you sleep better at night knowing you felt sad that people died? cause if you look at the grand scheme of things and if you cried every time someone was killed you wouldn’t stop, so you have to break things down to what’s relevant to you, family, friends, acquaintances, maybe even your city. But, you need to draw a line.
Excuse me for not caring about some people I don’t know getting killed by some maniac.
wow. What a selfish P.O.S. you are.
Very seldom do I agree with Real Fred, but this time, he is spot on. You, mr anonymous, are exactly the problem the op-ed person is talking about and the reason we see these things happening…..I don’t care about anyone but me.
I just cried for you….what a sad, sad comment.
I feel sorry for you. Pretty sad.
The problem with an attitude like this is that it fails to see how interconnected we all are. When you talk about your family, friends, acquaintances, and city, you’re counting literally thousand and thousands of people. And of course if you were to ask each of those people who they care about, the numbers start to swell and swell. Before you know it, the very outcome of your own day is being effected by people you will never, ever, ever meet.
I don’t have to be an expert on guns to have an opinion on being shot.
I don’t have to be an expert on psychology to have an opinion on an unstable person’s day effecting mine.
I don’t have to be an expert on someone’s religion to have their views infringe on my rights.
I don’t have to be an expert on someone’s job to have their inability to do it effect my product or experience.
Don’t fool yourself. The world is an incredibly small place.
The world is an incredibly small place.
No it isn’t. 150,000 people die around the world everyday… start crying.