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Originally posted by Wulfenstar:
Some people can do more damage with a ball-point pen than a Swiss Army knife...

Whats next? Finger paint?

Sheesh...

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Originally posted by Riverlove:

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Originally posted by Wulfenstar:
Some people can do more damage with a ball-point pen than a Swiss Army knife...

Whats next? Finger paint?

Sheesh...

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A few years ago I saw a prison interview with serial killer John Wayne Gacy. You may recall that his crimes were particularly grisly and demonic. Gacy told the interviewer that he could easily kill him and 2 others in the room with just the pencil he was using to take notes. That stopped the interviewer dead in his tracks, and sent a sober chill down all their spines.

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Originally posted by NewOldBrownCoat:
It's funny- I carried a pocket knife to my small town high school every day, about 40 years ago, without even a second thought. It was a TOOL- I used it to cut rope, tape, cloth, to whittle wooden bits, to cut up my lunch fruit, fix my car. Never even considered stabbing or cutting a person with it. Now I wouldn't last one day before I'd be arrested...

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Originally posted by AnthonyT:


There is definitely something wrong with our society and the way that we raise our young. And whatever it is, it's worse than it used to be.

--Anthony

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Originally posted by AnthonyT:

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Originally posted by Riverlove:

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Originally posted by Wulfenstar:
Some people can do more damage with a ball-point pen than a Swiss Army knife...

Whats next? Finger paint?

Sheesh...

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A few years ago I saw a prison interview with serial killer John Wayne Gacy. You may recall that his crimes were particularly grisly and demonic. Gacy told the interviewer that he could easily kill him and 2 others in the room with just the pencil he was using to take notes. That stopped the interviewer dead in his tracks, and sent a sober chill down all their spines.

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Hello,

I'd make a terrible interviewer, and I'd probably get myself stabbed with a pencil.

--Anthony


"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner

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Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Hello River,

I'm sure individuals can easily reach the point where survival does trump humanity. However, that must never be the policy of any group or any society. Groups must not be allowed to function with the same compromised morals as desperate, terrified individuals. Once inhumane practices become official policy, then anything can be justified. "Torture? Rape? Mass murder? Well, why not? It's either us or them..."

Warfare is as close as any society should approach towards disregarding humanity in favor of survival. Even then, the war should be approached with the oxymoronic attitude of conducting warfare humanely. That means killing only those you have to, only targeting combatants, and treating the enemy with respect once they have been defeated.

I initially adopted my signature quote upon learning that we were torturing prisoners in Saddam's old torture facility. I felt we were, as a nation, selling our Humanity for a perceived Purchase of Liberty. And in that, we were making a bad, bad deal. I think it generally holds true... If you sell your humanity to buy liberty, then you end up with neither.

--Anthony

"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner

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Originally posted by AnthonyT:


Of course, we all well remember the grisly mass murders and slaughters that High Schoolers committed back then.

There is definitely something wrong with our society and the way that we raise our young. And whatever it is, it's worse than it used to be.

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Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Hello,

I'm not sure that a bombing by a (disturbed?) adult in protest of taxes that he perceived to have ruined his life is in the same category as kids gunning down other kids and teachers wholesale. 'Suicide bomber blows up school in tax protest' doesn't quite have the same connotation as 'kid shoots all his classmates and teachers.'

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My father tells me that when he went to school, lots of high school kids drove pickups with shotgun racks on them onto school grounds, and they'd frequently go out after school and on weekends to target practice with rifles out in the Everglades.

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It can be true that some societies produce more sociopaths than others.

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Originally posted by Kwicko:

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Even if the motive and outcome is exactly the same? He wanted to hurt people by hurting their children. He succeeded. I'm not sure how that lessens the impact of his deeds. That seems awfully close to dismissing McVeigh's act as unsuccessful because it was a "protest" of big government.

Does the motive lessen the tragedy?

Mike

The percentage you're paying is too high-priced
While you're living beyond all your means;
And the man in the suit has just bought a new car
From the profit he's made on your dreams

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Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Hello Mike,

I didn't mean to reject the comparison because it didn't match a scale of tragedy. Rather, it wasn't violence committed by youths, which is the focus of my discussion here. I would consider 9/11 to be equally irrelevant to child violence, and our society's distrust of children to the point where they can't bring eating utensils to school (or an asprin, for that matter.)

--Anthony

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It would be hard to determine percentage wise which places have more sociopaths that others. I don't know of any research on this.

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One factor to this is how the social structure we "teach" in schools is so counter to the basic nature of humans that have had ANY primary caregiver attachment at all, that the contrary messages from their own instincts and what they're being taught about how to function and achieve in our society impact each other and tend to cause psychological aberration - and often as not cause we don't wanna ADMIT that, we find other causes to blame, medicate them, punish them, and in extremis, till recently, sent them to the youth equivalent of concentration camps, therefore out-selecting and effectively weeding out the most humane amongst us.

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Originally posted by Fremdfirma:

Magons, Alice Miller would have any relevant data if there is any.

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And yes, sadly, it's a combination of factors, the primary of which is a destructive style of child-rearing compounded by a toxic social environment in the primary education system.

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And that doesn't even begin to touch on latchkey kids/social ferals* or dysfunctional families, dangerous and drug infested neighborhoods, etc...

* I do find that many of those latchkey kids or social ferals turn out better than earlier or later children who actually had more of an investment/relationship with the parents - although there is some level of basic attachment problems...

But it's a VERY damning indictment of someones parenting/childraising skills when the child most lacking them turns out to be the sanest of the bunch, isn't it ?

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Most my own work relative to it has been torpedo-ing those hellcamps, cause they were the singlemost destructive factor and one I had the ability and knowledge to effect personally in a significant fashion - which is a net positive, but this kind of advocacy needs a healer, not a wrecking ball like me.

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I'd probably disagree with your attribution of primary education as being a factor.

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I'm trying to imagine what it is you do. Bulldoze schools?

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Originally posted by Bytemite:

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I'd probably disagree with your attribution of primary education as being a factor.

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He didn't say primary education, he said the toxic social ENVIRONMENT fostered in primary education. You live in Australia, right? You don't have bullying and pecking orders in your schools?

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But my argument is that you can't attribute sociopathic behaviour to education

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Originally posted by Bytemite:

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But my argument is that you can't attribute sociopathic behaviour to education

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Also, not everyone who commits murder or crime is a sociopath, and not every sociopath is murderous or criminal.

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I used to have anti-social personality disorder when I was a kid, and a lot of psychiatrists consider that the same thing. Most I ever did was bite people and get into a lot of fights. I came from a decent family, no economic hardship to speak of, had caring parents, and have no genetic pre-disposition to it. Might have been chemical. Probably was ALSO the brutal nature of school and marginalization of "outsiders."

Our system fosters a me-first mentality, which cuts out empathy and makes manufactured sociopaths.

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I'm trying to imagine what it is you do. Bulldoze schools?

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