I should apologize to Randy for this

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When did the caring stop? Someone else mentioned root causes. Maybe pinpoint that first, then work your way back up to present.
Never started. We care about the 2nd, personal freedom, low taxes, military, corporate welfare, building a wall, banning books, etc. etc. not dead school kids.
 
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Never started. We care about the 2nd, personal freedom, low taxes, etc. not dead school kids.

But aren't you pro life, which is based on personal freedom? I apologize for taking this in an entirely different direction and I'm not trying to start a tire fire here, but I'm going off of your posts.

Yes, something needs to be done about kids' (and adults') mental health. And school shootings. Wish we had a clear, non-contentious answer.
 
On the mental health thing, I don’t have a clue what the solutions are but it sure seems that as life gets easier and more comfortable, discontent, anxiety, depression increase.

I was recently somewhere with some pretty dang well off acquaintances of ours and their children aged 16-22.

These kids go to Greece for Spring break, live in fancy, safe gated communities, drive Teslas and Mercedes, go to high end private schools, and are very intelligent, social, well spoken, nice kids in every way. The type of young adults that if you spend 10 minutes around you think “if I have kids, I’d be lucky if they turned out like that.”
And they weren’t abandoned to be raised by a nanny or anything like you hear about rich parents doing. They have active and engaged parents.

Atleast two of them are on medication for anxiety and depression. On the timeline of human existence, they are some of the most privileged people with the easiest lives to ever exist, yet they have to be medicated to get through a day.
 
I'd agree with a lot of what you say. I also take my faith very seriously, but I cringe when I hear people advocating that government get involved in religious exercises. This is a task for parents, in my opinion.

I have all kinds of ideas of things that would probably help, but who knows. What makes this all quite difficult is that so many of these things can't really be legislated. How do you force 2 people to have a functional marriage if they're going to have children? How do you force the media to take a different approach with covering these events? How do you get young people counseling and/or meds if they don't think they need it? How do you force kids to get off their devices and get outside?

All I can come up with at this point is to do the best I can for my children and those in my circle. I think perhaps a lot of people don't really want to know how we got here, as it might require some painful changes.
Lot's of good questions, but by any account we need to do more - and maybe by doing more we may gain additional insights or see some improvement. We cannot let good (or disingenous) questions result in doing/spending nothing. I think Americans, especially my fellow conservatives have turned "what about", "or we just don't know" into very successful tropes to prevent any spending or any attempts towards positive change. There are places our govt wastes money - and I am sure their are pockets of waste in the mental health field as well, but there is no doubt that both private and public expenditures on mental health are shockingly stingy -- and result in far more expense consequences.
 
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I'm opposite of a lot of the opinions here. I actually thing a lot has been done over the last 30 years when it comes to mental health and acceptance of everything. Hell how many shootings may have been stopped because of this that we will never know.
It's not like a person goes on the news and says man I was gonna go blast this mall up and then one day I decided nah I'm not gonna now cause my football coach said something that changed my life.
 
Totally disagree, when a society of people start caring, things change. We just aren't close to there yet on this issue...and won't be for a long time, if ever.

Merciless response is a joke. By the time somebody decides they're going to shoot up a school, they've already decided they aren't coming home. What are you going to do? Throw a dead shooter in jail? Make them pay a fine?
There is currently several shooters in jail that could be made example of. The kid here in MI who parents also got convicted.

A merciless incentive of slowly dying where you wish you were dead is incentive to not take the risk of being caught alive.

Make it as clear as possible we are going to enter, we are going to do everything in our power to make you suffer, there will be no quick suicide by cop for you.

Won’t fix some but will make others think twice when they see just how bad it got for jimmy.
 
You must really think people, and in particular kids, are stupid.

Well, news flash, they aren't. They don't like being forced to adhere to your standards, in particular when the see the hypocrisy of those that are forcing their phony values on them.

Yes, PHONY, because I can tell you there are tens of thousands of "believers", "followers" whatever you want to call them, that do all the things on that list...every single day.

I see it, our kids see it, and you try to pass it off as, "well they weren't REAL followers...

Oh yes they were, ask them, they'll tell you.

Look, like I already said, I have NO trouble with religion if it works for some people.

What I have trouble with is the idiotic and untrue notion that religion would solve this, or any other issue. There's several thousand years of proof to the contrary...
No I don't, I find some people more sanctimonious than others.

My standard, and yes I expect others to adhere to it; Don't walk into an elementary school and shoot little kids and adults, and if you think that is forcing phony religious values on you well so be it. I never said that religion would fix this but many (not all)people when they are younger get exposed to a moral code through religion, I cannot see that as a bad thing regardless that there are hypocrites out there.
I think the erosion of morals is one of many myriad of reasons that we see this thing happening.

Your statement about people just praying and nothing changing is spot on, In the Bible I think its says "Faith without work"
But we don't want to do the things that may work. That would require that pony up money and expect responsibility.
We don't want to pay for mental health services, we continue to pay people to have children with multiple partners with no responsibility, we continue to fund schools that do not educate, we don't punish violent offenders in this country. But but if we would just pass some common sense gun reform in this country we will knock this level of violence down.. rubbish.
 
God bless southpark..0



 
God bless southpark..0




The good thing about south park is it roasts both sides of the spectrum.
 
No I don't, I find some people more sanctimonious than others.

My standard, and yes I expect others to adhere to it; Don't walk into an elementary school and shoot little kids and adults, and if you think that is forcing phony religious values on you well so be it. I never said that religion would fix this but many (not all)people when they are younger get exposed to a moral code through religion, I cannot see that as a bad thing regardless that there are hypocrites out there.
I think the erosion of morals is one of many myriad of reasons that we see this thing happening.

Your statement about people just praying and nothing changing is spot on, In the Bible I think its says "Faith without work"
But we don't want to do the things that may work. That would require that pony up money and expect responsibility.
We don't want to pay for mental health services, we continue to pay people to have children with multiple partners with no responsibility, we continue to fund schools that do not educate, we don't punish violent offenders in this country. But but if we would just pass some common sense gun reform in this country we will knock this level of violence down.. rubbish.
I already said, "if religion keeps you on the straight and narrow, great, go for it". Just don't tell me its the cure all or will solve the problem of gun violence. It never has, and never will.

No different than if someone rolls chicken bones twice a day to keep themselves in line...don't care, keep rolling.

I just find it absolutely stunning that someone believes putting scripture on a county building or forcing school prayer will solve mass murder.

If that's the best we can do, its my contention we're hosed...and like I said, just keep building caskets.
 
There is currently several shooters in jail that could be made example of. The kid here in MI who parents also got convicted.

A merciless incentive of slowly dying where you wish you were dead is incentive to not take the risk of being caught alive.

Make it as clear as possible we are going to enter, we are going to do everything in our power to make you suffer, there will be no quick suicide by cop for you.

Won’t fix some but will make others think twice when they see just how bad it got for jimmy.

Pretty sure this would run afoul of the U.S. Constitution. One of those pesky Bill of Rights issues.

Absolutely not a realistic solution.
 
No I don't, I find some people more sanctimonious than others.

My standard, and yes I expect others to adhere to it; Don't walk into an elementary school and shoot little kids and adults, and if you think that is forcing phony religious values on you well so be it. I never said that religion would fix this but many (not all)people when they are younger get exposed to a moral code through religion, I cannot see that as a bad thing regardless that there are hypocrites out there.
I think the erosion of morals is one of many myriad of reasons that we see this thing happening.

Your statement about people just praying and nothing changing is spot on, In the Bible I think its says "Faith without work"
But we don't want to do the things that may work. That would require that pony up money and expect responsibility.
We don't want to pay for mental health services, we continue to pay people to have children with multiple partners with no responsibility, we continue to fund schools that do not educate, we don't punish violent offenders in this country. But but if we would just pass some common sense gun reform in this country we will knock this level of violence down.. rubbish.
I think your point is a prime example of what Buzz is talking about. Americans have perfected the art of kicking the can down the road on a lot of issues. Gun violence, social security, etc. People seeking idealist solutions that stop the bad thing, keep all the good, and cost nothing.

I think all would agree that the world would be a better place if everyone practiced the teachings of Christ. Unfortunately these days the examples are in short supply.
 
Never started. We care about the 2nd, personal freedom, low taxes, military, corporate welfare, building a wall, banning books, etc. etc. not dead school kids.

It's difficult to reply to you when you keep editing your posts. As for banning books, there's also a lot more "new" books in schools that might make you blush. Interesting times we live in
 
When did the caring stop? Someone else mentioned root causes. Maybe pinpoint that first, then work your way back up to present.
I think humans have trouble caring beyond their immediate tribe. And a million years of evolution shaped a mind that can't pivot in 150 yrs to a broader sense of community. Look at the countries with high scores for unity, health, well-being, etc. They are all small countries with one language, one skin color, one history, a gene pool that damn near makes them cousins. It is easier for those 5 or 6 million to care for their whole nation because it looks/feels like an immediate tribe. That in you helping someone else you can rely on them following shared rules and you can expect reciprocity.

But when you have 350 million speaking a hundred languages, exhibiting 1024 bit color palette, countless religions, and countless very different life experiences, it is hard to get the individual to pitch in as there is no sense of helping yourself, your immediate family/neighbor, and little by way of common rules/expectations. So, many many Americans just hunker down, clutch their pursestrings, and chalk the whole thing up to unavoidable evil shoved upon them by scapegoat X.

I am not optimistic that the human mind can evolve fast enough to change our direction. A common existential threat is really the only proven tool, but we lost that when the Berlin wall came down. So in a vacuum we turned against one another. Will China emerge as a "unifier" or have we already disintegrated too far to rally? Time will tell - but that type of unity doesn't really create broader solutions, just glosses over them (see, Yugoslavia or almost any former British colony).
 
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we don't punish violent offenders in this country.
Right...there's more people in prison in the U.S. than China, Iran, and Russia. We don't punish offenders, but we're clearly punishing somebody.

Top 10 Countries with the most people in prison​

  1. United States — 2,068,800
  2. China — 1,690,000
  3. Brazil — 811,707
  4. India — 478,600
  5. Russia — 471,490
  6. Thailand — 309,282
  7. Turkey — 291,198
  8. Indonesia — 266,259
  9. Mexico — 220,866
  10. Iran — 189,000
 
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