Years of violent video games, death metal music and gangster rap.
Distant, permissive and absent parents who do not take their children to church and look the other way when they display their cruel nature.
A society that fails to hold children responsible for their failures until it is too late.
sorry,but the death metal,video games had nothing to do with it.maybe parents not being there,i might believe that. but it's in them from birth.i've listened to matel for a long time and i don't want to beat someone with a ball bat.neither do my kids.they're screwed up from day one.don't blame it on something else
Funny, the national murder rate has dropped pretty steadily for the entire avaliablilty of (realistic) violent video games, most of the history of gangsta rap, especially its popularity amoung whites, and much of the history of "death metal."
All that could be true...or these two could just be psychopaths. Either way, they'll be locked up for life, if they don't get the death penalty.
This is a piece in City Journal, always a good read, by the Englishman, Theordore Dalrymple.
Two nights ago, my wife related something that she discovered in her geneological research. Three boys in Blytheville, AR, circa 1937, were charged with stealing a Dr Pepper from a lady's back porch.
At the time, the boys were age 11, 12 and 14. Their family was dirt poor and they were mowing yards to help out -- it was the tail end of the Great Depression. It was a hot July afternoon in the Delta, the boys were thirsty, and the lady whose yard they were mowing had inadvertently left a carton of Dr Pepper on the porch while moving her groceries into the house.
They only took one bottle, and shared it among themselves.
She turned them in. The boys were arrested and charged with theft. They were found guilty and sentenced to the state reform school, where they would remain until they turned 18. The younger one would spend seven years in the slammer -- for a few sips of hot Dr Pepper. The judge made notations in the margin of the trial papers (which are still on record) -- "we can't let this happen", "these boys have to learn their lesson", etc.
Fortunately, all three boys did "learn their lesson" -- because after they were released they all went on to lead uneventful lives and raise families of their own. All three served in WW II...and survived.
Nonetheless, my wife and I were both stunned by the story and what seemed to us Draconian punishment. We shook our heads and wondered, "What were they thinking?".
How ironic that, a day later, I would run across Dalrymple's piece. And, now, this one...