Posted on 02/26/2014 4:15:32 AM PST by Kaslin
America's most popular cable news host is upset. "Marijuana use, video games and texting (are) creating major social problems," says Bill O'Reilly. "This is an epidemic that will lead to a weaker nation!"
Give me a break.
Crotchety old geezers always complain about "the kids." The Boston Globe frets about "Idle Trophy Kids." The New York Post asks if millennials are "The Worst Generation?" Older folks (my age) complain that young people spend so much time texting each other that they can't communicate. And because they spend hours playing violent video games, violence is up.
Bunk.
It's true that kids today play incredibly violent games like "Halo" and "Grand Theft Auto," but as the games' popularity increased (over the past 20 years), youth violence dropped 55 percent. In Japan, kids spend more time playing violent games, and there's even less violence. And in America, despite media hype, there are fewer school shootings now, not more.
Kids "can't communicate" because they text all the time? Recently, kids invented Facebook, YouTube, Firefox, Groupon, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest and so on. They communicate something .
Inevitably, we older people misunderstand new ways young people do things -- we are frightened by the risks and oblivious to the benefits.
If O'Reilly had been on TV in the '50s, he would have ranted about comic books causing juvenile delinquency. The Senate actually held hearings in which the public was instructed that Superman "embodied sadistic fantasies ... injurious to children ... "
Today O'Reilly opines, "The cyberspace addiction rate among American children is off the charts ... they don't learn coping skills! ... In China, young people are encouraged to compete, be disciplined, live in the real world. Not here."
Even if that were true, what have Chinese young people invented lately? Any companies? What music and art did they compose?
O'Reilly worries about "America going to pot ... If you use any intoxicating agent, your goal is to leave reality. You're not satisfied with your current state of mind, you want to get high, buzzed, blasted, whatever."
I say, so what?
Some people like the sensation of getting "buzzed." Some are not satisfied with their current state of mind. Good. That's what gets people to learn new things.
Altering our minds is a most basic right. We alter our minds -- often for the better -- every time we read a book, fall in love or watch a TV show, including O'Reilly's.
But old people worry that young people are exposed to sexual imagery. It's true the Web brings pornography to children's computers, and that culture is often coarse. When Miley twerks, I cringe.
But again, where's the harm? As reporter Michael Moynihan will point out on my TV show this week, "Over the past 20 or so years, sex has been in everyone's face, yet teen pregnancy dropped by 50 percent."
I wish outraged oldsters remembered how we once laughed at those who were frightened by Elvis Presley.
In 1956, The New York Times said Elvis had "no discernable singing ability." The New York Daily News called his act "animalism that should be confined to dives and bordellos." Even Frank Sinatra said his kind of music is "deplorable, a rancid, smelling aphrodisiac (that) fosters destructive relations in young people."
Somehow, America survived Elvis.
"Moral panics are one of our favorite things," says Moynihan. "If there's nothing to be panicked about, what do you write about?" Being outraged is part of the media circus.
The danger is that the outrage undermines perspective. It creates a false impression of how risky the present is, and it fuels unnecessary, freedom-killing regulations.
Old people always talk about the good old days. But the good old days were not so good. When I was young, more kids were intolerant, racist, sexist and homophobic. They had little knowledge of life beyond their neighborhoods. Today, thanks to the Web and other innovations, life is better, not worse.
While one is more explicit, I don't know that either of those games is any more violent than Roadrunner or Bugs Bunny cartoons.
That's the money quote. You may easily deplore skanks on the web but we don't need congress telling us what's good for us.
While there are all kinds of reasons that have been given for getting kids separated from their cells, video controllers, etc., but the single best reason is that we’re creating a generation of plump, soft, couch potatoes.
Those are your future warriors and protectors, America.
For the same reason I think prisoners should be denied weight benches and exercise rooms and be fed a daily diet of 400+ calories of fat and sugar, we are raising a generation of the weak, the slow, and the non-durable.
Because the Libertarian’s moral compass is broken.
He is so blinded by the concept that there should be no bounds on personal behavior, that he can’t see the impact on childhood development and the accelerated decline of the overall culture.
Just what I was thinking. Back in the day when I smoked pot my favorite activity to do while stoned was read.
“Get off my lawn!!!..”
Hehehe....
Are things really that different today...
From 1965
What a drag it is getting old
“Kids are different today,”
I hear ev’ry mother say
Mother needs something today to calm her down
And though she’s not really ill
There’s a little yellow pill
She goes running for the shelter of a mother’s little helper
And it helps her on her way, gets her through her busy day
Bumper sticker seen recently: Facebook does NOT need to know you went to the gym this morning.
The movie Gran Torino says volumes about this.
-— When Miley twerks, I cringe.
But again, where’s the harm? -—
Lost me there.
So you liked the racism and sexism of the ‘50s?
Bingo we have a winner!
Well, that’s kinda what I’m thinking.
Every generation’s elders think their offspring are being ruined by “something.” Alcohol. Tobacco. Comic books. Rock n’ Roll. Hot rods. And then those same offspring proceed into life, have kids, and then too think that their young are being ruined by something new that they don’t understand. Rinse and repeat. Over and over. Generation after generation.
Lots of things aren’t good for kids (or people in general for that matter.) But those things don’t automatically and universally ruin them for being exposed to them. I remember that too much TV would ruin my eyesight as a kid in the 1980s. No, it didn’t and it seems silly to think about today.
Well Mr. Stossel, the old farts said that Elvis and the Beatles were part of a communist plot to take over the country. And they were right, look who has nearly all the power now? Commies and their tools!
BOR is right here!- Marijuana and junk foods is what gives you zoned out Obama voters
Compare the literacy level of today's 18 year olds versus 1950's.
Compare the number of black men under 30 who have been in prison, versus the 1950's. Compare current homicide rates.
Just because we have not yet gone over the cliff, doesn't mean we are not getting closer and closer to the tipping point.
Some people like to point out this quote from Socrates:
“Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.”They do not consider that, just a few decades after this quote, Greece was overrun and conquered by Macedonia, followed by Rome.
Infinitely better than what we have today. The Black community was more peaceful with many more intact marriages and by sexism I suppose you mean stay at home moms
“If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything” - Hat tip to Aaron Tippin.
Hey, I resemble that remark. And so does probably 75% of Freepers. LOL. Hashtag that!
People who wonder where the younger generation is heading for would do well to remember where it came from...Philosofact.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.