People are people everywhere, and people everywhere are stupid.
Just look at today’s headlines. Dumb-ass woman slays boyfriend, calls 911. Barbershop standoff leaves 1 dead, 2 wounded. Scoutmaster admits he molested boys. 12-year-old girl slain by brothers—for her bike. Deranged nanny stabs children, then herself.
Okay, I added the “dumb-ass.” But you get the point. The list of stupid people goes on and on and on and on . . .
One of the most stupid recent headlines happened this past July. This was the Colorado theater shooting, when America’s Biggest Dumb-Ass opened fire on an audience as they watched “The Dark Knight Rises,” killing 12 and injuring 58 others. (James Holmes, you disgust me.) The youngest of these victims was 6-year-old Veronica Moser-Sullivan, and, actually, rather than focus on Holmes (we all know he’s an idiot), my question today is this:
What was a 6-year-old doing in a PG-13 movie in the first place?
This is not a criticism. It is a question for all responsible parties out there.
While child development theories vary, it is widely accepted that young children have difficulty differentiating between fantasy and reality. Children learn from and imitate what they see, including TV programs, computer games, news, movies, and people. If this is so, and if youth violence is increasing across the nation (Holmes is only 24), could it be that there’s a connection between what our children are seeing, and what they are doing?
Bright idea, stupid.
In 1999, the world was appalled when two boys took guns to school and killed 13 people before killing themselves. Since Columbine, more than 100 school shootings in the Unites States have taken place. Many people argue that, in addition to media violence, gun control is to blame. I think we need to dig deeper. We’re never going to eliminate guns. And violence abounds in foreign countries, too. Just look at what’s going on in Syria.
The difference is that, in Syria, people are fighting for freedom. For values. For things that many Americans seem to have forgotten.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain, inalienable rights, that among these are LIFE, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. —Declaration of Independence
Because why are Americans blowing each other up? Because we own a gun and feel like using it on you?
America, what the f- is wrong with you?
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Note: Sources are bolded and hyperlinked—though my bold font seems hard to see! . . . Also, “Talking Heads” is coming soon, I promise! I got a little off track.
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shift 
I love the anger in the post! It’s therapeutic even for the reader. U ever wonder why the last 2000+ years of human history there hasn’t been a single second without a war somewhere in the planet? While I completely agree with the notion that some people ARE stupid, the problem largely lies in numbers. The collective is stupid, like really-really stupid and it has a mind of its own. And the individual follows the collective mind (some faithfully, other doubtfully but nonetheless follow). The biggest the collective, the more stupid it is.
Children are brought up in our western world with the concept of being better than others. Better at school, better in sports etc. They are (well, we are actually) embedded with the concept of rivalry in every aspect of out tiny life. So, on the same account me having a gun makes me better than you, and you having a machine gun makes you better than me, and so on and so forth… It is a sad fact that humanity is still a teenager…
Haha. Yeah, I can get passionate sometimes.
I’d agree that “stupid” lies in numbers. I’m just sick of seeing individuals do really stupid things at the expense of others–for what? Because they felt like it?
You bring up a very good point about the Western mindset and the concept that we are “better.” This is something I will have to address in future posts. It reminds me of a documentary, “Waiting for Superman.” I haven’t actually seen the film, but one line in the trailer is just great: “We’ve fallen behind in almost every category, except one: Kids from the USA rate number one—in confidence.”
You can find the trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKTfaro96dg
Ha! Love the pic with the guy at the super!!
This is a post I wrote after the Newtown school shooting: http://anglophiletoad.wordpress.com/2012/12/18/tilting-at-windmills/
I don’t know, as it says, what it was about this particular event that set me off so violently (violence begets, I guess), but I can’t remember ever feeling anything more than I felt this. I started hemorrhaging Facebook friends because of the insensitivity of God-comments and “gun love” jokes (JOKES, for God’s sake!) that seemed to be popping up everywhere. I wish I had been reading your blog when you wrote this, because sometimes you wonder if anyone else sees it (my above post was almost completely ignored, by the way).
The Newtown tragedy, by the way, also inspired the first poem I ever posted to my blog: http://anglophiletoad.wordpress.com/2012/12/20/to-humanity/