Why do people refuse to accept the obvious?

[HUnewearl_Meira]

Article on CNN.com (http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/Central/04/20/columbine.questions.ap/index.html)

Five years later, and people in Littleton, Colorado are STILL trying to figure out what happened at Columbine High School. Now I don't have a problem with the people there having a memorial or with those who still mourn their loved ones lost. That's someone missing from their lives, and I'm fine with that.

What really gets me is stuff like this--


Local authorities, the school district, a state commission and the Colorado attorney general have all investigated, but the question remains: Why didn't someone -- a parent, a sheriff's deputy, a teacher, a fellow student -- step in before the suicidal gunmen went on their rampage?

This case is not that complex, people! It's not hard to figure out why Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were able to pull off what they did, but these days the world is so dead-set on not placing blame on itself, that it's blinded itself to the answer!

Let's consider this, shall we?

We had two teenage guys. Pissed off at the world for no apparent reason other than that they had parents who presumeably gave them chores, and made sure that they go to school. Two melodramatic suburbanite teenage white boys that didn't really understand that troubles of the world, but believed they knew the answers. Do we see the problem here?

These two had enough privacy to plan this out. This privacy, in and of itself is not the inherent problem, though. It does, however, show that these two were provided with plenty of whatever they needed-- they obviously had quite a bit of time on their hands.

So what's the inherent problem?

Quite simply enough, their parents failed to teach them any values-- they completely failed to learn RESPECT!

Now, y'know, I can understand that their parents didn't realize that something was wrong. I can understand that most of society would look at the kind of parents Mr. Harris and Mr. Klebold had, and recognize that they weren't terribly abusive, and that they did indeed provide for their children. The thing is though, this is no excuse for the blatant fact that neither of these guys' parents really spent much time conveying any real lessons to their children. It is my own personal deduction that the vast majority of the interaction Harris and Klebold had with their parents involved only simple communication-- "Do these chores." "Get up, it's time for school." "Dinner's ready."

Dammit parents out there! You see your children EVERY DAY! Take some time to teach them your philosophy! If you don't, then your son could be the next Eric Harris! Do you think that idea is silly? Look at what's already happened! It wasn't a matter of, "Oh, their classmates were teasing them!" Nooooo, it was parents getting too damned wrapped up in their careers to bother paying some damn attention to their children! Seriously! How do you not notice that your son has developed a keen desire to own an assault weapon?


And teenagers out there...

A few of you are responsible, and understand what's going on. You are in the minority.

The rest of you.

This retarded generational rebellion thing has GOT TO STOP. You think you know better now, but you know what? You have no idea what it's like out there. You're still stuck in this, "My life sucks because my parents provide me with everything, so I need to wear black lipstick and pierce everything on my body that sticks out," phase. Your life is not that bad. Some of you have parents that are divorced, some of you have abusive parents. Some of you only THINK your parents are abusive. It's mostly you suburbanites that have the worst problem with your attitude. Those in the inner-city that have to live with crime and grow up with ignorant role models tend to be able to kick your ass because they're used to dealing with tough SOBs, while you've been sheltered and pampered all your life. You have no idea what the rest of the world is facing, because all you can see is yourself.


In short, the world isn't perfect. Unfair things happen. Deal with it. I'm sick of this whining about, "What went wrong?" Someone screwed up, that's what went wrong! Good cheese! It used to be, if a kid said, "Butt!" in public, people looked at his parents and said, "What kind of parents ARE you?!?" Now a couple of teenagers shoot up a school, and everybody is just, "He was a bad apple." THEY AREN'T BORN THIS WAY, PEOPLE! You can't blame it on the RPGs, you can't blame it on the music, and the blame does not rest completely on the shoulders of the students of Columbine High School! We have these parents that more or less let their children raise themselves, and this has got to stop. Harris and Klebold's parents didn't pay enough attention to notice that their kids were homocidal maniacs, and the cumulative parents of the students at Columbine didn't pay enough attention to their kids to notice that their kids were stuck up.

There. I've said it.

[hollowtip]

I agree with most everything you say, but I don't think the blame can solely be placed on the parents alone. There are many kids that are emotionally neglected throughout life that don't commit such violent acts that still make it into adulthood.

It cannot be placed on one medium such as videogames, TV violence, or music either. Society itself should share part of the blame as well, a combination of many things that triggers something inside of these kids.





<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: hollowtip on 2004-04-20 13:04 ]</font>

[HUnewearl_Meira]

On 2004-04-20 13:03, hollowtip wrote:
I agree with most everything you say, but I don't think the blame can solely be placed on the parents alone. There are many kids that are emotionally neglected throughout life that don't commit such violent acts that still make it into adulthood.



It is indeed a problem with society as a whole, but it comes down to what society considers to be acceptable parental practices. They think it's okay to let their children go undisciplined when they're young. They think it's okay to just plop their kids down in front of a television to get them out of their hair. They think it's okay to just let the kid have basically whatever they ask for. They think it's okay to hardly say a word to their kids; to not have considerate and thoughtful conversations with them. Well, it's not okay. My rebuke on parenting is not aimed at the parents of Harris and Klebold alone, but at all the parents out there who've gotten lazy on the job, including the parents of the students who envoked Harris and Klebold's wrath.

[Ness]

You know what was funny about the whole "trenchcoat Mafia" thing is that there were six children in this so called "mafia." This is funny because one of the resons that the kids went on a rampage is because they didn't have any friends. Oh come on! There are six of you guys! That's three on three in a basketball game or a group outing at the theatre. I didn't have six friends why I was there age (hell, I don't even have six friends now J/K).

[Sharkyland]

I agree.

[Outrider]

Amen.

[Sord]

well, I say smack them kids silly in their grave. Please, I WAS beaten by my step-mom, and i have pictures to prove it (though the police won't hand over the ones they have for some reason) and i don't go blow up a school. I don't think it's just the parents fault. They have to do a lot more then just hang with their son or daughter. They have their own jobs, have bills to pay and figure out, ect. I think it's not just the parents fault, but just the general happenings around them in society in that area. After all, at teenage years, kids often don't even want to be with their parents.

As for the teenager acting like they know all, I don't mind when someone says I don't have the experiance and I don't know how and ect. ect. But two things really piss me off.

1.) when something is as plain as day and the adult is to stubborn to admit it (usually this has to do with points in things) and they give nothing to back it up, while I'm giving them first-hand proof

2.) they are telling me how my mind works, and why I do the things I do, when I know exactly why I did what I did, and just because I don't tell you my every though doesn't mean I don't know myself. Especially my mom, she fights with me on everything, always bringing up my god damn past, saying it's because of that, and i need counseling to treat it. The fact she won't accept is i don't give a damn about my past, I've already forgotten all vivid details, hell, i can barely remember what my dad and my step-mom looked like. It doesn't lie in my past, it lies in the here in now, and they (parents, councilers, ect.) refuse to except it! It just pisses me off so friggin much! I know why! I've told you why! Ad you (the parents) won't listen to reason!

[ABDUR101]

On 2004-04-20 13:24, Ness wrote:
That's three on three in a basketball


Chris Rock said one on one in a half-court basketball game for the two Columbine kids, was on his one HBO special, Blacker than Black I think?

Really though, you can either dig your own hole as deep as you want and throw yourself to the dirt in depression and angst, or you can realise that eventually, that shit doesn't solve anything.

Visiting is the most you should do, not set up
residence and become Mr. Anti-society.

Such a stupid waste of life, and it makes me think did they even attempt to talk to their family or councilors and let people know how alienated they felt.

Oh well, really, the beat goes on.

[Daikarin]

Well, it's true. Which brings me to another point: Wisdom in people. Some people simply are ignorant, arrogant, while others tend to stick to their own lies.

Geez, is it so hard to come down to earth and admit "That's right, I might have been wrong" instead of playing your childish but complex version of the "I'm the one who's right!" scene?

A lot of people in the portuguese government are perfect examples. They tend to make a big announcement out of a slight economy growth in the country, instead of coming down to earth and say something like:

- "The people have some reason to complain. We screwed up the economy system here, some of us are indeed peadophiles who raped innocent children, our soccer team is not the best in the world despite the potential it has, we have a net of corrupt referee activity before the Euro 2004 which our country can't afford to budget on, we ARE going to raise the gas prices again, we might have raised the price of the college fees a wee bit too high, we are only sending our GNR men to Iraq to show that we are on Bush and Blair's side, our country as an international force sucks. But heck! We've got Hydrogen bus shuttles!!!"

Some of the above may not be true, but I don't believe all are fake. Those deputies have an irritating tendency to deny their negative truth.

[HUnewearl_Meira]

On 2004-04-20 14:30, Sord wrote:
well, I say smack them kids silly in their grave. Please, I WAS beaten by my step-mom, and i have pictures to prove it (though the police won't hand over the ones they have for some reason) and i don't go blow up a school. I don't think it's just the parents fault. They have to do a lot more then just hang with their son or daughter. They have their own jobs, have bills to pay and figure out, ect. I think it's not just the parents fault, but just the general happenings around them in society in that area. After all, at teenage years, kids often don't even want to be with their parents.


Please note, that I'm not placing the blame squarely on the shoulders of the parents Harris and Klebold alone, but on the parents of the entire generation, for neglecting to parent properly.

There's obviously something wrong with the way our family structure functions in this culture. It's not hard to see that there is a distinct problem when we have teenagers getting pregnant out of wedlock, crime rates rising on the average, and small children cursing at eachother and making sexual innuendos in the streets. Obviously there is a problem here, and I blame it on several generations worth of generational rebellion from parents.

I believe that all of our culture's problems boil down to this-- even our economy. During World War II, married women started to take jobs to maintain the income for the household. When the men came back, they kept their jobs, and the concept of "Expendable Income" was born: it became more common for individual households to have more income, and it's become even moreso over the decades.

Because so many husbands now have wives that work, now you don't have Expendible Income if both husband and wife work. The increased average income of married couples has driven up the prices of things. If more people have more money, then more products will cost more because retailers and manufacturers can get away with it. If you want to have Expendible Income now, then someone has to own something big. It is no longer an advantage to have both the man and the woman of the house working-- it's nearly become a necessity.

It's also worth observing that this shift in the workforce fills more jobs in a jobmarket that's already getting smaller because of robots.

Now, I don't want to get into a debate saying that women should not be in the workforce. That is not an argument that I intend to make. BUT, I do indeed believe that it is important for parents to put their children first-- ahead of their jobs. It should be the first priority, because a job can be replaced, and a little hardship can only make you stronger. Our children, however, are the next generation. In thirty years, it'll be the one and two year olds of today that are making the decisions. Would it not be a good idea to impart a little wisedom upon them?

[Deathscythealpha]

Well, i would have to agree with you there. Parents these days dont really pay enough attentions to their kids. They dont send time with them doing normal things, dont teach them morals or anything like that. Kids see something on TV where someone swears and they copy it. When i was little i got soap in the mouth for that, but now a days its a simple, dont say that again and their left to their own, normally to carry on using said words. If parents these days would just spend a little time with their kids, pointing out right and wrong and just being sociable it would be alot better. Like my step dad does, he will make time to spend time with my little brother, playing sports, letting him help out when he's making dinner or just sitting down and help him play his computer games.

Kids also seem to have some obnoxious (sp) reblious thing going on of late. I dont get it, why they rebel. They have a good life, theyve got stuff other kids dont have but they still think the world hates them. Man they really need to grow up and look at the world differently and be a sociable human being.

[Solstis]

On 2004-04-20 16:39, Deathscythealpha wrote:
Well, i would have to agree with you there. Parents these days dont really pay enough attentions to their kids. They dont send time with them doing normal things, dont teach them morals or anything like that. Kids see something on TV where someone swears and they copy it. When i was little i got soap in the mouth for that, but now a days its a simple, dont say that again and their left to their own, normally to carry on using said words. If parents these days would just spend a little time with their kids, pointing out right and wrong and just being sociable it would be alot better. Like my step dad does, he will make time to spend time with my little brother, playing sports, letting him help out when he's making dinner or just sitting down and help him play his computer games.

Kids also seem to have some obnoxious (sp) reblious thing going on of late. I dont get it, why they rebel. They have a good life, theyve got stuff other kids dont have but they still think the world hates them. Man they really need to grow up and look at the world differently and be a sociable human being.



Ooh, my parents are all generalized now.

Doesn't your second paragraph refute the first? If my parents were lazy punks, I sure would feel rebellious.

And I'm sure all/most of the posters in this topic did SOMETHING rebellious at some point, or at least wanted to.

People seem to forget things as they grow older, especially the more humbling ones.

[Outrider]

See, the funny thing is I would say my parents have always been fairly lenient with my brothers and I. I've really noticed this since coming up to college and talking to people about their respective childhoods. They would only be allowed to watch a certain amount of TV a day, or eat certain kinds of foods on weekends, etc while I was allowed to do all that stuff as much as I wanted as a kid. I'd say my brothers and I were spoiled from time to time when we were growing up.

But I fully respect my parents. They're honestly the greatest people I know.

I think it boiled down to the way they treated us. We would get grounded for saying mean things or fighting. However, my parents always spent tons of time with us. They would play with us, talk to us... that kind of stuff.

I'm not entirely sure of this, but I think when parents simply say down the laws and then leave it at that, kids will feel the need to rebel. I know many MANY people who will go out and do rebellious things... oftentimes the kind of things they were specifically told not to do. They were simply told... they were never taught not to do these things or why they shouldn't. However, I've just never considered any of this stuff. For example... let's use high school. Going out and getting wasted or drugged up just never occured to me as something I would want to do. My parents taught me what was wrong and why it was... but they never explicitly told me not to do it. In my mind, they must have faith in my making the right decisions.

Bah, I'm really just babbling now.

I'd just like to say that I spent a good amount of time with my parents (and still try to when I'm at home) and I'd like to think I'm growing up to be well-adjusted. They may have spoiled me from time to time, but I know what's wrong and what's right.

Well, at least I like to think I do. http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif

[anwserman]

The thing I can think of is that those kids felt too sorry for themselves, and poisoned their own minds into thinking that a school shooting was the way to be.

I can easily relate; if I spend too much time thinking about a subject, I get all moody and emotional. A couple months ago, probably during a depression I was in, I sat there and thought and thought and thought and thought to myself while getting out of a chair to the kitchen, "If I really think he means that much to me, I'll bleed myself."

I kid you not. Fortunately, I realized what I was thinking and what I was actullly doing (getting up to go to the kitchen) and... I scared myself, that i needed to get a grip on my emotions.

So, I went to the college and worked at the gym for 4 hours instead that night (instead of recreational bleeding, to make a joke)... and I've been dealing with my problems fine ever since really.

[Solstis]

The only time I ever considered offing myself, I was laying in bed, being depressed.

I asked myself the question: "If I died right now, how would that make others feel?"

That just made me feel worse, but not in a "I'll go shoot people sort of way." In a more, now I feel stupid sort of way. And guilty.

Then again, feeling guilty was one of the reasons I
was depressed, blah blah...

http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif

And they say self-therapy never works... that was about, er, 2 or 2 and 1/2 years ago, and I'm still alive.

I am, right? *pokes himself*

[Ness]

On 2004-04-20 14:38, ABDUR101 wrote:


On 2004-04-20 13:24, Ness wrote:
That's three on three in a basketball


Chris Rock said one on one in a half-court basketball game for the two Columbine kids, was on his one HBO special, Blacker than Black I think?

Really though, you can either dig your own hole as deep as you want and throw yourself to the dirt in depression and angst, or you can realise that eventually, that shit doesn't solve anything.

Visiting is the most you should do, not set up
residence and become Mr. Anti-society.

Such a stupid waste of life, and it makes me think did they even attempt to talk to their family or councilors and let people know how alienated they felt.

Oh well, really, the beat goes on.



Yes, I did get that line form Chris Rock. What he said was ture, however and I totally agree with him.

[WraithVerge]

Let's all make an oath. If you intend to have kids, PLAY with them. Teach them morals, respect, and honor! Love them, but do not make them ignorant of the world. Teach them the cold hard facts of life, but show them that in spite of everything, there's always you and God(unless you're athiest) that will love them.

When I have children, I don't intend to force them to do this and that and everything I see fit; however, I do not plan on letting them grow up thinking "My life sucks and no one else has any worse problems than I do". Fuck that, there's ALWAYS someone worse off than a whiny little ignorant bastard.

Respect your children, and they'll most likely respect you.

[haruna]

Wanna know something similarly sucky?

On the anniversary of the Oklahoma City Bombings, there is not media outcry to make federal buildings safer for their workers or visitors.

But if something happens to a school? Wow, in come the metal detectors, extra security guards, etc.

[HUnewearl_Meira]

On 2004-04-20 22:53, WraithVerge wrote:
Let's all make an oath. If you intend to have kids, PLAY with them. Teach them morals, respect, and honor! Love them, but do not make them ignorant of the world. Teach them the cold hard facts of life, but show them that in spite of everything, there's always you and God(unless you're athiest) that will love them.

Let us make this our generation's rebellion.

[DurakkenX]

actually i believe on the contrary of parents paying more attention..they should pay less. Teenagers and children feel victimized by their parents and rightfully so when we have to have security officers and metal detectors put into our schools, while our very homes we are left to deal with abusive parents or the thought of having someone come in and kill us...sure we're safe in our schools but appearantly all that has done is made us mad and taken away from funding from more important things in education such as new and updated books, computers, and better teachers, god knows we need better teachers.

As for everyone blaining it on games and tv...well first games are an escape for most of us so that we don't go kill someone second we wouldn't have the games if parents paid more attention to what they did rather than what we did and thirdly TV is never more violent when watching the news..which is real life

sorry i don't think mass media has anything to do with kids getting killed but rather the neglectful "paying attention" that our parents do

[HUnewearl_Meira]

On 2004-04-21 10:34, DurakkenX wrote:
sorry i don't think mass media has anything to do with kids getting killed but rather the neglectful "paying attention" that our parents do



You're thinking of the wrong kind of attention, and it doesn't begin with the teenage years. I'm not talking about policing your children. I agree, that's bad, and it doesn't produce respect, but rather, it produces the opposite. The kind of attention you're talking about is not really attention at all, but rather, the enforcement of ignorance.

No, real attention is getting involved in what your children are doing and persuing. If such attention is given consistently throughout childhood, then deviant behavior simply will not occur. Invasion of privacy won't be a problem, because the parents and children know eachother well enough to recognize whether or not something's wrong. THAT is the kind of attention I'm talking about.

[Outrider]

On 2004-04-21 10:45, HUnewearl_Meira wrote:
No, real attention is getting involved in what your children are doing and persuing. If such attention is given consistently throughout childhood, then deviant behavior simply will not occur. Invasion of privacy won't be a problem, because the parents and children know eachother well enough to recognize whether or not something's wrong. THAT is the kind of attention I'm talking about.



Meira, you basically summed up what I was attempting to say in my previous post.

Jeez, I really want to call up my mom now.

[Scales_of_Air]

I like reading all the posts here, because each one of them has an excellent point and great support. If I were to write my opinion, it would be a restatement of everything else here and a waste of time at that, so the one thing I do have to say is to Meira. I noticed how you were pointing out all of the flaws in their parents, and then going further to address ALL parents. The idea was wonderful, but don't subject everyone to your analyzation because, as with evwery stereotype, it's not true for everyone. I am content with my parents, and feel that they reach a decent medium in attention, relation, support, and wisdom. I can turn to them when I feel the great need to, which is good because than everything isn't over-done like being policed, and I can find refuge when I need it, not when they decide to throw it out. This allows one to grow on his/her own, while stil maintaining that important relationship with parents. Now I don't know if you've talked to their parents Meira, but if not, everything you just stated about all of their flaws is complete ASSUMPTION based on what you have gathered from the issue. It's great to beable to convey your message with skill, but don't overdo it when you don't know the parents personally. I've come to a conclusion, that also is an assumption: people are never as simple as one perceieves them to be. There could be so many factors behind the shooting about which we know little, so declaring that parents are doing poorly is not very wise (whether it was or was not meant to be so subjective, and I know you agreed that society played a role as well, which it probably did) But anyway, that's all. It's just I don't like myself or my family to be generalized, so don't take the constructive criticism personally, I meant it in good terms.