Has our aversion towards violence contributed to the rise of more serious violence ? (generations, drugs)

[Lionel Fauquier]

So I'm sure everyone here can agree that in the past it was far more acceptable to get into a good old fashioned fistfight in the US of A . Including educational institutions for that matter .


My grandad and even my father told me plenty of tales concerning fights they got into at school and how they were handled . Virtually all of them a lot less seriously than now and said age wasn't the age of Dylan Klebolds either ...


So what I'm getting at is do y'all think it would be better for American society if we were to return the practice of good old fashioned violence to its hallowed place ? Or is the current path we're treading on sufficient enough and/or better than the ways of old ?

[CookieSkoon]

I do think that the suppression of "dukeing it out" does lead to greater acts of violence from certain people. After all, fighting is a part of human, largely male, nature and it exists to vent anger and frustration. Likewise, some smug hide-behind-a-lawsuit people really need a kick in the pants.

A broken nose and some bruises are preferable to a shooting.

Now, I do not condone it as a first resort. I'm not saying we should go around punching people willy-nilly. A hand to hand argument should be reserved for necessary times. Such as defense, mutual sport, or getting rid of an individual who just won't shut up and walk away.

Working against human nature is never going to end well. What we need to do is work with it. All things in moderation.

That said, overall we live in the most peaceful time in human history thus far.

[kevxu]

Originally Posted by Lionel Fauquier

.....So what I'm getting at is do y'all think it would be better for American society if we were to return the practice of good old fashioned violence to its hallowed place ? Or is the current path we're treading on sufficient enough and/or better than the ways of old ?

As opposed to slaughtered each other with guns. Yeah, sure.

But despite all the whipped cream on the American pie about special Snowflakes, Political Correctness, etc. we re a nation that loves and adores violence. It is in the deepest core of our culture, and we now have a very bad case of our-empire-is-dyingitis. So in that climate you can only expect domestic and international slaughter to accelerate for the foreseeable future.

[elyn02]

What I think could be an issue is that when something is taken away, it doesn't have an effective replacement. Fighting back was taken away through zero tolerance. However, it was replaced with "be nice" or something along those lines. "Be nice" is not effective because it means different things to different people under different situations. Then the people who are teaching how to be nice often have poor conflict resolution skills. They have good intentions but their methods are ineffective.

[CookieSkoon]

Originally Posted by elyn02

What I think could be an issue is that when something is taken away, it doesn't have an effective replacement. Fighting back was taken away through zero tolerance. However, it was replaced with "be nice" or something along those lines. "Be nice" is not effective because it means different things to different people under different situations. Then the people who are teaching how to be nice often have poor conflict resolution skills. They have good intentions but their methods are ineffective.

And that leads to emotions building up underneath until the top blows off, and some kid brings "ol shooty" to school because he was forced to just... "be nice".

[MrRational]

Originally Posted by Lionel Fauquier

So what I'm getting at is do y'all think it would be better for American society
if we were to return the practice of good old fashioned violence to its hallowed place?

1) It used to be that low level criminals would use low cost, inaccurate, unreliable, small caliber,
and small magazine weapons which REQUIRED that they get up close and personal with their target.
They no longer have that option and consequently their activities spill over onto those near the target.

2) The no/low skilled jobs that used to pay well enough to hold MOST of the families together in these
most affected neighborhoods no longer exist... creating a (mostly accurate) sense of fatalism among
50 to 100 million of us regarding their lack of any real life prospects.

3) The war on drugs now has THREE generations of people who know for certain that it failed because
there was NEVER any truth to the claims -- a lesson which has spilled over into a general distrust
of everything else those in 'authority' have told them.

It'll be a long time before we can remedy these things.
Fist fights would be little more than a side show.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA5za4VsskM&t=115s

[rstevens62]

Originally Posted by Lionel Fauquier

So I'm sure everyone here can agree that in the past it was far more acceptable to get into a good old fashioned fistfight in the US of A . Including educational institutions for that matter .


My grandad and even my father told me plenty of tales concerning fights they got into at school and how they were handled . Virtually all of them a lot less seriously than now and said age wasn't the age of Dylan Klebolds either ...


So what I'm getting at is do y'all think it would be better for American society if we were to return the practice of good old fashioned violence to its hallowed place ? Or is the current path we're treading on sufficient enough and/or better than the ways of old ?

We celebrate the people who resorted to violence, in order for America to break off from England, this was basically a violent overthrow of a sitting govt, so Im not sure how we could ever avoid it, it played a huge part in our history, just imagine if none of the people back then were willing to resort to violence!

[MrRational]

Originally Posted by rstevens62

We celebrate the people who resorted to violence, in order for America to break off from England...

We celebrate those willing to accept that violence would be needed in order for...

...this was basically a violent overthrow of a sitting govt

Hardly. It was about as gentlemanly and polite as has ever been achieved.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olive_Branch_Petition

[Cape Cod Todd]

Has our aversion towards violence contributed to the rise of more serious violence ?

I think so. We have a whole generation of kids that were given "time outs" for breaking household rules and now many are out of control.

The same has been happening for a long time where petty crime is started at a young age and there are few consequences so the kid ups the anti until they get into real trouble with the law.



How about capital punishment? No one wants to send an accused man that might be innocent to his death but there are cases that prove guilt beyond a shadow of a doubt and or the accused admits his guilt. Why do we allow that type of person to sit on death row for years if not decades as they move through the appeals process?



Today we have mass shooters where there is no doubt as to who pulled the trigger. How about the Boston Marathon bomber? If these people survive their death dealing of innocent people why do we show them so much kindness?


Our aversion to violence allows the violent to go on to hurt even more people.

If the law came down on criminals harder or at least have the time fit the crime we would have less people acting in criminal ways. There are so many cases where people that are guilty of crimes get away with a reduced sentence while their victim is left to pick up the pieces. Why?



If you do the crime then you do the time.

[Lodestar]

Mother yells out kitchen window, "Junior you can't hit other kids. If you don't stop that right now I'm gonna come out there and knock you into next Sunday."