He's a good boy, he wouldn't do something like that!

There are limits to my suffering of fools. Having lived for more than a half century, and having witnessed the downfall of the United States of America from the positive 50's to the gangsta/thug depression of the early 21st century, it occurs to me that this decline seems to correlate to the acceptance of the child rearing theories of Benjamin Spock:

Don't spank your child, give them a timeout. Self image is more important to a child than ability or knowledge. Don't punish criminals, give them compassionate correction. Be politically correct, don't hurt someone's feelings by pointing out the OBVIOUS fact that that person can't grasp reality. Wishful thinking is just as valid as rigorous scientific method.


WHAT THE ....!

For thousands of years, human beings reared their children without benefit of timeouts, and sparing the rod wasn't an option, for children or criminals. I probably shouldn't have to say this, but violent crime against innocent victims by individual criminals was very low up through the early 20th century. Why? Because the punishments fit the crimes. People who stole horses were hanged. Quickly. I won't go into detail about the treatment of rapists and murderers, but I will say that the state rarely had to pay for their incarceration. Repeat offenders were generally those who hadn't been caught yet. The punishment was inflicted quickly, often without benefit of trials and lawyers. Of course, there were innocent people who died at the hands of vigilantes, but the real criminals knew what was waiting when they were caught. There was little incentive for a life of crime, since that life was sure to be cut abruptly short.

Now we have instituted the ideas that one is a victim of circumstance when one commits a crime. Sages say that poverty causes crime. HUH!!! It is only the last 200 years that any significant portion of humanity has lived above a hunter-gatherer-farmer existence. Until then there was little real individual on individual crime when everyone was in abject poverty. One didn't steal another's food, because the other people would recognize the threat and eliminate it. They understood that to stand by meant that they could be next.

So, in the comfort of my own home, I am assaulted by the images on TV of what appears to be a 350 pound, welfare supported, gangsta-breeding, uneducated, unintelligible parody of a human being, whose remarks, when translated into English, about one of her many fatherless little thugs, are to the effect of " He's a good boy, he wouldn't do something like that."

This in the face of incontrovertible evidence that he DID in fact do it.

This is the benefit of the denial of reality brand of raising children. He can't be held responsible because he was denied the "right" to have what he wanted, and his "self-image" required that he have it, at the expense of another person's life.

Be careful what you ask for. You just might get it. Cheap self-images don't come free. The little thug is probably a hero to his gang now, meanwhile, a hardworking store clerk can no longer provide for his family. His children will never get a hug from him again. His wife sleeps alone. But the little thug's self-image is intact.

I am incensed. Bring back the vigilantes. Hang the horse thieves. Make crime cost the criminal MORE than it costs the victim. Make self-image depend on being a valuable and productive member of society.

Spank the child. Thousands of years of child-rearing success versus a half-century of self-image supporting failure is what I see.

I don't condone child abuse. One should not burn a child to teach what "hot" is, but, until a child has experienced a burn, it will NOT fully understand "hot." The same can be said for self-image. Until a child experiences the pride of real accomplishment, it will not have any kind of valid self-image, regardless of his heritage or culture.

Criminal behavior reinforced by a victim mentality can have only unacceptable results.

And, no, I don't buy Political Correctness. If you don't like what I say, prove me wrong scientifically. I bet I have more science, statistics and facts on my side. Do your homework beforehand. You are welcome to your opinion, and if you disagree, by all means start your own blog and post your opinions. Don't respond to me here with ad hominem attacks or vituperation, unless you are prepared to be used as an example to make my points afterward. Just remember that if you are unable to write coherent sentences structured into meaningful paragraphs with at least passing familiarity with grammar and syntax, I will laugh at you while pointing out your stupidity.

Enough ranting for now, I await the inevitable attacks calling me all sorts of names. I hope for a little creativity, though. Nazi and racist are really overworked pejoratives.