The role familial culture plays is really understated here. I grew up in a working-class immigrant neighborhood in NYC. I can’t think of anyone from an Asian immigrant family that goes around at night spraying graffiti or surfing trains. We mostly had parents that sent us to test prep and piano classes. I know Nigerian and Ghanaian and Uzbek families that also raised their kids in a similar way, and there’s hardly any delinquency ever.
It’s not exactly clear. I am guessing that they are striving for some type of ‘utopia’…and that if they knock everyone and everything down to the the same lowest common denominator so that everything will be ‘fair’ then everyone will be happy. What they neglect is ‘human nature’ and all that that phrase means.
I believe the last line of the Communist Manifesto goes something like, “....for our aims to be achieved all social structures must be destroyed.” Then, you can “Build Back Better.”
I might remind you that Lenin claimed to be a liberal and that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was always a lie, just like the German Democratic Republic.
Communists break things then lie about it, mostly, but before they get power the order is reversed. Ho Chi Minh--which by the way is his Communist stage name, not his real name--helped found the French Communist Party some time around 1919; yet his boosters claimed he wasn't Communist . Same with Castro. Examples are roughly equal to every Communist coup everywhere.
But there's a tremendous push from the Left, from organizations like BLM, Climate Changers, the Transgender Movement, etc - that explicitly state they are 'Marxist' - their leaders proudly proclaim this and the White House endorses them regularly. It may not be here now but this is what they are pushing to achieve. Uncle Joe invites these groups whenever he's not napping.
I spent time in Cambodia about 20 years ago. I didn't meet a person who's entire life wasn't effected by Pol Pot in some horrific way. Some lost their entire families. Some watched in horror as kids (PP would indoctrinate youth to a very effective degree) in the Khmer Rouge murdered their dads right in front of them. Changed me forever. And the Killing Fields should be a required study in all American schools. I cried for hours after I left.
Tom, leftists are statists. It makes perfect sense that the Left would "work hard to undermine parents and families," because its power depends on its ability to control individuals directly. Mediating institutions with countervailing values (most importantly, families, but also churches, schools, civic organizations, etc.) serve as a buffer between the individual and the state. To the extent that those institutions thrive, the power of the state declines.
The article was interesting to read so I read it to hear someone vent. Lack of two parent family is the root cause of poorly socialized kids. It is regretful that not all kids can have that, but to have the country and society celebrate, encourage and incentivize the destruction of the nuclear family is a disaster. The generation of lost children suffer themselves the most
@ Tom — I don’t think they are really trying to do that at all, or at least not most of them. A few view the idea of family as patriarchal and reactionary, but most desire a more expansive understanding of family unmoored by biological mothers and (especially) fathers, not really appreciating that their relaxed definitions, however well-intended, inevitably lead to more relaxed ties and dilution. Their ignorance in this respect is matched only by their arrogance.
I think it is because those without family support are easier to manipulate. I also think it is possible that those who do not value their family of origin and are willing to abandon that family are more likely to be liberal and drive policies in accordance therewith. IOW I am not sure which is the chicken and which is the egg.
It’s absolutely crazy - why would they destroy faith, flag and country. What do you have if you don’t have family, it’s almost like “they want to destroy us”
Because it takes a village to raise a child. That way, there’s nobody to blame, except maybe the village. And…try to fix the issue in some way and find a whole heap of trouble.
Yeah…it takes a village…or at least a strong parent. But nobody wants that responsibility.
You can’t truly judge something you never experienced! I’m guessing none of you lived in communist/socialist societies, but I grew up in it.
Not only that but I’ve lived in US for the last 47 years. Long enough to understand the difference. Between genocidal monstrosity and boundless opportunity, hard work required! If you want it, of course. Or you can sit on the couch, pick your nose, complain about how things you want don’t fall from sky.
Capitalism gave that couch and technologies and medicine and clean water and just goes on because it inspires progress. The other one is DEATH!
During the riots that followed George Floyd's killing I went to BLM's web site to see what the organization said about itself. One thing that jumped out was that the organization did not believe in the "Western construct of the nuclear family" - that's not a direct quote but that's the idea expressed in words like that. Shortly after that, as BLM's profile rose because of the riots, that part of the organization's statements of beliefs was deleted.... No surprise that a Marxist organization would seek to hide its true aims.
Because communism does not value the individual other than for what he or she provides to the (misnamed) common good. So far as I can tell the only government to ever value, and empower, the individual human being was the one created by the US' founding fathers. And that has been eroded for 150 years or so now, recently at warp speed.
100% I saw an interview with the Rosenberg boys. One said when his parents were arrested, his Mom was offered a deal to stay out of jail and be able to raise her boys. She just had to give them names of other spies. She refused. The feds told the boys that their mother loved her cause more than she loved them. Poor man still
Seemed haunted by that fact. It is quite evidently the mind set of current day leftists as well.
My husband and I were there, but we found out that our sons and their friends liked to have sleepovers and "watch movies." After the movies were over and the chaperoning parents were asleep, they would take a car and go skateboarding in empty parking structures all over San Diego. Once we and the other parents knew, we all requested the keys to all cars. That put a stop to that, but being creative, they found something else to do. I believe that our culture is mostly for girls, that we don't encourage boys in "manly" pursuits. The Boy Scouts have been destroyed. When my brother was in it, they backpacked in the High Sierras for a week, had a great time and developed confidence in their accomplishments. I wish we had some kind of national service requirement for all young people when they graduate from high school. They could join the military, work in the national forests, work in public schools as tutors, etc. It would accomplish 2 things: all strata of society would be mixed up and realize all the similarities we have and it would be supervised risk-taking for those who need it. Those who need to learn risk taking would be able to learn the right way to take risks with the guardrails in place.
You raise a possibly critical point re: Mixing. Long ago and far away I chose to enlist rather than be drafted. Being a college dropout, I often got to be the guy who sat with the clipboard and recorded stuff. At t.he dentist visit, each guy had a chart with the tooth numbers followed by blank lines. The dentist would read out points of interest by number for me to transcribe. The number of times that was a litany of missing... missing... missing... appalled me, a suburban kid who had little idea how lucky he was. And that's a small example of revelation about How the Other Half Lives. (International travel away from the tourist areas is likewise educational but that's for another thread.) Spot-on post.
One other advantage to a two year stint "under supervision" is added maturity. One would hope that those two years would help young people to learn adult skills like budgeting planning for meals, etc. if they don't already have some exposure to them. Also 2 more years might be helpful in avoiding the alcohol-induced play and lack of seriousness that is the university experience today. Personally, I would just like to see adulthood come earlier among our youth.
This is what Mormons do when they send their 18-year-olds on two-year missions. Strict rules, they have to learn how to budget and live semi-independently, and they're proselytizing for literally 12 hours a day, doing something they believe in. It's hard work. No time for trouble-making (unless they happen to get partnered with another trouble-maker, but that's surprisingly rare). Then they come home and go straight to college, where they usually get married before they graduate (my husband had a baby before he graduated). Mormons raise adults--not perpetual children. And it's because they expect a lot of their kids at a very young age. We're also socialized to WANT to take on adult responsibilities. We look forward to having families and being grownups. We prioritize family over everything else, which for many of us, includes planning from the beginning to have a parent stay home (ie, not taking on debt, minimizing expenses, and building a pre-kid life that can be supported with one income, so that when we add kids, we're not strained to the point of needing a second one).
Your story certainly strengthens the case against sleepovers.
But yeah, I agree that young men need opportunities to take VALUABLE risks, like your brother's high adventure with the scouts. (Boy Scouts still exist, by the way. My 13yo is one. And my 11yo daughter just joined a girls' BSA groop.) Otherwise they'll find stupid risks to take. It's in their biology and psychology.
Sorry, I see the advantages but making people dedicate two years of their lives to the government is a substantial infringement on freedom. My niece spent two years with the Peace Corps in Cambodia. She was supposed to help at a clinic but most of the time the medical personnel didn't show up. She learned Cambodian but otherwise neither she nor the Cambodians benefitted much from her service. Do you really trust the government to structure meaningful service programs for millions of disaffected young men and women?
The military managed to. I have friend who was in the Peace Corps in Thailand, she wan't sure of it either. But assume sort of national service, not the Peace Corps, whether in forestry, tutoring in public schools, feeding homeless people, etc., could make a difference. Think CCC and the Depression. I don't consider it an infringement of freedom, serving your country is not an infringement of freedom. You have freedom because you live here.
Germany does this. You can be assigned to an old folks home, a fire department, or you can do a shorter enlistment in the military. It’s hard to imagine in a US context though.
I was drafted and spent 22 months in the military, including about 9 months in Vietnam. We lost 50,000+ lives there and still lost the war - although we now have good trade relations with Vietnam. While recruiting is down, a volunteer army is still better than a conscripted one. If you think the government knows better than individuals about how to live their lives, even for two years, we're not on the same wave length.
Depends. Maybe they're disabled, mentally ill, dealing with substance abuse issues, serving as caretaker for elderly parents or a severely disabled child, dealing with chronic illness, incarcerated and/or on parole with few job prospects, etc. Usually, if you're not working/legitimately employed in any capacity, there's probably a good reason.
You're not very good at this.
I had no idea that a parent working one job might have an easier road in keeping up with their kid than one working a day job and an evening one as well would be so controversial.
Disabled, mentally ill, substance abuse, incarcerated....you're describing a lot of people who probably shouldn't have kids.
Look, if you can't be present for your kid, you shouldn't have a kid. If you can't have a parent at home with them, or quality childcare (which includes proper supervision for older kids--not a latchkey life), you shouldn't have a kid.
Most of society's problems would be solved if people who shouldn't have kids would stop having them. We need stronger birth control campaigns in neighborhoods where this is a problem, and easier access to abortion for everyone.
Look, lots of those things can happen AFTER a child is born.
Look, if you're not working in ANY capacity, probably a good reason why.
What....."neighborhoods" should we be looking at exactly, Adrienne?
Nope. Sorry Adrienne, a lot of states are now making it a felony to leave the state/drive some across state lines for abortion services. So, that ship has sailed.
No, it can be. I just don't think it's 100% the cause, like you do.
You're the one that brought up the stupid "not working at all" nonsense, when the data shows that 3/4 of those on benefits work as well, albeit in unstable job situations.
The irrefutable fact, and the data shows, if you are not working in ANY capacity, there's usually a reason for that. Sorry if the reality doesn't support your buffoonery. Ok.
As you now should realize, Compost2.0 is a troll. Not much intelligence there, lotsa whininess. And excuse making for miscreants. Best to ignore this troll.
I was just making a factual, accurate observation.
But it would be interesting to look at that Asian and European/white percentages of one job and stay at home moms, wouldn't it? I think it might actually be substantially above average, don't you think?
Not sure, Adrienne. Parents can care but the kids don’t care that their parents are there. They’ve rebelled. They’re gone. They’ve rejected their parents. It may not be a familial cultural thing at all, just kids who don’t buy into anything they see on offer.
My grandparents were poor Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. My father and his brother - my uncle - slept in the same bed until my uncle got married. Then my father moved to a day bed in the dining room so his parents could rent out the extra room. It never would have occurred to them to engage in any behavior not directed towards improving their situation. In a culture that actively discourages achievement, is anyone surprised about the current situation?
Your point is spot on; if there is any structural racism, this is it. We always hear about black and brown kids, but the highest income group in the US is Indian Americans. It is funny how that brown group is thriving while others are not. We are living with the disastrous results of welfare policies that reward bad behavior by removing consequences for life. The white progressive has pity but never works to uplift, only keeps in a perpetual state of dependency. Your point shows that the American dream is still alive, where one generation pays the price so the next can flourish. Sadly, this article is about the American Nightmare, the results of our expert class in social engineering.
Yup. When discussing Indians and other Asians who chose to immigrate in the 60s-80s, the number with college and graduate degrees was astronomically high. Actually the U.S. put restrictions in place to ensure that. So, not "every," but probably around 85-90%.
Lol. Of course, you probably believe Vivek Ramaswamy's parents had no money and floated to America in an inner-tube.
And as far as "Middle European," I'm sure the numbers are a tiny bit less....but they're white, so that's a huge leg up.
Perhaps the difference is that immigrants retain the strong familial culture they brought with them, whereas American familial culture has largely atrophied.
Been atrophied, not has atrophied. It is not from lack of care or concern by American families it is a deliberate act by the US govetnment.The Department of Education has only been in existence since 1979 and we are now in the position where parents, ordinary American parents, are told to but out or be investigated as domestic terrorists whereas migrants are a protected class.
Stop playing the victim. All citizens have responsibility towards this and our government is a reflection of us and our lack of willingness to do difficult things.
Lady I NEVER play the victim. In addition you are dead wrong that "citizens have responsibility towards [sic] this" - that is typical liberal philosophy used to escape personal responsibility and governmental accountability for that matter, or worse, belief that the government can fix things if we the citizens just vote right; 2) that "our government is a reflection of us" - this administration is not a reflection of a great many of us in this nation, rather it is a reflection of failed liberal policy; and 3) you, this author, and the governments with jurisdiction where these children live have no clue what to do to remedy this, much less whether to do so would be difficult. Your solution probably starts with a study by social scientists.
Taking responsibility for your actions is quite frankly the number one thing Americans have failed at since the Berlin Wall fell. We didn't hold Congress accountable for motor votor, we didn't insist on a wall being built earlier, we didn't succeed with the Tea Party. We din't hold the Democrats responsible for their election cheating in 2020 and now we are headed into 2024 knowing that there will be more cheating. We didn't hold the Bush administration accountable for the Iraq War or for bailing out the banks during the real estate meltdown in 2008.
Republicans are experts at this. You cry about how no one is taking care of business and then when someone shows up to tell you "we have failed" you sit there squealin about "muh social scientists" as if we didn't have a responsibility to not listen to them in the first place. When you are confronted with a scam and you fall for it, then the fault lies with you for not being smarter and braver!
This is why Republicans are cuckolds. You people give up so easily. It's so goddamn pathetic watching you twist like a worm, desperate to evade any personal responsibility for this situation, as if you don't live here and don't have a stake.
American families been told by Hillary “it takes a village to bring up a child” meaning government will do your job. Government never does good job except sending kids to war. FAMILIES SHOULD TAKE RESPONSIBILITY instead they open GO FUND ME accounts when it’s too late.
Family is indeed the key factor, and this really deflates pretty much the entire article, which describes young people as vague victims, as it is fashionable in America in the last decades. The fact is that many (most) immigrant families are able to provide a sense of belonging and purpose in young people, while most “usual” American families are a rotten shadow of what families should be. Even well to do such families leave children with a sense of emptiness and alienation. Unsurprisingly, Mom and Dad are busy “searching for themselves” and they “have a life too” - in other words they are themselves spoiled, self-centered and self-indulgent children.
If you watch people like Alex Honnold or Danny MacCaskill, you can see how formidable their ancestors would be in battle. The Scots in Roman times would strip and paint themselves with wode (blue), and wrap their long hair around torches on their heads. Before dawn, with A. muscaria drink making them berserker mad, they charged out of the forest at the Romans. They were the only fighters who made the legions break ranks. A man with his hair on fire run through with a spear would laugh and kill 3 or 5 men before he died. Cut off his axe arm and he would pick up his arm and beat men to death with it.
But these guys don't look special. They aren't huge, or packing lots of muscle. Men like them who won battles spread their genes across Eurasia, across Africa when the predators were gone.
I had a great great grandfather who would come home drunk after being thrown out of the bar for fighting. His wife barred the door, so he would go out into the barn, let out the bull, and put out the lantern. He would fight the bull with his bare hands and feet until one or the other was exhausted.
This is why we have nice things. Brains and aggression. Winning battles.
There are no male role models because the fathers of these children are just like them...and these boys will father more children just like them, whom they will abandon to be raised by young moms who have no support and no clue what they're doing. And the cycle will continue.
Most of society's problems would be solved by preventing people who should not be having children from having them. No person in that photo of the Union Square riot should ever procreate. They have no clue what family is or how to raise people who will contribute to society. That's why they are where they are. It's sad and it's unfortunate and it's even unfair, but it's still true. And the only way to prevent more of that sadness, misfortune, and unfairness for future generations is to do everythign we possibly can to prevent these boys from knocking up their similarly unfortunate, clueless girlfriends.
"Once upon a time, these boys would have been absorbed by other things: a boxing gym; a basketball court; a church; a job... It was hardly free of violence or danger. But there was a way things were done. There were guardrails."
Those activities still exist. The right questions to ask (but are absent in this otherwise interesting piece) is what the guardrails were and why they (seemingly) don't exist now. Isn't a large part of "guardrails" very simply the presence of a father in the home? It doesn't matter how much sympathy I might have for the plight of children in certain communities facing difficulties if those same communities refuse to acknowledge that a basic component of raising children is responsible parents.
Great comment. The destruction of the guardrails began in the 60’s. First was the attack on religion, led by Madalyn Murray O’Hair. Crèche scenes, which used to be a standard decoration in front of churches around Christmas began to disappear. The Ten Commandments, usually found in front of courthouses, also disappeared. Attendance in houses of religion began to steadily decline. “Do your own thing” became the mantra. Time magazine had a splashy cover celebrating “The Me Generation.” The 60’s also gave us “The Great Society” legislation which included a welfare program that awarded mothers based on the number of children they had as long as there was no male in the house. As Thomas Sowell so famously said: “This accomplished something that 200 years of slavery could not. It destroyed the Black family unit.” Also included was the birth of the Women’s Movement and the attack on “toxic masculinity” starting in kindergarten and reinforced throughout the education experience. Physical connection to a local community and its standards of behavior were eliminated with the advent and pervasive growth of Social Media.
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The real question is not where the guardrails went. It is why are we surprised that they have disappeared.
If you think 1950s department store style Xmas decorations ever prevented young men from being violent and stupid, you've got a real short view of history. Gangs of young men, mostly from minority and immigrant groups, have been attacking each other with clubs and chains in New York City since before the United States existed. And by the way, the "Me Generation" and the Great Society plans of the 60s, for all their problems, are not what's responsible for the destruction of the Black family unit. The Black family unit in America was forcibly broken over and over again for hundreds of years by selling off mothers and fathers and children like cattle. In any event, it wasn't functional in the 1950s either. It baffles me why people romanticize the '50s as if these Creche scenes like you see in old movies somehow made everything fine, when for instance the South was still segregated and the KKK was running rampant murdering people. (Another form of young men acting violently).
Gee, glad you liked it. As someone who grew up in the 5O’s and 60’s I am certainly not romanticizing that period which was certainly no Edenic paradise. The discussion was about “guardrails.” In my view, these were community, church/synagogue, two-parent families, and patriotism. These are now uncommon features of the American landscape. As far as Slavery and discrimination against the Black community, I agree that it is a despicable part of America’s history. My point is more about the disastrous results of government policies meant to address this stain on our history. Relative to this discussion, leading up to passage of the so-called Great Society only 20% of black births were into single parent households. With welfare benefits focused primarily on households with no male presence, that statistic is now 70%. Having a male presence in the home is traditionally the primary “guardrail” for young men.
I'm against welfare for people who could work, myself. But in my life (growing up in the 80s) it was pretty apparent that it was drugs, more than anything else, that was breaking Black communities. Crack broke Black communities, and heroin broke the families of Vietnam vets, but the vets were a subsection of broader White society; the White communities were not destroyed. But from those homes, the guardrails were removed, not just by missing a father but by the presence of substance abuse. What happens on the community level to White society is only apparent now, in the 2020s with the opium epidemic.
I'd agree with you that government policies that discourage working and saving are somewhat responsible. I disagree about the removal of religion from the public square; I'm Jewish, so I have nothing other than two thousand years of discrimination by Christians to look at when considering whether it's a good idea to allow one religion to dominate education or the law. But I think religion is a pretty poor way of keeping the youth in line anyway, if European history is much of a guide.
When you say that "having a male presence in the home" is the traditional, and most important guardrail, I absolutely agree. But how we got here is much more complex than simply removing nativity scenes from in front of libraries.
Billions of dollars are spent annually by churches on youth ministries across America. While they are not bad, it is a search and rescue approach. Prevention focuses on supporting, strengthening, and restoring families. Churches get a kid one night a week. A divorced dad may see his kids one or two nights a week. Stable, intentional, present, loving parents will keep most kids from surfing trains. Not all, but most.
The question for me isn’t “how do we stop the dumb antics of testosterone boosts of adolescents,” but rather “how can we restore the value of the two parent home, especially for knuckle-headed boys?” Both slavery and the Great Society tore apart Black families, but we can’t change history. What do we do next?
I don't honestly know. But it's got to start with the current generation of young men having some reason to do better than their missing fathers. I think of what goals and virtues were passed down in my family: Education, hard work, earning, saving. How can you have anything without that? Add together absent parents and easy access to drugs, and none of those things seem *important* to young people. They view the straight life as a game that's rigged against them, they view working stiffs as suckers, and they're not completely wrong on either count.
My grandfather used to say, "people can't advance when they don't have a pot to p*ss in."
We know welfare isn't a solution, even though it may have been well-intentioned. The reverse of that was supposed to be an economy that would let people lift themselves out of poverty on their own, but that hasn't happened.
Being from the west coast, I spent awhile yesterday doing a Google street view tour along some of the streets in the Bronx that these elevated lines cross, trying to find where that photo was taken. It looks like hell. Empty storefronts, discount marts, hardly any restaurants besides fast food. Very few locally owned businesses. Probably no locally owned rental buildings. I get it: No one has money to buy anything. But whatever money there is, it flows out and doesn't come back.
Government *can* do something about that. Tax breaks and preferential loans for local businesses, incentives for rebuilding and removing blight - given to people with a stake in the neighborhood, not to huge developers who'd come in to gentrify and push the current inhabitants somewhere else. Jobs programs. After school work programs. Free community college (as opposed to half-baked, illegal schemes to forgive student debt). These are things that I as a taxpayer don't mind paying for, because they'd make the country safer and richer. When people have decent jobs they have something to lose. They're more likely to stay around and raise families. You have to kickstart the economy there somehow, and do it in a way that puts the money back into a productive local loop. Then - maybe - you can start building a generation of fathers who have something to aspire to.
And somehow in there, we have to make fatherhood cool again. Any male can impregnate a female, but the current trend of making babies and not raising them has to end.
You want to ho back to the stifling 1950’s, Bill? The ‘60’s you decry happened precisely as a response to the conformity of cultural norms of prior generations. The very thing you want to see come back.
And If they were to return you would see the very same response again, imo.
I think we can both agree there is something seriously amiss socially today. The thread here appears to blame the lack of familial structure. i think that’s a red herring. I’ve seen evidence of a poverty of family values when I was a teenager in the early ‘70’s.
I just think that now we’re suffering from a perfect storm of extremely rapid social media creating a contagion effect amongst people, kids and adults alike, who are too malleable and ill informed to know better.
What struck with in hearing what this author is saying, was wondering how this experience has changed. It's not as if this is the first generation of single moms and no dad households. I wonder if it's just another round of family structures where values have evolved, watered down and the single mom is even more overwhelmed and strapped, tapped and unable to cope herself. I am 50. I knew single mom homes (I did grow up in a white suburban environment so things differ) and the values were hard work, make it safe, college bound. I imagine there may be less of that even now with the economics and lessening education level of our society at large. I do agree having two parents and a stable home would be best. But even 35+ years ago, I feel like our single mom homes fared better.
Generational single mother homes. 35+ years ago I would bet most single mothers grew up in more stable homes and had seen at some point the "right way" to raise children. Today's single moms not so much.
I will add the fact that not only are these kids missing a father, but MANY are being raised by a GRANDMOTHER!
Years ago I volunteered with Planned Parenthood, LONG before it became a haven for “abortion on demand and abortion as a means of birth control”. We really were trying to educate women about “Women’s Health & Wellbeing”
I went to the local charity hospitals to meet women giving birth. Mostly Black, poor, uneducated, single and giving birth to their 5th unwanted baby, fathered by their 5th boyfriend.
Surprisingly there were no Mexican women, and I think it is because most are Catholic and have large family connections.
A stand out memory was meeting with a 14 year old Black girl, having her 2nd baby (sperm donor!) father unknown! This child had absolutely no idea that unprotected sex = unwanted pregnancy! She knew nothing about ovulation (her baby making days of the month) etc., etc.!
Then I met her grandmother. WOW! Also single with 7 children besides this child’s mother, and 3 which were under 14! She was also ignorant about pretty much everything I tried to talk to her about. (I say “ignorant” not to be derogatory).
Although I want to believe she loved them, she was totally unconcerned with this granddaughter, or any of the children in her care. Plus, she admitted to me and the nurse, “It was probably my man who knocked up my granddaughter, but I kicked him to the curb”
My takeaway from that experience was how Welfare & Food Stamps & Charity Hospitals were doing nothing to improve the lives of these women. And, WHAT is the solution? Abortion? Perhaps, getting their tubes tied after a 2nd birth? It can be reversed when or if THEY can afford to pay for it.
“Perhaps, getting their tubes tied after a 2nd birth? It can be reversed when or if THEY can afford to pay for it.”
Are you serious? Yeah, let’s forcibly sterilize teenage black girls - it’s not like there’s a long history of eugenic sterilization and it would be a humongous human rights violation, or anything like that. 🙄
Mara, you totally missed my point. A tubal ligation is not/must not be confused with “sterilization” and WAS NOT meant as a “human rights … anything like that”
Please re-read my post before you jump to misleading conclusions. What did I follow that statement with, or did you stop at what you could take issue with?
It is those kinds of misrepresentations and taking out of context that causes even more of a divide between people who genuinely would like a solution.
Mayo Clinic: “Tubal ligation — also known as having your tubes tied or tubal sterilization — is a type of permanent birth control. During tubal ligation, the fallopian tubes are cut, tied or blocked to permanently prevent pregnancy.”
Yes, because having seven kids and being a grandmother before you're 40, and having a boyfriend who would knock up your 14yo granddaughter (who already has a fatherless baby) is wayyyyy better than a tubal ligation. Are you being serious right now???
Mandatory sterilization would be a BLESSING to these people. They might be able to get out from underneath their generations of poverty and live full lives. And they might even be able to care for the children they already have. There's a crazy idea. Holding sacred the human right to cluelessly reproduce like a feral cat while watching generations of children grow up in homes where nobody has the mental or emotional bandwidth to properly care for them is BANANAS. Speaking of feral cats, we spay them for a reason.
And exactly who would be qualified to make that decision to do that to a person? A politician?
And what would make someone eligible to be judged that way? You’re on welfare, you have three kids, up to the clinic you go to have your balls chopped off? That’s an order?
That’s an interesting view of the America you seem to want..
Yes ..I guess I am not as succinct and eloquent. It's like the quality of our lives gets diluted and diluted and diluted. And then put that into the current world...it's no surprise kids are struggling. Welcome to multigenerational, epigenetic, trauma.
The guardrails have been removed by demoralization. Yuri Bezmenov warned us in his 1984 about his stages of ideological subversion. The 1981 cult classic movie Escape from New York captures the decline of a once-great city, where scenes like the Union Square riot are part and parcel of vibrant, mostly peaceful urban life. Progress! https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/escapefromnewyork
My siblings and I grew up latchkey kids in the country and we used to spend hours of unsupervised free time doing dangerous things - tearing up farms on old dirt bikes seeing who could outdumb the last dumb and dangerous thing (think jumping over standing people/cars type stuff) , we ran a quasi fight club in the field for neighbor kids, had homemade potato gun fights. There were SO many trips to the ER. We made it out alive but always wondered what city kids did for wild fun.
I think kids need space and freedom to push the boundaries and develop life skills like resourcefulness, learning about consequences, etc. The safety bubble has gone too far - it started with common sense things like seatbelts and helmets and has progressed to helicopter parenting and safe spaces.
I think it’s also important to understand how social media (the current version is TikTok, I guess) is multiplying these young men’s exposure to “Jackass”-type acting out stunts. In the pre-internet age, one’s notoriety was limited to one’s acquaintances; now it’s available to the whole world. There is so much more status to be gained, which ups the ante for outrageous and extreme behavior.
How can a boxing gym, with its slow progression of skill development, sparring, training, and low-level fights (not to mention how much hard work it takes!), compete with the glory of internet fame?
What I wonder which may be even more concerning is whether or not there’s an involved mother in the home? I’m not aware if anything has changed in this regard but I would be curious to learn more if anyone here has any information about trends in maternal involvement.
This is a good point. A "single mother" could be fairly involved, sending her kids to lots of camps, schools programs, music lessons, sports, etc. Or a single mother could give the kids an iPad and then spend her free time watching Netflix and TikTok videos.
This was a good article but it skirted around the real issue here. Why are these young men not getting absorbed into other activities like they did in the past? As you said, those activities still exist.
This is an obvious truth yet seemingly our most verboten topic. Asian Americans are at the top of all favorable demographics, African Americans at the bottom.
"There is something worth admiring in the reckless kids who stand on top of moving trains."
No, there isn't. But there would be something to admire in kids who are strong enough to ignore peer pressure to do dumb things that will get them injured or killed.
True. But when I was younger and we actually surfed, paddling out into huge waves from passing hurricanes was lionized. Just vastly different environments. Most of these kids would be decent humans - if they were disciplined and held to account Blame the Dems for most of this chaos.
Who says the kids surfing subways aren't decent kids?
Every story is different. I know a former kid whose lawyer dad took him out tagging for his visitation. Later gave the kud money and dropped him off on drug streets. Why? To get revenge on his ex wife for finding out about his infidelity.
Real. The entire eastern seaboard. The west coast. Latin America. Canada, even. No shortage of surfers, kite boards. Wetsuits. In Barbados this past May I saw what looked like two hundred Americans roughing the waves on their Atlantic side. And they were kids..
It’s a big world out there. Only a few idiot punks ride trains..
We are a permissive society and this permissiveness is encouraged by the left. Don't tell me I am wrong. Look at the blue states and cities and how they handle crime, homelessness, teach gender identity in K through 3, CRT, encouraging children to go through gender therapy. To the left, there is hardly anything that is not permissive
They do all of this because they are compassionate and who are they to pass judgement on others? They don't want their peer group of loony leftist like themselves to think they are judgmental or insensitive.
The line has to drawn somewhere and enforced. The left doesn't believe that. Anyone who wants to enforce the law or pass stricter laws is a fascist/NAZI. We are considered insensitive. No, they are the ones who are insensitive. They are insensitive to the needs of society, the needs of the greater good.
Criminals run wild in blue states and cities. Looting is out of control. The Bule states and cities have the highest murder rates.
I could boor you by going on and on with what is wrong in the permissive cities and states. They are crazy. Only idiots, Dem/Soc, would want to defend the police but here we are.
I have to stop here. I could write a book on this madness. Face it the Dem/Soc are not just crazy, they are evil.
Regarding your second paragraph I do not think they are genuinely compassionate. They just like to signal that they are. If in doubt consider that lovely sanctuary city, NYC, and it's reaction to a few thousand migrants or that bastion of liberalism, Martha's Vineyard, and how fast it shirked its liberal values. And they are indeed judgmental. The quickest way to incur their judgment is to question their proclamations at wh8ch pount you are racist, an anti-vaxer. MAGA, etc. Other than that I think you have nailed it.
Yep. We watch it for entertainment. X-Games. To be successful at such stunts requires courage and discipline. Alex Honnold? Yeah, he's astonishing. And he has more discipline in his little finger (quite literally) than most people will ever find.
I see it as involving motivation. If you do it because you really like it, knock yourself out. If you do it in a dare to prove your masculinity, you’re a moron. I’m not opposed to extreme sports or other activities that carry high risk. I
I used to dogfight (in aircraft) but not with live rounds--think aerial laser tag. Occasionally a plane would be lost--along with its pilots. Jousting at its finest. Maybe I was an idiot, too. But the only people who saw me were the other pilots. And rarely. Nobody dared me to fly.
I think there is a fine line between “proving you masculinity” doing it “because you like it”. In fact, the overlap between the two are often one and the same.
Meh. I talked to a skateboard kid hitching a ride. Kids die doing that too, skateboarding under a semi trailer, doing flips, handstands. He also did k-holes (ketamine). Kids die doing half-pipe and stunt skiing. I remember the kid remarking that the ones who have the time to practice late at night don't exactly tend to have a great home life. Lots are foster kids in crap homes, some are aged out of foster care at 18.
"The same idiots causing your train delay are descended from men who faced down saber-toothed tigers when we lived in caves." Seriously? I mean if you want to really get technical, we're all descended from the men who faced down saber-toothed tigers or we wouldn't be here to begin with. That said, being stupid and showing your ass or acting out criminal behavior is not anything close to facing something that's determined to rip your freaking head off. Actually the ones you are trying to make an analogy to have long been digested by said cat. The breakdown of the nuclear family, demoralized/understaffed law enforcement, progressive prosecutors unwilling to prosecute crime, complete failure of our public schools, social media/phone addiction, excessive medicating/over prescribing pharmaceutical drugs to kids are a few of reasons we have this nonsense today.......
> social media/phone addiction, excessive medicating/over prescribing pharmaceutical drugs
I actually think those kids (the ones on a bunch of SSRIs) just sit on their phones all day doing TikTok. The ones riding the trains are thrill seeking ones who *aren't* satisfied with our society's carefully curated "safe spaces" like video games, but aren't given a better place to express their excess energy. This is more the counter-culture to the modern safety-first zero-anxiety world.
I agree with the premise of the essay. But the author did state the “how” in challenging boys...boxing clubs, martial arts, churches, sport...all of that is available...
I will say this: When I was a teacher in an inner-city (now called urban) school in LA 25 years ago, the coaches created a boxing club at the middle school. It was great. Discipline problems decreased in the classrooms. The boys needed an aggressive out let.
Education has gone so far to the feminine side of things it left our boys behind. The zero-tolerance of fighting in schools has been a trade off. Instead of allowing boys to learn from a bloody nose on the playground, we let the thing fester inside them until they explode. I have said we have traded bloody noses for body bags.
The feminization of the culture has clearly been detrimental to boys in so many ways. It’s also why the Canadian psychiatrist Jordan Peterson’s work and speeches has resonated with so many men. He speaks of the role of men in society in the past and the necessity for them to embrace the manly virtues of the past like honor, uprightness and even chivalry.
I have a huge frustration with the SEL anti-bullying lessons in schools. It’s so one sided. Sure, teach kids to be kind. Yes, that is good. But also teach kids to stand up for themselves and the earlier the better. It is time-tested the best way to deal with a bully is to pop them in nose (figuratively but sometimes literally) the first time they try anything.
My son was bullied in school. I did not tell him to run to the teachers. I told stand up hard and fast to the kid. If you get suspended for defending yourself I don’t care. SEL in schools is a feminine solution but it’s not enough. We also need the masculine solution too.
As the mother of 3 grown sons, I completely agree with you. As the teacher burdened with delivering a bunch of made up, redundant, idealistic SEL lessons to Middle School boys? I cannot adequately convey the experience in a brief comment, typed on my phone.
Oh, I want to hear about what it's like to have to teach SEL! Interestingly enough, our resident Millennial put that on a writing exam, without explaining what SEL actually entails (of course, just the Orwellian term will do!). Our mainly Chinese Nationals responded (for the most part) that teaching these skills is on the parents, not the school.
I would go so far as to argue that these skills are inherently learned through reading good books. NOT social justice books.
I am in my 50's. I am a newer teacher and a longtime parent. I am tasked with spending 85 minutes, daily, with a room full of middle school boys who have behavior referrals. I'm supposed to talk to them about "self awareness" and similar topics. I work in a school that is well over 90% minority, mostly Hispanic. English is not the first language for many of the students and nearly 25% of the school population have IEP's. Fortunately, I have a sense of humor and I see the absolute ridiculousness of what's being asked of all of us. I try do dial down what I can.
Our districts's original programming, for this "course" is daily role playing and having these kids answer follow-up questions. I'm actually grateful that I'm unable to access the drive that stuff is in. What room of middle school boys wants to spend 2-3 days a week, all school year, starting their day with role playing about social situations and answering questions?
The misguided goal is that we are, somehow, going to "teach" these kids to be better humans strictly with words; endless words. People learn through experience, through hard times...not through talking things to death.
These topics are written by unrealistic people, not in the classroom, who are trying to create their ideal human out of kids they've never met. I'm forced to, 5 days a week, teach another class that used to be a homeroom or study hall situation. Now, the idea is that the room is magically going to transform into a "community" or a school "family", because a randomly assigned group of kids are in the same room 5 days a week being forced to listen to and share answers about a bunch of SEL topics. It's not how things actually work in the real world. The students ask what this class is supposed to be about and why they have to be in there.
The slides are made up by 2 women who are not in the classroom. They are filled with phrases like "be prepared to share out" and "discuss with a shoulder partner". We have to ask questions like "what does an emotionally safe school sound like?" We're given all these charts to fill in, as if many eager answers will be rushing at us. I get a room of kids silently looking at me and maybe 1 speaks up, because this stuff was thought up by 2 women who are nearly 40 years older than they are and they're just trying to adjust to a new environment. There is an obsessive focus on self, in ways that seem like hindsight from an idealistic adult mind.
Wow. This is even worse than I could have imagined. What these kids need--especially the boys--is to get outside! To do some physical work that they can be proud of.
I told my daughters the same thing--that I would back them up if they confronted a bully and got in trouble. When my youngest was a sophomore in high school she called me to tell me the school was probably going to call her in for a discipline issue. She had done a quick martial arts move and dropped a boy to the ground--in front of his friends. He had been smacking girls on the rear end as he passed them at their lockers in the hall. I never got a call. At graduation I told the dean, the head of discipline about it, he laughed and said he knew all about it. A handful of teachers had witnessed it and all immediately melted back in their rooms. It was the talk of the teachers lounge. They figured she had very effectively solved a problem for them.
This reminded me of gangs, which possibly fill the same kinds of needs. Riding subways is dangerous to yourself; rioting can be dangerous to others. Seems like that would be an important distinction.
It was weird to me (but OK since this is an essay) that the author said “mostly white” tut -tutting.. Most of the non-white folks I know (older to be sure) don’t think much of our kids endangering themselves or others or destroying property (that’s why I think the PlayStation riot and subway riding are different). Maybe it’s more of an age thing than a race thing. Then there’s the whole question of “why make sweeping generalizations about people if you have no evidence?” But it’s an essay.
I think for generations we have honored males physical abilities while keeping them in check according to society’s requirements and there have always been males outside the norm re:violence. Think of the gunmen of the late 19th century in the West.
I’d like to see an essay about a group that has successfully dealt with this for adolescent males, perhaps in the same neighborhood.
For example, how do the Hasids deal with this? They also have adolescents and live in NYC.
I thought of Peterson when I read this essay, too. A popular book on ‘how to raise boys’ came out a few years ago and I bought it (have a son) and when I got to the sentence, ‘how do we raise boys to be more like girls?’ I closed the book. So much of what boys need gets squashed now. It’s why sports are so important. In my nice suburb we have the means for extra sporting clubs for our kids. If we didn’t our kids would find ways to do dangerous stuff, too. I understand the author’s point. I wish there were a better outlet for these kids.
The persecution of Peterson is absurd. The powers that be are clearly afraid of his thoughts & wisdom. Peterson is subverting their destruction of the family & society and they don’t like it. So it’s time to ‘re-educate’ him. The Canadian government has not only lost the plot, it’s become evil.
I agree on all points you have made. How on earth can so many people have bought into this madness and destruction of society...and how did so many terrible people gain so much power. Ugh.
Professional associations in both countries dislike dissent. To be a member means to adhere to protocol. Peterson is way beyond that. Good for him. And good for all of us who enjoy the freedom of speech.
It is not the feminization of the culture or matriarchy. At all. On the contrary. It is, rather, the full-scale destruction of Patriarchy, as defined by the last 2000+ years of global expansion, conquering and profit as the only goal, that we are throwing off willy nilly, with emotion and no thought. Unless and until we honor and redefine- rebalance- realign what feminine-masculine, yin-yang actually is without regard to gender, we will not progress.
All these activities have become too expensive for single-mom households. Even after-school programs require payment. 40 years ago, my friends and I stayed after school to run on the track, or in the school hallways in the winter, and some teachers stayed - VOLUNTARILY - to coach us. There were science club and drama club meetings as well, all free because teachers volunteered. None of this exists now.
I am a single mom. True, it is not the same as it was when I grew up but church is available and from there youth group where they do these activities. And a basketball court is inexpensive. And there are Boys and Girls clubs too. I think boys need guidance into these things
We still have Boy Scouts. My 13yo is one (started in a Manhattan troop and now we live in a small town where there are three troops). My 11 yo daughter also just joined a girls BSA troop. Still separate, but they get to do all the things the boys get to do, which I remember wishing for when I was a young, physically active, adventurous girl. These things exist, and they are insanely affordable. I'm talking $75 a year for troop dues.
And yet those single moms can afford smartphones and monthly service plans for all these dummies who spend their lives on TikTok, watching other dummies do dumb things, and being invited to riots in Union Square.
Please. This isn't about money. It's about bad parenting.
Men attempting this conversation in the 1980's were met with universal derision and repression. The absent father. Exploration and development of the healthy masculine. Discussion of the emerging "puer aeternus" (Peter Pan syndrome), mentorship, responsible stewardship and the creation and expansion of a meaningful inner world reality was dangerous to women and had to be stopped. It was another convenient target for the poseur feminists who needed corporate cash and government grants. So, it further weaponized hatred and misandry. It destroyed the "men's club", drove the father from the home and launched the war on boys (drug'em to control'em). It distorted the judiciary with the divorce court and the child support debtors prison. It was "modern" to believe the family was passe and the imprisonment of women. Always top heavy in lesbian and Marxist politics, feminism was a hand in glove fit with, and a willing ally of, corporate fascism, the war on the middle class, and the civilization that aspired to a free society.
The hysterical lie was always the basis of feminist success. It turned the vulnerability inherent in the natural love and respect men and society holds for the feminine into a dagger. The anonymous complaint and informer, vague undefined emotional trauma equated with rape, the whisper campaign, shunning, career and reputation destruction, trial by press and the electronic pile on are all tactic's we have come to know well. Now comfortably ensconced as the D.E.I., (actually a model of Stalin's commissariat) feminism serves both university and corporate fascism as the blackmail threat of destruction over the life of student, researcher, or any employee or citizen who steps out of line.
Now, the "puer aeternus" is every where. Sexless, blue haired, tattooed, genderless, pierced and self hating, it waits in line for re-assignment surgery. It riots, loots and burns. In the Black ghetto it screams "..father where are you.." with every murder it commits. Lost on the streets it sells its body for fentanyl and smack. And it is so very, very feminist P.C. There is no history. No man. No woman. No childhood. No word spoken not approved and sanctioned by the commissariat. Soon, no human at all. It is, as Bly and Moore told us a half century ago: " the teeth mother naked at last.."
Above it all, subsumed, enthralled and blinded by the monstrous lie they perpetrated, well paid poseur utopians and the totalitarian narcissism that employs them.
“The respectable classes—the people, mostly white, who have money and live uptown or in the suburbs—tut-tutted about the whole thing on X, formerly Twitter, or Instagram, or wherever respectable people tut-tut about things now. They objected to the broken glass, the umbrellas of the hot dog stands that had been smashed or pummeled. The mess.”
What an utterly repellent attitude. I’m sure McCaffery would have the same response should those rioters have descended outside his family’s home in safe little Sunnyside.
At the age of 12 I was headed in that direction, stealing, breaking windows, skipping school. Then I entered the 7th grade, signed up for band and the whole course of my life changed.
At the age of 13 that thought never entered my mind. All I knew is that I got to play the drums and nothing else mattered. I played professionally all over the world until I was 75. Music was the only thing that kept me in school. I had no interest in anything else. Whatever education I've had came from finding subjects, through books, that interested me. I still read daily.
I love stories like this…finding something so big it takes you on a different life path. If you had no interest in school then, you would hate it now! I hope you can tell your story to other young boys (girls too) who feel lifeless at school. This coming from a former educator! :)
Everybody needs something that they are challenged by snd can become good, or at least better, at. This instills a sense of satisfaction. I did court-appointed crimi nal defense work for years and would get the youngsters; not juveniles but the failures of the juvenile justice system. I always, always, always encouraged them.to find something (legal) they were good at. I have some success stories out there.
Britain's strictest headmistress, Katharine Birbalsingh, knows something of this. "..we're all human underneath, and human beings need to feel as if they belong to their family, to their school, to their community, and to their country. If they do not belong there, they will find belonging in a gang, or in a worrying Social Media Group where the child will be ripe for radicalization.."
Our elites think it's so wonderful to open our borders and promote grievances among the dispossessed. Do you think this will end well when a 1000 Union Squares erupt? Or when "the respectable classes—the people, mostly white, who have money and live uptown or in the suburbs" no longer venture into the cities because they are overrun with violent young minorities bent on destruction? This is the natural end result of the insane policies being imposed on our nation by the uniparty globalists, albeit largely Democrats. We have hordes of young men learning nothing - being prepared for nothing - in substandard schools run by these fools. It is long past time put a stop to the madness. Close the damn borders. Now. Deport the illegals. Now. And then start enforcing laws and standards. And still it might be too late to repair the damage caused by those who hate our country.
Aren’t lawyers by definition ‘elite’? I love your damn the Lib refrain. You always go there, Bruce.
Hey, I’m no great fan of them either. But Trump had four years and built no wall, never spent a dime in infrastructure, changed few schools, stopped no transgenders, deported fewer illegals than Obama, shut down the country during Covid - but he was great at ‘promoting the grievances’ of his MAGA base. Jesus, he sounds just like a Dem!
But of course he cut taxes, and all elites love that on either side of the political spectrum. Right?
Which is why he accumulated the same amount of debt our vile current President will.
Democrats are not wholly, solely to blame. For the record, I am an Independent at one time registered Republican. As to those who "hate our country", many sit at the top of society's mountain using their wealth and power to quietly and secretly manipulate the world the rest of us share. One cannot proffer simple solutions to very complex problems, some of which are made to be complex intentionally.
BS. The solutions are in fact simple. They start with what Bruce said. Enough of the analysis paralysis. The only thing I agree with that you said was wealthy people are manipulating things. But it IS the Democrats because they are very easily manipulated by those wealthy people with the lure of their own wealth and power. Some Republicans (McConnell, Cheney, Romney, Graham) but virtually every Democrat. What is AOC worth now? Stacy Abrams?
If that were true there would have been that "Red Wave" last year. Instead the tide kept going out. There is a whole lot of stupid, a majority of daft, in the Republican't Party if they aren't in on the plot themselves. Either way they aren't on your side.
Personally I think there would have been a Red Wave in the midterms but for two things:1) Democrat messaging re abortion; and 2) Mitch McConnell, who controls much of the Republican party's campaign funding refused to fund anyone who supported Trump, was supported by Trump or was Trump adjacent and this despite most Republican voters like Trump and still do. Personally I hope the people who vote Republican can wrestle control from the McConnells, Cheney, Romneys, Grahams and other faux conservatives. If not I think it is doomed.
The Republicans gave away the Senate. If they literally had any candidates instead of Dr. Oz or Herschel Walker, any guy or lady pretty much off the street, they would’ve won.
HC just a reminder that the Democrats elected Fetterman. Say what you will about Oz, he could complete a sentence and he has held a job. No something else was afoot. I stand by my comment.
No messaging on abortion needed , Lynne. A majority of American women want access to abortion rights. And until they get it in red states, the GOP will suffer.
This will likely surprise you but this is one I am on the fence about. I genuinely do not know what is the right thing to do. I think it is wrong to require a woman to carry a child she does not want. I also think it is wrong to snuff out a wholly innocent life. I have concerns about the father of a child unwanted by the mother who says he does want the child. I have concerns that if the stats are correct black babies are being aborted at rates far greater than the percentage of black people in the population yet no one on your side sees that as racist. I have concerns that the person who can cure a deadly disease or secure peace in the Middle East has been or will be aborted. As a limited government afficionado I think the government has no role whatsoever. And let's just say I am extremely skeptical of your sides all government a the time philosophy being absent on this where you want no government involvement at all. That being said, yes it was heavily politicized. By both parties and their media, social and legacy, whores. Including the article in the FP about the two women who wanted abortions but one lived where it was allowed and the other did not. I was galled and I had zero sympathy for the one who lived in the state where it was not allowed -two or three kids already by different fathers that she struggled to provide for, pregnant from a casual hook-up but with a guy who responded positively to the news. Use a condom!!!! Or was that too hard too? And she could not be troubled to travel out of state. From Arkansas. Somebody from Canada chimed in that abortion on demand was available there (no surprise, so is suicide for poverty for Pete's sake) but failed to mention that to get one often involved extensive travel to a facility and long waiting times for the appointments. I think it is stupid for abortion to be politicized in the way it is.
This is so trite, hackneyed and unoriginal that if it weren’t for the author’s clear self-absorption and self-congratulation on his “unique” insights, I’d think this was a ChatGPT type creation.
Men who survived the battles against sabre toothed tigers probably taught their sons how to make a weapon, how to recognize animal tracks, how to build a fire...and how not to run like an idiot straight at the tiger and think he’ll survive. Maybe the author should stop glorifying stupidity, find a mate and have children of his own before sharing his “wisdom“ about the behavior of young men. Grow the F up.
Partly right. African culture that required a young man to kill a male lion, by himself with his spear, did teach spear skills. They used the lions charge to get the power to spear him.
Eskimos and polar bears, similar. There's a story of an Eskimo hunted by a polar bear having broken his harpoon hunting seal. With the bear coming, he sh*t in his hands, formed it into a point on the broken end, and let it freeze in the 50 below cold. Bear tore open the snow cave, bore down and died on the Eskimos spear. On top of him.
Malcolm Turnbull told African tribes he studied about the meaning of his name. An ancestor grabbed the bull by the horns and forced it to turn away. Etc.
So yeah, run full tilt at the predator, or stand your ground, because to do otherwise is to die every time.
Good stuff! Still my point is that the young boys probably got a lot of instruction before proving themselves and probably weren’t allowed to surf elephants.
Hannibal rode African war elephants to Rome in 16 days.
Do you seriously think a boy ofn13 wanting to ride would be stopped? Not a chance. He would be trained to fight, and if he died, his problem, too bad, so sad.
Hercules was said to have killed his first opponent when he was 6 years old.
Hannibal was definitely a real person. Hercules may well have been a man who lived in the stone age past. He killed a lion by himself, just like the Maasai did until just a decade ago. (But Hercules used a club.) Might be a conflation of the ancient original Maasai character, or perhaps ancient stone age Mesopotamian, with a Greek era guy born 40 years before the seige of Troy that had the same name. He might have been a muscle mutant or had acromegaly to some degree. Who knows, really.
You get the point. Our ancestors (even recently) did not have our ideas about safety.
Boys need a way to harness their destructive potential.
Instead, we live in a matriarchal society that tells them that being rambunctious is a sickness and not wanting to sit still all day for class is grounds to be prescribed medicalized meth.
Also, the author just realized that men need to utilize violence from watching the Ukrainian war? I guess no one was paying attention to Iraq and Afghanistan for the past 20 years until it was too late.
"Ain't our fight"? If our inaction lets Putin taste victory in Ukraine, it ill be our fight and our heroes returning in body bags. Remember Chamberlain in 1939 returning with "peace in our time" after he handed Czechoslovakia to Hitler? Six years later, 45 million were dead, Europe lay in ruins, generations were enslaved under Soviet communism, and hundreds of thousands of brave allied soldiers were slaughtered. Read history, rather than repeating it.
You should take your own advice. You might want to start with Iraq and work your way through Afghanistan and 20 years of the same lies we’re now being told about Ukraine.
I cynically look at our involvement in the Ukraine war as a calculation. As in let them do the fighting for us with our help. If the US let Putin run rampant there with the country falling, we then would’ve needed to send thousands of our troops to settle down our terrified NATO allies on Russia’s western flank, (actions which would have directly threatened Putin). We do have NATO obligations.
So you’re willing to fight to the last Ukrainian? How noble of you. Their casualty estimates range between 350,000 and 400,000. They’re running out of bodies to send into the meat grinder. So who will be next to literally spill their guts? Historic Russian foes and NATO allies like the Poles and Lithuanians? What happens when Putin sends missiles in to strike bases where US troops are based? Will it be another Gulf of Tonkin moment? We’re already sending troops into other NATO countries. We already have troops in Ukraine. How long will it be before WE are the ones fighting? And for what? So MIC executives and the pols they fund can buy another beach house? Putin has 300,000 soldiers he has been holding in reserve because he sees what’s coming. Why can’t you?
It may unfold exactly as you say. But to let Ukraine capitulate would have signalled to Putin (and China) that we are not willing to defend a rules based world order. Ie do not invade neighbouring countries. Full stop. You may disagree, but Putin is adept at smelling weakness and if we show him we are he will take advantage. So it’s either now or in the scenario you envision had we done nothing, later.
There’s inevitably a comparison to the Second World War (ie, Putin as Hitler), but I think a much more apt comparison would be the First World War (ie, idiot leaders who get us involved in a massive war with no end in sight).
Hitler was going to cause the deaths of millions regardless of what happened to Czechoslovakia. It’s not like the war could have been prevented or minimized just by starting it a year or two earlier.
About a third of the panzers that broke out of the Ardennes in 1940 were Czech/Slovak. Munich took 30 good Czech/Slovak of the table and released at least 30 divisions of the Heer to fight elsewhere. Every time Case Yellow has been war-gamed the Germans have been defeated, usually around Bastogne and St Vith. A war in 1938 would have been an even easier affair. I recommend you read Marc Bloch's 'Strange Defeat'; Ernest May's 'Strange Victory'; and Karl-Heinz Friese's 'The Blitzkrieg-Legend'. WWII is mostly a tale of the gargantually stupid. I knew all this fifty years ago; wtf did you have for an education?
Really? You don't suppose that a whole lot of the German war machinery got built during that time? (In violation of Treaty that could have been enforced?)
No, instead we want the US to come in and save the day.
Except if it's a "bad war", like Iraq or Afghanistan. Then it's back to calling the US an imperialist, racist superpower that wants to be the "world police" again.
“The respectable classes—the people, mostly white, who have money and live uptown or in the suburbs—tut-tutted about the whole thing on X”
I’d love to see the evidence that it was mostly white people and people with money; I’d be shocked if it were actually true. I’m pretty sure people of color and people “without money” are just as decent and were just as incensed.
Agree, this was such nonsensical class and race divisive”shaming.” People with property damage after the riot to their hotdog stand, the bodega, etc. all belong to a white upper class society? They wouldn’t be the struggling blue collar class, a paycheck and two bent umbrellas away from poverty?
And society does these young boys no good by making excuses for them. What happens to those children who make it alive past puberty? When parents, teachers, and society at large have failed to instill purpose and socially acceptable values to these kids, we get a wave of smash-and-grabs, carjackings, street muggings, and other assorted crimes and criminal gangs. I fail to see anything admirable about this situation.
We have progressives from the 60's to thank for the breakdown of the American family, paying poor women to have children without benefit of husband or father. Now after generations of children having children, society is being terrorized and destroyed by this newest crop of fatherless boys.
American taxpayers picked up the 3 trillion dollar tab for this debacle and now the same taxpayers are told they are to pay the hotel bills for law breakers from other countries who have rights that exceed their own rights.
The worst of all of this disorder is the sheer magnitude of wasted individual human potential. The collective cannot and never could love and raise a child. That is what PARENTS do. Enough.
The role familial culture plays is really understated here. I grew up in a working-class immigrant neighborhood in NYC. I can’t think of anyone from an Asian immigrant family that goes around at night spraying graffiti or surfing trains. We mostly had parents that sent us to test prep and piano classes. I know Nigerian and Ghanaian and Uzbek families that also raised their kids in a similar way, and there’s hardly any delinquency ever.
Family is everything. Without it you are blowing in the wind.
And yet, liberals in government are working hard to undermine parents and families. Why?
It’s not exactly clear. I am guessing that they are striving for some type of ‘utopia’…and that if they knock everyone and everything down to the the same lowest common denominator so that everything will be ‘fair’ then everyone will be happy. What they neglect is ‘human nature’ and all that that phrase means.
Nailed it.
I believe the last line of the Communist Manifesto goes something like, “....for our aims to be achieved all social structures must be destroyed.” Then, you can “Build Back Better.”
But America is not Communist.
Yet.
I might remind you that Lenin claimed to be a liberal and that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was always a lie, just like the German Democratic Republic.
Communists break things then lie about it, mostly, but before they get power the order is reversed. Ho Chi Minh--which by the way is his Communist stage name, not his real name--helped found the French Communist Party some time around 1919; yet his boosters claimed he wasn't Communist . Same with Castro. Examples are roughly equal to every Communist coup everywhere.
But there's a tremendous push from the Left, from organizations like BLM, Climate Changers, the Transgender Movement, etc - that explicitly state they are 'Marxist' - their leaders proudly proclaim this and the White House endorses them regularly. It may not be here now but this is what they are pushing to achieve. Uncle Joe invites these groups whenever he's not napping.
Not completely...but getting closer every day.
A word to the wise. Don't post proof of your severe Psychosis / Schizophrenia online. Quotes from Comprof2.0.
"Easiest non-white immigration experience ever!" (referring to Japanese-Americans)
"Easiest non-white immigration experience in American history" (referring to Japanese-Americans)
“A 2-4 year stint living on a military base” (referring to the internment camps that some Japanese-Americans were sent to)
“Geography is irrelevant”
“The GI Bill is what made them successful” (in California where most JA men didn’t get it)
"Yes. Easiest. Can you tell me of any other group that had an easier immigration experience?" (referring to Japanese-Americans)
"I've explained the tremendous advantages given to J-A immigrants over all others"
“police shootings are irrelevant’”
I wrote
“Saying crazy stuff (‘police shootings are irrelevant’)
Vivid hallucinations (‘ONE GROUP’)
Delusions of grandeur (‘You're buried’)
Blaming others (‘upset’)
These are all classic symptoms of Schizophrenia. See help ASAP.”
The mental health links below might help you. You badly need them.
https://www.samhsa.gov/
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/find-help
https://www.cdc.gov/mentalhealth/tools-resources/index.htm
https://nursinglicensemap.com/resources/mental-health-resources/
OMG!
Ignore the troll Comprof
And this pertains to idiots walking on trains how?
Yes, progressives have disordered utopian impulses that cloud their ability to think or see things clearly.
Think Pol Pot and Cambodia! Think Mao's Cultural Revolution.
I spent time in Cambodia about 20 years ago. I didn't meet a person who's entire life wasn't effected by Pol Pot in some horrific way. Some lost their entire families. Some watched in horror as kids (PP would indoctrinate youth to a very effective degree) in the Khmer Rouge murdered their dads right in front of them. Changed me forever. And the Killing Fields should be a required study in all American schools. I cried for hours after I left.
Think Joe Biden and The Democrats!
C’mo-on. That’s like seriously equating the Nazi Gestapo and Florida State Troopers. What’s with you?
"down to the the same lowest common denominator"
Equity.
Tom, leftists are statists. It makes perfect sense that the Left would "work hard to undermine parents and families," because its power depends on its ability to control individuals directly. Mediating institutions with countervailing values (most importantly, families, but also churches, schools, civic organizations, etc.) serve as a buffer between the individual and the state. To the extent that those institutions thrive, the power of the state declines.
The article was interesting to read so I read it to hear someone vent. Lack of two parent family is the root cause of poorly socialized kids. It is regretful that not all kids can have that, but to have the country and society celebrate, encourage and incentivize the destruction of the nuclear family is a disaster. The generation of lost children suffer themselves the most
@ Tom — I don’t think they are really trying to do that at all, or at least not most of them. A few view the idea of family as patriarchal and reactionary, but most desire a more expansive understanding of family unmoored by biological mothers and (especially) fathers, not really appreciating that their relaxed definitions, however well-intended, inevitably lead to more relaxed ties and dilution. Their ignorance in this respect is matched only by their arrogance.
The degree of ignorance exhibited cannot be accidental.
Stop attributing ignorance to these people, it is malice. You know better.
they're trying to do exactly what he said.
and apologias are what got the country into this collapse.
I think it is because those without family support are easier to manipulate. I also think it is possible that those who do not value their family of origin and are willing to abandon that family are more likely to be liberal and drive policies in accordance therewith. IOW I am not sure which is the chicken and which is the egg.
Because people without families are easier to herd and control, you already know this.
It’s absolutely crazy - why would they destroy faith, flag and country. What do you have if you don’t have family, it’s almost like “they want to destroy us”
Because when family is central, government loses power over the proletariat.
Because it takes a village to raise a child. That way, there’s nobody to blame, except maybe the village. And…try to fix the issue in some way and find a whole heap of trouble.
Yeah…it takes a village…or at least a strong parent. But nobody wants that responsibility.
You can’t truly judge something you never experienced! I’m guessing none of you lived in communist/socialist societies, but I grew up in it.
Not only that but I’ve lived in US for the last 47 years. Long enough to understand the difference. Between genocidal monstrosity and boundless opportunity, hard work required! If you want it, of course. Or you can sit on the couch, pick your nose, complain about how things you want don’t fall from sky.
Capitalism gave that couch and technologies and medicine and clean water and just goes on because it inspires progress. The other one is DEATH!
Tom, I saw a hell a lot of drug use, graffiti, and divorces in those ‘glory’ Reagan years. Your point?
People without strong family ties are easy to control and more likely to look to Big Daddy government to take care of them.
I agree. I also think a trait of liberals is they will give up their family of origin in favor of the tribe.
During the riots that followed George Floyd's killing I went to BLM's web site to see what the organization said about itself. One thing that jumped out was that the organization did not believe in the "Western construct of the nuclear family" - that's not a direct quote but that's the idea expressed in words like that. Shortly after that, as BLM's profile rose because of the riots, that part of the organization's statements of beliefs was deleted.... No surprise that a Marxist organization would seek to hide its true aims.
I recall something similar from the African American Museum on DC.
Ideally, that's what Communism prefers as well - that the state be the total focus of power...the family-unit be damned.
Because communism does not value the individual other than for what he or she provides to the (misnamed) common good. So far as I can tell the only government to ever value, and empower, the individual human being was the one created by the US' founding fathers. And that has been eroded for 150 years or so now, recently at warp speed.
100% I saw an interview with the Rosenberg boys. One said when his parents were arrested, his Mom was offered a deal to stay out of jail and be able to raise her boys. She just had to give them names of other spies. She refused. The feds told the boys that their mother loved her cause more than she loved them. Poor man still
Seemed haunted by that fact. It is quite evidently the mind set of current day leftists as well.
Yes, Jordan Peterson had a podcast about this recently.
100%. This is about parenting and supervision and giving a f*%k about where your kid is. It’s not about money.
The answer to good parenting is “proximity.”
My husband and I were there, but we found out that our sons and their friends liked to have sleepovers and "watch movies." After the movies were over and the chaperoning parents were asleep, they would take a car and go skateboarding in empty parking structures all over San Diego. Once we and the other parents knew, we all requested the keys to all cars. That put a stop to that, but being creative, they found something else to do. I believe that our culture is mostly for girls, that we don't encourage boys in "manly" pursuits. The Boy Scouts have been destroyed. When my brother was in it, they backpacked in the High Sierras for a week, had a great time and developed confidence in their accomplishments. I wish we had some kind of national service requirement for all young people when they graduate from high school. They could join the military, work in the national forests, work in public schools as tutors, etc. It would accomplish 2 things: all strata of society would be mixed up and realize all the similarities we have and it would be supervised risk-taking for those who need it. Those who need to learn risk taking would be able to learn the right way to take risks with the guardrails in place.
You raise a possibly critical point re: Mixing. Long ago and far away I chose to enlist rather than be drafted. Being a college dropout, I often got to be the guy who sat with the clipboard and recorded stuff. At t.he dentist visit, each guy had a chart with the tooth numbers followed by blank lines. The dentist would read out points of interest by number for me to transcribe. The number of times that was a litany of missing... missing... missing... appalled me, a suburban kid who had little idea how lucky he was. And that's a small example of revelation about How the Other Half Lives. (International travel away from the tourist areas is likewise educational but that's for another thread.) Spot-on post.
One other advantage to a two year stint "under supervision" is added maturity. One would hope that those two years would help young people to learn adult skills like budgeting planning for meals, etc. if they don't already have some exposure to them. Also 2 more years might be helpful in avoiding the alcohol-induced play and lack of seriousness that is the university experience today. Personally, I would just like to see adulthood come earlier among our youth.
This is what Mormons do when they send their 18-year-olds on two-year missions. Strict rules, they have to learn how to budget and live semi-independently, and they're proselytizing for literally 12 hours a day, doing something they believe in. It's hard work. No time for trouble-making (unless they happen to get partnered with another trouble-maker, but that's surprisingly rare). Then they come home and go straight to college, where they usually get married before they graduate (my husband had a baby before he graduated). Mormons raise adults--not perpetual children. And it's because they expect a lot of their kids at a very young age. We're also socialized to WANT to take on adult responsibilities. We look forward to having families and being grownups. We prioritize family over everything else, which for many of us, includes planning from the beginning to have a parent stay home (ie, not taking on debt, minimizing expenses, and building a pre-kid life that can be supported with one income, so that when we add kids, we're not strained to the point of needing a second one).
Your story certainly strengthens the case against sleepovers.
But yeah, I agree that young men need opportunities to take VALUABLE risks, like your brother's high adventure with the scouts. (Boy Scouts still exist, by the way. My 13yo is one. And my 11yo daughter just joined a girls' BSA groop.) Otherwise they'll find stupid risks to take. It's in their biology and psychology.
Sorry, I see the advantages but making people dedicate two years of their lives to the government is a substantial infringement on freedom. My niece spent two years with the Peace Corps in Cambodia. She was supposed to help at a clinic but most of the time the medical personnel didn't show up. She learned Cambodian but otherwise neither she nor the Cambodians benefitted much from her service. Do you really trust the government to structure meaningful service programs for millions of disaffected young men and women?
The military managed to. I have friend who was in the Peace Corps in Thailand, she wan't sure of it either. But assume sort of national service, not the Peace Corps, whether in forestry, tutoring in public schools, feeding homeless people, etc., could make a difference. Think CCC and the Depression. I don't consider it an infringement of freedom, serving your country is not an infringement of freedom. You have freedom because you live here.
Germany does this. You can be assigned to an old folks home, a fire department, or you can do a shorter enlistment in the military. It’s hard to imagine in a US context though.
I was drafted and spent 22 months in the military, including about 9 months in Vietnam. We lost 50,000+ lives there and still lost the war - although we now have good trade relations with Vietnam. While recruiting is down, a volunteer army is still better than a conscripted one. If you think the government knows better than individuals about how to live their lives, even for two years, we're not on the same wave length.
Agreed.
I think that might be easier if you only have to work one job.
So what’s the excuse for those who work no jobs? Should be even easier then, right?
Depends. Maybe they're disabled, mentally ill, dealing with substance abuse issues, serving as caretaker for elderly parents or a severely disabled child, dealing with chronic illness, incarcerated and/or on parole with few job prospects, etc. Usually, if you're not working/legitimately employed in any capacity, there's probably a good reason.
You're not very good at this.
I had no idea that a parent working one job might have an easier road in keeping up with their kid than one working a day job and an evening one as well would be so controversial.
Disabled, mentally ill, substance abuse, incarcerated....you're describing a lot of people who probably shouldn't have kids.
Look, if you can't be present for your kid, you shouldn't have a kid. If you can't have a parent at home with them, or quality childcare (which includes proper supervision for older kids--not a latchkey life), you shouldn't have a kid.
Most of society's problems would be solved if people who shouldn't have kids would stop having them. We need stronger birth control campaigns in neighborhoods where this is a problem, and easier access to abortion for everyone.
Look, lots of those things can happen AFTER a child is born.
Look, if you're not working in ANY capacity, probably a good reason why.
What....."neighborhoods" should we be looking at exactly, Adrienne?
Nope. Sorry Adrienne, a lot of states are now making it a felony to leave the state/drive some across state lines for abortion services. So, that ship has sailed.
Bad parenting caused by working too hard, or sad circumstances that just happen. Can’t be parents behaving badly. OK.
No, it can be. I just don't think it's 100% the cause, like you do.
You're the one that brought up the stupid "not working at all" nonsense, when the data shows that 3/4 of those on benefits work as well, albeit in unstable job situations.
The irrefutable fact, and the data shows, if you are not working in ANY capacity, there's usually a reason for that. Sorry if the reality doesn't support your buffoonery. Ok.
A word to the wise. Don't post proof of your severe Psychosis / Schizophrenia online. Quotes from Comprof2.0.
"Easiest non-white immigration experience ever!" (referring to Japanese-Americans)
"Easiest non-white immigration experience in American history" (referring to Japanese-Americans)
“A 2-4 year stint living on a military base” (referring to the internment camps that some Japanese-Americans were sent to)
“Geography is irrelevant”
“The GI Bill is what made them successful” (in California where most JA men didn’t get it)
"Yes. Easiest. Can you tell me of any other group that had an easier immigration experience?" (referring to Japanese-Americans)
"I've explained the tremendous advantages given to J-A immigrants over all others"
“police shootings are irrelevant’”
I wrote
“Saying crazy stuff (‘police shootings are irrelevant’)
Vivid hallucinations (‘ONE GROUP’)
Delusions of grandeur (‘You're buried’)
Blaming others (‘upset’)
These are all classic symptoms of Schizophrenia. See help ASAP.”
The mental health links below might help you. You badly need them.
https://www.samhsa.gov/
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/find-help
https://www.cdc.gov/mentalhealth/tools-resources/index.htm
https://nursinglicensemap.com/resources/mental-health-resources/
Well, looks like we have our answer for all the CA success, Peter.
https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/2047697/real-secret-asian-success-america-was-not-about
You overdosed on Xanax, Peter. Why would I take mental health advice from someone like you?
Yup. Of course, every Asian and middle European family has a stay-at-home mom and dad who only works one job.
As you now should realize, Compost2.0 is a troll. Not much intelligence there, lotsa whininess. And excuse making for miscreants. Best to ignore this troll.
Yeah... our better angels don't always win. I look at it as a battle of wits with an unarmed man... unchivalrous at best. Be well.
Lol. What a stupid comment.
I was just making a factual, accurate observation.
But it would be interesting to look at that Asian and European/white percentages of one job and stay at home moms, wouldn't it? I think it might actually be substantially above average, don't you think?
Much easier when you don't have to work two jobs.
A word to the wise. Don't post proof of your severe Psychosis / Schizophrenia online. Quotes from Comprof2.0.
"Easiest non-white immigration experience ever!" (referring to Japanese-Americans)
"Easiest non-white immigration experience in American history" (referring to Japanese-Americans)
“A 2-4 year stint living on a military base” (referring to the internment camps that some Japanese-Americans were sent to)
“Geography is irrelevant”
“The GI Bill is what made them successful” (in California where most JA men didn’t get it)
"Yes. Easiest. Can you tell me of any other group that had an easier immigration experience?" (referring to Japanese-Americans)
"I've explained the tremendous advantages given to J-A immigrants over all others"
“police shootings are irrelevant’”
I wrote
“Saying crazy stuff (‘police shootings are irrelevant’)
Vivid hallucinations (‘ONE GROUP’)
Delusions of grandeur (‘You're buried’)
Blaming others (‘upset’)
These are all classic symptoms of Schizophrenia. See help ASAP.”
The mental health links below might help you. You badly need them.
https://www.samhsa.gov/
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/find-help
https://www.cdc.gov/mentalhealth/tools-resources/index.htm
https://nursinglicensemap.com/resources/mental-health-resources/
Well, looks like we have our answer for all the CA success, Peter.
https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/2047697/real-secret-asian-success-america-was-not-about
You overdosed on Xanax, Peter. Why would I take mental health advice from someone like you?
A word to the wise. Don't post proof of your severe Psychosis / Schizophrenia online. Quotes from Comprof2.0.
"Easiest non-white immigration experience ever!" (referring to Japanese-Americans)
"Easiest non-white immigration experience in American history" (referring to Japanese-Americans)
“A 2-4 year stint living on a military base” (referring to the internment camps that some Japanese-Americans were sent to)
“Geography is irrelevant”
“The GI Bill is what made them successful” (in California where most JA men didn’t get it)
"Yes. Easiest. Can you tell me of any other group that had an easier immigration experience?" (referring to Japanese-Americans)
"I've explained the tremendous advantages given to J-A immigrants over all others"
“police shootings are irrelevant’”
I wrote
“Saying crazy stuff (‘police shootings are irrelevant’)
Vivid hallucinations (‘ONE GROUP’)
Delusions of grandeur (‘You're buried’)
Blaming others (‘upset’)
These are all classic symptoms of Schizophrenia. See help ASAP.”
The mental health links below might help you. You badly need them.
https://www.samhsa.gov/
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/find-help
https://www.cdc.gov/mentalhealth/tools-resources/index.htm
https://nursinglicensemap.com/resources/mental-health-resources/
Well, looks like we have our answer for all the CA success, Peter.
https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/2047697/real-secret-asian-success-america-was-not-about
You overdosed on Xanax, Peter. Why would I take mental health advice from someone like you?
Nor is playing sports about being "white."
Not sure, Adrienne. Parents can care but the kids don’t care that their parents are there. They’ve rebelled. They’re gone. They’ve rejected their parents. It may not be a familial cultural thing at all, just kids who don’t buy into anything they see on offer.
My grandparents were poor Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. My father and his brother - my uncle - slept in the same bed until my uncle got married. Then my father moved to a day bed in the dining room so his parents could rent out the extra room. It never would have occurred to them to engage in any behavior not directed towards improving their situation. In a culture that actively discourages achievement, is anyone surprised about the current situation?
Your point is spot on; if there is any structural racism, this is it. We always hear about black and brown kids, but the highest income group in the US is Indian Americans. It is funny how that brown group is thriving while others are not. We are living with the disastrous results of welfare policies that reward bad behavior by removing consequences for life. The white progressive has pity but never works to uplift, only keeps in a perpetual state of dependency. Your point shows that the American dream is still alive, where one generation pays the price so the next can flourish. Sadly, this article is about the American Nightmare, the results of our expert class in social engineering.
Albert, If our country is such a Nightmare, why do so many legal and illegal immigrants flock here?
Well, when you immigrate to America in the 80s with PhDs, MD and MAs, your odds of success are very high.
Yup. Every Asian and middle European immigrant has at least a Master's. So noted.
Yup. When discussing Indians and other Asians who chose to immigrate in the 60s-80s, the number with college and graduate degrees was astronomically high. Actually the U.S. put restrictions in place to ensure that. So, not "every," but probably around 85-90%.
Lol. Of course, you probably believe Vivek Ramaswamy's parents had no money and floated to America in an inner-tube.
And as far as "Middle European," I'm sure the numbers are a tiny bit less....but they're white, so that's a huge leg up.
JUST LIKE AOC ?
AOC floated to America on an inner-tube?
A word to the wise. Don't post proof of your severe Psychosis / Schizophrenia online. Quotes from Comprof2.0.
"Easiest non-white immigration experience ever!" (referring to Japanese-Americans)
"Easiest non-white immigration experience in American history" (referring to Japanese-Americans)
“A 2-4 year stint living on a military base” (referring to the internment camps that some Japanese-Americans were sent to)
“Geography is irrelevant”
“The GI Bill is what made them successful” (in California where most JA men didn’t get it)
"Yes. Easiest. Can you tell me of any other group that had an easier immigration experience?" (referring to Japanese-Americans)
"I've explained the tremendous advantages given to J-A immigrants over all others"
“police shootings are irrelevant’”
I wrote
“Saying crazy stuff (‘police shootings are irrelevant’)
Vivid hallucinations (‘ONE GROUP’)
Delusions of grandeur (‘You're buried’)
Blaming others (‘upset’)
These are all classic symptoms of Schizophrenia. See help ASAP.”
The mental health links below might help you. You badly need them.
https://www.samhsa.gov/
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/find-help
https://www.cdc.gov/mentalhealth/tools-resources/index.htm
https://nursinglicensemap.com/resources/mental-health-resources/
Looks like we have the answer to all that CA success, Peter.
https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/2047697/real-secret-asian-success-america-was-not-about
You overdosed on Xanax. Why would I take mental health advice from you?
I think you made your point, Peter. You can relax now..
Well, looks like we have our answer for all the CA success, Peter.
https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/2047697/real-secret-asian-success-america-was-not-about
You overdosed on Xanax, Peter. Why would I take mental health advice from someone like you?
A word to the wise. Don't post proof of your severe Psychosis / Schizophrenia online. Quotes from Comprof2.0.
"Easiest non-white immigration experience ever!" (referring to Japanese-Americans)
"Easiest non-white immigration experience in American history" (referring to Japanese-Americans)
“A 2-4 year stint living on a military base” (referring to the internment camps that some Japanese-Americans were sent to)
“Geography is irrelevant”
“The GI Bill is what made them successful” (in California where most JA men didn’t get it)
"Yes. Easiest. Can you tell me of any other group that had an easier immigration experience?" (referring to Japanese-Americans)
"I've explained the tremendous advantages given to J-A immigrants over all others"
“police shootings are irrelevant’”
I wrote
“Saying crazy stuff (‘police shootings are irrelevant’)
Vivid hallucinations (‘ONE GROUP’)
Delusions of grandeur (‘You're buried’)
Blaming others (‘upset’)
These are all classic symptoms of Schizophrenia. See help ASAP.”
The mental health links below might help you. You badly need them.
https://www.samhsa.gov/
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/find-help
https://www.cdc.gov/mentalhealth/tools-resources/index.htm
https://nursinglicensemap.com/resources/mental-health-resources/
Well, looks like we have our answer for all the CA success, Peter.
https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/2047697/real-secret-asian-success-america-was-not-about
You overdosed on Xanax, Peter. Why would I take mental health advice from someone like you?
Perhaps the difference is that immigrants retain the strong familial culture they brought with them, whereas American familial culture has largely atrophied.
Been atrophied, not has atrophied. It is not from lack of care or concern by American families it is a deliberate act by the US govetnment.The Department of Education has only been in existence since 1979 and we are now in the position where parents, ordinary American parents, are told to but out or be investigated as domestic terrorists whereas migrants are a protected class.
Stop playing the victim. All citizens have responsibility towards this and our government is a reflection of us and our lack of willingness to do difficult things.
Lady I NEVER play the victim. In addition you are dead wrong that "citizens have responsibility towards [sic] this" - that is typical liberal philosophy used to escape personal responsibility and governmental accountability for that matter, or worse, belief that the government can fix things if we the citizens just vote right; 2) that "our government is a reflection of us" - this administration is not a reflection of a great many of us in this nation, rather it is a reflection of failed liberal policy; and 3) you, this author, and the governments with jurisdiction where these children live have no clue what to do to remedy this, much less whether to do so would be difficult. Your solution probably starts with a study by social scientists.
Liar.
Taking responsibility for your actions is quite frankly the number one thing Americans have failed at since the Berlin Wall fell. We didn't hold Congress accountable for motor votor, we didn't insist on a wall being built earlier, we didn't succeed with the Tea Party. We din't hold the Democrats responsible for their election cheating in 2020 and now we are headed into 2024 knowing that there will be more cheating. We didn't hold the Bush administration accountable for the Iraq War or for bailing out the banks during the real estate meltdown in 2008.
Republicans are experts at this. You cry about how no one is taking care of business and then when someone shows up to tell you "we have failed" you sit there squealin about "muh social scientists" as if we didn't have a responsibility to not listen to them in the first place. When you are confronted with a scam and you fall for it, then the fault lies with you for not being smarter and braver!
This is why Republicans are cuckolds. You people give up so easily. It's so goddamn pathetic watching you twist like a worm, desperate to evade any personal responsibility for this situation, as if you don't live here and don't have a stake.
You are seriously vile. You should take it down a notch - hat kind of bitterness is damaging to your health.
American families been told by Hillary “it takes a village to bring up a child” meaning government will do your job. Government never does good job except sending kids to war. FAMILIES SHOULD TAKE RESPONSIBILITY instead they open GO FUND ME accounts when it’s too late.
IT TAKES A VILLAGE TO SATISFY Bill the Rod Ham could not do it
Family is indeed the key factor, and this really deflates pretty much the entire article, which describes young people as vague victims, as it is fashionable in America in the last decades. The fact is that many (most) immigrant families are able to provide a sense of belonging and purpose in young people, while most “usual” American families are a rotten shadow of what families should be. Even well to do such families leave children with a sense of emptiness and alienation. Unsurprisingly, Mom and Dad are busy “searching for themselves” and they “have a life too” - in other words they are themselves spoiled, self-centered and self-indulgent children.
Anyone ever watch X-Games? Ever? How about octagon MMA fights?
Alex Honnold? A movie was made about him. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3-wjmIFlnNo
Danny McCaskill?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xQ_IQS3VKjA
Same thing. And yes, kids die trying to do all that too.
https://blog.gitnux.com/rock-climbing-death-statistics/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatalities_in_mixed_martial_arts_contests
Google bicycle stunt deaths.
Boys will do these things. And some will die
If you watch people like Alex Honnold or Danny MacCaskill, you can see how formidable their ancestors would be in battle. The Scots in Roman times would strip and paint themselves with wode (blue), and wrap their long hair around torches on their heads. Before dawn, with A. muscaria drink making them berserker mad, they charged out of the forest at the Romans. They were the only fighters who made the legions break ranks. A man with his hair on fire run through with a spear would laugh and kill 3 or 5 men before he died. Cut off his axe arm and he would pick up his arm and beat men to death with it.
But these guys don't look special. They aren't huge, or packing lots of muscle. Men like them who won battles spread their genes across Eurasia, across Africa when the predators were gone.
I had a great great grandfather who would come home drunk after being thrown out of the bar for fighting. His wife barred the door, so he would go out into the barn, let out the bull, and put out the lantern. He would fight the bull with his bare hands and feet until one or the other was exhausted.
This is why we have nice things. Brains and aggression. Winning battles.
"They are scared and unformed and often without male role models,"...
Ditto everything Peng and CC said! Where are the families and where are the male role models???
There are no male role models because the fathers of these children are just like them...and these boys will father more children just like them, whom they will abandon to be raised by young moms who have no support and no clue what they're doing. And the cycle will continue.
Most of society's problems would be solved by preventing people who should not be having children from having them. No person in that photo of the Union Square riot should ever procreate. They have no clue what family is or how to raise people who will contribute to society. That's why they are where they are. It's sad and it's unfortunate and it's even unfair, but it's still true. And the only way to prevent more of that sadness, misfortune, and unfairness for future generations is to do everythign we possibly can to prevent these boys from knocking up their similarly unfortunate, clueless girlfriends.
I guess that's why all the applications look exactly the same and lack personality.
A word to the wise. Don't post proof of your severe Psychosis / Schizophrenia online. Quotes from Comprof2.0.
"Easiest non-white immigration experience ever!" (referring to Japanese-Americans)
"Easiest non-white immigration experience in American history" (referring to Japanese-Americans)
“A 2-4 year stint living on a military base” (referring to the internment camps that some Japanese-Americans were sent to)
“Geography is irrelevant”
“The GI Bill is what made them successful” (in California where most JA men didn’t get it)
"Yes. Easiest. Can you tell me of any other group that had an easier immigration experience?" (referring to Japanese-Americans)
"I've explained the tremendous advantages given to J-A immigrants over all others"
“police shootings are irrelevant’”
I wrote
“Saying crazy stuff (‘police shootings are irrelevant’)
Vivid hallucinations (‘ONE GROUP’)
Delusions of grandeur (‘You're buried’)
Blaming others (‘upset’)
These are all classic symptoms of Schizophrenia. See help ASAP.”
The mental health links below might help you. You badly need them.
https://www.samhsa.gov/
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/find-help
https://www.cdc.gov/mentalhealth/tools-resources/index.htm
https://nursinglicensemap.com/resources/mental-health-resources/
Well, looks like we have our answer for all the CA success, Peter.
https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/2047697/real-secret-asian-success-america-was-not-about
You overdosed on Xanax, Peter. Why would I take mental health advice from someone like you?
"Once upon a time, these boys would have been absorbed by other things: a boxing gym; a basketball court; a church; a job... It was hardly free of violence or danger. But there was a way things were done. There were guardrails."
Those activities still exist. The right questions to ask (but are absent in this otherwise interesting piece) is what the guardrails were and why they (seemingly) don't exist now. Isn't a large part of "guardrails" very simply the presence of a father in the home? It doesn't matter how much sympathy I might have for the plight of children in certain communities facing difficulties if those same communities refuse to acknowledge that a basic component of raising children is responsible parents.
Great comment. The destruction of the guardrails began in the 60’s. First was the attack on religion, led by Madalyn Murray O’Hair. Crèche scenes, which used to be a standard decoration in front of churches around Christmas began to disappear. The Ten Commandments, usually found in front of courthouses, also disappeared. Attendance in houses of religion began to steadily decline. “Do your own thing” became the mantra. Time magazine had a splashy cover celebrating “The Me Generation.” The 60’s also gave us “The Great Society” legislation which included a welfare program that awarded mothers based on the number of children they had as long as there was no male in the house. As Thomas Sowell so famously said: “This accomplished something that 200 years of slavery could not. It destroyed the Black family unit.” Also included was the birth of the Women’s Movement and the attack on “toxic masculinity” starting in kindergarten and reinforced throughout the education experience. Physical connection to a local community and its standards of behavior were eliminated with the advent and pervasive growth of Social Media.
————
The real question is not where the guardrails went. It is why are we surprised that they have disappeared.
If you think 1950s department store style Xmas decorations ever prevented young men from being violent and stupid, you've got a real short view of history. Gangs of young men, mostly from minority and immigrant groups, have been attacking each other with clubs and chains in New York City since before the United States existed. And by the way, the "Me Generation" and the Great Society plans of the 60s, for all their problems, are not what's responsible for the destruction of the Black family unit. The Black family unit in America was forcibly broken over and over again for hundreds of years by selling off mothers and fathers and children like cattle. In any event, it wasn't functional in the 1950s either. It baffles me why people romanticize the '50s as if these Creche scenes like you see in old movies somehow made everything fine, when for instance the South was still segregated and the KKK was running rampant murdering people. (Another form of young men acting violently).
Gee, glad you liked it. As someone who grew up in the 5O’s and 60’s I am certainly not romanticizing that period which was certainly no Edenic paradise. The discussion was about “guardrails.” In my view, these were community, church/synagogue, two-parent families, and patriotism. These are now uncommon features of the American landscape. As far as Slavery and discrimination against the Black community, I agree that it is a despicable part of America’s history. My point is more about the disastrous results of government policies meant to address this stain on our history. Relative to this discussion, leading up to passage of the so-called Great Society only 20% of black births were into single parent households. With welfare benefits focused primarily on households with no male presence, that statistic is now 70%. Having a male presence in the home is traditionally the primary “guardrail” for young men.
I'm against welfare for people who could work, myself. But in my life (growing up in the 80s) it was pretty apparent that it was drugs, more than anything else, that was breaking Black communities. Crack broke Black communities, and heroin broke the families of Vietnam vets, but the vets were a subsection of broader White society; the White communities were not destroyed. But from those homes, the guardrails were removed, not just by missing a father but by the presence of substance abuse. What happens on the community level to White society is only apparent now, in the 2020s with the opium epidemic.
I'd agree with you that government policies that discourage working and saving are somewhat responsible. I disagree about the removal of religion from the public square; I'm Jewish, so I have nothing other than two thousand years of discrimination by Christians to look at when considering whether it's a good idea to allow one religion to dominate education or the law. But I think religion is a pretty poor way of keeping the youth in line anyway, if European history is much of a guide.
When you say that "having a male presence in the home" is the traditional, and most important guardrail, I absolutely agree. But how we got here is much more complex than simply removing nativity scenes from in front of libraries.
Billions of dollars are spent annually by churches on youth ministries across America. While they are not bad, it is a search and rescue approach. Prevention focuses on supporting, strengthening, and restoring families. Churches get a kid one night a week. A divorced dad may see his kids one or two nights a week. Stable, intentional, present, loving parents will keep most kids from surfing trains. Not all, but most.
Well said
Great insights.
The question for me isn’t “how do we stop the dumb antics of testosterone boosts of adolescents,” but rather “how can we restore the value of the two parent home, especially for knuckle-headed boys?” Both slavery and the Great Society tore apart Black families, but we can’t change history. What do we do next?
I don't honestly know. But it's got to start with the current generation of young men having some reason to do better than their missing fathers. I think of what goals and virtues were passed down in my family: Education, hard work, earning, saving. How can you have anything without that? Add together absent parents and easy access to drugs, and none of those things seem *important* to young people. They view the straight life as a game that's rigged against them, they view working stiffs as suckers, and they're not completely wrong on either count.
My grandfather used to say, "people can't advance when they don't have a pot to p*ss in."
We know welfare isn't a solution, even though it may have been well-intentioned. The reverse of that was supposed to be an economy that would let people lift themselves out of poverty on their own, but that hasn't happened.
Being from the west coast, I spent awhile yesterday doing a Google street view tour along some of the streets in the Bronx that these elevated lines cross, trying to find where that photo was taken. It looks like hell. Empty storefronts, discount marts, hardly any restaurants besides fast food. Very few locally owned businesses. Probably no locally owned rental buildings. I get it: No one has money to buy anything. But whatever money there is, it flows out and doesn't come back.
Government *can* do something about that. Tax breaks and preferential loans for local businesses, incentives for rebuilding and removing blight - given to people with a stake in the neighborhood, not to huge developers who'd come in to gentrify and push the current inhabitants somewhere else. Jobs programs. After school work programs. Free community college (as opposed to half-baked, illegal schemes to forgive student debt). These are things that I as a taxpayer don't mind paying for, because they'd make the country safer and richer. When people have decent jobs they have something to lose. They're more likely to stay around and raise families. You have to kickstart the economy there somehow, and do it in a way that puts the money back into a productive local loop. Then - maybe - you can start building a generation of fathers who have something to aspire to.
And somehow in there, we have to make fatherhood cool again. Any male can impregnate a female, but the current trend of making babies and not raising them has to end.
Perfectly stated.
Absolutely spot on, Bill!
You want to ho back to the stifling 1950’s, Bill? The ‘60’s you decry happened precisely as a response to the conformity of cultural norms of prior generations. The very thing you want to see come back.
And If they were to return you would see the very same response again, imo.
Your point being that where we are today is inevitable? You might be right but, if so, that’s pretty depressing, isn’t it?
I think we can both agree there is something seriously amiss socially today. The thread here appears to blame the lack of familial structure. i think that’s a red herring. I’ve seen evidence of a poverty of family values when I was a teenager in the early ‘70’s.
I just think that now we’re suffering from a perfect storm of extremely rapid social media creating a contagion effect amongst people, kids and adults alike, who are too malleable and ill informed to know better.
What struck with in hearing what this author is saying, was wondering how this experience has changed. It's not as if this is the first generation of single moms and no dad households. I wonder if it's just another round of family structures where values have evolved, watered down and the single mom is even more overwhelmed and strapped, tapped and unable to cope herself. I am 50. I knew single mom homes (I did grow up in a white suburban environment so things differ) and the values were hard work, make it safe, college bound. I imagine there may be less of that even now with the economics and lessening education level of our society at large. I do agree having two parents and a stable home would be best. But even 35+ years ago, I feel like our single mom homes fared better.
Generational single mother homes. 35+ years ago I would bet most single mothers grew up in more stable homes and had seen at some point the "right way" to raise children. Today's single moms not so much.
I will add the fact that not only are these kids missing a father, but MANY are being raised by a GRANDMOTHER!
Years ago I volunteered with Planned Parenthood, LONG before it became a haven for “abortion on demand and abortion as a means of birth control”. We really were trying to educate women about “Women’s Health & Wellbeing”
I went to the local charity hospitals to meet women giving birth. Mostly Black, poor, uneducated, single and giving birth to their 5th unwanted baby, fathered by their 5th boyfriend.
Surprisingly there were no Mexican women, and I think it is because most are Catholic and have large family connections.
A stand out memory was meeting with a 14 year old Black girl, having her 2nd baby (sperm donor!) father unknown! This child had absolutely no idea that unprotected sex = unwanted pregnancy! She knew nothing about ovulation (her baby making days of the month) etc., etc.!
Then I met her grandmother. WOW! Also single with 7 children besides this child’s mother, and 3 which were under 14! She was also ignorant about pretty much everything I tried to talk to her about. (I say “ignorant” not to be derogatory).
Although I want to believe she loved them, she was totally unconcerned with this granddaughter, or any of the children in her care. Plus, she admitted to me and the nurse, “It was probably my man who knocked up my granddaughter, but I kicked him to the curb”
My takeaway from that experience was how Welfare & Food Stamps & Charity Hospitals were doing nothing to improve the lives of these women. And, WHAT is the solution? Abortion? Perhaps, getting their tubes tied after a 2nd birth? It can be reversed when or if THEY can afford to pay for it.
I just don’t know!
It was (still is) heartbreaking to think back on!
“Perhaps, getting their tubes tied after a 2nd birth? It can be reversed when or if THEY can afford to pay for it.”
Are you serious? Yeah, let’s forcibly sterilize teenage black girls - it’s not like there’s a long history of eugenic sterilization and it would be a humongous human rights violation, or anything like that. 🙄
Mara, you totally missed my point. A tubal ligation is not/must not be confused with “sterilization” and WAS NOT meant as a “human rights … anything like that”
Please re-read my post before you jump to misleading conclusions. What did I follow that statement with, or did you stop at what you could take issue with?
It is those kinds of misrepresentations and taking out of context that causes even more of a divide between people who genuinely would like a solution.
Please do better!
Mayo Clinic: “Tubal ligation — also known as having your tubes tied or tubal sterilization — is a type of permanent birth control. During tubal ligation, the fallopian tubes are cut, tied or blocked to permanently prevent pregnancy.”
https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/tubal-ligation/about/pac-20388360
Spell it out for me. What exactly are you trying to say?
Yes, because having seven kids and being a grandmother before you're 40, and having a boyfriend who would knock up your 14yo granddaughter (who already has a fatherless baby) is wayyyyy better than a tubal ligation. Are you being serious right now???
Mandatory sterilization would be a BLESSING to these people. They might be able to get out from underneath their generations of poverty and live full lives. And they might even be able to care for the children they already have. There's a crazy idea. Holding sacred the human right to cluelessly reproduce like a feral cat while watching generations of children grow up in homes where nobody has the mental or emotional bandwidth to properly care for them is BANANAS. Speaking of feral cats, we spay them for a reason.
Mandatory sterilization? Really?
And exactly who would be qualified to make that decision to do that to a person? A politician?
And what would make someone eligible to be judged that way? You’re on welfare, you have three kids, up to the clinic you go to have your balls chopped off? That’s an order?
That’s an interesting view of the America you seem to want..
Yes ..I guess I am not as succinct and eloquent. It's like the quality of our lives gets diluted and diluted and diluted. And then put that into the current world...it's no surprise kids are struggling. Welcome to multigenerational, epigenetic, trauma.
The guardrails have been removed by demoralization. Yuri Bezmenov warned us in his 1984 about his stages of ideological subversion. The 1981 cult classic movie Escape from New York captures the decline of a once-great city, where scenes like the Union Square riot are part and parcel of vibrant, mostly peaceful urban life. Progress! https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/escapefromnewyork
PS: Your profile pic is perfect for your comment.
My siblings and I grew up latchkey kids in the country and we used to spend hours of unsupervised free time doing dangerous things - tearing up farms on old dirt bikes seeing who could outdumb the last dumb and dangerous thing (think jumping over standing people/cars type stuff) , we ran a quasi fight club in the field for neighbor kids, had homemade potato gun fights. There were SO many trips to the ER. We made it out alive but always wondered what city kids did for wild fun.
I think kids need space and freedom to push the boundaries and develop life skills like resourcefulness, learning about consequences, etc. The safety bubble has gone too far - it started with common sense things like seatbelts and helmets and has progressed to helicopter parenting and safe spaces.
I think it’s also important to understand how social media (the current version is TikTok, I guess) is multiplying these young men’s exposure to “Jackass”-type acting out stunts. In the pre-internet age, one’s notoriety was limited to one’s acquaintances; now it’s available to the whole world. There is so much more status to be gained, which ups the ante for outrageous and extreme behavior.
How can a boxing gym, with its slow progression of skill development, sparring, training, and low-level fights (not to mention how much hard work it takes!), compete with the glory of internet fame?
You're spot on! Like all the suicidal TikTok challenges
No less than the late Daniel Patrick Moynahan got fried, even before cancelling was a thing, for raising that flag. But ain't it the truth?
This is the result of a combination of the Nanny State (safetyism) and letting the village raise the children.
What I wonder which may be even more concerning is whether or not there’s an involved mother in the home? I’m not aware if anything has changed in this regard but I would be curious to learn more if anyone here has any information about trends in maternal involvement.
This is a good point. A "single mother" could be fairly involved, sending her kids to lots of camps, schools programs, music lessons, sports, etc. Or a single mother could give the kids an iPad and then spend her free time watching Netflix and TikTok videos.
This was a good article but it skirted around the real issue here. Why are these young men not getting absorbed into other activities like they did in the past? As you said, those activities still exist.
This is an obvious truth yet seemingly our most verboten topic. Asian Americans are at the top of all favorable demographics, African Americans at the bottom.
"There is something worth admiring in the reckless kids who stand on top of moving trains."
No, there isn't. But there would be something to admire in kids who are strong enough to ignore peer pressure to do dumb things that will get them injured or killed.
Darwin’s survival of the fittest.
These surfers are candidates for the Darwin Awards. I have been saying for the last few months, "Teenagers are not known for their smart decisions.".
True. But when I was younger and we actually surfed, paddling out into huge waves from passing hurricanes was lionized. Just vastly different environments. Most of these kids would be decent humans - if they were disciplined and held to account Blame the Dems for most of this chaos.
Point Break anyone?
Who says the kids surfing subways aren't decent kids?
Every story is different. I know a former kid whose lawyer dad took him out tagging for his visitation. Later gave the kud money and dropped him off on drug streets. Why? To get revenge on his ex wife for finding out about his infidelity.
You don't know unless you spend time with them.
The idiots in Union Square were not decent kids. We are allowing kids who might become decent people to be savages and miscreants.
I don't know if they a decent kids or not but they sure are stupid and they are doing their best to clean the gene pool. Keep up the good work morons.
I see as many (if not more) surfers now than in the ‘70’s/80’s. They’re everywhere.
Real or subway? What state are you in,Lee?
Real. The entire eastern seaboard. The west coast. Latin America. Canada, even. No shortage of surfers, kite boards. Wetsuits. In Barbados this past May I saw what looked like two hundred Americans roughing the waves on their Atlantic side. And they were kids..
It’s a big world out there. Only a few idiot punks ride trains..
This is why the Darwin Awards are not given to children.
Many adults aren’t either, Lonesome..
more like death to the dumb
Survival being the key word there.
We are a permissive society and this permissiveness is encouraged by the left. Don't tell me I am wrong. Look at the blue states and cities and how they handle crime, homelessness, teach gender identity in K through 3, CRT, encouraging children to go through gender therapy. To the left, there is hardly anything that is not permissive
They do all of this because they are compassionate and who are they to pass judgement on others? They don't want their peer group of loony leftist like themselves to think they are judgmental or insensitive.
The line has to drawn somewhere and enforced. The left doesn't believe that. Anyone who wants to enforce the law or pass stricter laws is a fascist/NAZI. We are considered insensitive. No, they are the ones who are insensitive. They are insensitive to the needs of society, the needs of the greater good.
Criminals run wild in blue states and cities. Looting is out of control. The Bule states and cities have the highest murder rates.
I could boor you by going on and on with what is wrong in the permissive cities and states. They are crazy. Only idiots, Dem/Soc, would want to defend the police but here we are.
I have to stop here. I could write a book on this madness. Face it the Dem/Soc are not just crazy, they are evil.
Regarding your second paragraph I do not think they are genuinely compassionate. They just like to signal that they are. If in doubt consider that lovely sanctuary city, NYC, and it's reaction to a few thousand migrants or that bastion of liberalism, Martha's Vineyard, and how fast it shirked its liberal values. And they are indeed judgmental. The quickest way to incur their judgment is to question their proclamations at wh8ch pount you are racist, an anti-vaxer. MAGA, etc. Other than that I think you have nailed it.
I agree. They verbally say they are compassionate, sensitive, and touchy feely but the truth is they are NIMBY hypocrites.
I rest my case!
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12473337/thieves-steal-good-California-home-depot-Nordstrom.html
I think the author may accuse you of tut tutting.
The author himself is tit-tutting about respectable people.
I’m fine with that. TFP is nothing if not a marketplace for ideas.
I disagree. It is absolutely dangerous and reckless but at the same time it is brave and courageous. It isn’t a simple black and white.
Yep. We watch it for entertainment. X-Games. To be successful at such stunts requires courage and discipline. Alex Honnold? Yeah, he's astonishing. And he has more discipline in his little finger (quite literally) than most people will ever find.
I see it as involving motivation. If you do it because you really like it, knock yourself out. If you do it in a dare to prove your masculinity, you’re a moron. I’m not opposed to extreme sports or other activities that carry high risk. I
I used to dogfight (in aircraft) but not with live rounds--think aerial laser tag. Occasionally a plane would be lost--along with its pilots. Jousting at its finest. Maybe I was an idiot, too. But the only people who saw me were the other pilots. And rarely. Nobody dared me to fly.
I think there is a fine line between “proving you masculinity” doing it “because you like it”. In fact, the overlap between the two are often one and the same.
And often not. Depends on each situation.
Meh. I talked to a skateboard kid hitching a ride. Kids die doing that too, skateboarding under a semi trailer, doing flips, handstands. He also did k-holes (ketamine). Kids die doing half-pipe and stunt skiing. I remember the kid remarking that the ones who have the time to practice late at night don't exactly tend to have a great home life. Lots are foster kids in crap homes, some are aged out of foster care at 18.
After seeing that idiotic subheading, I couldn’t wait to read the actual essay.
As is often the case with TFP, the Comments were infinitely smarter and more thoughtful than the essay.
Wow, you're a prissy little thing aren't you? I'm sure the miscreants will crowd around to hear your wisdom.
My, you’re an idiot.
Name calling. Huh. That’s telling.
Looks like I've offended the overlords :)
Oh poop, here I thought you were the overlord.
hormones.. testosterone etc without it no one would join the military..
"The same idiots causing your train delay are descended from men who faced down saber-toothed tigers when we lived in caves." Seriously? I mean if you want to really get technical, we're all descended from the men who faced down saber-toothed tigers or we wouldn't be here to begin with. That said, being stupid and showing your ass or acting out criminal behavior is not anything close to facing something that's determined to rip your freaking head off. Actually the ones you are trying to make an analogy to have long been digested by said cat. The breakdown of the nuclear family, demoralized/understaffed law enforcement, progressive prosecutors unwilling to prosecute crime, complete failure of our public schools, social media/phone addiction, excessive medicating/over prescribing pharmaceutical drugs to kids are a few of reasons we have this nonsense today.......
> social media/phone addiction, excessive medicating/over prescribing pharmaceutical drugs
I actually think those kids (the ones on a bunch of SSRIs) just sit on their phones all day doing TikTok. The ones riding the trains are thrill seeking ones who *aren't* satisfied with our society's carefully curated "safe spaces" like video games, but aren't given a better place to express their excess energy. This is more the counter-culture to the modern safety-first zero-anxiety world.
Preach, brother, preach. Your comment is spot on.
I agree with the premise of the essay. But the author did state the “how” in challenging boys...boxing clubs, martial arts, churches, sport...all of that is available...
I will say this: When I was a teacher in an inner-city (now called urban) school in LA 25 years ago, the coaches created a boxing club at the middle school. It was great. Discipline problems decreased in the classrooms. The boys needed an aggressive out let.
Education has gone so far to the feminine side of things it left our boys behind. The zero-tolerance of fighting in schools has been a trade off. Instead of allowing boys to learn from a bloody nose on the playground, we let the thing fester inside them until they explode. I have said we have traded bloody noses for body bags.
The feminization of the culture has clearly been detrimental to boys in so many ways. It’s also why the Canadian psychiatrist Jordan Peterson’s work and speeches has resonated with so many men. He speaks of the role of men in society in the past and the necessity for them to embrace the manly virtues of the past like honor, uprightness and even chivalry.
I agree. I bought my son his book.
I have a huge frustration with the SEL anti-bullying lessons in schools. It’s so one sided. Sure, teach kids to be kind. Yes, that is good. But also teach kids to stand up for themselves and the earlier the better. It is time-tested the best way to deal with a bully is to pop them in nose (figuratively but sometimes literally) the first time they try anything.
My son was bullied in school. I did not tell him to run to the teachers. I told stand up hard and fast to the kid. If you get suspended for defending yourself I don’t care. SEL in schools is a feminine solution but it’s not enough. We also need the masculine solution too.
As the mother of 3 grown sons, I completely agree with you. As the teacher burdened with delivering a bunch of made up, redundant, idealistic SEL lessons to Middle School boys? I cannot adequately convey the experience in a brief comment, typed on my phone.
Oh, I want to hear about what it's like to have to teach SEL! Interestingly enough, our resident Millennial put that on a writing exam, without explaining what SEL actually entails (of course, just the Orwellian term will do!). Our mainly Chinese Nationals responded (for the most part) that teaching these skills is on the parents, not the school.
I would go so far as to argue that these skills are inherently learned through reading good books. NOT social justice books.
I am in my 50's. I am a newer teacher and a longtime parent. I am tasked with spending 85 minutes, daily, with a room full of middle school boys who have behavior referrals. I'm supposed to talk to them about "self awareness" and similar topics. I work in a school that is well over 90% minority, mostly Hispanic. English is not the first language for many of the students and nearly 25% of the school population have IEP's. Fortunately, I have a sense of humor and I see the absolute ridiculousness of what's being asked of all of us. I try do dial down what I can.
Our districts's original programming, for this "course" is daily role playing and having these kids answer follow-up questions. I'm actually grateful that I'm unable to access the drive that stuff is in. What room of middle school boys wants to spend 2-3 days a week, all school year, starting their day with role playing about social situations and answering questions?
The misguided goal is that we are, somehow, going to "teach" these kids to be better humans strictly with words; endless words. People learn through experience, through hard times...not through talking things to death.
These topics are written by unrealistic people, not in the classroom, who are trying to create their ideal human out of kids they've never met. I'm forced to, 5 days a week, teach another class that used to be a homeroom or study hall situation. Now, the idea is that the room is magically going to transform into a "community" or a school "family", because a randomly assigned group of kids are in the same room 5 days a week being forced to listen to and share answers about a bunch of SEL topics. It's not how things actually work in the real world. The students ask what this class is supposed to be about and why they have to be in there.
The slides are made up by 2 women who are not in the classroom. They are filled with phrases like "be prepared to share out" and "discuss with a shoulder partner". We have to ask questions like "what does an emotionally safe school sound like?" We're given all these charts to fill in, as if many eager answers will be rushing at us. I get a room of kids silently looking at me and maybe 1 speaks up, because this stuff was thought up by 2 women who are nearly 40 years older than they are and they're just trying to adjust to a new environment. There is an obsessive focus on self, in ways that seem like hindsight from an idealistic adult mind.
I coud go on...
Thank you for sharing and explaining.
Wow. This is even worse than I could have imagined. What these kids need--especially the boys--is to get outside! To do some physical work that they can be proud of.
what is SEL
Social Emotional Learning
I bought my two 20-something daughters the book immediately when it came out! Peterson’s work should be read by all.
I told my daughters the same thing--that I would back them up if they confronted a bully and got in trouble. When my youngest was a sophomore in high school she called me to tell me the school was probably going to call her in for a discipline issue. She had done a quick martial arts move and dropped a boy to the ground--in front of his friends. He had been smacking girls on the rear end as he passed them at their lockers in the hall. I never got a call. At graduation I told the dean, the head of discipline about it, he laughed and said he knew all about it. A handful of teachers had witnessed it and all immediately melted back in their rooms. It was the talk of the teachers lounge. They figured she had very effectively solved a problem for them.
This reminded me of gangs, which possibly fill the same kinds of needs. Riding subways is dangerous to yourself; rioting can be dangerous to others. Seems like that would be an important distinction.
It was weird to me (but OK since this is an essay) that the author said “mostly white” tut -tutting.. Most of the non-white folks I know (older to be sure) don’t think much of our kids endangering themselves or others or destroying property (that’s why I think the PlayStation riot and subway riding are different). Maybe it’s more of an age thing than a race thing. Then there’s the whole question of “why make sweeping generalizations about people if you have no evidence?” But it’s an essay.
I think for generations we have honored males physical abilities while keeping them in check according to society’s requirements and there have always been males outside the norm re:violence. Think of the gunmen of the late 19th century in the West.
I’d like to see an essay about a group that has successfully dealt with this for adolescent males, perhaps in the same neighborhood.
For example, how do the Hasids deal with this? They also have adolescents and live in NYC.
That is what his father and I told my son too.
I thought of Peterson when I read this essay, too. A popular book on ‘how to raise boys’ came out a few years ago and I bought it (have a son) and when I got to the sentence, ‘how do we raise boys to be more like girls?’ I closed the book. So much of what boys need gets squashed now. It’s why sports are so important. In my nice suburb we have the means for extra sporting clubs for our kids. If we didn’t our kids would find ways to do dangerous stuff, too. I understand the author’s point. I wish there were a better outlet for these kids.
and look what is being done to Jordan Peterson for telling the truth and making sense
The persecution of Peterson is absurd. The powers that be are clearly afraid of his thoughts & wisdom. Peterson is subverting their destruction of the family & society and they don’t like it. So it’s time to ‘re-educate’ him. The Canadian government has not only lost the plot, it’s become evil.
I agree on all points you have made. How on earth can so many people have bought into this madness and destruction of society...and how did so many terrible people gain so much power. Ugh.
Peterson is no slouch. He already has his base. He’ll survive with even more adherents that he has now.
And good that he should. The people attacking him are truly nuts - they have lost the plot, all sense of reality.
Professional associations in both countries dislike dissent. To be a member means to adhere to protocol. Peterson is way beyond that. Good for him. And good for all of us who enjoy the freedom of speech.
It is not the feminization of the culture or matriarchy. At all. On the contrary. It is, rather, the full-scale destruction of Patriarchy, as defined by the last 2000+ years of global expansion, conquering and profit as the only goal, that we are throwing off willy nilly, with emotion and no thought. Unless and until we honor and redefine- rebalance- realign what feminine-masculine, yin-yang actually is without regard to gender, we will not progress.
All these activities have become too expensive for single-mom households. Even after-school programs require payment. 40 years ago, my friends and I stayed after school to run on the track, or in the school hallways in the winter, and some teachers stayed - VOLUNTARILY - to coach us. There were science club and drama club meetings as well, all free because teachers volunteered. None of this exists now.
I am a single mom. True, it is not the same as it was when I grew up but church is available and from there youth group where they do these activities. And a basketball court is inexpensive. And there are Boys and Girls clubs too. I think boys need guidance into these things
I'm old enough to remember when it was Boys Clubs. And we had Boy Scouts. And Girl Scouts. Emphasis on the separation. Which. Was. Good.
We still have Boy Scouts. My 13yo is one (started in a Manhattan troop and now we live in a small town where there are three troops). My 11 yo daughter also just joined a girls BSA troop. Still separate, but they get to do all the things the boys get to do, which I remember wishing for when I was a young, physically active, adventurous girl. These things exist, and they are insanely affordable. I'm talking $75 a year for troop dues.
Thanks for your reply; I've heard similar sentiments elsewhere. I'm glad that having girl boy scouts works for you. I'll leave it at that.
And yet those single moms can afford smartphones and monthly service plans for all these dummies who spend their lives on TikTok, watching other dummies do dumb things, and being invited to riots in Union Square.
Please. This isn't about money. It's about bad parenting.
Men attempting this conversation in the 1980's were met with universal derision and repression. The absent father. Exploration and development of the healthy masculine. Discussion of the emerging "puer aeternus" (Peter Pan syndrome), mentorship, responsible stewardship and the creation and expansion of a meaningful inner world reality was dangerous to women and had to be stopped. It was another convenient target for the poseur feminists who needed corporate cash and government grants. So, it further weaponized hatred and misandry. It destroyed the "men's club", drove the father from the home and launched the war on boys (drug'em to control'em). It distorted the judiciary with the divorce court and the child support debtors prison. It was "modern" to believe the family was passe and the imprisonment of women. Always top heavy in lesbian and Marxist politics, feminism was a hand in glove fit with, and a willing ally of, corporate fascism, the war on the middle class, and the civilization that aspired to a free society.
The hysterical lie was always the basis of feminist success. It turned the vulnerability inherent in the natural love and respect men and society holds for the feminine into a dagger. The anonymous complaint and informer, vague undefined emotional trauma equated with rape, the whisper campaign, shunning, career and reputation destruction, trial by press and the electronic pile on are all tactic's we have come to know well. Now comfortably ensconced as the D.E.I., (actually a model of Stalin's commissariat) feminism serves both university and corporate fascism as the blackmail threat of destruction over the life of student, researcher, or any employee or citizen who steps out of line.
Now, the "puer aeternus" is every where. Sexless, blue haired, tattooed, genderless, pierced and self hating, it waits in line for re-assignment surgery. It riots, loots and burns. In the Black ghetto it screams "..father where are you.." with every murder it commits. Lost on the streets it sells its body for fentanyl and smack. And it is so very, very feminist P.C. There is no history. No man. No woman. No childhood. No word spoken not approved and sanctioned by the commissariat. Soon, no human at all. It is, as Bly and Moore told us a half century ago: " the teeth mother naked at last.."
Above it all, subsumed, enthralled and blinded by the monstrous lie they perpetrated, well paid poseur utopians and the totalitarian narcissism that employs them.
Great comment. Bring Boxing Club back in Middle School.
“The respectable classes—the people, mostly white, who have money and live uptown or in the suburbs—tut-tutted about the whole thing on X, formerly Twitter, or Instagram, or wherever respectable people tut-tut about things now. They objected to the broken glass, the umbrellas of the hot dog stands that had been smashed or pummeled. The mess.”
What an utterly repellent attitude. I’m sure McCaffery would have the same response should those rioters have descended outside his family’s home in safe little Sunnyside.
At the age of 12 I was headed in that direction, stealing, breaking windows, skipping school. Then I entered the 7th grade, signed up for band and the whole course of my life changed.
You mean being a part of something greater than yourself 😮 ? 👍
At the age of 13 that thought never entered my mind. All I knew is that I got to play the drums and nothing else mattered. I played professionally all over the world until I was 75. Music was the only thing that kept me in school. I had no interest in anything else. Whatever education I've had came from finding subjects, through books, that interested me. I still read daily.
I love stories like this…finding something so big it takes you on a different life path. If you had no interest in school then, you would hate it now! I hope you can tell your story to other young boys (girls too) who feel lifeless at school. This coming from a former educator! :)
Finding what excites a person is life affirming. That's crucial for longevity for us all.
Everybody needs something that they are challenged by snd can become good, or at least better, at. This instills a sense of satisfaction. I did court-appointed crimi nal defense work for years and would get the youngsters; not juveniles but the failures of the juvenile justice system. I always, always, always encouraged them.to find something (legal) they were good at. I have some success stories out there.
This explains a lot.
A word to the wise. Don't post proof of your severe Psychosis / Schizophrenia online. Quotes from Comprof2.0.
"Easiest non-white immigration experience ever!" (referring to Japanese-Americans)
"Easiest non-white immigration experience in American history" (referring to Japanese-Americans)
“A 2-4 year stint living on a military base” (referring to the internment camps that some Japanese-Americans were sent to)
“Geography is irrelevant”
“The GI Bill is what made them successful” (in California where most JA men didn’t get it)
"Yes. Easiest. Can you tell me of any other group that had an easier immigration experience?" (referring to Japanese-Americans)
"I've explained the tremendous advantages given to J-A immigrants over all others"
“police shootings are irrelevant’”
I wrote
“Saying crazy stuff (‘police shootings are irrelevant’)
Vivid hallucinations (‘ONE GROUP’)
Delusions of grandeur (‘You're buried’)
Blaming others (‘upset’)
These are all classic symptoms of Schizophrenia. See help ASAP.”
The mental health links below might help you. You badly need them.
https://www.samhsa.gov/
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/find-help
https://www.cdc.gov/mentalhealth/tools-resources/index.htm
https://nursinglicensemap.com/resources/mental-health-resources/
Well, looks like we have our answer for all the CA success, Peter.
https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/2047697/real-secret-asian-success-america-was-not-about
You overdosed on Xanax, Peter. Why would I take mental health advice from someone like you?
Britain's strictest headmistress, Katharine Birbalsingh, knows something of this. "..we're all human underneath, and human beings need to feel as if they belong to their family, to their school, to their community, and to their country. If they do not belong there, they will find belonging in a gang, or in a worrying Social Media Group where the child will be ripe for radicalization.."
https://youtu.be/dmUU-i909jI?feature=shared&t=1509
That woman is a saint.
OK - all true, but now what?
Our elites think it's so wonderful to open our borders and promote grievances among the dispossessed. Do you think this will end well when a 1000 Union Squares erupt? Or when "the respectable classes—the people, mostly white, who have money and live uptown or in the suburbs" no longer venture into the cities because they are overrun with violent young minorities bent on destruction? This is the natural end result of the insane policies being imposed on our nation by the uniparty globalists, albeit largely Democrats. We have hordes of young men learning nothing - being prepared for nothing - in substandard schools run by these fools. It is long past time put a stop to the madness. Close the damn borders. Now. Deport the illegals. Now. And then start enforcing laws and standards. And still it might be too late to repair the damage caused by those who hate our country.
Yes! Right Now!
Aren’t lawyers by definition ‘elite’? I love your damn the Lib refrain. You always go there, Bruce.
Hey, I’m no great fan of them either. But Trump had four years and built no wall, never spent a dime in infrastructure, changed few schools, stopped no transgenders, deported fewer illegals than Obama, shut down the country during Covid - but he was great at ‘promoting the grievances’ of his MAGA base. Jesus, he sounds just like a Dem!
But of course he cut taxes, and all elites love that on either side of the political spectrum. Right?
Which is why he accumulated the same amount of debt our vile current President will.
Oh well.
Democrats are not wholly, solely to blame. For the record, I am an Independent at one time registered Republican. As to those who "hate our country", many sit at the top of society's mountain using their wealth and power to quietly and secretly manipulate the world the rest of us share. One cannot proffer simple solutions to very complex problems, some of which are made to be complex intentionally.
BS. The solutions are in fact simple. They start with what Bruce said. Enough of the analysis paralysis. The only thing I agree with that you said was wealthy people are manipulating things. But it IS the Democrats because they are very easily manipulated by those wealthy people with the lure of their own wealth and power. Some Republicans (McConnell, Cheney, Romney, Graham) but virtually every Democrat. What is AOC worth now? Stacy Abrams?
You didn’t mention Cruz in your lineup of unworthy Republicans.
:)
If that were true there would have been that "Red Wave" last year. Instead the tide kept going out. There is a whole lot of stupid, a majority of daft, in the Republican't Party if they aren't in on the plot themselves. Either way they aren't on your side.
Personally I think there would have been a Red Wave in the midterms but for two things:1) Democrat messaging re abortion; and 2) Mitch McConnell, who controls much of the Republican party's campaign funding refused to fund anyone who supported Trump, was supported by Trump or was Trump adjacent and this despite most Republican voters like Trump and still do. Personally I hope the people who vote Republican can wrestle control from the McConnells, Cheney, Romneys, Grahams and other faux conservatives. If not I think it is doomed.
The Republicans gave away the Senate. If they literally had any candidates instead of Dr. Oz or Herschel Walker, any guy or lady pretty much off the street, they would’ve won.
HC just a reminder that the Democrats elected Fetterman. Say what you will about Oz, he could complete a sentence and he has held a job. No something else was afoot. I stand by my comment.
No messaging on abortion needed , Lynne. A majority of American women want access to abortion rights. And until they get it in red states, the GOP will suffer.
This will likely surprise you but this is one I am on the fence about. I genuinely do not know what is the right thing to do. I think it is wrong to require a woman to carry a child she does not want. I also think it is wrong to snuff out a wholly innocent life. I have concerns about the father of a child unwanted by the mother who says he does want the child. I have concerns that if the stats are correct black babies are being aborted at rates far greater than the percentage of black people in the population yet no one on your side sees that as racist. I have concerns that the person who can cure a deadly disease or secure peace in the Middle East has been or will be aborted. As a limited government afficionado I think the government has no role whatsoever. And let's just say I am extremely skeptical of your sides all government a the time philosophy being absent on this where you want no government involvement at all. That being said, yes it was heavily politicized. By both parties and their media, social and legacy, whores. Including the article in the FP about the two women who wanted abortions but one lived where it was allowed and the other did not. I was galled and I had zero sympathy for the one who lived in the state where it was not allowed -two or three kids already by different fathers that she struggled to provide for, pregnant from a casual hook-up but with a guy who responded positively to the news. Use a condom!!!! Or was that too hard too? And she could not be troubled to travel out of state. From Arkansas. Somebody from Canada chimed in that abortion on demand was available there (no surprise, so is suicide for poverty for Pete's sake) but failed to mention that to get one often involved extensive travel to a facility and long waiting times for the appointments. I think it is stupid for abortion to be politicized in the way it is.
This is so trite, hackneyed and unoriginal that if it weren’t for the author’s clear self-absorption and self-congratulation on his “unique” insights, I’d think this was a ChatGPT type creation.
Men who survived the battles against sabre toothed tigers probably taught their sons how to make a weapon, how to recognize animal tracks, how to build a fire...and how not to run like an idiot straight at the tiger and think he’ll survive. Maybe the author should stop glorifying stupidity, find a mate and have children of his own before sharing his “wisdom“ about the behavior of young men. Grow the F up.
Partly right. African culture that required a young man to kill a male lion, by himself with his spear, did teach spear skills. They used the lions charge to get the power to spear him.
Eskimos and polar bears, similar. There's a story of an Eskimo hunted by a polar bear having broken his harpoon hunting seal. With the bear coming, he sh*t in his hands, formed it into a point on the broken end, and let it freeze in the 50 below cold. Bear tore open the snow cave, bore down and died on the Eskimos spear. On top of him.
Malcolm Turnbull told African tribes he studied about the meaning of his name. An ancestor grabbed the bull by the horns and forced it to turn away. Etc.
So yeah, run full tilt at the predator, or stand your ground, because to do otherwise is to die every time.
Good stuff! Still my point is that the young boys probably got a lot of instruction before proving themselves and probably weren’t allowed to surf elephants.
Surf elephants. L9ve it.
Hannibal rode African war elephants to Rome in 16 days.
Do you seriously think a boy ofn13 wanting to ride would be stopped? Not a chance. He would be trained to fight, and if he died, his problem, too bad, so sad.
Hercules was said to have killed his first opponent when he was 6 years old.
Well when Zeus is your dad …
Ok. Hercules can surf subways.
Hannibal was definitely a real person. Hercules may well have been a man who lived in the stone age past. He killed a lion by himself, just like the Maasai did until just a decade ago. (But Hercules used a club.) Might be a conflation of the ancient original Maasai character, or perhaps ancient stone age Mesopotamian, with a Greek era guy born 40 years before the seige of Troy that had the same name. He might have been a muscle mutant or had acromegaly to some degree. Who knows, really.
You get the point. Our ancestors (even recently) did not have our ideas about safety.
Agreed of course. But we may have forgotten their ideas about family. I’m sure Hannibal learned a thing or two from his dad.
Very true.
Boys need a way to harness their destructive potential.
Instead, we live in a matriarchal society that tells them that being rambunctious is a sickness and not wanting to sit still all day for class is grounds to be prescribed medicalized meth.
Also, the author just realized that men need to utilize violence from watching the Ukrainian war? I guess no one was paying attention to Iraq and Afghanistan for the past 20 years until it was too late.
Screw the Ukrainians, man. That ain’t our fight.
"Ain't our fight"? If our inaction lets Putin taste victory in Ukraine, it ill be our fight and our heroes returning in body bags. Remember Chamberlain in 1939 returning with "peace in our time" after he handed Czechoslovakia to Hitler? Six years later, 45 million were dead, Europe lay in ruins, generations were enslaved under Soviet communism, and hundreds of thousands of brave allied soldiers were slaughtered. Read history, rather than repeating it.
“Read history, rather than repeating it”
You should take your own advice. You might want to start with Iraq and work your way through Afghanistan and 20 years of the same lies we’re now being told about Ukraine.
I cynically look at our involvement in the Ukraine war as a calculation. As in let them do the fighting for us with our help. If the US let Putin run rampant there with the country falling, we then would’ve needed to send thousands of our troops to settle down our terrified NATO allies on Russia’s western flank, (actions which would have directly threatened Putin). We do have NATO obligations.
“let them do the fighting for us with our help”.
So you’re willing to fight to the last Ukrainian? How noble of you. Their casualty estimates range between 350,000 and 400,000. They’re running out of bodies to send into the meat grinder. So who will be next to literally spill their guts? Historic Russian foes and NATO allies like the Poles and Lithuanians? What happens when Putin sends missiles in to strike bases where US troops are based? Will it be another Gulf of Tonkin moment? We’re already sending troops into other NATO countries. We already have troops in Ukraine. How long will it be before WE are the ones fighting? And for what? So MIC executives and the pols they fund can buy another beach house? Putin has 300,000 soldiers he has been holding in reserve because he sees what’s coming. Why can’t you?
It may unfold exactly as you say. But to let Ukraine capitulate would have signalled to Putin (and China) that we are not willing to defend a rules based world order. Ie do not invade neighbouring countries. Full stop. You may disagree, but Putin is adept at smelling weakness and if we show him we are he will take advantage. So it’s either now or in the scenario you envision had we done nothing, later.
There’s inevitably a comparison to the Second World War (ie, Putin as Hitler), but I think a much more apt comparison would be the First World War (ie, idiot leaders who get us involved in a massive war with no end in sight).
And over no particular salient issues.
The histories are not equivalent. Post Berlin wall fall, Democrat administrations since Obama have been poking the bear.
Chamberlain's capitulation was 1939. Obama was yesterday. Again, read your history.
That makes no sense and is not on point.
Hitler was going to cause the deaths of millions regardless of what happened to Czechoslovakia. It’s not like the war could have been prevented or minimized just by starting it a year or two earlier.
About a third of the panzers that broke out of the Ardennes in 1940 were Czech/Slovak. Munich took 30 good Czech/Slovak of the table and released at least 30 divisions of the Heer to fight elsewhere. Every time Case Yellow has been war-gamed the Germans have been defeated, usually around Bastogne and St Vith. A war in 1938 would have been an even easier affair. I recommend you read Marc Bloch's 'Strange Defeat'; Ernest May's 'Strange Victory'; and Karl-Heinz Friese's 'The Blitzkrieg-Legend'. WWII is mostly a tale of the gargantually stupid. I knew all this fifty years ago; wtf did you have for an education?
Really? You don't suppose that a whole lot of the German war machinery got built during that time? (In violation of Treaty that could have been enforced?)
at the very least make those who are at greatest risk do their part.. can you say Germany.. France.. Greece etc
No, instead we want the US to come in and save the day.
Except if it's a "bad war", like Iraq or Afghanistan. Then it's back to calling the US an imperialist, racist superpower that wants to be the "world police" again.
There is something worth admiring in the reckless kids who stand on top of moving trains.
No, there really isn’t.
No doubt. What an odd statement to make after seeing some 14 yo boy standing on top of a moving train.
“The respectable classes—the people, mostly white, who have money and live uptown or in the suburbs—tut-tutted about the whole thing on X”
I’d love to see the evidence that it was mostly white people and people with money; I’d be shocked if it were actually true. I’m pretty sure people of color and people “without money” are just as decent and were just as incensed.
Agree, this was such nonsensical class and race divisive”shaming.” People with property damage after the riot to their hotdog stand, the bodega, etc. all belong to a white upper class society? They wouldn’t be the struggling blue collar class, a paycheck and two bent umbrellas away from poverty?
And society does these young boys no good by making excuses for them. What happens to those children who make it alive past puberty? When parents, teachers, and society at large have failed to instill purpose and socially acceptable values to these kids, we get a wave of smash-and-grabs, carjackings, street muggings, and other assorted crimes and criminal gangs. I fail to see anything admirable about this situation.
But I thought toxic masculinity could be suppressed and turned into toxic feminism. Who knew?
read Sheluyang Peng and THINK
We have progressives from the 60's to thank for the breakdown of the American family, paying poor women to have children without benefit of husband or father. Now after generations of children having children, society is being terrorized and destroyed by this newest crop of fatherless boys.
American taxpayers picked up the 3 trillion dollar tab for this debacle and now the same taxpayers are told they are to pay the hotel bills for law breakers from other countries who have rights that exceed their own rights.
The worst of all of this disorder is the sheer magnitude of wasted individual human potential. The collective cannot and never could love and raise a child. That is what PARENTS do. Enough.