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Strategies & Market Trends : Drillbits & Bottlerockets -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rich1 who wrote (4916)	3/5/2001 2:18:11 PM
From: HG	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 15481

<<<How many times do we her the plea for mercy or reduced sentences because the offender had a bad childhood??>>> I really don't wish to get started on this subject...but its hard to resist though ! IMVVVVHO, a bad childhood is just no excuse for any offense. I think Americans give too much importance to psychobabble in formulating their societal codes. Bad childhood is left behind in childhood...the scars remain, yes.....but what a sane individual chooses to do with their life, is really up to them......an eye for an eye is a code of the jungle ! Why isn't this kind of thing happening in Asia ? You think there are no kids who have had a bad childhood there ? IMO, its because they are held accountable for their actions, bad childhood or good childhood ! I livd in Middle East....and with all that talk about repression and lack of freedom...I'll say my daughter got a lost a few times in shopping malls, in fairs, in exhibitions....all kids get lost sometimes or other in Dubai....coz parents are not afraid to let them outta their sights.....coz its safe....and it is just a matter of time till they are found....quite often I'd leave my house unlocked while we went to office, if one of us <me or my husband> lost a key to the main door......and once when I moved out of an apartment, i left my photographic equipment behind...<and I have a LOT of equipment>....the door was wide open. I remembered after about 7 days....went back, talked to the caretaker, he had no clue...went upstairs, found it exactly where I had left it...in an empty room which was frequented by a lot of people who wished to rent the place... I would give up a little of my freedom to live in a crime free society....wouldn't you ? Not saying that there are no problems living in ME. Just that crime is not one of them !

To: Rich1 who wrote (4916)	3/5/2001 2:36:11 PM
From: Original Mad Dog	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15481

I think a big part of it is that we are too caught up in trying to explain why this stuff happens, and making excuses for it. Which of these following statements is true about the latest school shooters: 1. They had a bad childhood. 2. Their parents (if they were even around) didn't love them or make them feel loved. 3. They did a bad thing and should be held accountable. The only thing we know for sure is that #3 is true. The kids might very well have had a bad childhood, but that is only an excuse, and is not always the case. Their parents or other caregivers may have done a bad job, but not necessarily....and all of us here who are parents know that parenting and making kids feel loved is tremendously difficult because it doesn't just mean hugging and encouraging them a lot. It also can mean being strict and setting limits in a way that sometimes causes them to accuse you of not loving them. Rather than making excuses for the kids' behavior, rather than pandering to public fear with nonsensically applied "zero tolerance" policies which expel kids for having some Tylenol in their pocket, we should concentrate on (1) holding people who do this accountable; (2) restricting kids' access to weapons and making it as difficult to get weapons into a school as it is to get them onto an airplane; (3) educating people on what it means to be as good a parent as possible; and (4) intervening personally to talk to kids who we see experiencing a problem or some kind of dangerous behavior (I know a couple of people who have literally changed dozens of lives for the better this way). Most of the time the media post mortems on this sort of thing will just prattle on about how bad the kids' childhood was, which only serves to discourage the many other people with bad childhoods from striving to rise above what life has dealt them. Sure their parents might have been bad, probably were not great parents. But there are a couple billion parents in the world, and hundreds of millions of them are bad parents. Blaming them doesn't solve the problem. BTW, Rich, this is not aimed at your comment. I largely agree with what you said....and I commend you for having the strength to intervene and battle for your daughter's future.