Bullshit.

Adults have always said that the young generation is degenerate, violent and generally inferior. To that of the adult population. Teenage crime has not been as low as it is now since the early 1960s, but a few tragic crimes have caused a false sense of increased crime. During the Civil War, newspapers routinely printed about young gangs prowling the cities with clubs and chains.

Most mosh pits, which by the way have been around since the late 70s, are not violent . Despite what many people think, they are not fighting. I mosh all the time, and have never been hurt more than a slight bruise, and have never hurt anyone else. I bring my 15 year old sister to these things, and she has never been hurt at all. I live on the East Coast, which has faster mosh pits, but still will forcibly eject someone throwing punches and part if someone falls or needs to tie a shoe. I once saw a crowd of 200 part so someone could find a contact during a hard, fast song. Those who show up for a fight won't last long, and those who came to dance will last all night. The crowd surges with you and even as you bump into people, you feel the music. Its truer dance than simply performing steps.

America hasn't reached its violence peak. That'd either be during the Indian Wars, the Civil War, the 60s, or early pioneer days. Capitalism has been pushed since the advent of Calvinism and other protestant faiths. Also that high amount prisoners is a problem. But a majority of them are there because of drugs, either using, selling or commiting crimes because of. These aren't aggressive crimes, or even most of the time violent crime.

Those who say money is the root of all evil have always had it.
Update-flamingweasel is right. I was quoting violent crime statistics.

Woundweavr's writeup is all too true. While there are some mosh pits that are violent, and some people do go to shows looking for fights, those are a rare minority. I've been incredibly impressed with mosh pit mentality. If someone falls in the pit, a circle forms immediately, turned backs withstanding the force of an entire crowd, a dozen arms simultaneously pulling that stranger back to his feet. Same goes for crowd surfing -- pits take extra care to prevent anyone from falling down head first. The couple times that I've seen someone go down head first, they've remained suspended in mid air by friendly hands, then slowly and safely lowered to the floor. I'm talking about your so-called "aggressive youth" working as a single instinctual entity to help each other. And as for people who pick fights, or cop feels, that's when you see "aggressive youth". Anyone doing these things will be thrown out, not just from the crowd, but often from the club as well.

My practical law teacher was one of the few adults who could talked sensibly about "youth of today". My parents' and teachers' generation entertained themselves by lighting dogs' tails on fire, putting fireworks in small animals, and beating each other up. Yes, I'm making unfair generalizations. Those are some things that some of that generation did. The only difference between then and now is that kids get less attention due to double-income families. Is the effect a generation of irresponsible kids who don't know how to behave? Obviously not, considering youth violence is at a record low. If anything kids are maturing faster and learning responsiblity through experience.

Actually, the biggest difference is just the media. Never before could we watch the bloody details so quickly. Parents, the majority of our population, are, as always, obsessed with the imperfections of youth. So we get to see the bloody details about youth violence every time anything happens. But in reality, while awareness of youthful aggression is amazingly high, youthful agression itself is amazingly low.
I blame violent video games.

That takes care of the brazen generalizations about youth...I'm not sure about America in general. There have always been assholes. There always will be, won't there? Are we assholes as well, and just don't realize it? Or is there really a sub-population of llamas and trolls in human skin?
My computer teacher in high school had a quote that read something like: "The youth of today are lazy, ignorant, and lack the moral character of the parents." It was attributed to Socrates.

Riding kids for being the downfall of society is adults way of ignoring the problems that they themselves created.

I don't agree completely with Hippie. Woundweaver is right in saying those who say money is the root of all evil have always had it. But if crime is at an all time low, why are our prisons filled with alleged criminals? Why do we have 25% of the world's prisoners? Why are shows like America's Most Wanted: America Fights Back so popular? Why do we only elect officials who toe the line and blabber about being tough on crime?

That's what's bullshit. But as long as the only people who vote are the frightened suburbanites and elderly, that's what's going to keep happening. We'll build more prisons, we'll keep "fighting" the War on Drugs, and we'll keep throwing people into prison. At least that insures a steady stream of real criminals when they get out, hardened and pissed off at society.

And in regards to Hippie's high school teacher shot before class: Did this happen in Arizona? Because if it did, you must have missed the follow-up stories. The teacher shot herself to highlight the lack of security in the school. She also blamed it on a latino male in a predominantly rich white area of Arizona. She apparently was sending threatening letters to herself for years. Beyond the question of "How the hell did someone like that get to be a teacher?", it's an interesting example of the media causes this perception of violence. Sure, the first story is widely spread, but how many people saw the retraction?

flamingweasel's writeup is pretty accurate as well - the War on Drugs is really a war on poor people who can't afford expensive lawyers to keep them out of jail.

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