Is it just convenient for authorities to blame alcohol?
While there is no doubt that alcohol has a role to play in the youth violence we see splashed across our TV screens each night. Is the abuse of alcohol the real cause or is it just a symptom of deeper issues?
Governments and authorities find it easy to blame alcohol because it always goes hand in hand with the violence. The fact that they can use this excuse to impose high taxes on it to rake in millions of dollars has it's attractions as well.
However, just in case they haven't noticed. Although they keep on heaping taxes on alcohol, the problem has not improved, in fact it continues to get worse.
While they are fooling around at the edges, they are ignoring the major causes of youth violence and wasting precious time while these causes become entrenched in our society.
Let's examine a few facts. Let's ask why this violence is increasing today and why it didn't start going viral until about 20 years ago.
For a start, the youth of each generation have been drinking alcohol for centuries, and I know in my generation the only kids that were out of control violently, were the kids who had questionable upbringing. Kids who never saw real discipline or love as they were growing up, those without a stable family environment. They were off the rails before they ever started on alcohol. Wagging school, out at all hours. You remember the type, we envied them there freedom.
However, what we didn't understand, was that our parent's discipline was guided by love and concern, and instilled into us a sense of good and bad and moral values. For example, as a male I learnt that if I happened to get into a fight, it must be one on one and that kicking someone when they were down was an act of cowardice. These values and those of respect and community spirit, were also drummed into me at school. I notice these cowardly acts are rampant today, probably because it is taboo to even talk about fighting in schools these days. Fighting is ingrained into male DNA and just has to be managed.
Then around the 1980s the do-good brigade got the upper hand, and convinced politicians that things like smacking kids and caning them at school was taboo. They started telling children (and still do), before their brains are properly developed, that they had the right to stand up to their parents, teachers and police if they felt that they were being mistreated. Which meant to them, that this was every time they did something wrong. Exactly the information their immature brains will treat as priority. I know, because my son was delighted to come home and tell me this. He didn't want to talk about English or Maths but he was cock-a-hoop about his new "freedoms".
We now have a generation or two of youth and young adults, who don't believe they have a duty to their fellow citizens, and who have no respect for authority, the property of others or for each other.
I'm not saying that all youth are like this or it is even a majority, but there is a far greater percentage of the population that didn't have that discipline at home, and definitely don't get it at school, than was being produced in the 70s or before.
The people who made the mistakes and continue to make them, will continue to blame alcohol, drugs, violent video games and violent movies. However violent entertainment has been around for centuries along with alcohol and drugs, yet it didn't encourage groups of violent youth to create mayhem until comparatively recently. Because the concept of right, wrong and respect was drummed into previous generations at home, at school and in the community. This is being eroded and a major cause of out-of-control youth.
In my opinion ... what do you think?
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