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You know what bothers me.... regarding Newtown killings...

Cuda1447

Cuda1447

Lifer
I understand the death of 20 children and 6 school officials is incredibly sad. Especially since it hits closer to home, happening in the US. I understand its the 2nd biggest school shooting in US history. I understand it resonates more with parents etc...


What I don't understand is why there is such outcry for THIS ONE EVENT. I do. But the difference in outcries amongst events is very aggravating, let me explain.


Hundreds of 'events' happen every year, which are incredibly sad. School shootings, brutal murders, genocides, kidnappings, gang violence, drug war violence, natural disasters etc etc..
So why is it that people want to show their 'sadness' for specific events, while ignoring most of the others. I'm sure many of you (who have facebook) have seen the gluttony of posts reading "My heart is broken for those children" "I'm sad everytime I think about it" "I can't stop crying" and "I can barely sleep at night". Certainly, most of these emotions are exaggerated, if not outright lies. I don't doubt many people cried about what happened. But are they legitimately 'sad' or are they just trying to show they are 'emotional' and 'caring' for their own selfish image.


I see more outrage and sadness for this then I did the Tsunami in India that killed 200,000 people, including children. More outrage than the Tsunami/Earthquake/Nuclear Disaster in Japan. More outrage than the Genocides in Africa, the car bombings in Egypt/Israel/elsewhere.

Is it because its an American disaster? Perhaps.


But what about the gang violence that claims innocent lives. Or the rougher areas of the US where murder/crime is more common.


Honestly, this is why people care... and it makes me fucking sick. They only care because the media cares. Whatever stories the media hammers to death, your average US citizen is going to latch onto and tie their emotional sensitivity to. It's a fucking sham. If you're going to 'care' than care about ALL of the events that are tragic, don't just pick and choose you fucking posers.


I obviously realize voicing this opinion is going to be very touchy, but I can't imagine others here don't see this shit and agree?


Thoughts?
 
SandEagle said:
because Americans place a higher value on the lives of Americans than any other.
Click to expand...


Maybe you didn't read my whole post?

How many murders occur in the US every year? Thousands. Yet we only latch onto and show emotion for a very select few. On those few, we go WAAAAY overboard with emotion. Further, there are TONS of tragedies that happen to Americans that aren't murders. Natural disasters, diseases, homelessnes, mental illness etc etc...


If the media doesn't pick up on it, nobody cares.
 
1. Proximity
2. Number of victims
3. Relative age of victims

We care more about Americans than non-Americans (it's human nature), we care more about mass killings than individual murders and we care more when the victims are very young. A massive killing of American kindergartners is going to resonate with us a lot more than other horrifying events. It's not necessarily a bad thing. We should care more about young people who are unable to defend themselves. We should care more about what happens in our own backyard (we have more control over it). It is what it is.
 
SandEagle said:
yes, but they have a tendency to think that all non-Americans are neandertalean poop flingers that have no feelings
Click to expand...

I'm sure the feeling is reciprocated by those living outside of the United States of America.

KT
 
First, this was done with malice by a human, which is why its different from natural disasters (yes even ones born of human stupidity and negligence).

As for higher crime areas, uh, well that's because those places are higher crime areas over time and we've built up societal walls to them.

This is a breaking point. There's been a few high profile shootings in the last 2-3 weeks and then there was another major one about half a year ago. Couple it with the holidays, a lot of people still being on edge over the election, a big political issue ("fiscal cliff"), and then the "end of the world" people and combine it with all the ignorance and irrationality rampant in humans, well people have breaking points.

People care a lot, often in misguided ways. There's been an almost constant outrage over every single thing so I don't know where you're getting there isn't/wasn't. Did you miss where people acted all outraged over Kony even though that was old news there and shit like that had been happening for decades?

If you want to make a case for not understanding compare it to something more in line with it, like that mass shooting in Norway.
 
do we really need another thread on this?

Cuda I love ya man...but pick one of the other 42 threads and post in that.
 
I think people are just seeing that this stuff is happening way too often now and this one event was basically the last straw especially considering it was little kids involved. All the other shootings were older students so while they are tragic as well, it hits harder when it's little kids.

There's been so many shootings this year it's crazy.
 
What bothers me is that mental health care has not been improved since the first school shooting.
 
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You know what bothers me about this specific incident? The convenient use of it as a platform for gun control without an equivalent response for mental health issues. So great, we'll go and ban some "assault rifles" (whatever the hell that means), and we'll go ahead and continue to ignore and stigmatize mental health issues, guaranteeing that parents won't get treatment for their kids when they see the signs.

This kid was going to kill his mom and terrorize an elementary school no matter what, because he was most likely mentally ill. We can invent a time machine and pull all of the ARs, AKs, and whatever other semi-automatic weapon that people want to blame, ahead of the event. He'd then just show up with something else, and maybe kill 15 kids instead of 20. Then what, start banning knives instead of addressing the root cause?

I realize the mother of the shooter is a victim in this, but she failed her kid. Even if you excuse everything else about not realizing he was mentally ill, not getting treatment, whatever, what kind of parent doesn't lock up those kinds of weapons?

EDIT: To clarify, I'm not weighing in at all on gun control. Separate topic. I just don't like that they're focused on the "how" instead of the "why" seemingly out of convenience.
 
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Cuda1447 said:
Maybe you didn't read my whole post?

How many murders occur in the US every year? Thousands. Yet we only latch onto and show emotion for a very select few. On those few, we go WAAAAY overboard with emotion. Further, there are TONS of tragedies that happen to Americans that aren't murders. Natural disasters, diseases, homelessnes, mental illness etc etc...


If the media doesn't pick up on it, nobody cares.
Click to expand...

Um, well yeah, how the fuck are you supposed to care if you don't even know about it?

People are outraged over that stuff, but that stuff is over a long period of time which is why it wanes.

Seriously, stop posting and take a some time off to let logic come to you, as your posting, at least on this topic, is woefully lacking in it.

Also, FFS, fix your title. Its Newtown.
 
Cuda1447 said:
What I don't understand is why there is such outcry for THIS ONE EVENT. I do. But the difference in outcries amongst events is very aggravating, let me explain.
Thoughts?
Click to expand...

It's because of the age of victims and how they were brutally killed, not buy 1 bullet but about 3 on each of them. You'll be hearing/reading news on the persons mental state and what "probably" triggered them on doing this.

Death/atrocities occurs everyday in lots of places and we will never hear off them. Think of countries with dictators who can do anything at their whim and get away with it. You don't bow to them, off with their head.

Will this stop? I doubt it. All it takes it one person.
 
Yeah, you can bullshit all you want but the sad truth is the media is interested in making money, not reporting facts. They learned a long time ago that awful things happening to upper middle class white people is more profitable than similar stories in poor black neighborhoods.

Its kinda sad really.
 
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