6 Long Island teens crime spree inspired by Grand Theft Auto.
They should give these teens an extra 10 years for being unimaginative douche bags.
I played Cowboys and Indians growing up. Never inspired me to shoot an Indian, Cowboy or anyone else.
Ralph
But, but. but… video games, movies and television don’t influence behavior! It says so right here in the fine print! How can this be? Ralph, surely you’ve got your information wrong.
Ummmm… what about advertising in those media? Madison Avenue is convinced that using those media will influence behavior, and they have managed to convince the media execs that it is true. Or was it the other way around? The media execs convinced Madison Avenue that the media influence behavior.
Wait a minute, there is a big disconnect, there!
I am so confused. Cannot compute… cannot compute…can… not… compu…
If the criminals aren’t blaming games or movies, they blame it on being molested as a child.
They just don’t want to admit they are responsible for their own actions.
Ralph
How about the influence of PARENTS?
Many parents are totally absent, just leaving their children to run loose with no supervision and certainly no guidance. In a current Santa Rosa, CA case, a father was sexually harassing and assaulting a couple of young women, the boyfriend of one of the women took exception, then the first man’s son pulled out a pistol and shot the boyfriend to death. Wonderful parental guidance.
Here in California, the news media doesn’t publish the names of criminals under the age of 18. This in some kind of warped sense of protecting children who are considered to not be responsible for their actions. Perhaps OK, but someone is responsible. My idea is to publish the names of the parents of under 18 year old criminals. That threat might have some influence on parents before they turn their little darlings loose on society.
Mostly any deviant or anti-social behavior among the young is blamed on some medical condition, the lack of opportunity, or the lack of interesting things to do. I rarely see the blame put on the person involved.
Happy RRing,
Jerry
You are exactly right Jerry. If parents instill a sense of right and wrong in their children we don’t need to worry about movies or games.
However, as a father of 8(including 3 step children), I know that sometimes you have a “difficult” child no matter how hard you try.
I don’t think publicly ridiculing the parents is the answer. The parents who are trying would be hurt, while the “worthless” parents could probably care less.
Ralph
Jerry Bowers said:Can't do that. It would identify the young offender.
My idea is to publish the names of the parents of under 18 year old criminals.
Media has always influenced its audience. Go back to the “cowboys and indians” example. Little Big Horn was how many decades before each of us grew up? Why did we play cowboys and indians instead of Greeks and Romans? My generation played cops and robbers as often as cowboys and indians, thanks to the influence of all the wonderfully cheesy cop shows on TV. The vast majority of individuals are able to place a basic sense of right vs. wrong above media and other influences. How many of us strapped roller skates to our feet and a rocket to our backs? (If you said “yes,” please show us photos of the aftermath. 
) How many millions of copies of Grand Theft Auto (in all versions) have been sold? The difference is that 40 years ago, when someone did something because they saw it on TV, it made headlines in the local community and most likely went no farther than that. Today, it’s picked up and sent over the internet. The actions of a VERY small percentage of the overall population become news in every corner of the globe. This has the overall effect of making it seem like a larger problem than it really is.
The problem isn’t media, parents, or the dog next door. It’s a culture of scapegoatism. The core value of standing up and accepting responsibility for your own actions has been lost. It’s always someone else’s fault, whether you’re standing in court, in front of Congress, or in your boss’s office. No one is teaching that value anymore. As much as we’re trying to hold onto our money right now, we–as a society–have NO trouble passing a buck or two.
Later,
K
The ACLU and the press are always preaching about sliding down the slippery slope of dening freedom of speech whenever anyone tries to stop all the violent and pornographic stuff being sold. It does not matter whether it is video games, movies, music (like gangsta rap) or art such as the jerk who put a crufix in a jar of piss and had it on display in a NY public art exhibit. Morals, ethics, deciency, accepting responsibility for our own actions and respect for elders or the law are history in our current society. I am sorry to report that the normal, middle of the road majority of the people in America (myself included) have not stood up in revolt to stop this rot to our society. We just let the minority right and left wing loonies take over and flush us down the perverbial shit hole. I do not think either of our current presidential candidates or members of our Washington congress, or supreme court or any judicial branch are going to change our falling further down this path to civil corruption. They are too busy doing whatever it takes to get re-elected and making enough money to isolate themselves in gated, garded communites where the great unwashed (meaning us) will not bother them. I guess we need to have an uprising like the French revolution to throw the bastards out and start with a clean slate.
Boy am I glad I got that off my chest.
John,
Well said.
Now we just need 50 or 60 million more of us to stand up and say it again.
Ralph
A little revolution now and then is good for the nation. - Thomas Jefferson, ca. 1790 or so.
Okay.
Media.
Let’s just say for a moment that nobody reported the Columbine incident, since the perps were obviously lacking in the gray cell area.
Would we have had all the “copy-cats” and threats of same?
Nope.
Look back a little further to Airline Hijacking.
Don’t report it, the idiot criminals who can’t come up with an original thought on their own wouldn’t have said, “Gee, we can make some money here!”.
There is freedom of the press, but no place does it say you can do things that foment criminal activity.
John Spehar said:
The ACLU and the press are always preaching about sliding down the slippery slope of dening freedom of speech whenever anyone tries to stop all the violent and pornographic stuff being sold. It does not matter whether it is video games, movies, music (like gangsta rap) or art such as the jerk who put a crufix in a jar of piss and had it on display in a NY public art exhibit. Morals, ethics, deciency, accepting responsibility for our own actions and respect for elders or the law are history in our current society. I am sorry to report that the normal, middle of the road majority of the people in America (myself included) have not stood up in revolt to stop this rot to our society. We just let the minority right and left wing loonies take over and flush us down the perverbial shit hole. I do not think either of our current presidential candidates or members of our Washington congress, or supreme court or any judicial branch are going to change our falling further down this path to civil corruption. They are too busy doing whatever it takes to get re-elected and making enough money to isolate themselves in gated, garded communites where the great unwashed (meaning us) will not bother them. I guess we need to have an uprising like the French revolution to throw the bastards out and start with a clean slate.Boy am I glad I got that off my chest.
Yawn
The idea that there is some kind of special rot caused by modern life is pretty silly. The history of the United States contains a remarkable amount of violence–frontier violence but also racially motivated violence (white/black, indian/white etc). The American frontier was historically extremely violent place but then so were American cities in the 19th century. Did you know that in the 1890s, four times as many people were lynched in America as legally executed? Did you know that you could buy postcards of lynchings, which were comonly attended by thousands of people? Don’t believe me? Here:
http://www.withoutsanctuary.org/
Looks to me like we’re doing better, at least on that score.
Of course media influences behavior. That’s just obvious. So how about we ban all books and movies that glorify military combat, because it encourages us to fight aggressive wars?
See, what’s not clear is HOW it influences behavior. It’s not clear that watching violence causes violence. It might actually have the opposite effect. I grew up watching “Combat” and “Rat Patrol” Remember those shows? Playing “army,” attacking my buddies with rubber knives and the most realistic looking guns I could find. And today, all that exposure to media violence has made me…a peaceful, dull, law-abiding mortgage paying solid citizen.
The stupidity of six long island jerks is hardly evidence of the decline of America. My son’s high school is full of high achieving, hard studying kids working to get into good colleges. My college classrooms are full of kids of all races and all walks of life trying to better themselves lawfully and through hard work. Meanwhile statistically Americans remain the hardest-working, most productive people in the industrial world, working more hours and taking less time off and producing more than any other country. Don’t let your imagination run away with you
Curmudgeon said:
Okay. Media.Let’s just say for a moment that nobody reported the Columbine incident, since the perps were obviously lacking in the gray cell area.
Would we have had all the “copy-cats” and threats of same?
Nope.Look back a little further to Airline Hijacking.
Don’t report it, the idiot criminals who can’t come up with an original thought on their own wouldn’t have said, “Gee, we can make some money here!”.There is freedom of the press, but no place does it say you can do things that foment criminal activity.
The problem is not with the information. The problem is what the idiots do with it. They misuse it.
Should we outlaw guns because some people misuse them?
Information is a tool, just like a hammer or a gun.
Ralph
That’s why it was called the WILD WEST as there was no legal system on the frontier and you had to defend yourself. Yes a lot of bad guys made life miserable for the folks trying to make a living off the land. But little by little the bad guys were rounded up and disposed of. Just because someone was LYNCHED doesn’t mean they were innocent. Justice was much swifter in the 1800’s. If someone was caught with a herd of cattle, without a bill of sale, and the owner was found dead at his ranch they couldn’t say the devil made me do it and expect to be put in a re-hab program. We are talking about TODAY when our entire country is supposed to be civilized and there is a legal system in place everywhere that is suposed to be enforced by the police and upheld by the courts. Now we hire lawyers to twist the legal system so the victim is put on trial more often than the criminal.
Of course there are police that break the law and people that are prejudiced. That is the human animal that we are. That is also why we use the legal system to keep these people in check.
I don’t agree with capital punishment but I also don’t agree that life in prison means ten years and you get out on good behavior. The sheriff in Arizona has it right. Treat criminals like criminals. Make them miserable while they are in jail being made accountable for what they did.
By the way if you are ever in the front line of combat during a war just hope everyone on your side is fighting with more aggression than the enemy in front of you. That is what it takes to win battles and eventually the war.
Our country has all the information and tools on hand to solve all of our society’s problems. We just do not seem to want to use them as it might hurt someone’s feelings. Today it is not politically correct to tell anyone that what they chose to do was actually their decision and they have to pay for making bad decisions.
mike omalley said:I'm not saying all kids are bad. I'm saying, as John has, that people(not just kids) are not taking responsibility for their actions and transferring the blame. They blame games,movies and just about anything or anybody else. And the fallout from this has people calling for everything (that might badly influence anybody) to be outlawed. Ralph
The stupidity of six long island jerks is hardly evidence of the decline of America. My son's high school is full of high achieving, hard studying kids working to get into good colleges.
Ralph Berg said:Ralph, really, who are these "people" who are "not taking responsibility?" There is no "they" calling for "everything that might influence anybody to be outlawed." It's a meaningless generalization that mostly amounts to self-flattery: "People like me took/take responsibility, but people today don't." My neighbors seem to be taking responsibility for their bills and their kids and their actions. We have tougher sentencing laws than we've ever had--California has the quite severe "three strikes and you're out." We have an extremely large prison population--our prisons are overflowing with people who are being held accountable for their actions. 12 step programs n which people assume responsibility for their addictions have ever been more popular.mike omalley said:I'm not saying all kids are bad. I'm saying, as John has, that people(not just kids) are not taking responsibility for their actions and transferring the blame. They blame games,movies and just about anything or anybody else. And the fallout from this has people calling for everything (that might badly influence anybody) to be outlawed. Ralph
The stupidity of six long island jerks is hardly evidence of the decline of America. My son's high school is full of high achieving, hard studying kids working to get into good colleges.
If you read Mark Twain’s novel “the Gilded Age,” written in 1869 or thereabouts, you get one long complaint about how people don’t take responsibility anymore. When James Garfield was assassinated in 1881 there was a huge debate about whether or not the assassin was insane, and 100s of editorials about how back in the day everyone took responsibility for their actions, but nowadays no one takes responsibility and they use the excuse of insanity etc etc. I could show you editorial from the Pennsylvania Gazette, published in the 1700s, claiming that nowadays no one takes responsibility.
I think taking responsibility for one’s actions is a crucial piece of human morality, maybe the most crucial piece. So we agree on that. I just can’t see any objective evidence that the amount of responsibility-taking is decreasing. I know it may feel like it is, but it felt like that in 1881 and 1750 and Plato also insisted that back in the day, people took responsibility but now…
Just because some lawyer is looking for a way to get his clients off–doing his job–does not mean the idea of responsibility has fled. If you look at the actual story, the kids who were arrested are not even claiming “grand theft auto made me do it.” They are admitting that they were copying the game–or at least one of them is claiming that. and they’ve been arrested and charged and their names have been published–so what’s all this about how “no one is being held accountable anymore?”
Look,
I could site hundreds of examples. Everything from medicine to Daddy beating them made them do it.
As for people calling for Grand Theft Auto to be banned, they had video of 3 different people saying just that.
We even had one on the forum here saying news should be censored so we don’t have copy cats.
You are right in this example, the kids copied the game. I called them unimaginative douche bags in my first post.
I guess it is a good thing History class didn’t inspire them to kill 6 million Jews as Hitler did or millions of Russians as Stalin did.
Ralph
I’m not sure I understand what you’re arguing here. I know you could cite hundreds of examples of people not taking responsibility–so could I. I’m just arguing that there’s no evidence of an increase in the percentage of people who don’t take responsibility, and that my experience of history shows that arguments that “people today don’t take responsibility” have a very long history
mike omalley said:You said it was a "meaningless generalization" and "self Flattery" because I used the words people and they. Excuse me for using these commonly used words. They are generalizations, however, not meaningless. I guess in your eyes an observation has no validity without citing examples.You said "there is no they". I'm not writing a term paper here where I quote every source. The reporter failed to state the names of "people" interviewed calling for the game to be banned. What is wrong with using the word "they" ? Ralph
I'm not sure I understand what you're arguing here. I know you could cite hundreds of examples of people not taking responsibility--so could I. I'm just arguing that there's no evidence of an increase in the percentage of people who don't take responsibility, and that my experience of history shows that arguments that "people today don't take responsibility" have a very long history
mike omalley said:And at no time did I say the percentage had increased or this was something new. Ralph
I'm not sure I understand what you're arguing here. I know you could cite hundreds of examples of people not taking responsibility--so could I. I'm just arguing that there's no evidence of an increase in the percentage of people who don't take responsibility, and that my experience of history shows that arguments that "people today don't take responsibility" have a very long history