Grade-school psychos O_o

[Alondro]

Ok... if anyone doubts that the current generation of children are pure evil...

Hitmen instead of hopscotch

Seriously, did anyone here actually think this way at age 9?  At age 9 I was watching Dr. Who and Star Trek and busy with my hobbies and school.  What the hell is wrong with these little freaks these days?

[Toric]

What really strikes me is the fact that they put so much thought into dividing responsibilities. They had something to cut with, various tools to immobilize the teacher, and a heavy object to knock the teacher out with. I have to wonder what in the world they've been watching that they'd have this much insight to what they'd need to get the job done.

[Ryudo Lee]

The children, ages 8 and 9, were apparently mad at the teacher because she had scolded one of them for standing on a chair, Tanner said.

And it was such a terrible crime the teacher committed.  When I was in grade school, if you got punished you took it in stride.  But now, god forbid you scold a child.  He might come back and kill you.

I never would have considered such a thing at 9 years old.  I wonder how much tv those kids watch, and how often the parents intervene to discuss the differences between television and the real world.

[Alondro]

The parents are prolly drug dealers...

And the kids are also likely involved in animal fighting rings!

Like This Shocking Discovery!

How evil!

[Rakala]

When I was in third grade and the teacher did something we didn't like, we just played a childish prank on her. Something like bringing an apple with a worm in it, or a tac on her chair. I think with as organized as these kids were they need serious punishment. Long term suspension isn't enough. I mean what's happened to kids? I got smacked on the wrist with a ruler once and I was angry but I didn't do anything like this. And where were the parents in all this? Little kids aren't quiet about that kind of thing usually. There had to be some sort of hint. What gets kids to think so violently? Although I wouldn't say video games caused it directly, they probably helped. Just yesterday at Wal Mart I saw a kid, no older than the age we're discussing, able to buy Hitman because the clerk didn't care enough. Parents need to supervise their childrens entertainment and make sure, as said earlier, they know the dfference between reality and other things. I'm not bashing on video games, I'm bashing on people who let kids play videogames that promote serious violence as opposed to jumping on something and coins popping out.

[RobbieThe1st]

I think there may have been someone else involved - Someone older who may have designed this whole stunt, and got the kids to do it because the kids were angry and were basically manipulated into doing it. I seriously don't think they could have done this by themselves.

If someone else *was* involved, that person was obviously smart - Not any mention of it at all on the news page, and no one is going to look for anyone else now... It was just a bunch of misguided kids, right?


-RobbieThe1st

[Sofox]

My gut reaction is that there's a lot more to this story then is in the article.

I'm guessing that the teacher was an incredible b***ch. Getting nine people, let alone kids, united on any task is an incredible feat unless there is something that seriously unites them with a common goal. A powerful enemy is one thing that can do this. The story of a teacher who inspired serious hatred and anger in his/her students seems a lot more realistic to me then a group of students spontaneously planning an act of violence.

Like the "expert" said, I'm not sure the kids would have carried out the task. It could have just been some sort of role play, they act out the motions to make them feel empowered like they actually have control over the situation and for them to feel more exciting (like getting plastic guns to defend your treehouse against invasion etc.). It would have been a way of feeling like they were rebelling though whether they would have had the guts to go through with it is an entirely different task (definitely not all 9, humans are too diverse).

The article takes the typical "lost generation" stance and leaves it at that. You've got to be careful with pithy articles because if its clear that the journalist isn't interested in going into depth with the subject (and even if it isn't), you don't know how much vital information is being left out. I see no effort to understand the motivations of the kids (except that "standing on a chair" comment) or any quotes from the kids or people who knew the kids well. It's all "shock" "horror" and "how could this happen?" (real journalism would answer that last question).

[Alondro]

No.  They had the kit, they had brought it to school.  They fully intended to go through with it.  The teacher was not some horrendous b****. 

My brother is a teacher.  We both recall what it was like in those grades, because we're not all that old ourselves.  The kids today are uncontrolled monsters.  And the parents play the major part in helping them turn out that way.

[Sofox]

Ah Alondro, do you know more about the incident that wasn't in the article? I'd like to read it as I'd like to know more about it.

Edit: To clarify, I have no real experience with current young American schoolchildren. I think it's a little tricky to say that experiences in one school mean it applies to all other schools, but regardless, I'd like to learn more so I can get a better understanding of it.

[rabid_fox]

Oh, children are capable of unbelievable acts of cruelty. Empathy isn't something that young children aren't good at - they are emotionally selfish creatures (some never grow out of this phrase, by the way).

[Zorro]

Yes the current parent and government approach to raising children is an incredible failure.

Bring back spanking and not taking an PC bullshit and FIX the problem.

This sort of crap is not the sort of thing that happened before the Baby Boom generation took power.

[Angel]

We heard about it in English class... Mr. Quigley managed to incorporate existentialism and The Stranger into it, because teachers can do that.

I can't help but wonder either. When I was 9, my chief concern was who I should invite to my half-birthday party, not how to kill my teacher. Was there really any reason behind this attack? I mean, sure, it was a planned effort, but I once had to apologize over the loudspeaker for getting lost at the museum and holding up the buses (I was already in tears over getting lost, so you can imagine how my mom reacted), and no-one plotted to kill my teacher.

I'm also pretty tempted to blame the media for this, although I'd feel a bit hypocritical about that. I think these kids just needed better parental control, and a slap on the wrist a bit sooner.

[yakanaj]

Oh, children are capable of unbelievable acts of cruelty. Empathy isn't something that young children aren't good at - they are emotionally selfish creatures (some never grow out of this phrase, by the way).

I completely agree.

I actually went to school to learn how to raise children and how to teach them empathy. If children are not taught, they will not learn.

I had to work with some absolutely insane children in my practicum sites. When the norm for a child is to bite (drawing blood and still not letting go) and to gouge the teachers (because we were quick enough to get the kid away from the other children) you know that something isn't right at home.

One child I worked with watched horror movies every day (eg - he told me all about a movie called - wait for it - SAW2 one morning) and was never told that those things were wrong.

By the way, I only ever worked with children under the age of eight.

[Alondro]

The world is quickly breeding an entire generation of evil little monsters with no sense of any moral values whatsoever.  Modern 'philosophy' is behind it all.  Moral ambiguity is the root to the destruction of large societies. 

Just look at the so-called chairman of the ethics committee at Princeton University, Peter Singer.  He is not only pro-abortion (terming 'abortion' to mean even the killing of babies up to two years of age, before which he feels they are not self-aware.  I've got news for the asshole, I was speaking in complete sentences by one-and-a-half), he has strong ties to the Animal Liberation Front, finds no problem with bestiality, and also advocates killing the elderly in many circumstances.

Here's one of his off-the-wall statements:  "When the death of a disabled infant will lead to the birth of another infant with better prospects of a happy life, the total amount of happiness will be greater if the disabled infant is killed. The loss of happy life for the first infant is outweighed by the gain of a happier life for the second. Therefore, if killing the hemophiliac infant has no adverse effect on others, it would, according to the total view, be right to kill him."

And Singer also has this to say some years ago: 

"There remains, however, the problem of the lack of any clear boundary between the newborn infant, who is clearly not a person in the ethically relevant sense, and the young child who is. In our book, Should the Baby Live?, my colleague Helga Kuhse and I suggested that a period of twenty-eight days after birth might be allowed before an infant is accepted as having the same right to life as others."

(He's recently updated that to delcaring that any infant uder two is not really a person yet, and that killing such a child should not be considered murder, and may be fully morally justifiable.)

So basically that kid you know on the block with Downs Syndrome?  Singer'd kill him in an instant if he could.

This is what's called 'ethics' these days?  This kind of utterly abominable reasoning has flooded not just the US, but the entire world.  I do not know how anyone can then be surp[rised when we discover that there is no respect for life whatsoever in any place any longer.  One must value oneself and his fellow man before he will value anything else.  How can you find value in the life of other creatures if the lives of your own kind have no great value to you and those who are weaker or disabled can be discarded out of convenience?

That is the greatest fallacy of this line of thinking.  These modern philosophical fools get so caught up in their own self-promoting intellect that they are completely blind to the way actual human beings operate.

By Singer's line of reasoning, I could then justify exterminating every human being with an IQ significantly lower than my own, because compared to me they must be retarded mentally and are thus less able to function and more wasteful of resources that would better be served satisfying the needs of me and other more 'functional'
humans.

No, a society that does not care for the weakest of its members is one that will soon fall into utter ruin.  This is the crap that is being used to indoctrinate children instantly, this is the philosophical background by which public education and morality are being formulated!  Is it any great shock that children are becoming more violent, apathetic, uncontrollable, impulsive, and cruel than ever before?

Just remember, Rome was never conquered from the outside.  It's moral decay destroyed it from within.  When every citizen fights only for himself, the society is torn assunder.  As Jesus said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."  One should also examine the analogy of building a house with foundations on sand.  When trials and tribulations come up, a society based on weak, valueless ideas will be utterly brought to ruin.

This country withstood the Great Depression and then WWII, the most horrific war in all of history.  Now a relatively minor economic downturn and a war with one of the lowest fatality rates of any in the history of the country are becoming the fuel by which this country will burn to the ground.  The difference is the moral fabric upon which the country is based.  There was still enough general decency in the USA back in the 30's and 40's.  Most people back then wouldn't even be able to fathom the idea of children with guns and bombs walking into a school to kill their fellow students simply because they feel like outsiders.  Or that movies involving graphic and gory death would be common fodder in movie theaters.  I believe our current culture would absolutely horrify the country back then.  Is this what we deem 'progress' now?  I would call it degeneration if I take into account that children are being mainly taught false 'self-esteem' in class rather than learning anything of value, and are leaving high school at a reading level I was beyond by the time I was finished first grade, and at a mathematical proficiency level deceivingly boosted by the complete reliance on calculators, which is more accurately represented by the fact that none of them can even manage the quantitative reasoning level to balance their own checkbooks.

I dread the next few years, because if there is no turn-around soon, collapse will be unavoidable.  There is a point of no return to the downfall of a country, and we are teetering on the precipice.

EDIT:  Ah, another nutjob who echos Singer:  Dr. Charles Hartshorne of the University of Texas at Austin: "Of course, an infant is not fully human.... I have little sympathy with the idea that infanticide is just another form of murder. Persons who are already functionally persons in the full sense have more important rights even than infants."

And yet more from Singer: "Our ability to discover more and more about the genetics of our future children is going to be very significant," he said. "Eventually it may be used for enhancement selection - for selecting the best embryo on a specific set of abilities that we can identify as being genetically influenced."

Hello?  Master Race anyone?  Is this guy really that stupid?

If there were any good argument for abortion, it would be that had their mothers aborted the twits like these people, they wouldn't be here spouting this bullshit.

[yakanaj]

No, a society that does not care for the weakest of its members is one that will soon fall into utter ruin.  This is the crap that is being used to indoctrinate children instantly, this is the philosophical background by which public education and morality are being formulated!  Is it any great shock that children are becoming more violent, apathetic, uncontrollable, impulsive, and cruel than ever before?

Completely true. If we want to succeed as a society and as a human race as a whole, we need to look outside our own lives and think about those we may or may not have a connection with.  AND we need to do more than just think. We need to act.  we need to take care of those who cannot take care of themselves.

[Cvstos]

The world is quickly breeding an entire generation of evil little monsters with no sense of any moral values whatsoever.  Modern 'philosophy' is behind it all.  Moral ambiguity is the root to the destruction of large societies. 

Just look at the so-called chairman of the ethics committee at Princeton University, Peter Singer.  He is not only pro-abortion (terming 'abortion' to mean even the killing of babies up to two years of age, before which he feels they are not self-aware.  I've got news for the asshole, I was speaking in complete sentences by one-and-a-half), he has strong ties to the Animal Liberation Front, finds no problem with bestiality, and also advocates killing the elderly in many circumstances.

Here's one of his off-the-wall statements:  "When the death of a disabled infant will lead to the birth of another infant with better prospects of a happy life, the total amount of happiness will be greater if the disabled infant is killed. The loss of happy life for the first infant is outweighed by the gain of a happier life for the second. Therefore, if killing the hemophiliac infant has no adverse effect on others, it would, according to the total view, be right to kill him."

And Singer also has this to say some years ago: 

"There remains, however, the problem of the lack of any clear boundary between the newborn infant, who is clearly not a person in the ethically relevant sense, and the young child who is. In our book, Should the Baby Live?, my colleague Helga Kuhse and I suggested that a period of twenty-eight days after birth might be allowed before an infant is accepted as having the same right to life as others."

(He's recently updated that to delcaring that any infant uder two is not really a person yet, and that killing such a child should not be considered murder, and may be fully morally justifiable.)

So basically that kid you know on the block with Downs Syndrome?  Singer'd kill him in an instant if he could.

This is what's called 'ethics' these days?  This kind of utterly abominable reasoning has flooded not just the US, but the entire world.  I do not know how anyone can then be surp[rised when we discover that there is no respect for life whatsoever in any place any longer.  One must value oneself and his fellow man before he will value anything else.  How can you find value in the life of other creatures if the lives of your own kind have no great value to you and those who are weaker or disabled can be discarded out of convenience?

That is the greatest fallacy of this line of thinking.  These modern philosophical fools get so caught up in their own self-promoting intellect that they are completely blind to the way actual human beings operate.

By Singer's line of reasoning, I could then justify exterminating every human being with an IQ significantly lower than my own, because compared to me they must be retarded mentally and are thus less able to function and more wasteful of resources that would better be served satisfying the needs of me and other more 'functional'
humans.

I'd say this guy is well outside the norm of mainstream American culture and that 99.99999% of American would agree with me in saying he's a complete ******* loon.

No, a society that does not care for the weakest of its members is one that will soon fall into utter ruin.  This is the crap that is being used to indoctrinate children instantly, this is the philosophical background by which public education and morality are being formulated!  Is it any great shock that children are becoming more violent, apathetic, uncontrollable, impulsive, and cruel than ever before?

Wait, our kids are being taught Singer's garbage?  I may be 7 years out of High School but I sure as hell didn't remember any of that.  I think there's a disconnect with your logic there.  I really don't think kids are being taught that. 

Just remember, Rome was never conquered from the outside.  It's moral decay destroyed it from within.  When every citizen fights only for himself, the society is torn assunder.  As Jesus said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."  One should also examine the analogy of building a house with foundations on sand.  When trials and tribulations come up, a society based on weak, valueless ideas will be utterly brought to ruin.

Not much to object to there.

This country withstood the Great Depression and then WWII, the most horrific war in all of history.  Now a relatively minor economic downturn and a war with one of the lowest fatality rates of any in the history of the country are becoming the fuel by which this country will burn to the ground.  The difference is the moral fabric upon which the country is based.  There was still enough general decency in the USA back in the 30's and 40's.  Most people back then wouldn't even be able to fathom the idea of children with guns and bombs walking into a school to kill their fellow students simply because they feel like outsiders.  Or that movies involving graphic and gory death would be common fodder in movie theaters.  I believe our current culture would absolutely horrify the country back then.  Is this what we deem 'progress' now?  I would call it degeneration if I take into account that children are being mainly taught false 'self-esteem' in class rather than learning anything of value, and are leaving high school at a reading level I was beyond by the time I was finished first grade, and at a mathematical proficiency level deceivingly boosted by the complete reliance on calculators, which is more accurately represented by the fact that none of them can even manage the quantitative reasoning level to balance their own checkbooks.

Minor economic downturn?  I'm not so sure.  This country's economy has, for the last 8 years, rotted from the inside out (economically) and the seeds were planted even before that in a couple hugely unwise political deals Clinton made with the GOP - deals I'm not entirely sure that the Clintons objected to anyway.

I remember gas was around $1/gallon 8 years ago.  Now it's near $4.  An increase of 4X in eight years.  With an oil man in the oval office.  Coincidence?  I doubt it.

And let's think on just what that means.  This economy runs on oil.  If oil up and vanished tomorrow the WORLD economy would evaporate.  A 4X increase in the price of oil in 8 years has caused incredible strain on the economy by itself, to say NOTHING of exporting of our jobs overseas to sweatshop labor.

Sweatshop labor.  How's that for sound morality?

And what of the national debt?  It's a major factor in contributing to the collapse of the dollar.  People have dollars.  They have our debt.  They don't WANT IT anymore! No demand.  We're still way over budget and need to issue bonds.  High supply.  What's low demand + high supply mean in economic terms?  It's pretty simple.  The value drops.

But the worst is yet to come: peak oil.  I don't know if we've honestly hit it yet.  I think the current price of oil is both artificially high and influenced by the weak dollar.  But when it comes...

The greatest single threat to national security, the environment, and the economy is our reliance on oil.  Planet-killing polution, giving money to governments that sympathize with people that want to blow us up, and running our economy on something that's going to run out soon and will only get more expensive here on out.  Not just a bad thing morally, but also obvious NOT a good idea.  We desperately need a shift to a better system.   

I dread the next few years, because if there is no turn-around soon, collapse will be unavoidable.  There is a point of no return to the downfall of a country, and we are teetering on the precipice.

Point of no return?  I disagree, but that doesn't mean that there's an easy "quick fix".  Nothing quick or easy about it, but it is doable.

EDIT:  Ah, another nutjob who echos Singer:  Dr. Charles Hartshorne of the University of Texas at Austin: "Of course, an infant is not fully human.... I have little sympathy with the idea that infanticide is just another form of murder. Persons who are already functionally persons in the full sense have more important rights even than infants."

And yet more from Singer: "Our ability to discover more and more about the genetics of our future children is going to be very significant," he said. "Eventually it may be used for enhancement selection - for selecting the best embryo on a specific set of abilities that we can identify as being genetically influenced."

Hello?  Master Race anyone?  Is this guy really that stupid?

Again, WAY outside mainstream culture.  If our locations on earth were relative to US mainstream culture these guys would be on ******* Pluto.

Genetic engineering is a tricky thing.  Like any tool, it can be used for great works or great evil.  Take, for instance, a hammer.  I could use it to build a house, or hit you over the head with it and kill you.

Limits have to be set, but I'm all for using it to eliminate diseases and major defects.