The general decline in standards today

[Pompidou]

As for statistics, i'll say what my dear old grandma told me, "figures lie and liars figure."

Always good to keep in mind, though there are occasions where it's better to trust charts and evidence over nuggets of wisdom. For example if a doctor said, "Well, statistically, the typical prognosis for someone in your condition is an 85% success rate/chance of recovery," and Old Man Higgins countered, "Don't believe a word of it. My uncle didn't survive. Doctors can be wrong," I'd still go with the former. Independently scrutinizing presented evidence is the best way to go.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Some areas are gentrified, some get run down...we make social contacts online we couldn't have made before, but often it is at the cost of connections with the communities we actually live in (even when I was growing up with all knew our neighbours...now, we know almost no one who lives around us).

Heck, in many areas today you don't even want to know your neighbors! Everybody bandies about the terms Freedom and Democracy, but looking around I sometimes wonder if we have too much of it. Of course, Liberty has long since been replaced by Libertinage which gives the illusion of liberty. Sometimes I think that the only thing that will save this country is some sort of authoritarian regime.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I never got a chance to meet mine till they took him out in a body bag. Well, we did have words that night he got hopped up good and fired an entire crate of illegal skyrockets up the street. Horizontally.

 

[lolly_loisides]

I never got a chance to meet mine till they took him out in a body bag. Well, we did have words that night he got hopped up good and fired an entire crate of illegal skyrockets up the street. Horizontally.

Perhaps you should move to a better neighbourhood Lizzie

 

[LizzieMaine]

I was here first.

 

[Tomasso]

Perhaps you should move to a better neighbourhood Lizzie

Or elect Rudy Giuliani mayor. I spent a good chunk of my youth in Manhattan during The Out-of-Towners era and he was the one who finally cleaned the place up.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

People used to be responsible for themselves. Now, they just feel that the world is a playground and they can just keep 'testing their boundaries' all the time. It's really sad to see grown adults behave like children. I have the worst neighbors you can imagine. What's worse than living next to a tavern full of 20-somethings? When they've all got a snoot full and think they're Dirty Harry and want to start fights with the guy who lives next door. My neighbors on the other side are quiet and keep to themselves, as do I. I've also had neighbors who were great friends and I spent all my time with. I once lived where my next-door neighbors were my drinking buddies, my neighbor across the street was like a grandmother to me and watched the house whenever I was gone, and the girl next to her was my girlfriend. It's just as it was then, now, in that perspective. Luck of the draw.

Heck, in many areas today you don't even want to know your neighbors! Everybody bandies about the terms Freedom and Democracy, but looking around I sometimes wonder if we have too much of it. Of course, Liberty has long since been replaced by Libertinage which gives the illusion of liberty. Sometimes I think that the only thing that will save this country is some sort of authoritarian regime.

I know exactly what you mean. My family's been involved with Portage since 1958, my entire father's life, and my own. This was always a great little town, smaller farming community. Everybody knew everyone and got along well.

The town has grown over the years, no longer a small, downtown-type community. The north end of town has become the home of Wal-Mart, K-Mart, the IGA, restaurants galore, and all the modern business you can imagine. Now, this is not what has wrecked our town, in my opinion. What has wrecked Portage was when they built the prison here. Now, people move into low-income housing on the north end of town, by the Wal-Mart. Why? Because their family is locked up. Now we have to deal with that element. Also, automated telephone calls of prison escapes. Remember Jefferey Dahmer? He was here. These problems have pushed me into Pardeeville and I now commute to Portage. Pardeeville is developing some serious drug problems now and things are headed south.

Lizzie, I am offended by what has been said to you. I always enjoy your posts and almost always agree with what you have to say. Even if I don't, you've got your facts straight and I respect that.

Actually, I think the glass got spilled.

All I can say about your earlier points is that I look at the world outside my door, as it is now, and compare it to the world I lived in as recently as twenty years ago. There has always been evil, vice, crime, corruption, sleaze, and filth -- but up until very recently we got very very little of it *here.* Now it's here, in bucketfuls,and it's getting worse with every passing year. It's not because "I hear more about it now," either -- twenty years ago, I was a reporter, and there was very little going on I didn't hear about. I know how many murders I covered in the fifteen years I reported news, and I know that within the past ten years, we've had twice as many. I saw the meth lab next door -- after growing up in a town where I didn't even know what pot was.

If people find it comforting to believe that the world hasn't changed, that's certainly *their* choice -- but I think as time goes on it's going to be increasingly difficult for thinking people to do that. The evidence is mounting every day.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Or elect Rudy Giuliani mayor. I spent a good chunk of my youth in Manhattan during The Out-of-Towners era and he was the one who finally cleaned the place up.

I understand he might be looking for a job this year -- if so, I think we're hiring. I hope he likes scallops.

 

[Gregg Axley]

I can't find a like button on here.
Neighbors can be luck of the draw, I'm thankful to have nice ones.
Beware of Walmart trucks Tom, they contain Walmart workers inside the trailer. They unload at night, blue vests and all, and come sunrise you have a Walmart just "appear" out of nowhere. That's my theory and I'm sticking to it.

 

[Puzzicato]

Not only do some of my customers have, as Lizzie described a kind of hissy-fit default setting, but it seems to be the norm that they do not have the manners to keep any negative opinions or thoughts to themselves, which in itself i think is terribly rude and symptomatic of the general decline.

I've had this conversation with many friends who are bewildered by the rudeness they encounter sometimes - even from friends. The default seems to be arcing up into "I'm entitled to my opinion". To which I tell them to counter "You live in a society. You are entitled to your opinion, you are not entitled to share it".

 

[angeljenny]

There are some crazy things in the news. I remember reading one story about a woman who smashed up displays in a cake shop when they didn't have the cupcake she wanted. She apparently had her two children with her.

There seems to be an undercurrent of aggression where the tiniest thing will tip someone over the edge into shouting, swearing and even violence. I wander about in town on my lunch breaks and, while most people behave politely, there are those that are rude and I don't know what the purpose is. Having a toddler tantrum when something doesn't go your way isn't going to make things better or make you any better thought over.

I guess people see themselves as individuals and feel no responsibility towards society or the people around them. Sort of like they want all that society can give them without having to put anything back in.

 

[BinkieBaumont]

Listen very carefully


[video=youtube;vj1_ZY_9kBQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj1_ZY_9kBQ[/video]

 

[djd]

There are some crazy things in the news. I remember reading one story about a woman who smashed up displays in a cake shop when they didn't have the cupcake she wanted. She apparently had her two children with her.

There seems to be an undercurrent of aggression where the tiniest thing will tip someone over the edge into shouting, swearing and even violence. I wander about in town on my lunch breaks and, while most people behave politely, there are those that are rude and I don't know what the purpose is. Having a toddler tantrum when something doesn't go your way isn't going to make things better or make you any better thought over.

I guess people see themselves as individuals and feel no responsibility towards society or the people around them. Sort of like they want all that society can give them without having to put anything back in.

You know, I think it's a kind of vicisious spiral we've gotten into. I know from my work that there are some people who simply do not respond to a polite and civilised approach. These people respond only to aggression. Its tough to judge how people are going to react when you arrest them but there's a growing number who only understand aggressive language and an aggressive posture. I seem the same thing with kids around our housing estate. If theyre misbehaving and you try to be polite to some of them you may as well be talking to the wall - it's seen as a sign of weakness. The only thing that works is an aggressive approach so that they're scared of you. Sad I know.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I guess people see themselves as individuals and feel no responsibility towards society or the people around them. Sort of like they want all that society can give them without having to put anything back in.

This is exactly it. "All for me, and nuts to you."

A phrase I remember from civics class is "rights and responsibilities." The two were inseperable -- we were taught that the *price* of the rights we enjoy is the exercise of our responsibilities to society. That's a principle which has been increasingly forgotten with the manic emphasis on individualism in modern culture.

As far as public displays of idiotic behavior in recent years go, for years I carried around a news clipping of my favorite incident: a man threw a violent tantrum at a Taco Bell because the counter girl left a chalupa out of his order -- and he tried to climb thru the drive-thru window to throttle her. But because he had eaten one chalupa too many in his life, he got stuck in the window opening and they had to send for the Jaws Of Life to pull him out. When they got him loose he was still screaming incoherently for his chalupa.

 

[C-dot]

I guess people see themselves as individuals and feel no responsibility towards society or the people around them. Sort of like they want all that society can give them without having to put anything back in.

This is exactly it. "All for me, and nuts to you."

Its this pervasive sense of entitlement that people have these days. It gets me so angry, *I* feel like smashing displays in a cake shop (though I would never actually do it!)

Every time I put gas in my car at the local station, I'm reminded of a tragic example - 2 months back, a man covered up his license plates and filled up his tank, then proceeded to speed away. The elderly attendant, outraged at the increase in theft, chased after the car, got caught in the door, and was crushed to death in the road. The man took off and still hasn't been apprehended.

But that's okay. After all, gas is expensive, and you want to drive your car, so why should you pay for it, even though everyone else has to? It doesn't matter if a family is destroyed in the process, as long as you get what you want. You're entitled.

 

[sheeplady]

Personally, I don't believe that (at least in US society) people care all that much about their rights or others'. Especially if it is about protecting the rights of others. As long as they are free to live their lives as they want, they really don't give a hoot about protecting people who are having their rights violated. In some cases, people don't care if they violate the rights of others, as long as they get what they want (entitlement).

I was raised that rights are things that you need to protect, not for your own sake, but for those that are around you. If you let one person have their rights taken away because you don't like them, what they do, or how they act; you have proven that you yourself don't deserve that right. Rights are fundamental, god-given, human things. While there are restrictions to our rights, those should be few.

There is an entitlement attitude that I have picked up on, but it has nothing to do with people having too many rights. In fact, it is counter to those basic human rights. I have the right not to be physically assaulted if I am not threatening others. I have a right to my property, both personal and business, and that property should not be destroyed. People seem to think that they are entitled to stomp all over other's rights for their wants (entitlements).

Smashing up someone's shop over a cupcake or attacking a server at Taco Bell are examples of people thinking they were entitled to something they wanted, and seeing that entitlement as superior to others' basic rights- in these cases- not having their property destroyed or physically being hurt. Entitlement is about thinking your wants are so necessary, that they are or can be superior to someone's basic rights.

 

[Mr. A]

I don't know if anybody from my generation (I'm 19) has posted in this thread yet, but I wanted to say that there are people my age -- though few -- who feel extremely frustrated about the direction our generation is going. I'm a guy who very much appreciates the early 20th century in matters of fashion and music as well as the civility of recreation from that time, and to see people my age enjoy themselves in such an uncivilized manner sickens me.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

I'm in the same boat as you, 20 years old. It's a sad state of affairs.

I don't know if anybody from my generation (I'm 19) has posted in this thread yet, but I wanted to say that there are people my age -- though few -- who feel extremely frustrated about the direction our generation is going. I'm a guy who very much appreciates the early 20th century in matters of fashion and music as well as the civility of recreation from that time, and to see people my age enjoy themselves in such an uncivilized manner sickens me.

 

[C-dot]

Make room for me in that boat!

 

[AtomicEraTom]

With all the young loungers, we're gonna need a Yacht. Possibly a Carnival Cruise Ship.

Make room for me in that boat!