There is a news story on teen thugs shooting at each other at Alki Beach: News story here. There is a comment thread below the article, and I posted something there which is reproduced below.
Reply To Semaj23,
The posts have been harsh on thugs/gangbangers. But your post almost demanding counseling, forgiveness and the like for troubled youth is a step in the wrong direction also.
Societies worldwide have an endless assortment of poor or historically marginalized youth. The world owes them a fair shot at a respectable life, but does not owe them a free lunch of any kind . More close to home here in Seattle. With a Depression taking funds out of city programs, you can expect a lot less help for troubled youth. If the stance of sympathetics like yourself is that we owe gangbangers some sort of help, otherwise we can expect them to ruin our streets with their violence. Sorry, your style of sympathy is not going to fly. Society does not have to ask kindly, plead with, or counsel people to not be violent criminals. The gangbanger attitude of hate and violence is unforgivable. They are the new KKK, a type rallying around the volatile combo of stupidity and aggressiveness. Society wants them gone.
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Two major objections
1. "They are the black KKK"
"They" are not black. Only about a third of gang members are black. http://www.iir.com/nygc/nygsa/demographics.htm
And which KKK are they supposed to be? The Reconstruction Era insurgency? The early 20th century facist movement? The mid 20th century mob violence and political corruption franchise? David Duke's mail scam?
It's more fair to say the KKK is a gang, but not even the worst of them. Or you could say some black gangsters are more racist than the KKK.
2. "SOCIETY DOES NOT HAVE TO ASK, PLEAD WITH, OUR(sic) COUNSEL PEOPLE TO NOT BE VIOLENT CRIMINALS"
While this is factually true, and even politically meaningful, the truth is much less sexy than this belligerent posturing suggests.
Unless we want to let the criminals destroy our society, we must THROW MONEY AT THEM. Crime is a cancer which can only be expunged by even more toxic chemotherapy, and the only thing more toxic than dirty money is government money.
Specifically I mean we have to raise all the citizens to a high standard of living and treat them better than they deserve. I don't mean we should treat people like victims that need healing, but like we assume that each person is the productive member of society we want them to be.
We have heard about all of the businesses and industries that the USA cannot afford to lose during this economic crisis, but have we heard our leaders mention even ONE social program which must be preserved in spite of austerity programs? If we tear down schools so we can give people jobs building highways, how does that help us?
It is important to punish crime and crush criminal conspiracies, but gangs don't wait for people to spontaneously abandon society's norms, they actively recruit.
If society doesn't actively recruit people to be useful and law-abiding citizens, and if we don't help people feel secure and respected when they live the way we tell them they should, then people are going to choose the side that offers them the security and self respect that comes from paramilitary camaraderie and the smoking barrel of a gun.
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