^^^^
It’ll make ya crazy!

I'm more worried about the pumpkin patch. I think we get around 40,000 people on the ground in the month of October. There was a shooting in Vacaville a week ago at one of the first carnivals of the year. I just shake my head. Well, that and do reload drills with the Benelli M4.

Can you get insurance for the potential of someone coming to your pumpkin patch and shooting up the event?

No it's not.

Only if you're not already nuts. :D

Well then, I’m safe.

the USA is a special case scenario.
comparative statistics are grim.

That's a fantastic question. I'll find out and let you guys know what my insurance guy says about the umbrella policy, and if that's excluded.

I don't come here all that often, but this thread caught my attention.

In a nutshell, I am totally unsurprised by where our collective societies are going.

We have undermined and totally discredited any of the moral constructs (call it the Judea-Christian culture if you will), that rewarded hard work, honest and virtuous behaviour even when no one was looking.

We considered children for what they were, immature people who needed to protected, guided, led and at times, disciplined into productive adults who at some level need to "fit in" or at least know what is the range of acceptable behaviours and know that their rights to do things end where they impinge on the rights of others. Now we are afraid of our own children, refuse to believe that they are anything but angels, refuse to set limits and live in terror that social services will remove them.

We perpetually and collectively demand the converse of rights meaning - freedom of speech does not mean anyone has to listen to you and in fact your freedom of speech gives you the right to argue, ridicule and challenge up the limits of slander/libel.

Your freedom of association does in no way require me to be in your presence or allow you to be in mine....I can ignore you, slam the door in your face and not attend your little gathering. My choice

Your freedom of belief does not require mt to even acknowledge it as valid, much less support it and even much more, when coupled with my freedom of speech, allows me to challenge, criticize and debate to my hearts content, right up to the limit that I plausibly foment physical violence on you.

We have systematically undermined our national identities, torn down our institutions with wokes and activists within, slagged our history and the reputations of the people who built the country out of adversity and belief to the point where people look at their past as something to be embarrassed about.

Our media is useless, promoting narratives that feed elitist mindsets, avoiding any sort of balance, any sort of investigative reporting on narratives that fit the Orwellian mindsets.

...is it a surprise?

We let it happen, look at the mirror for the person at fault.

I do.

D.

And the lifespan of democracies is in the spotlight.

All I can say is daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang that pretty much nailed it.

Symptoms ≠ disease.

OP here.

Reporting back.

#1 fatality at workplace. Yes. That happened.
#2 fear of violence. Nothing. Just fear.
#3 fear of violence. Nothing. Just fear.

What does this say? It says that we have a feedback loop that is reinforcing fear and dis-connectedness.

While I did experience a murder at a client. This is the only event in my career as well as the 10's of thousands of clients at my employer. It is a fallacy. I was caught up in this. As were some other folks that I know. We are being collectively trained that the world is going to heck and we have come to believe it.

I change my tune from the original post. Things are fine, but we THINK they are not.

How to fix this???

nice summary of the end of western civilization

I repeat myself, hate and fear have been monetized by a significant portion of the media. Just look at the first twisting of leading to uproar over CRT (critical race theory) and LGBTQ issues. Both effect 0% to 1% of the population but they are national dog whistles to come and join our army, sorry, community, please just keep watching or make a donation, that's all we ask. We need your money to FIGHT BACK. FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT. Fear, fear, fear. Hate, hate, hate.

What do you get?

Amygdala overload.

And an automaton army of steady cash flow.

Turns out the First Amendment is a death sentence for the United States thanks to 50 or so evil people on TV, radio and the Web.

What is crazy is that English is his second language, maybe third.

I struggle in my first!

I've previously stated that I practice criminal defense law. We moved back to San Antonio after 20 years away. I was shocked at the number of homeless here now. Drugs also seem to be omnipresent.

I'd say what I see is this: defendants fall into a few categories. Some realize they have F'ed up and want to fix it. Others are scared to death of going to jail.
Then there are the ones I come across that have page after page of criminal history. Some of them just want to make deal and get it over with. Some of those same folks dig in heels and say I'm not signing for $hit3 (code for not taking a plea) regardless of how bad the evidence is against them.

I rarely meet fathers, only mothers and grandmothers that are trying to support their sons/daughters during court cases. Being on the lower end of financial success spectrum is also a factor. We usually don't see folks in court that have careers and make decent money.

Back to the father thing: a couple of weeks ago in felony court I saw a father with his son. Son was present on 2 charges, both drug related and both for big amounts. Judge messed him up and gave him over 10 years. I felt pretty bad for the dad. One of the few times I've seen someone in court from middle or upper middle class.

I think sometimes people just get into the lifestyle of criminal activity and can't get out. Others just don't care. I see a lot of bad choices that seem to stem from drug use.

Family violence: there is plenty of spouse beating going on. But a lot of those cases seem to be an argument that really isn't violent but one spouse calls cops to get the other out of the house just for the night; not realizing that calling the PD will get someone put in jail.

I could go on and on. One thing is for certain, there are a lot of broken people in the system and the families are just as broken. It's pretty sad.

I am deliberately behind in my 'current' events reading. This morning I read in the June 3 newspaper that 20 mass shootings (at least four people were hurt or killed) in nine days staring with Uvalde.

Recently, events have required I drive a car for a couple of hours on most days. I see our roadways have become lawless places. Quite frightening.

I gave a safety talk recently in which I told my audience to consider disengaging with strangers as a personal policy. Don't call people out for cutting in line or littering or whatever behavior you see. Today, some of those people are armed and dangerous. Anger and violence appears to be a national movement, frankly.

As long as we only selectively enforce the law, few will obey. Severe punishment gets them off the street and sends a message to others. The nation watched people loot, burn, and assault/murder people in large cities on national television (or in person) with little repercussion. In some cases, the participants were glorified (or at least their behavior was excused). It is hard to put that (what they witnessed) back in the box.

It doesn't help that we also do not enforce border laws. First, because it again sets a terrible example. Second, it allows criminal activity (more drugs, trafficking in humans, and smuggling).

If you are here illegally, you have already demonstrated that you do not respect the law. What incentive do you have to obey others once here?

"I rarely meet fathers"

This is one of many reasons my gf and I started Modern Dad magazine 25 years ago. Like you could go on and on now, I could then about cycles, how fathers are undervalued and oversimplified in our society and how they have no support mechanism, because, well, men. It morphed into FirstTime Dad magazine which turned out to be the best time to reach men, even before the birth of their first child. It has always been my life goal of creating a philanthropically-focused, for profit company that changes and evolves culture.

Anyone want to fix our country can start with creating better fathers. Everything else is small potatoes.

I can tell you what happened to fathers, but then this thread goes to PARF

My grandfather did not make it past grade school, and spoke 5 languages.

They must have dropped me on my head or something when I was little. I can speak just enough Spanish to work in a kitchen, if I can show them what I am trying to talk about.

I don't know Jim. If you're afraid to do the right thing, what the hell kind of world are we living in? When good people turn away out of fear, we've lost.