Shooting of the Day
Out of context: Reply #374
- Started
- Last post
- 2,851 Responses
- ********0
Historically, I would tend to believe that right now is not the time for open discussion about the issues related to Newtown, but instead a time for deep introspection. For many, the news has been a tough thing to watch the last few days. I've done my best to avoid the sensationalism, and try to find key articles from respectable (IMO) sites to find out what's going on. When I first learned of the Newtown event, I was deep in the warmth of holiday celebrations, surrounded by friends that I consider my family. It was a great holiday party. We always find time to grow together with little outings, team building meetings, etc.
When the topic of Newtown came up, we tossed it about conversation for a few moments, but quickly switched subjects because it's, "not the right forum" for that kind of talk. I'm not quoting anyone specifically, but I think that's the general consensus on these types of events, and so we tend to opt for lighter conversation so as not to offend anyone's beliefs. Think about when a tough subject comes up between you and a stranger, or even a friend. If you're not directly invested in the issue, you will discuss topical thoughts, summarize with an agreement to disagree, and move on to something more socially acceptable like sports, or the weather. With modern technology where it is today, these events are becoming more of a spectacle for every home to see than isolated incidents for the grievers. It's really disheartening where our media has been for the last decade, and how it has reacted to Newtown. I am in fact sad about this event, deeply so, and not afraid to talk about it. As a caring human being, it's impossible to not wonder where we've gone so fundamentally wrong as a species. I tend to believe that we're afraid to acknowledge the issue, and we hope that someone else will mince the details for us. It's not in our nature any longer to actually DO something about these major split-opinion topics.
As it becomes more and more impossible to avoid the occurrence of these issues, the media is somewhat doing its job by getting the reality of the world in front of us. And it's changing how we live, because people are suddenly not afraid to debate their opinions online any longer. But what does that really get us? Nothing. Not a single iota of change. Because everything is working as intended. Social media is not really a social empowerment tool, it's a social dialogue tool, and that's it. So as it always tends to go, people debate topics, not core issues. I believe that we are all at fault for this, and I am having a hard time figuring out how it started and when.
I relate it to my day to day as follows. How often do we start our days in a good mood vs. being in a hurried rush into work, or off to complete some chore we've deigned necessary? More often than not, we begin our days frustrated about some trivial thing that seems so important in that moment, and needs to be attended to right away. Not often in those moments do we ever think, "Will I live through this day?" That question should be importantly top-of-mind, and I think we are getting there. People are clearly scared, whether they are a gun owner or not. Unless you're scared, you're not going to do anything about anything except talk about it. As the saying goes, talk is cheap. I don't know what exactly needs to be done to prevent people from becoming so lost in themselves that they decide to walk into public spaces and take the lives of people they have never before met. What I am certain of is this... Every single one of you on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. saying that gun control is not needed, you are NOT correct. And so, in the pattern of millions of others, here are my thoughts on this issue that the media has grotesquely brought to our attention.
This IS the time to talk about gun control. The social conversations, the political debates, they all need to continue until we find solutions to the problem we have of Americans possessing guns, particularly those who should not have them. This debate should not and cannot end when the next major event flashes across the popular Breaking News outlets. Because, it's not JUST gun control that is needed. We promote television shows that each week show murder, rape, robbery, deceit, and glorification of the underbelly of human traits. We promote unrealistically violent movies, music that uplifts one-sided conditions of an increasingly sexist society, racist dialogue in our favorite series shows, and books about housewives-turned-whores. In Best Buy, the video games are no longer safely packaged behind MPAA ratings, they are instead on demo stations for kids to play while their parents mindlessly browse for that elusive $5 DVD deal of the week. To say the above will typically get you relegated to the "Christian" or "right-wing" labels. I'm not a devout Christian. I don't even know where I stand with the concept of God, but I do know that the very fiber of what a human is supposed to be is fading, more rapidly in this generation and the last than ever before. We need to examine how we, as a society, treat one another, and how we are functioning in this modern age of the human shelf-life, and I have an idea as to one potential core issue.
It's not just movies, music and books. It's our concept of work, and our collective descent into the greed model of our government that is causing us to lose our humanity. Think about how we judge our friends and co-workers when they want to take time off of work (something I am a MAJOR proponent of). Not every company is like this, but I can promise you that most major corporations are. We encourage (and reward, if you can call it that) our workers to work harder, and to work longer. We care NOTHING for how this affects their families, especially the children that are a part of those families. In Europe, the minimum standards for time off are between 4 and 6 weeks of full vacation. Can you imagine what an executive at a major American corporation would say to his employees if they asked for 4-6 weeks vacation? It would NEVER happen without serious, serious tenure. I believe that is one of the major core issues at hand today. Our families need us, but our jobs aren't always allowing us to be there for them. Our businesses need us too, but, our families must always be the most important thing in our lives, and that doesn't seem to be where we're at anymore as a people.
Before we determine if gun laws are needed, before we determine if violent TV needs to be shown later at night, before we determine if we actually want to police PG-13 and R-rated movies in our theaters, we need to care a little more about the people we work with and the people that work for us. We need to care about their lives outside of our businesses. We need to not only allow for people to take time off to spend with their families, we need to encourage and support it. It's something I've always believed in, and I will continue to push this belief forward at our company.
To begin to repair ourselves, we need to come together, have more direct conversation about these events, and make the necessary changes to help our society rebuild. A smart person this weekend said to me, "I think the key to happiness and wholeness as a people is understanding the concept of caring. To be cared for, and to care for others, it brings you joy that you simply can't get from anything else in life."
- tl;dr. someone summarize?d0mino
- great points, it could be the by-product of a capitalist society, eat or be eaten, survival of the fittest, and cast aside everyone else as lazy and weak._niko
- ...else as lazy and weak._niko
- love is a sign of weakness, hate equals strength. We are encouraged to hate._niko
- guns are bad, m'kay?Eighty