govnor wrote:
Maybe it is that we just hear more about this stuff these days. Or maybe it's America itself that is becoming more evil. Think about it. 50 years ago, you could leave your doors unlocked, your children could safely walk down the street. Yes, bad things did happen, but not like they do now. Maybe it's because people are more evil or maybe there are just more people. Either way, it seems to be worse today than it was back then. At least here in America.
There also used to be a code of common decency. This code doesn't exist like it once did. The fact that I have to hear rap music booming into my house from my neighbors is just one aspect of that. No consideration for those around them, whatsoever. I also went through this at another house with Tejano music blasting through my house at all hours. It used to be that you could go ask your neighbor to please turn it down and they would. In my case, they threatened to kill me instead. I was advised that if I didn't like it then I could move.
I have lost faith in humanity and I think they are more evil. I think it's because they are allowed to get away with it. Maybe there is no *more* evil in the world, but maybe it's allowed to rear it's ugly head more often. When a rapist spends a couple of years behind bars then so what? What's the deterrent to someone that doesn't care if they go to prison or not? When you cannot trust your fellow man, then you live in a state of constant fear (or at least constant vigilance). This is what we've become and we've allowed it to happen. We did it to ourselves by not putting an end to it when we could have.
I still lean toward ithe case simply being that things are reported far more often now than before. As Seamus TX pointed out there are plenty examples of wide spread evil throughout history. Technology and a huge population make the world much smaller than it once was.
In the information age, we all hear about incidents much sooner and more often than would have been the case even twenty years ago. Remember the Islamic terrorists who killed all those kids in Russia just a couple years ago? Twenty years ago, you and I would never have heard about that. As another example of how slow news once travelled, look up the history of the Juneteenth celebrations in Texas.
But back to the issue of the US being more evil now...I'll give you an example of evil that existed way back when folks left their doors unlocked but most folks knew nothing about until the 1990's. I grew up hearing of a mass murder from grandparents, great uncles/aunts and cousins from Alabama and Florida who were living in the 1920's but no one outside Florida or Alabama had ever heard about it until the 1990's. Look up a little town in Levy County, Florida called Rosewood. You won't find it on any map. The town burned to the ground in 1923. Perhaps a broader example would be trying to find a history of lynchings in the United States if you want to see just how much evil has existed but was either never heard of or purposely ignored by people in the United States for over a century.
Again, I don't think we are any more evil now than before. We just hear about things that once would have slipped into oblivion because now, there is a good chance you'll see a murder on YouTube.com before you ever see it on the national, let alone local news.
I haven't lost faith in humanity. I simply recognize that there are two sides to that coin. Good and evil for lack of a better way to put it. I'm not perfect but I think I'm generally a good person. I have however known some truly evil people and they are alive today only because it is illegal to kill them.
When you take the time out of your day to beat someone, it has a much longer lasting effect on their demeanor than simply shooting or tazing them.
G. C. Montgomery, Jr.
