Violence and Hypocrisy in America

Well let's see, the top movie for the week of 1/10/13 is Django Unchained, which several professional movie critics have described as the most violent and sadistic bloodbath of a film that they have seen in years. Texas Chainsaw 3D is hanging in there in the #5 slot. boxofficemojo.com/daily/chart/  When pressed on whether his movie (Django) might be a little too violent for the current times, Quentin Tarantino and Jamie Foxx responded like  scalded cats, accusing people with the temerity to even raise such questions as "racist" and "disrespectful."

Then there are the video games. The current top of the charts sellers for games are Call of Duty: Black Ops II and Halo 4. Nailing down the #8 position is Far Cry 3, which the developer describes as, "The most relentlessly insane open-world first person shooter" game out there. Yup, that's what we need are more insane first-person shooters, but that would never happen.  www.vgchartz.com/

"But wait," comes the reply, "all these are protected by the First Amendment!" Indeed, they are, but all that is permissible is not necessarily helpful or useful. Advertisers don't soak us in commercials because they have data showing they don't work. Likewise, the Marines don't use realistic combat training videos because they are ineffective for training new recruits to kill in combat. The audiences for these movies and games are young males and usually more affluent young males because poorer guys can't afford the Xbox 360s, PS3s, etc. needed to play them, never mind the cost of the games themselves. The profile of the mass shooters is a white male, age 17-24, living at home. Notice any correlation? 

Finally comes our fabulous mental health system, which is neither "fabulous" or a "system" in any coherent sense of the word. Starting in the 1970s we started popping people out on the streets under the rubric of "community mental health." What this term really means is that it's very expensive to keep people on an extended in-patient basis and since these folks can't vote, we (the politicians) would rather take the money and spend it on things that do produce votes - open the gates! Most kids who watch movies like the ones above and play hours of similar videos never become psycho mass killers, although one does wonder about dry rot in their souls. There is a certain percentage of these kids that are psychotic sociopaths, however, and they are truly dangerous as we have witnessed again and again at places like Sandy Hook, Aurora, Columbine, Clackamas Town Center, VA Tech and more. They need to be locked up and treated, not just evaluated and cut loose. They are dangerous people and they will kill. Yes it's expensive, but what is the expense to the individual victims, their families, their communities and the nation? 

The poster for Texas Chainsaw 3D is the last place that I expected to see truth spoken, but there it is, "Evil wears many faces." Yes it does. It hides behind the faces of major Hollywood producers and directors, popular actors, game developers, major corporations producing video hardware - it hides behind lots of faces. It is imperative for our society if it wants to be healthy again to clearly recognize this and take consistent and decisive steps to counter the evil that hides and would doom us all.