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You know what I find highly ironic? The people I knew as children - family, school friends, etc. - those people are, today, complaining about misbehaving teens and supporting police violence against kids and internet shaming their kids as suitable forms of punishment.
Those same adults, when we were kids, were those kids who played their music too loud, who jumped people's fences to illegally horse around in other people's backyards, who mouthed off to cops enforcing the city's curfew, who sat around basements with illegal drugs complaining about "pigs" busting up their good time, and who fantasized about calling the authorities on their own parents for "brutality" and "child abuse" when they were spanked or grounded or publicly humiliated by being yelled at when they misbehaved.
My own sister actually got a noise pollution citation for driving with a stereo turned up too loud (California had laws like that). I got bullied for NOT smoking pot and not getting drunk with the rest of the middle schoolers (yes, ages 12-15). Half of our collective music collection among my high school friends were tapes and CDs stolen from record stores (the other half was taped off the radio, which is still piracy). Our normal weekend activities included sneaking out of our parents' houses way after curfew and breaking into the backyards of people who were on vacation or the fenced-off school yards where it was illegal to be after school hours.
In fact, the thing we did most often was called Ice Blocking. We'd get a giant block of ice from the grocery store, then, about 2 in the morning, we'd scale the fence to a school yard that had a large hill in it somewhere, climb to the top of that hill, and either sit or stand on the block of ice and try to "surf" it down the hill while the rest of our group sat at the bottom getting stoned or drunk out of their minds. That's not even broaching the part where we were hired as lifeguards - literally being responsible for the lives of other people - and the entire staff spent as much time as possible hotboxing the office (closing off any form of ventilation and then smoking pot to fill it with smoke they could continue to inhale even when not then-currently taking a hit), so that their judgement was impaired while on duty. People's LIVES depended on us! But we did what we wanted to do, even at the expense of other people's lives.
Another thing that was very common in my circles was highway racing. We didn't do "street racing" as most people think of it - where two cars start out at one end of an empty street and race to the other end. We raced each other *in traffic*. That's how I ended up rolling my car down a hill at age 16 - I was trying to beat someone's speed record on this particular road, I lost control of the car, but got back control only by moving into the left lane. I lost control again because I had to swerve to miss oncoming traffic, and that's what spun me to the curb, which then tipped my car over and I rolled down the hill into someone's back yard. There was absolutely no concern for the lives or the property of the other people we could have (or did) destroy. And every single person I knew then (and many I know now) blamed the *cops* for writing them tickets when they were the ones breaking the law. Everyone had some excuse why, when *they* did it, it was somehow justifiable, but those other assholes on the road were crazy assholes.
These people doing the complaining about "no respect" and "gotta teach them a lesson" are the same people who tailgate and speed when they're late, because it's somehow "different" when they do it. These are the same people who have a hard drive full of pirated movies and music. These are the same people who go to Google Images and download and repost copyrighted images and who then get all pissy when called on it because they somehow deserve the "right" to use intellectual property that they don't own.
The key ingredient threading all of this together is entitlement. As kids, we felt entitled to use other people's property and to break laws that didn't suit us. As adults, now it's *our* property that people are using without permission, so it's somehow fair, now, to treat those kids exactly the same way that we felt was "abusive" (yes, that accusation was slung out a lot towards parents, teachers, and cops, when I was a kid, when those adults weren't even doing anything remotely as serious as the news articles I see passing around these days) back when we were kids and it was directed at us.
I don't think people remember being kids. They remember getting smacked when they misbehaved and, as adults, they wish kids would behave, so they think that getting smacked is what made them value social etiquette. I don't think it is, because I see them doing all sorts of bullshit as adults (many of which I named above, like speeding and piracy). I don't think they really remember the shame or the humiliation or the anger that these kinds of punishments bred in them as kids. Because they definitely don't recognize that same anger or defensiveness at authority that they continue to have as adults. They only admire and respect authority when it suits them, when they're the recipient of the benefits of that authority. It's all "yay, cops!" now, but still "fuck TSA!" and "fuck Metallica for suing their fans who illegally downloaded their music!" I wish irony actually burned. Maybe then my generation would understand the hypocrisy they're espousing and learn to have some fucking empathy to teach children right from wrong without resorting to the same bullshit that made us resent authority when we were kids.
Those same adults, when we were kids, were those kids who played their music too loud, who jumped people's fences to illegally horse around in other people's backyards, who mouthed off to cops enforcing the city's curfew, who sat around basements with illegal drugs complaining about "pigs" busting up their good time, and who fantasized about calling the authorities on their own parents for "brutality" and "child abuse" when they were spanked or grounded or publicly humiliated by being yelled at when they misbehaved.
My own sister actually got a noise pollution citation for driving with a stereo turned up too loud (California had laws like that). I got bullied for NOT smoking pot and not getting drunk with the rest of the middle schoolers (yes, ages 12-15). Half of our collective music collection among my high school friends were tapes and CDs stolen from record stores (the other half was taped off the radio, which is still piracy). Our normal weekend activities included sneaking out of our parents' houses way after curfew and breaking into the backyards of people who were on vacation or the fenced-off school yards where it was illegal to be after school hours.
In fact, the thing we did most often was called Ice Blocking. We'd get a giant block of ice from the grocery store, then, about 2 in the morning, we'd scale the fence to a school yard that had a large hill in it somewhere, climb to the top of that hill, and either sit or stand on the block of ice and try to "surf" it down the hill while the rest of our group sat at the bottom getting stoned or drunk out of their minds. That's not even broaching the part where we were hired as lifeguards - literally being responsible for the lives of other people - and the entire staff spent as much time as possible hotboxing the office (closing off any form of ventilation and then smoking pot to fill it with smoke they could continue to inhale even when not then-currently taking a hit), so that their judgement was impaired while on duty. People's LIVES depended on us! But we did what we wanted to do, even at the expense of other people's lives.
Another thing that was very common in my circles was highway racing. We didn't do "street racing" as most people think of it - where two cars start out at one end of an empty street and race to the other end. We raced each other *in traffic*. That's how I ended up rolling my car down a hill at age 16 - I was trying to beat someone's speed record on this particular road, I lost control of the car, but got back control only by moving into the left lane. I lost control again because I had to swerve to miss oncoming traffic, and that's what spun me to the curb, which then tipped my car over and I rolled down the hill into someone's back yard. There was absolutely no concern for the lives or the property of the other people we could have (or did) destroy. And every single person I knew then (and many I know now) blamed the *cops* for writing them tickets when they were the ones breaking the law. Everyone had some excuse why, when *they* did it, it was somehow justifiable, but those other assholes on the road were crazy assholes.
These people doing the complaining about "no respect" and "gotta teach them a lesson" are the same people who tailgate and speed when they're late, because it's somehow "different" when they do it. These are the same people who have a hard drive full of pirated movies and music. These are the same people who go to Google Images and download and repost copyrighted images and who then get all pissy when called on it because they somehow deserve the "right" to use intellectual property that they don't own.
The key ingredient threading all of this together is entitlement. As kids, we felt entitled to use other people's property and to break laws that didn't suit us. As adults, now it's *our* property that people are using without permission, so it's somehow fair, now, to treat those kids exactly the same way that we felt was "abusive" (yes, that accusation was slung out a lot towards parents, teachers, and cops, when I was a kid, when those adults weren't even doing anything remotely as serious as the news articles I see passing around these days) back when we were kids and it was directed at us.
I don't think people remember being kids. They remember getting smacked when they misbehaved and, as adults, they wish kids would behave, so they think that getting smacked is what made them value social etiquette. I don't think it is, because I see them doing all sorts of bullshit as adults (many of which I named above, like speeding and piracy). I don't think they really remember the shame or the humiliation or the anger that these kinds of punishments bred in them as kids. Because they definitely don't recognize that same anger or defensiveness at authority that they continue to have as adults. They only admire and respect authority when it suits them, when they're the recipient of the benefits of that authority. It's all "yay, cops!" now, but still "fuck TSA!" and "fuck Metallica for suing their fans who illegally downloaded their music!" I wish irony actually burned. Maybe then my generation would understand the hypocrisy they're espousing and learn to have some fucking empathy to teach children right from wrong without resorting to the same bullshit that made us resent authority when we were kids.
