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What Is Wrong With Our Society?

gunpaqgunpaq Member Posts: 4,607 ✭✭
edited May 2002 in General Discussion
Yesterday I had a short visit with my mother who lives a little further up the road from our farm which is surrounded by new housing developments. Most of the new residents living in the developments are reasonably well-to-do business types from Philly and suburbs. I have gotten used to the upscale SUVs, BMWs, etc., and joggers, power walkers and bicyclist 24-7 all decked out in the latest LL Bean, but I cannot get used to their new culture that they have brought to the area. The culture of detachment. For example, while visiting with my mother in her front yard, no less than 8 people passed by on foot on the road not more than 15 yards away, all looking down or staight ahead (one was reading a book and another let her dog crap in the corner of the yard while another saw fit to pull up a maple sapling from our fence row to plant at his home) without looking at us, acknowledging us saying "Hi" or returning a waive hello. They were and are all just like robots. Now I don't care who or where these people are from nor does there have to be a personal relationship or their names even known, but when you are a neighbor, live in the area, or frequent an area or neighborhood, is it not customary to acknowledge someone when they say hello or waive to you? These people walk by and drive by like the people in the original movie "Invasion Of The Body Snatchers", no emotion and no acknowledgement of anything not directly affecting them. I have to get out of this area before it is too late - THEY ARE HERE AND TAKING OVER. I thought that field of soybeans I planted last year had unusually large bean pods.

Pack slow, fall stable, pull high, hit dead center.

Comments

  • niklasalniklasal Member Posts: 776 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I believe that is a major contributor to our problem with crime. In the olden days, neighbors knew one another. They said hello and watched out for each other.

    Now it's "every man for himself" and nobody cares what you feel. It only matters if it affects them.

    My gun is prettier than yours, and it's a Glock!
  • instrumentofwarinstrumentofwar Member Posts: 1,545 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Being that I'm not in the best of moods right now, I'll refrain from what I would have liked to have done with the dogs**t and that lousy s.o.b. who decided to steal a tree.

    I will comment, however, on the lack of morals and general decency nowadays. Granted I'm not the youngest (nor by any means the oldest) but I have been around and have lived in enough places to see a difference.

    I grew up waving at strangers when we would walk down the side of the road as kids, say hello tip your hat or whatever to women and seniors, and the like. I don't know where our society has us heading, but I, for one, don't like it. It's a sad day when you hold the door open for an older woman, smile and say hi, and she just looks at the ground and walks by because the youth (and other trash of any age) have her scared of her own shadow.

    Some people just shouldn't be allowed to breed
  • michael minarikmichael minarik Member Posts: 478 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    This might be a far stretch but I don't care, I think there is some validity: Hollywood and other forms of media have destroyed our sense of human compassion with the constant bombardment of rape, death, murder....violent protrayal of humanity on the screen in order to make the god: $$$; our judicial system has gone too far in protecting the criminal rather than exacting justice from the criminals hide and finally we have become so apathetic towards government that it is easier to hide and become complacent rather than fight this tide of abject morality. What you see is the offspring of complacency of allowing evil to co-habit...our soul has been snatched! I am going to take my rifle and check the bean fields for large bean-pods!!!!
  • Brth729Brth729 Member Posts: 1,231 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I made a post a while back, before the change in format, with similar complaints about the general discourtesy of some people nowadays. I commented on how peoples general characteristics have changed for the worse since I was a kid, and how I was wondering if I was the last of a dying breed. I've lived in several places( Wis, Tx, Ill, and Cal) in different sized cities, and have come to the conclusion that two things influence how people project themselves towards others. They are how they were raised , and the size of the population in the area you live. The place I live now is a small town, the smallest I've lived in in all my life. One thing I've noticed here more than anywhere else is that its everybody for everybody else, and not everybody for themself. A typical day off for me starts with a couple of friends and a handfull of local farmers sitting around a table at the local family eatery exchanging stories and general chit-chat. Something I've never been able to do anywhere else. Near gone are the days when people would open doors for others, say please or thank you, or freely start a conversation with their neighbor by asking how they are. The world and times surely are slipping into a slow downward spiral.

    ***It is not so much what a man possesses, but what possesses the man which determines his quality of life.***
  • salzosalzo Member Posts: 6,396 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    Well you did say they were city people. And that is exactly how city people behave. You do not look at someone, much less say hello, for fear of getting mugged or shot.
    But I live in a simular situation. Where I live used to be all farms, but as urban sprawl encroaches, city folk are buying up the property, and building little mansions. When I go to the local restuarant, you can really see the differences between the city folk and the locals.
    I used to hunt a property, that was bordered by several estates that city people lived in. One day I was packing up after hunting, and one of the neighbors pulled up next to me, in the biggest BMW I have ever seen. I said hello, and he did not return the salutation. He then asked me what I was doing, and I told him I was finishing up hunting. Without saying anything, he pointed to the "No hunting" sign that was next to me. I turned and looked at it, and said nothing, and went back to my business. He then asked me if I see the signs. I responded "YUP". He then told me I was not allowed to hunt there. I told him I was the one who put the signs up, and that the signs were directed at everyone EXCEPT ME. I explained that he could not hunt there(though it was obvious he was not a hunter) anyone else cant hunt there, and only I could hunt there. He then said that he has horses on the bordering property, and would prefer it if I would not hunt here. I explained I was not concerned about his preferences,that I noticed his horses do come on the property, and he should make sure they stay off the property,because his property is tresspassing. I then explained to him that he does not have to worry 'bout me shooting his horses, cause I hadnt mistaken a horse for a deer in two years. I was being a smart *, but it took him awhile to realize that. He then drove away.

    Happiness is a warm gun
  • anderskandersk Member Posts: 3,627 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    I've lived in IL, IN,MD,VA and then in Canada for the last 26 years (Quebec and New Brunswick) ... there are great folks where ever you are ... just gotta find them! Yes, some are afraid ... so I try to be first in striking up a conversation and being nice to them. Makes 'em warm up real fast!

    Let's all be kind to someone today ... even if they don't deserve it or make that ESPECIALLY if they don't desserve it.

    Ken
  • anderskandersk Member Posts: 3,627 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    In writing an article responding to a question about like what has been posed here: "What is wrong with our society?", several years ago G.K. Chesterton wrote: "I am."

    The REAL question is: What is the solution to what is wrong with society?

    Ken
  • concealedG36concealedG36 Member Posts: 3,566 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    I thought it was only me! I HATE the city. I have lived in my current house for 4 years and I have yet to meet all but about 3 neighbors. When I get home from work I wave at anybody I see on my block. These jerks don't even acknowledge that they see me!

    I have moved over 20 times in my life and I've lived everywhere from rural outback to inner-city and I can tell you the city-folk are just plain RUDE and MEAN and SELFISH. I really can't stand them.

    I had a guy yesterday who parked right in front of my house (on the street) when I was trying to cut my grass. I politely asked him to move up a spot or two, since he had a brand new Lincoln Navigator and I didn't want to mess it up with my edger. He did not say one single word to me and just looked aggrivated as hell, but finally decided to move it. Next time I'm not even going to say anything. If he wants to risk his vehicle I'm cool with that.

    Jerks...

    (Thanks, just venting a little)



    Gun Control Disarms Victims, NOT Criminals
  • Old hickoryOld hickory Member Posts: 1,368 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Gunpak - I feel your pain. I would generally say that where ever you are people will be decent if you are BUT - when others are't it really irritates. I live 100 miles west of Chicago and we've certainly seen our share of changes! Just remember - when we've had too much and head out west or north we'll be the new people - let's be aware and act right.
  • Big Sky RedneckBig Sky Redneck Member Posts: 19,752 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I have an idea, let's get all of those Beemer, SUV, fancy shcmancy vehicle drivin yuppies together then herd them into some city like Boston, Chicago, NYC, Atlanta, Hartford or any major city and not let them out. Then go into these $!#@!^%^!%! housing developments and tear EVREY SINGLE one of them down and restore the land back to farm land. If there is one kind of person that makes my skin crawl is some urbanized yuppie transplant. get them the heck out of here and put them back into the metro's where they freakin belong and NEVER let them back out! There are just some places that certain people don't belong and one of them is in the country living on some STOLEN land in a development. The people that sold the land needs to be outcast with the yuppies and never let them come back. I don't care how hard up for money you get or how much you want that million $ for that 500 acre farm your grandaddy left you, there is one thing to remember, NEVER SELL YOUR LAND TO A SCUMBAG DEVELOPER!!! Developers are some of the lowest lifeforms on earth and they need to be banished from the country!
  • badboybobbadboybob Member Posts: 1,658 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Right on 7mm.

    PC=BS
  • Evil ATFEvil ATF Member Posts: 1,195 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    One Word:

    Sheeple.

    Stand And Be Counted
  • robsgunsrobsguns Member Posts: 4,581 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    I've heard the ONE side of the story, now how about the other side.

    I use to live in the country and know exactly where you are coming from. HOWEVER, I live in the city now, by definition, since I live on a post wherever I go. While not exactly being the city, it still is the same type of life. If I say hello to everyone that walks by my house while I sit outside talking to my neighbors, enjoying the weather, I wont be able to enjoy the company, or the weather, there are that many people, I have no idea what the people look like around my neighborhood. I could be saying hello all night, to people that are or are not my neighbors, not that it would matter, but you get the picture. When we lived in the country, there were few and far in between vehicles that traveled up and down the road, so we waved. The same goes for people that occasionally may walk by, though if they did, they were probably out of gas. If I waved at every vehicle that passed by today, I'd have tennis elbow. When country people go to town they go in, are there a short time, and leave to go home. Holding a couple doors open while they are there is no problem to most of them. To the people from the city that live there, who spend all their time in buildings, going to and fro, shoot, they'd start racking up frequent door holding miles in less than a week, and anyone would get sick of that, quickly, especially since few people do it in return these days, although you do see it frequently if you look for it, it just might not be for you. As far as the bad experience of having city people move into the country goes, listen to this a sec. I use to live on a country block, about 360 acres. There was only one farm house on it when we built there. We bought our twenty acres from another fellow who had bought 40 and built a house. Thats makes 3 houses now. The fellow who originally lived there by himself, was probably thinking the same as all of you. I went back a while back, and now there are over twenty houses on that block. I use to think of myself as the country people, and I hate it that those other houses are there, but they are only doing the same thing we did, inadvertently ruining the land with their houses, but who knows, they may be just like I was, real nice people, trying to get away from the CITY people. Our society has problems, no doubt, I hate all people, as a rule, and grow to like a few. Just dont forget, you too are living where there once was no home, and it was the country. That doesnt make you city people, it makes you human. We can all live in the city, but keep the country life ethics, its just hard to do it on the same scale as when we lived in the country. When I retire from the Corps, I want to go live somewhere isolated, build a house in the middle of nowhere, and people will say, here come the city people. They could not be more wrong.

    SSgt Ryan E. Roberts, USMC
  • k.stanonikk.stanonik Member Posts: 2,109 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    I know the feeling well, the other day i was in the grocery storein the check out line, a woman witha small child was haveing a hard time with the little one and putting her items on the counter so i started to help her out. The look i got from her was like i was going to attack her and take the baby. I guess being nice to people isnt a good idea.
  • thesoundguy1thesoundguy1 Member Posts: 680
    edited November -1
    You are seeing the results of the "global village".As our world gets
    smaller, due to the proliferation of things like the internet,cell
    phones etc.,our local communities have suffered.Paranoia over climbing
    crime rates,and the increased competition in the job market,has many
    Americans thinking in ruthless,competative terms.This is,I feel a result of the corporatizing of our beloved nation.With people not connecting on a personal,community level,people will not be able
    to connect and organize on a political level.The net result is the
    power of government moves from the hands of the people,to the boa
    constricter like grip of corporations,and special intrests.
  • PelicanPelican Member Posts: 1,061 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    The problem with the whole dang planet is - people. Get rid of all the people and the animals will do their own thing, the air will clear up, the water will be pure in a few years, and mother nature will eventually take back all the asphalt. Yup, folks, we is the problem.

    The Almighty Himself Entrusted the Future of All Living Creatures to a Wooden Boat.- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -"Audemus jura nostra defendere"
  • Patrick OdlePatrick Odle Member Posts: 951 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Has anyone forgotten the lost generation of the 60s and early 70s, you know the free love flower children. Did everyone think that their spawn would not ever walk the hallowed ground or did everyone just not give a damm. Never been a better case for total sterilization, til the crazys past the age of propogation. Didn't happen so deal with it and vow to never to permit the spawning of another generation of slugs.
  • He DogHe Dog Member Posts: 51,593 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I must say that much of what has been said agrees with my experience. I have however been frozen out in small rural towns suspicious of, and unfriendly to strangers.

    I think the truth is that our culture is a failure. It is morally bankrupt. Look at what defines the successful, influential man in our culture: He is well to do, and politically powerful. He looks out for himself and maybe his family. By contrast, the "valuable" man of the Lakota 150 years ago was a man who captured many horses, then gave what he did not need to widows and families with few men. He was a warrior who faught a rearguard action, while the people moved away from the conflict. He was a hunter who fed his family and gave the excess to the families of injured hunters, to widows, to old folks. He was in short, a man who was the exact oposite of the successful man in our culture. At a tribal level, he was responsible for the social welfare of all the people. His word in council was the word of one man. Others might agree and follow, but some might not. He had no power or authority over any other man (though he certainly did his wife/wives). I would argue that for our emotional and physical well being, that a tribal level of organization (where we spent our first million years or so) is the optimal level of social organization for humans, and to the extent that small towns and rural areas act like tribes, the members are better off. This can also happen in urban neighborhoods, but is less likely because there is more trancience, and fewer multigenerational relationships among the people. It is also almost gone.
  • RockinURockinU Member Posts: 248
    edited November -1
    After they stole my tree they would have aknowledged me, becuase I would have personally affected him.
  • IconoclastIconoclast Member Posts: 10,515 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    This is nothing new - it's the urban mentality pure & simple. We live in a rural area (although that has been changing, unfortunately). In the 1930s, my Dad heard the dog barking & found a propah Bahstonian b***h defecating on the ground behind the garage. Being a gentleman, he went into the shed & returned with a shovel, telling her to bury it when she finished. If, as a youth, I had invested a dollar every time some @#$%^&* flatlander parked in front of the "NO TRESSPASSING" signs near the house to make use of our land, today Bill Gates would be the second richest guy in the world. Etc. My mother had a friend from TN who - seriously - didn't realize "damn" and "Yankee" were separate words until she was a teen. In a similar vein, my kids grew up thinking "F***ing" & "flatlander" were a single word (come to think of it, they still do!). If a tidal wave took out Bahston, NYC, etc., it would take a year for me to sober up after the celebration.
  • RockinURockinU Member Posts: 248
    edited November -1
    I have a friend who guides hunts, and he calls this concrete poisoning. He theorizes that constant exposure to the concrete jungles of the world has and adverse affect on intelligence. Several years ago, I was working on a big ranch for a man who owned many enterprises, his prize secretary (I didn't get along with her) finally found a husband, who somehow talked to boss into letting him hunt deer on one of the ranches. Boss called me, told me to meet him and show him where he might see some deer. I specifically asked if he wanted me to hang out and keep an eye on this guy, and the boss assured me it wasn't necessary. I went back to pick this guy up a little before dark, and he had shot the boss's grandson's pony...3 times. All he could say was "I killed the pony"...All I could say is "I see that".
  • idsman75idsman75 Member Posts: 13,398 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I may hate NYC with all of it's liberalism but I will say that I can walk out onto the street and bump into ANYONE and strike up a 15-minute conversation at the drop of a hat. I don't care what anyone says about New Yorkers. There are some friendly people in that concrete jungle.

    SSG idsman75, U.S. ARMY
  • RickstirRickstir Member Posts: 574
    edited November -1
    Born and raised in ST. Louis. Lived there for my first 50 years. Have been living "out in the sticks" for 7 years now. Absolutely cringe when I have to drive into STL. As I approach the outer highway, I-270, the hair starts to rise on the back of my neck. People drive like plain fools. All I can to to stay to right and try to stay out of their way. I work in Columbia, town of about 125,000 (when Missouri Univ is in session). It is just as bad there. I'll take my little town of 1,400, and the people there, any day.

    Like in the NFL, defense is the key.
  • He DogHe Dog Member Posts: 51,593 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Rickstir, I grew up in Columbia. Back when it was 30,000 (not counting students, which the town lived off of but definatly did not count) it was a pretty decent place to grow up. Snooty, but decent.
  • gunpaqgunpaq Member Posts: 4,607 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    Finally one of the new people in the neighboring development, who regularly takes her dog for a crap walk in one of our fields, was kind enough to introduce herself. She said she enjoys the open country and being able to take her new dog for walks through the fields and feeding the nice horses carrots and sugar cubes and being able to actually pet such friendly beautiful animals. PERCEPTION IS REALITY. We had a nice friendly long talk and I let her know in a very polite neighborly way that trespassing and tampering with livestock is against the law and not the neighborly thing to do. "so when did you move into this beautiful neighborhood", she asked. "Oh, my family settled in this area in the early 1700s and have been on this farm since the 1850s", I replied. She is actually a very nice person but from a different culture with a different set of values with no intentional malice intent. She excused herself as the landscapers had arrived to mow her lawn and she had to get to the gym to work out before her husband gets home from his office. SAY WHAT? Pay people to mow your yard and then pay to go workout at a gym 15 miles away - what the H is wrong with this picture? Why not push the lawn mower for a workout instead of paying double and waisting gas driving? I HAVE TO GET OUT OF THIS AREA.

    Pack slow, fall stable, pull high, hit dead center.
  • guns-n-painthorsesguns-n-painthorses Member Posts: 6,462 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I live in the country.

    I know all my neighbors.

    I know all their kids.

    I know all their trucks.

    I know all thier property lines.

    I know all their cows.

    I know what each one of their dogs sound like.

    I know when their having a babeque.

    I know when their kids do good.

    I know when their kids do wrong.

    I know when they loose a relative.

    I know who is sick.

    I know who needs help.

    I know who needs no help.

    I know who has cold beer.

    I know who has cold pop.

    I know where I can get help.

    I know they all know the same about me.

    I love the country.
  • leeblackmanleeblackman Member Posts: 5,303 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    quote:
    Yesterday I had a short visit with my mother who lives a little further up the road from our farm which is surrounded by new housing developments. Most of the new residents living in the developments are reasonably well-to-do business types from Philly and suburbs. I have gotten used to the upscale SUVs, BMWs, etc., and joggers, power walkers and bicyclist 24-7 all decked out in the latest LL Bean, but I cannot get used to their new culture that they have brought to the area. The culture of detachment. For example, while visiting with my mother in her front yard, no less than 8 people passed by on foot on the road not more than 15 yards away, all looking down or staight ahead (one was reading a book and another let her dog crap in the corner of the yard while another saw fit to pull up a maple sapling from our fence row to plant at his home) without looking at us, acknowledging us saying "Hi" or returning a waive hello. They were and are all just like robots. Now I don't care who or where these people are from nor does there have to be a personal relationship or their names even known, but when you are a neighbor, live in the area, or frequent an area or neighborhood, is it not customary to acknowledge someone when they say hello or waive to you? These people walk by and drive by like the people in the original movie "Invasion Of The Body Snatchers", no emotion and no acknowledgement of anything not directly affecting them. I have to get out of this area before it is too late - THEY ARE HERE AND TAKING OVER. I thought that field of soybeans I planted last year had unusually large bean pods.

    Pack slow, fall stable, pull high, hit dead center.


    That sounds just like Houston, TX. Every time I visit, them darn robots are everywhere. No smiles, no one makes eye contact with you. I'm used to Beaumont (The City of A**Holes) where at least they acknolidge you with a finger.... In China, TX where I'm from before I moved to Beaumont, TX people you didn't even know would always waive as you drove down the road. Just friendly people. If you were jogging, and got hot, you could ask the closest house if you could use their water hose, no problem, and then back on you way. Always a smile, everyone friendly and curtious. If you knock on someones door in Beaumont and ask to use their hose, they think you nuts...

    I just wish I had a dollar for every gun I wanted, then I'd be a rich man.
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