opie_jeanne @
151

My parents testified as character witnesses for a neighbor accused of trying to molest a teenage girl, a friend of his daughter. That was in the early 50s.

The fear was there before the Vietnam War.

ok – i bye that – but im talking about the large increase in fear that has taken place.

By the way, wasn’t that close to the Mcarthy communist scare thing?

And the early 50’s was the korean war.

Yes, but I think it’s a bit of a reach to blame the Korean War and McCarthy for accusing a neighbor of trying to grope a teenager.
The fear of abduction, the fear of molestation, go back long before the 1950s, probably back to the beginning of time.

My parents testified as character witnesses for a neighbor accused of trying to molest a teenage girl, a friend of his daughter. That was in the early 50s.

The fear was there before the Vietnam War.

ok – i bye that – but im talking about the large increase in fear that has taken place.

By the way, wasn’t that close to the Mcarthy communist scare thing?

And the early 50’s was the korean war.

The fear was there before the Vietnam War.

I think vietnam had a huge effect on the fear, Before Veitnam I dont rmemeber anything about sex preditiors except being told not to get into a car with an adult i didnt know or take candy from strangers. vietnam was a huge crises that jump started the fear. that war made lots of homeless after a few years and by then cheap goods from japan were starting to roll in and companies were starting to go offshore to make components, at least electronic stuff.

I suspect that the increased debt load (copaies and individuals) and the reduction of taxes to the wealthy which began slowly back then started the stratification of wealth that started to take a toll on hopes. Cheap goods helped eleveiate the fears somewhat until they really started to take the jobs away. Economic uncertainty (a relative feeling) was coming. And the uncetainty was real in many ways but its the relative feeling that counts.

The civil rights movment started some of the bigotted ones worrying about who would move next door or whom the daughte might bring home for dinner. Fear breads Fear like a smile to someone might bring a smaile.

I dont rememeber when the first big sex abuse charges (that most turned out to be false ) started but it was sometime in the mid to late 70’s…..that was the real start of cultural fear. The News Media sold fear to get ratings. Kids on milk bottles. adds on tv for missing kids, never mind the increase in divorce rates made for lots of child abductions between people who knew each other….almost never child abduction by strangers but that wasnt mentioned and its easier to blame things on strangers then admitt that family memebers will screw one another much more then a stranger.

Politically the democrats have gone overboard in exciting fear in the indirect way. They did this because they kept being accused of being weak on defence. They over compensated by calling for heavier port inspections and trying to be more patriotic then the repubs by taking up the homeland security badge of protection. the competition to look like the best crime fighter, terrorist fighter, protector of the citizens naturally increases the fear in the attempt to sell the cure.

HENCE Fear-for-Sale

I’ve successfully (with my wife) raised two boys to young adulthood. They are better educated socially than I was but it wouldn’t have happened if I had been AWOL, as my own Dad was…

“Quality Time” is yuppie bullshit. Parenting is hard work. You gotta do the time. Boring, hard work sometimes. Like in a factory, not always swell, but sometimes necessary.

I appreciate folks who don’t want to have kids, like my own brother or my brother-in-law, but they’re like priests talking about sex when it comes to kids… it’s tough to balance the marriage, the safety, the money, the culture.

My own choice (and my wife’s) was to let them experience the culture and explain it to them as it was washing over them with so much fear bullshit like that damn DARE crap… (remember DARE?)

Informed, educated, financially stable families and citizens will reinvigorate our democracy… or it’s back to the feudal European societies our Founding Fathers longed to leave behind…

We tried to do the same with our three kids, who are now 37, 28 and 24, and they were more socially aware than we were as kids, but I walked them to school half the time. There were other dangers beside strangers, like bullies and bad drivers, and kids don’t always pay close enough attention to traffic. I almost lost my youngest when she was 14 and an elderly woman ran a red light when Katie was in the crosswalk. Her older sister grabbed her arm just in time; the driver and her passengers continued, unaware of what had just happened.
DARE appeared a couple of years after I was a PTA president, but I had to put up with the inanity of Red Ribbon Week. I told my board it was stupid but they couldn’t see that it was an empty gesture.

Feh.

The California bike helmet law came about partly because of an incident in my neighborhood. A neighbor child fell off her bike and hit her head on a raised curb. Terrible, unbelievable head injury. She was in intensive care following surgery, and in the bed next to her was a boy with a similar injury, a skateboarder who hit his head on a raised curb. He died. Both accidents were cited when the helmut law was being discussed.
I grumbled a lot when the law went into effect, but I bought them the dumb helmets and made them wear them.

Where I live now, 2 miles north of Disneyland, I do see kids playing on my street all the time but that’s mainly because it’s a cul-de-sac. The houses were built in 1947, half of the original owners still live here, and we all try to get to know anyone new who moves here; we are a community despite the fact that half are of us are immigrants. It’s funny, but one of the old geezers is referred to as our mayor.

Now I live in a VERY safe city — Naperville, IL, often rated the best city in the nation in which to raise a family — and the kids are invisible. You NEVER see them. They are at home, at school or in structured activity. No kids outside, ever. Like we have been hit by a neutron bomb. Unbelievable.

“Quality Time” is yuppie bullshit. Parenting is hard work. You gotta do the time. Boring, hard work sometimes. Like in a factory, not always swell, but sometimes necessary.

I appreciate folks who don’t want to have kids, like my own brother or my brother-in-law, but they’re like priests talking about sex when it comes to kids… it’s tough to balance the marriage, the safety, the money, the culture.

My own choice (and my wife’s) was to let them experience the culture and explain it to them as it was washing over them with so much fear bullshit like that damn DARE crap… (remember DARE?)

Informed, educated, financially stable families and citizens will reinvigorate our democracy… or it’s back to the feudal European societies our Founding Fathers longed to leave behind…

You know what’s funny, folks?

The world isn’t all that scary, really. Even here in America. Even in a big city like San Antonio.

Maybe the reason I’m not so damned terrified is that I’m not saturating myself in the murder and mayhem that is network TV (news and entertainment). But maybe I’m that way because maybe things aren’t as crazy as some people would have us believe.

I think they want us scared, and keep us scared. Marilyn Manson just blew my mind in Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine when he nailed the fear factor as being used against us…for a reason.

Bingo.