101–110 of 203 posts
To me at least, a cop arguing that it's not safe to walk around town, is a cop saying they have failed to do their job. If our towns have actually become so dangerous recently, and that's not what the statistics say, then it seems like there's a whole other discussion we need to have. I don't think the world is more dangerous though, I think the average American has become more isolated and fearful over the past 25 y…
I don’t know what is up with the USA and its obsession that kids cannot have autonomy. I think many of us grew up where our parents didn’t know our location at all times. My parents used to tell me to be home by a certain time, but I used to roam the neighborhood, go get candy at the gas station, explore the forest. Maybe it is a sign of the eroding social trust in the USA where people do not believe that others in t…
> I don’t know what is up with the USA and its obsession that kids cannot have autonomy. This is a news story and a controversy because it's a weird thing that happened. The US is a big place. Societal norms and law enforcement practices vary widely from location to location. This appears to be one sheriff pushing a personal agenda.
When I was five years old I would walk along a path and take a bridge across a river to visit my friend to play board games. By the time I was nine I was bicycling forty-five minutes to school on a 80 km/h road. The level of paranoia that's infected people around keeping kids near their parents is insane.
Yes, but. For all of the happy survivor stories like yours (and mine), the reality is that the rate of child accidental deaths has steadily decreases over the past few decades as parents (and society) became more protective. That isn't to say I agree with over-parenting and eliminating independence -- I don't -- but there needs to be rationality applied as well as personal values.
It's also decreased as the amount of environmental lead has decreased.
It's also decreased as the number of computer screens has increased.
It's also decreased as sugar consumption has increased. (Are parents actually being protective as they feed more sugar to their kids?)
As has our consumption of GMOs.
It's also decreased as government-mandated product, automobile, and housing safety standards have increased (which is different from parents becoming more protective!).
A rational response would be to hold off on highlighting any specific correlation until establishing that it's more meaningful than other alternatives.
Seems like it would be a good idea to catch the people who are running over kids, instead of forcing them to spend their childhood in a virtual prison.
I don’t know what is up with the USA and its obsession that kids cannot have autonomy. I think many of us grew up where our parents didn’t know our location at all times. My parents used to tell me to be home by a certain time, but I used to roam the neighborhood, go get candy at the gas station, explore the forest. Maybe it is a sign of the eroding social trust in the USA where people do not believe that others in t…
See, the USA has 350 million people, and fifty states with materially different local norms. With this scale and amount of variety, "one in a million" freak incidents ought to be registered all the time. But, being freak incidents, they get amplified and thus seem to represent the entire country in the eyes of distant observers, foreigners, or just people from far enough away within the US. Ironically, this is the sa…
I don’t know what is up with the USA and its obsession that kids cannot have autonomy. I think many of us grew up where our parents didn’t know our location at all times. My parents used to tell me to be home by a certain time, but I used to roam the neighborhood, go get candy at the gas station, explore the forest. Maybe it is a sign of the eroding social trust in the USA where people do not believe that others in t…
> I don’t know what is up with the USA and its obsession that kids cannot have autonomy. This is a news story and a controversy because it's a weird thing that happened. The US is a big place. Societal norms and law enforcement practices vary widely from location to location. This appears to be one sheriff pushing a personal agenda.
Unfortunately it's not - there's a whole "child safety" department behind them, ready with a "safety plan" and even an app that they're going force the poor kid to install. This kind of stuff doesn't happen without the coordination of external bodies, and decades of societal shift in favor of this kind of control-oriented parenting (and blind faith in technical solutions toward this end), also at institutional levels:
A few days later, DFCS presented Patterson with a "safety plan" for her to sign. It would require her to delegate a "safety person" to be a "knowing participant and guardian" and watch over the children whenever she leaves home. The plan would also require Patterson to download an app onto her son's phone allowing for his location to be monitored. (The day when it will be illegal not to track one's kids is rapidly approaching.)
I don’t know what is up with the USA and its obsession that kids cannot have autonomy. I think many of us grew up where our parents didn’t know our location at all times. My parents used to tell me to be home by a certain time, but I used to roam the neighborhood, go get candy at the gas station, explore the forest. Maybe it is a sign of the eroding social trust in the USA where people do not believe that others in t…
In other hand despite the US has never been the role model of safety or courteousness towards each other yet the seemingly increasing trend of gun and drug related violence could cause short circuit in the head of those overloaded, especially when they are responsible and scrutinised by a litigious society for any and every tiny mishap with inflated theoretical consequences that should have been precluded with tenths of seconds reaction time and infallible divination.
I wonder how many people these days think that they're going too light on her, and are thirsting for stricter penalties?
So what we see here are the very real ramifications of a media-driven crime hysteria. The deputy noted that the child could be "kidnapped". You will see claims like "800,000 children are kidnapped every year". The media loves to drum up fear. The vast majority of these cases are custody disputes. Actual cases of children being kidnapped by strangers? Fewer than 100 per year, probably a lot fewer [1]. This is a small…