Said Warees Majeed, a founder of a group that works with troubled youth in Washington, quoted in "‘I Honestly Believe It’s a Game’: Why Carjacking Is on the Rise Among Teens/The crime has made a resurgence across the country over the past two years, and many of those arrested are startlingly young" (NYT).
The top-rated comment over there is: "Well, the youth are certainly in crisis. But the idea that the pandemic is driving little children to callous, murderous acts is absurd on its face. As the article itself points out, pandemic restrictions were dropped in most places a long time ago and carjackings persist. I will never in my life shake the sickness in my belly I felt after watching the video of the DC carjackers who killed the Uber driver. After stealing his car and killing him, one of the teen girls wails that she left her cell phone in his car and she needs to go back and get it. No reaction to what she had done or to the lifeless body of the man she had just killed lying in the street. She just wanted her cell phone back. Something is seriously broken in parts of our American culture and we need to have an honest discussion about what it is."
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Honest discussion *snort*... good luck with that here.
I am sure the same old boogeymen will be trotted out yet again, like moldy Mardi Gras parade costumes.
For a few it might be a game, but based on the number of recovered, they're either being shipped overseas or stripped for parts. I guess the mobs ransacking stores or people just shoplifting armloads of stuff happens because they're bored?
"Something is seriously broken in parts of our American culture and we need to have an honest discussion about what it is."
An honest discussion? You first, commentator. Progressivism is the ideology that cancels honest discussion.
Seriously broken? And who, pray tell, broke it? Who likes it broken?
Ask Hunter Biden. He is the poster boy for the me me me me generation. with power to back it up. Good news, he doesn't need to jack cars and kill people, his power brokers can skip that stuff.
I think it's plausible that teenagers are experiencing a loss of hope with regard to the future after the last two years. The media has always pushed the latest crisis. With Covid, the media covered almost nothing else for two years, and the Covid shutdown effected them personally. Teenagers may even have realized that most of the trusted agencies in our government failed us.
Teachers are seeing this in the classroom. Students don't seem to know much, and don't care that they don't know. Teenagers may not describe it as a lack of hope in a future, but have a general feeling that playing the game doesn't matter much anymore because life got so random.
Majeed is not 100% wrong. I remember some of the things my friends and I got up to when we were "between the yard and the car." Our mischief often involved gasoline and small explosives. Beavis and Butthead was more a documentary than a parody.
In each of the incidents of this type, the first question should be: Where is the father? What is the family structure? What social programming is the family enrolled in or making use of? The phenomenon should be characterized as the pathology that it clearly is, and evaluated and treated as such - instead of as a political football.
In having been in the same room as some people with strong near-militant views and overhearing their conversations, violence or retribution is sometimes indeed taught as justice, fairness, equity, or whatnot.
"XYZ people are terrible."
"You know that's true."
]
"XYZ people want to kill ABC people."
"Um hum. You know that's true."
---
Without good will and shared moral standards we are destined to be a country characterized by tribalism and small territories ruled by race, color, ethnicity, or ideology. Be it D.C., Portland Oregon, Texas, or whatnot. You know that's true.
Here in Boulder Colorado - young dudes are stealing "puffers"
Puffers or cars left unattended and running to warm up on the driveway.
(yeah - dumb) but people do it and it's amazing because property crime along with the transient/druggie population is sky-rocketing in every corner of our town. Even areas formerly crime-free.
One guy posted a clear as day video shot of the young guy in a mask taking off with his already-running car.
If you're wise enough to get cameras placed around your home, I'd like to think you are wise enough to refrain from leaving your keys in an already running car sitting there for the taking. but whatever.
I'm sure Putin poisoned their brains.
It doesn't say what the race of the girls is, so I assume they're black.
As the mother of a teenage boy, I do agree that teens need a safe outlet for adrenaline-fueled escapades. I got my 13-year old on downhill skis for the first time this year and it's the perfect activity: risky, independent (I can drop him off at the ski hill for a day) but also safe at the same time.
And it's not true that teens are back to their regular activiites. In Madison, the Boys and Girls Club is still closed to programming. And even when programs have resumed, the kids haven't necessarily come back.
"Something is seriously broken in parts of our American culture and we need to have an honest discussion about what it is."
Yes, these called-for "honest discussions" have worked wonders. What the WAPO commenter really means is shut up and listen to us tell you how your racism wrecked the society, so we can throw another trillion at it in community activist skim offs and social worker jobs.
And AA, many thanks for the top-commenter quotes today. They usually are more insightful to me than the article itself.
But don't you dare bring up the prevalence of single parent Black families, or Black men who have children with multiple women, who they then do not support. Nor the ugly thug/gangsta rap glorifying violence and degrading women.
No siree. We cannot talk about that.
It MUST be institutional racism. For sure.
"Something is seriously broken in parts of our American culture and we need to have an honest discussion about what it is."
I'm curious whether any kind of "honest discussion" ensued. Seems like people are far more inclined to call for a conversation about a controversial subject than they are to BEGIN the conversation by actually stating what they think.
"Something is seriously broken in parts of our American culture and we need to have an honest discussion about what it is."
It's the inner-city black part of our American culture; they're doing the carjackings, the violent attacks on elderly Asians, the pushing of people onto subway tracks, and of course the miscellaneous creepy shit. Nobody else is doing this stuff - something the dishonest propaganda/article doesn't mention.
Well...I'll try to keep this short, but you know me.
Baltimore, MD, a sister city to our nation's capital, had a report that just came out 3 weeks ago. The report discussed reading and math levels for high school kids in the City of Baltimore. At one of the largest high schools in the district, Patterson, they found..."...628 Patterson High School students took the test. Out of those students, 484 of them, or 77%, tested at an elementary school reading level. That includes 71 high school students who were reading at a kindergarten level and 88 students reading at a first-grade level. Another 45 were reading at a second-grade level. Just 12 students tested at Patterson High School, were reading at grade level, which comes out to just 1.9%."
Just a small sampling you say? I agree. What if we also looked at national reading and math scores in Baltimore, Newark, Detroit, Cleveland, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, and Phoenix? What do you suppose we'd find?
We've been throwing out the kids in our inner cities for decades. It's now to the point where we are handing them degrees from high schools and they cannot even read the diplomas they are given, let alone figure out how to manage their lives in this world.
So they learn nothing in our schools. Baltimore, by the way, spends $16,000 per student per year. So it's not for lack of money. These kids know only what they are taught in the streets: drug dealing, drug language, fighting over nothing, stealing, and...just trying to get through the day and week, not thinking about any realistic future.
So, yanking a car? Sure. That sounds energizing. Sounds dangerously fun. They've tried everything else.
The problem is what we've done to so many of these kids. Thousands of them, generations of them. Like they are disposable people.
If there is no dispute about the guilt and no mitigating circumstances murderers should be executed within two years of conviction.
when a crook takes over the top spot, and that crook was sanctioned by big tech and big media- kind of gives a green light to lesser crimes.
Plus - all of the Soros DA's all over the US are looking the other way on what they deem petty crime - which is most crime. This is why $999 of free shop-lifting is OK in CA.
I'm sure it's Putin's fault. He controls everything now.
"Something is seriously broken in parts of our American culture and we need to have an honest discussion about what it is."
Public executions for sociopaths like the carjacker murderers in the story would be a good start at fixing the broke parts.
Mohammad Anwar - that was the name of the uber driver.
What's "broken" is the predominance of thug culture and the fact that we're living in the age of self-indulgence.
I detected a dog whistle in that paragraph
what ethnicity were these girls? sounds like white privilege, don't it?
"No reaction to what she had done or to the lifeless body of the man she had just killed lying in the street. She just wanted her cell phone back. Something is seriously broken in parts of our American culture and we need to have an honest discussion about what it is."
I'll offer the cause: the constant attack on & belittlement of the three Fs - faith, family, freedom [from unnecessary government].
Faith, principally the Judeo-Christian ethic
Family, traditional nuclear in character
Freedom, from government coercion. This would be a natural consequence from the first two elements as both faith and family instill a sense of self-government. The more lawlessness, the more government those who want rule us will force on us. In short, lawlessness plays into the hands of those who want big government.
John Adams, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
This just sounds like a lame excuse for criminal behavior. Give the kids a ball, bat, bicycle to burn off their energy and play outside. Have an outdoor block party with music and dancing. But, I have a feeling that these kids are a different breed from teens in in the past and from other parts of the country. These inner-city kids have grown up to be sadistic and amoral from lack of adult guidance and love. A bunch of psychopaths and sociopaths. Pandemic or no pandemic there is a certain group of kids that will go out and kill an Uber driver for no reason and with no regret. Their iPhone is more important to them than a human life. This is truly beyond frightening. What a pity. A lost generation that is a menace to its own society.
The obvious solution is to defund and demoralize the police even more.
Also, more bail reform so that violent criminals are always released RoR.
And we should also do more to consider disparate impact in sentencing.
Anything else from the progressive wish list on how to destroy a society?
Is atavism making a comeback?
Asking for a friend.
I often wonder whether attitudes toward abortion influence attitudes about the value of life generally.
Bullshit that kids steal cars out of boredom. More a lifelong, product of utter neglect and bad culture, autistic-like disregard for human life, and valorization of such actions by their peers and whatever parents are around.
Have you ever had a gun held to your head? The entire justice system is hellbent to make us accept this. It's a deadly forced blowjob delivered by weapon. But we're supposed to minimize it.
Keep on trucking Democrats. May you enjoy your steel down the throat.
And there are five government funded "programs" for every deprived child. That's just a lie.
I believe here's a word for people who turn to violent crime for amusement: sociopaths.
the Really GOOD NEWS is; since the girls were 15 (and 13?), no matter What race they are, They won't face ANY charges/jail-time/wrist-slaps for this murder.
GOD Bless the American "Justice" system, that says that teens can Kill, ANYONE they want;
Without Any Penalties.. Is This a Great Country, or What!
Well, what's wrong with our culture is that we have kicked God out. No prayer and bible in schools for years, ridicule of Christianity in our culture and the worst possible example among our political and corporate leadership.
There will be no “ honest discussion”.
"Something is seriously broken in parts of our American culture and we need to have an honest discussion about what it is."
Defund the Police raised to the power of BLM.
Da troubled yoots playing dis game have been taught to hate, to believe themselves to be entitled to whatever they want no matter the consequences. Couple this with proglodyte prosecutors who protect criminals rather than the law-abiders and the inevitable result is chaos.
After stealing his car and killing him, one of the teen girls wails that she left her cell phone in his car and she needs to go back and get it.
Entitlements generated by the Defund The Police efforts.
You don't get laid doing something safe.
Everybody knows, and doesn't mention, the facts about these kids. Definitely a case of "disparate impact" on drivers. We all know this.
Progressive lawlessness is in. Haven't you noticed??
Carjackers, like arsonists and looters, should be shot on site. This shouldn't even be a discussion.
I detected a dog whistle in that paragraph
You should read it out loud and see if your dog starts reacting to a strange sound.
Absolute criminal and civil immunity for killing or wounding violent criminals while commited a violent crime. Removal of qualified immunity for cops and prosecutors will also go a long way and finally requiring anyone 15 and over to pass a GED to be able to apply for benefits. Stop subsidising crime and stop incentivizing crime will diminish crime.
Remember the outcry at the violence of Straw Dogs? Besides, "They're Kids" they can get away scot free. Got a friend who worked with "at risk" kids. Said the EEGs were extraordinary, not in a good way. Maybe mommie smoke a little crack with the Courvoisier? She'll never tell.
Same kids playing carjack game are playing knock out game. And shoplift game. And vandalism game.
Any penalty for carjacking, or simple probation and a fine?
I guess their boredom was such that they skipped vandalism and went straight to armed robbery.
if anyone guessed that the girls were black - based on no newspaper description - you win a prize.
Because you are correct.
"... a thrill, almost like a fad."
Yeah. Like hula-hoops. Only with hand-guns.
Children are born as barbarians and need to be civilized. We have stopped civilizing them.
77%, tested at an elementary school reading level...
Baltimore, by the way, spends $16,000 per student per year.
$16,000/yr * 12yr = $192,000 (throw in Kindergarten and you're looking at: $208,000)
Tell me how, these kids wouldn't be better off; if we Just Gave them the money.. Go on, tell me
Tell me how, society wouldn't be better off; if we Just gave them the money.. Go on, tell me
Of course i'm missing the picture. Public school has NOTHING To Do with helping the students or society
Public school is ALL ABOUT providing JOBS for white women (teachers but more importantly, admins)
“ The problem is what we've done to so many of these kids. Thousands of them, generations of them. Like they are disposable people.”
WE have not done anything to these kids. Their parents have. The “black community” has. The black teachers have because the idiot left thought having “teachers who looked like them” would encourage them, but it didn’t. For the most part black teachers are much worse and play tribalist games. Just like black social workers who came out of the projects are almost always involved with criminal enterprises within the projects, if only protecting the criminals and getting kick backs for it. They certainly get the best apartments for their own family and friends.
While some of this can be blamed on the social distortion caused by slavery all of these behaviors are normal in Sub sharan African countries. Corruption, nepotism, favoritism, allowing connected people to get away with horrific crimes, using the corrupt power structures to punish your perceived enemies. They brought them with them. Of course the same is normal in South America, Asia, the Middle East and to some extent Eastern and Southern Europe. It was Christianity combined with British common law that created the closest thing humanity has ever had to justice for all, to individual rights outside of the family or tribe. But all that is “acting white” when funnily enough not all whites act that way. Blacks (and everyone else) have to CHOSE to adopt positive social behaviors. No one can impose them from the outside.
Defining deviancy down.
@Althouse, I know you live in a small city, but from an attitude perspective you do not seem to me to be a whole lot different from the white suburban women that the Democrats depend on so much. So I will ask you — do you think that there will ever come a time when lefty women like yourself recognize that everything they have done, every policy they have backed, with respect to young black people has been a total blunder? When the Madison school board sees an eleven year old fighting a teacher — and blames the teacher! — then that child is pretty unlikely to grow up to be a solid, upstanding citizen, isn’t she?
Black culture. Lefties and the democrat party have literally destroyed a people. Almost anyone coming to america from anywhere eventually overtake black Americans.
If we do not get rid of inner city government schools with vouchers and get rid of the horrible, horrible CRT that is being pushed everywhere, black Americans have no hope.
It’s monstrous what the democrat party has done to them.
I believe the carjacking thing is a substitute for UBER for kids who feel they are entitled to free stuff because they are oppressed. Their teachers tell them so.
FullMoon asked...
Any penalty for carjacking, or simple probation and a fine?
Not for minors... No penalty, no probation, no fine; They can Literally get away with Murder
Remember the outcry at the violence of Straw Dogs? Besides, "They're Kids" they can get away scot free.
The bad guys in (both) Straw Dogs were blue-collar guys in their 30's or so; you must be thinking of some other Dogs.
Said the EEGs were extraordinary, not in a good way.
"It emerged that in males but not females, (EEG) frontal alpha power at the age of 9–10 years was predictive of aggressive behavior at the ages of 14–15 years.
...
Frontal power and aggressive behavior both showed high heritability and no shared environmental influences."
+
Arrested for carjacking
This is an application of Critical Race Theory.
Fernandinande said...
Frontal power and aggressive behavior both showed high heritability and no shared environmental influences
This is TOTALLY RACIST of you to point out!
The fact that black males are prone to violence is something that MUST BE SUPPRESSED
We ALL Must continue to pretend that things that are true are not true
"Something is seriously broken in parts of our American culture and we need to have an honest discussion about what it is.'
Didn't The George Floyd Racial Reckoning Of 2020™ solve all that?
Some of them grow up to play on the sports ball teams you all root for. So there's that.
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