April 13, 2001

I've recently been doing some thinking about the state of mind of Americans.  All the recent instances of road rage, school violence, and rioting have made me wonder about our golden society.   For example, in years past when a home team won a divisional playoff, there was a parade.  Now it is acceptable to go out and 'celebrate' by lighting cars on fire and causing property damage.  In our local area, the Maryland men's basketball team made it to the final four for the first time in ages.  When they lost to Duke, students took to the streets and lit things on fire and caused property damage.  Winning=riot, losing=riot.  How did this become an acceptable expression of emotion?

In Cincinnati the police have shot and killed an unarmed black teen.  Now, I personally believe that the shooting was not justified, that there are significant problems within the police force at work, but that isn't the point.  In the past, the community would have come together and protested, blocking City Hall or holding marches and vigils to voice their unanimous disapproval of the police force.  Today we have the mayor of Cincinnati declaring de facto marshal law because the community has chosen violence to demonstrate their anger at the system.  Whether you believe that the police are wrong or not, this form of civil disobedience undermines everything that they are trying to accomplish.   I saw video taken from one of the stores that was vandalized.  The first thing that the people who broke in did was check the register for cash.  This is the way to tell the police that they're wrong?  Since when did a tragedy mean that it was ok to steal a TV?

I think that most of America is looking at this and similar stories and wondering what the heck is going on.   We as a society seem to have a very short fuse lately, for whatever reason.  I know that I have found my self blindingly angry at people's poor driving habits (and I'll have you know that it is always their problem, not mine).  I consider myself to be fairly even tempered, so it is disconcerting to find that something as trivial as moving too slowly in the passing lane or someone with 15 items in the 12 or less line can anger me to such a great extent.  Why are we acting like this?  Has we become so used to the instant gratification of our needs whether it is getting cash at the ATM, or information on the internet, that the loss of this 'extra' time freaks us out?  In my opinion, America needs to take a deep breath & concentrate on doing the right thing, acting like adults and finding solutions to our problems in a manner that show us to be truly enlightened people.  The solution may not be quick in coming, but it is infinitely better than the alternative.