I know here in Australia it is not the store that gets punished for selling to minors it is the person who sold it, that gets the fine.

Quote (George W Carver @ June 08 2006, 1:06 pm)

When a 10 year old misbehaves, I don't blame the 10 year old. I blame the parents, after all he learns his behavior at HOME. Change the environment and he may learn different values.

I completely agree.

I know we can never go back to the days (when I was a kid) and you could be a teenager and buy a shotgun at the local hardware store.  You could also purchase beer and wine, easily claiming you were taking it home to Dad (and you better be doing just that 'cause Dad would find out).

The cops never got involved.  It was a community with standards and everybody basically worked together to live together and deal with what little miscreants we had.

It's just so sad that everything has a law (seatbelts, underage drinking, adult games... whatever).

Sooner or later every person in society will break at least a dozen laws a day and it will just be up to the cops do decide which poor individual gets the cuffs on any given day.

Quote (dysfunctional @ June 09 2006, 9:23 pm)

I know we can never go back to the days (when I was a kid) and you could be a teenager and buy a shotgun at the local hardware store.  You could also purchase beer and wine, easily claiming you were taking it home to Dad (and you better be doing just that 'cause Dad would find out). The cops never got involved.  It was a community with standards and everybody basically worked together to live together and deal with what little miscreants we had. It's just so sad that everything has a law (seatbelts, underage drinking, adult games... whatever). Sooner or later every person in society will break at least a dozen laws a day and it will just be up to the cops do decide which poor individual gets the cuffs on any given day.

I agree with you on this one. It's a shame That we have to have so many laws like that. Wearing a seatbelt, for example. It's a pity that people need a law to tell them to do something that could easily save their life. It's a sad but true fact that we have to have so many laws protecting people from their own stupidity.

It's similar, although not completely the same thing, with violent games. Yes, it is possible that children can be affected by violent games. But only if they already have anger issuesor violent tendencies. In that case, the parents should be responsible enough to stop their children from playing those games. It's not the job of the government or the video game industry to raise these kids. It's their parents. And unfortunately, too many parents these days don't take their job seriously.

Whenever we make government the ' in loco parentis' we simply enslave ourselves as a society!

When a kid gets in trouble at school for fighting you don't send him to the Government to help straighten him out, you send him home and let the parents straighten him out. They rased him, you certainly don't send him to jail for fighting in school.

Quote (George W Carver @ June 09 2006, 9:39 pm)

When a kid gets in trouble at school for fighting you don't send him to the Government to help straighten him out, you send him home and let the parents straighten him out. They rased him, you certainly don't send him to jail for fighting in school.

They put the cuffs on children in school.

That is now the way to handle things.

In most cases the parents will not do anything.

The teachers and administrators either expel you or call the cops.

I saw on the news several instances last year of little children being given the plastic handcuff perp walk.

Everything is now a matter of extremes.  Under the guise of treating everybody fairly, we now treat everybody with extremes.

I really don't see how we older folks can expect the younger generations to want to pay the heavy taxes to support us as elderly when we have completely messed up their educational system and childhood in general.  We have raised a bunch of latch key kids wherein the government gives them no privacy and the cops are out looking for quotas to lock their *ss up.

But they are forced to pay for us "the older generation", just as we payed for our parents. Thats just the way it works, now if one of you guys figures out a better way we would be grateful.

We felt we had an obligation to pay.  When I got home from school, my mother was there.  Dinner was at 5:00pm.

Now,  mommy is out seeking her own profession.

Nobody is home.

Where is the obligation?

You just watch.  Just as soon as enough of us die off as a voting block the rug will be pulled.  And I don't blame 'em at all.