Respect?

Detroit mayor Dave Bing came close to nailing it yesterday at a news conference.  Referring to the city's 386 murders, the most since the 1980s and, with the population losses, a more staggering murder rate than the 714 in 1974, Bing said, "We've just lost respect for each other.  We've lost respect for life."

I think we've lost respect for other people's lives.  Sure, there have been lots of murder/suicides.  Most murders are not, though.  It's OK to kill the other guy.

I wonder, too, how accurate those numbers are.  How many other murders have taken place, but we don't know about them?  Homeless people, transients, drug deals, etc.  I'd think the number is significant, but don't know for certain.

I believe an Amherst mate from Chicago noted the Windy City had well over 500 murders in 2012, including about 25% of them kids.  "Who," he asked, "is mourning them?"  I don't think he is at all trivializing Newtown or any other mass shooting.  I guess he's echoing, in other words, what I've asked before:  How "outraged" do we need to become to actually do something?

But I realize that's easier said than done.  In fact, I don't know what needs to be done.  There are smarter people than I am who can figure that out.  But, I do have some random ideas.

I still think there's a direct connection between the violence of video games, movies, and television shows and the "loss of respect for life."  The message is sent and effectively; note the effectiveness of advertising.  And, increasingly, the message is received by our younger citizens, those who are more into video games, movies, etc.  It seems more and more of our murders are perpetrated by young people.

There's no sense of public shame any longer.  Responsibility?  Accountability?  There is none.  Note, for instance, our athletes, Hollywood-types, hippy-rock singers, and their ilk.  Many of them, to a far greater percentage than the general population it seems, do the most outrageous and hideous things.  But, because they can score TDs, make popular movies, sell a lot of CDs, the outrageous and hideous behavior is ignored.  In fact, perhaps its glorified, in a sense.  Why wouldn't a young person emulate the new "heroes?"  How many of the Detroit Lions had serious brushes with the law in the past year?  I'm not sure since I don't follow them very closely, but I think every home game was a sellout.  Now, not all of the Lions are thugs; of course not.  But the aura of thuggery exists and, perhaps, can be seen on the field with numerous silly penalties.  Shame?  Maybe we should just get rid of the word since it doesn't seem to have any meaning.

Some might say this is a stretch, but "respect for life" could well tie in to our liberal abortion laws.  It's OK to just dispose of a baby because a woman has a right to do with her body as she wishes.  (That, too, I assume includes shooting her body up with drugs or using it as a sex money maker.)  I know, I know....  But I've never, ever heard a pregnant woman say she was carrying a "fetus," talk about her "fetus."  No, it's her "baby."  But how casually we end these young lives, before they've even started.  "Respect for life?"

We've created a society/culture in which people expect to get things, to be given things, regardless of whether they've earned them.  There's no sense of accomplishment or pride in being given things without any effort.  Accomplishment and pride are, perhaps, ingredients toward respect.  "It's mine.  I want it, even if I haven't earned it or deserve it.  If you get in my way, I'll blow you away to get it."

You know, how many thousands of troops do we have in Iraq, Afghanistan, and wherever?  I wonder, but just wonder, if they could be better deployed elsewhere, perhaps on our own streets.  I know that's a very, very slippery slope, but how "outraged" are we, really?

There's more:  guns, punishment, mental illness....  But "respect" must be earned.  Earning means doing something to deserve....  Yet, too many people have this sense of entitlement.  I once saw a tee shirt that read, "I'm somebody because God didn't make no junk."  I would beg to differ.