From: gln@cs.arizona.edu (Gary L. Newell)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.celtic
Subject: Re: Ugly Americans-It's not our fault
Date: 15 Oct 92 18:42:13 GMT
Organization: U of Arizona CS Dept, Tucson

In article <1992Oct14.172458.1854@infotec.ch>, guy@infotec.ch (Guy) writes:
> Interesting. But how can anyone explain that the European 
> countries where these violent types originated from
> have much lower rates of violent crime than the USA ?

There is any number of proposed reasons for the rate of violent crime.
First, we have a society based on the concept of freedom and liberty. 
Our constitution (some believe) guarantees the right to "bear arms". This
means that we as a society have more privately owned firearms than
any country on earth - we also have few restrictions on the press
and media and thus violence has become a rather common sight to
our youth who witness countless murders/mutilations and general
violence played out on movie screens and tv. Combine this with the
inherent discrepencies of those who have and those who have not and
you have a situation ripe for violence. Of course 12 years of divide
and conquer politics of the Republicans has not done much to help
our society reduce traditional tensions between various segments
of the population.

> Scottish and Irish people also went to Australia, New Zealand
> and Canada. If they carried with them a violent culture,
> what happened to it ? These places are today safer for a 
> young man than US cities.

 True - but no safer than most non-urban areas of the US. Drugs and
poverty have created sub-cultures that have in effect replaced many of
the traditional cultures Americans were exposed to in years past. I
am no believer in the Bush administrations "family values" garbage but
I do think tat gangs for example are clearly an attempt by inner city
youth to replace the order and sharing that was found through family and
community in the past - if only those who preach family values now
were willing to spend the money to strengthen the inner-city
environment rather than effectively destroy it and then point fingers 
ridiculing the "lack of family values" there would be, in my opinion,
much less violence - but of course it is much easier to spout off 
about "free choice of schools" than it is to realize that such a voucher
program is doomed for failure and will result in an even more isolated
population of inner city minorities who will see their tax dollars
spent subsidizing private schools in the suburbs as their schools
continue to deteriorate.


> Maybe the USA has a violent culture because violence was
> needed to remove the indigenous peoples so that Europeans
> could have the country ?

 I doubt it. If this is the case then the Aussies would have the
same culture - no? Before attacking Americans for the demise of
native Americans one should realize that this holds true for all but
a minority of European cultures which came to the new world - with 
the exception perhaps of the French, I would say the settlers of
the new world were pretty intent on destroying existing cultures
whereever they found them...

> Perhaps Australia and New Zealand are more peaceful because
> there were fewer aboriginal people to kill before
> establishing European "civilisation". Once started, cruelty 
> is a kind of information which has a life of its own.

 Hmm.. this clarifies your point a bit more - perhaps but it seems unlikely
to me as frankly it does not explain the frightening violence amongst
inner-city minority youth aimed at themselves and not others...


			gln