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Editorial See other Editorial Articles Title: Keep a close eye on nerds and loners Keep a close eye on nerds and loners July 28, 2012 1:00 am Re: "Why do Americans keep shooting their fellow citizens?" Letters, July 23. Eric Bahrt wants to know why Americans keep shooting each other, and concludes that the United States is a sick society. I agree with Eric in general, but there is an explanation. American popular culture glorifies sex and violence, especially through television and movies. America also has a pervasive gun culture. And it has a high percentage of mentally disturbed young people. You will notice that most of these people who shoot up schools, shopping malls, etc, are young guys (and they are always guys, never girls) who are described as shy but polite loners by everyone who knows them. They are nerds. Nobody wants to be friends with them at school, the girls shun them, and they are often bullied. As a result, they get angry at the world. They also crave attention, because nobody ever pays any attention to them. This builds up, till finally they crack and go on a shooting spree. The mass media immediately pay them an inordinate amount of attention until the next media event wipes them off the airwaves. Other nerds watch this and notice that the way to get attention in America is to kill as many people as possible in as horrific a way as possible. So naturally there are copycat killings. There are three ways of stopping this: 1. Ban guns. This will never happen. The American gun lobby, spearheaded by the National Rifle Association, is too powerful. 2. Censor movies and TV programmes so as to eliminate - or at least reduce - violence. This too will never happen, because censorship is anathema to the American people, and they love violence. The media will never self-censor, because they know that the more violent a movie is, the more people will go to watch it and the more money the producers will make. 3. Conduct a nationwide search for people who fit the profile of young, male, shy loners. Round them up, herd them into concentration camps, and gas them. Do this systematically every five years. This will eliminate all the nerds, and with them the possibility that nerds will continue to shoot up schools and shopping malls. I would hope that this doesn't happen, because there are certain delicate issues of human rights involved. Besides that, not every nerd is a potential murderer; some of them go on to become geniuses, and you might end up killing an Einstein or two before he comes of age. Finally, I myself am a nerd, and I don't like the smell of gas. 4. Hug a nerd today. These people are basically friendless and unloved, and nobody should ever be friendless and unloved. But if people would make a conscious effort to befriend the friendless and love the unlovable, the situation would almost certainly improve. Unfortunately, this is a pipe dream, because nowadays everybody is thinking in terms of "What's in it for me?" That is my analysis, and as you can see, there are no easy solutions. But it is something for American society to think about, because the systematic denigration of nerds in America, in addition to being shameful and unjust, can have explosive consequences. Hadrian Beasley Pattaya Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 1.
#1. To: tom007 (#0)
Shutting down .gov schools, theaters, and shopping malls would be a better thing.
There are no replies to Comment # 1. End Trace Mode for Comment # 1.
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