What are our priorities

Not really a rhetorical question, but not one I have an answer for either, ..but

I was reading the Dallas Morning News short version Thanksgiving morning and there were two stories that got me to thinking about the above question.

The main headline was that the Dow had dropped over 200 points and there were reasons discussed as to why etc.... that the Europe crisis, the inability of our Congress to get the budget situation resolved, and a bit more. This headline of course gives us the impression that a major financial event had happened. And quite frankly the dow has dropped more than 200 points I don't know how many times over the last 2 decades that I cannot see this as a major catastrophe at this point. Yes I can see that the ongoing crisis in Europe is a major concern even for us, but the dow losing 200, not that big of a deal anymore.

The comparison story was not a headline, but inside the paper. Apparently 4 or 5 12-14 year olds had ganged up on and eventually killed another person over a phone. This was done at a DART rail station and actually witnessed by some people who apparently had yelled at the kids to stop, but eventually the victim was hit by the train (sorry details a bit sketchy about the story, I read this two days ago and have been wanting to write about this, but things get in the way so I don't remember everything well) and dragged a ways.

To me the story about the kids is a much more troubling story that needs some more examination. It seems similar stories are starting to crop up more and more throughout cities in the U.S.. If kids this age are more concerned about a phone than another person in general what does this say as a society that we are becoming. This shows there is serious lack of engagement for these kids about social norms, and probably means serious lack of engagement from their parents. When you think of gangs of children roaming the streets hitting on people for whatever they want or what they can get you think more  of a third world country, but really for third world countries you can think that some of what they do is survivial, doesn't make it right, but there are explanations. For this to be happening in our country shows something more hideous going on and that is these kids are not being taught values, sanctity of life, ethics, and the list could go on. And quite frankly we are in a country where the above could be taught. This seems like though that we now have generations of families where all this is lost. Kids don't get this bad unless there is nothing in there life that gives them purpose. Serious problem folks.

And I don't have a specific answer, I blog on the economy excessively and ignore issues like this, and this seems to mirror where our press has their priorities, but we have to find answers and soon if we are to again show that the US can excel as a country. The second story is a sympton of a society falling into disarray. The economy is one problem, but there are other causes, our excessive desire for material possessions, greed, but not just greed, but a sense that having something makes us more desirable, the cavalier attitude towards others that you see not just in this episode, but in daily life, where people cut each other off in traffic, or ignore other people in trouble. I don't want to say the people who saw the attack, but didn't intervene  were wrong because quite frankly how many of us really know how to stand up and do something direct in this situation. I know I would be hard pressed to jump in unless I actually had help doing that.

To really go into this subject would take more than a simple blog about it and there are tons of articles, reports, etc that discuss this happening in our society. It basically goes back to the title of this blog, what are our priorities. I think, myself included, we need to really address this as a whole and start to re educate ourselves to what it means to have a society that represents the values of our country.

One other quick note, I don't find this to be a problem just coming from poor people, poverty has its issues, and poverty tends to reflect this problem more, but I see kids coming from well to do families without any values, parents spending money to avoid their children having to face consequences for their actions etc... we  are losing our moral compass in this country. Now is this the majority of our country, no, but it is growing as a problem way too fast.