It's Time For the United States to Take Responsibility for Its Actions!

There is a startling question that is being asked all over the world-especially America-it is a question that has been asked for many years by most everyone at one point or another. This terrifying question is this; 'Who are we going to blame today?'
The broad social trend of blaming others for our actions is probably as ancient as the action itself is. We blame evil spirits, the devil or the victim for the bad things we do. More recently it is blamed on different types of depression and mental illnesses, most times with little or no basis in any factual medical mental illness.

So, why do we let it go on, and why does society as a whole contribute to these actions? It seems it is always easier to blame others than take a little bit of responsibility for their actions. Now the way society shifts blame can be done in one of two general ways either by the person who committed the crime claiming some outside influence caused them to do this or by the fact that members of society, in fact leaders of society, like to blame anything from comic books to video games for societies ills, citing that people are warped, confused and pushed to violence by these horrible things.

These excuses are then embraced by many, especially the parents of children too caught up in their own lives to take responsibility for their children's actions. Through this article I intend to look closely at both kinds of blame shifting and show why I do not agree with it at all, I hope you will find this educational, a little entertaining and, most of all, that it will have you thinking about what I am discussing.

As for the first account, people blaming outside influences for their actions. I know there are true mental illnesses in the world that do cause problems for people, and a few which can result in violent tendencies, but I believe that of all the people claiming mental illness or some debilitating depression that less than a quarter pf those people actually have it, at best! As to those claiming spiritual influence I do believe this is also possible, but also a lot more rare than even the mental psychosis, since it is not really in the scope of this book to truly discuss the existence or non-existence of spirits and devils I will only be looking at cases that seem to be pure fabrication of spirit influence.

Andrea Yates is a recent and very famous case of someone citing that she was influenced to kill due to a mental illness. She, and her lawyers, have claimed she suffered from postpardum psychosis. For those unfamiliar with the term, postpartum psychosis is related to postpartum depression, in which a mild to severe form of depression is formed due in part to stress caused by pregnancy, childbirth, childcare and life stress of a mother. While I am not trying to say that this illness does not exist I think people jump to it very quickly to escape punishment.

Andrea Yates displayed much thought in her crime, waiting until her husband left for work, disconecting phone lines and locking doors to shut herself and her children off from the world, before commiting her murders. These actions show premeditation, intelegence and cunning in the execution of the murders. Andrea Yates was initally found guilty of her crimes but in a later appeal was found to be 'insane' and was remended to a mental hospital until a time she could be found fit to live in society again. Charles Manson is considered mentally deranged and insane, but he is still in a state prison, not a mental facility, a prison. Another good example is Scott Peterson, who is currently awaiting execution for the murder of his wife and unborn child.

Now, do not get me wrong, Scott Peterson is in the right place, he deserves the punishment he receives for his crime, which was horrible by any strech of the imagination. Now, I know what people will say, Andrea Yates suffered from a mental illness, Scott Peterson is just a horrible man. Men, too, can become depressed, anxious and stressed out. Scottpeterson could have been suffering from some mental illness at the time, does that mean he should get off for what he did? No, of course not! What Scott Peterson did was a terrible crime, and he needs to be punished for it, then again, so does Andrea Yates.
Now, Yates is far from the first to cry depression and not even the first to cry postpartum depression, I could go on and on about many who have done the same. The fact is, depression in not an excuse to kill or become violent, if you do feel you are becoming violent because of depression reasons, please seek help. There is no reason to hurt youself or others when help is available.

Another easy scapegoat is to say that someone was forced to do actions by 'the devil' or a demon or other such nasty spirit. This was the case for David Berkoqitz, the infamous 'Son of Sam' who said that he was being given commands from a 3,000 year old demon that inhabited the body of a black lab that lived close to Berkowitz. Later in life, Berkowitz admitted he had created the story just as an excuse to plead insanity so he could escape incarciration. Though he is of course not the first or last to do so. Richard Ramierez, the feard 'Night Stalker' was a drug user and claimed to be a satanist who commited crimes for his 'dark master.' Ramirez went on a large killing spree and was a terror to California. Luckily, spiritual influences are not ussually taken very seriously in court and in our mordern era no one has been set free due to being forced into the service of the devil or demon dogs.

It is just another excuse used to try and displace the blame, an excuse that is propagated by a large portion of society. The Christian church has long stated that the devil is the enemy of God and will cause you to do horrible things, this has been used to scare people for centuries, and now is used as an excuse to commit crime. Remember though, that the bible does say you have free will, only by willfully given up that will can Satan and his goons take control, so you might want to find another excuse before stealing a car.

The second main issue of this article is the way in which society itself conspires to create excuses and reasons for people's actions. We blame popular culture, TV, Video games, movies, comic books for our problems and ills. The oldest of such blame games go back into ancient times when our ancestors would blame devils and spirits for peoples actions, thereby releasing them of guilt and responsibility. These same actions are repeated in our modern era, the game is the same we just changed the rules a little bit.

Lets start our look at these modern 'witch hunts' by taking a look at EC, a comic book publisher, and the array of problems that plauged them. EC stands for Entertaining Comics, a comic publisher that was ran by William Gaines, who inherited the comic company from his father Maxwell Gaines. At the time, the company was publishing Biblical themed and education comics, when William took over he and his colleuges changed that and began creating horror comics, the most famous (or infamous of these) being Tales from the Crypt. The Crypt title, and the other similar titles published, featured tales of ghastly horror; zombies, vampires, murder and ghosts to name a few of the bizzare tales published by EC.

The blame game with EC started with Dr. Fredric Wertham, a psychologist whose book Seduction of the Innocent attacked comics and cited them as the reason for teenage deliquiency. The idea took firm hold in American culture and soon the US sentate held hearings in which Gaines was formally questioned as to the moral content of his publications. With increased pressure from the government the Comics Code Authority was created and most of what Gaines published was banned. Soon, Gaines and his company left comics entirely, but can still be read in Mad Magazine.

What is odd about all this is the fact that people like Steven Speilberg, Steven King, George Lucas and so many others claim that EC was a great influence and inspiration to them. I guess that juvenile delequincy is also linked to success, fame riches and becoming a respected celebrity!

More recently in our culture, we have come to blame video games, movies and TV for the same thing. Most notably, the Grand Theft Auto seris and similar games have come under fire by police, psychologists, sentors and parents. They say the games are so violent that they cause people to kill. It is because of these games that children, teens, adults and basicly anyone who plays them goes out and kills or hurts people. After all, people have blamed the game as reasons for their crimes right? Yes, they have, and the reasoning is fairly simple, other people buy it and feed into it, thus taking responsibility from the criminal. TV also gets blamed for this kind of activity, such as when professional wrestling is blamed for injuries which occur when children immitate the actions of wrestlers, ending in the tragic death of a young child when his older brother 'power bombed' the youth.

Music is often quoted as reasons for suicide and murder, the famous example being of the tragic 'Columbine' shooting was blamed on the teenagers obsession with the gothic subculture and violent music, such as Marilyn Manson. My question to the readers is this, where are these kids parents? What are they doing? I work, I have kids, my wife and myself monitor what my son can and cannot watch and listen to. Of course this is only because I don't think he needs to hear it, not because he will act violently because of a song or movie, I teach him the difference between fantasy and reality and make sure he is aware that real life actions have real life consequences. Anyone who is impressionable enough to actually go out and commit violence due to song lyrics or video games should be locked up in an isolation tank and never allowed to see or hear anything ever again.

I don't play Grand Theft Auto, I don't particularly care for overly violent music, though I do play some games and watch horror movies. I have never dressed up in a hockey mask and wielded a chainsaw against unsuspecting teens at a remote campground or gone on a murderous rampage in a Captain Kirk mask. What happened to blaming people for their actions, to letting those who commit the crimes take responsibility for their choices? Why are we making excuses for them, letting them off morally, if not legally? I believe we, as a society, need to grow up just a little bit and start placing blame where it belongs, squarley upon the shoulders of those who commit crimes. We also need to startt holding parents accountable for their kids actions, don't let them pawn it off on the video games, the music or the TV. Here is the beauty part of being a parent, if you don't want your children to listen to a certain music or watch certain programs or play certain games, don't let them! Take the time, the effort and the responsibility for what your kids are doing! Yes, they will be exposed to some things you disaprove of through friends and through mass marketing as a whole, but take the time to let them know its fake. Talk openly with them about fantasy and reality.

If nothing else, I hope you get from this article a sense of need for us, as a people and society, to stop playing this blame game. Don't let people off the hook whether it be morally or legally, make them take responsibility for all their actions, be they as small as speeding or as big as killing a family. Lets stop giving them excuses, lets stop playing the blame game once and for all.