THE ROOT CAUSE OF JUVINILE CRIME AND GANGS

Brent Anderson

Our Nation is beset with an expanding wave of destructive youthful behavior that has at last even caught the attention of Congress. The people of our country are demanding action in response to the growing crises. The strident left in Washington DC believe that the solution is to spend our money to educate the growing minority of our youth who are involved in gangs and crime. They seemingly have forgotten that throwing money at social problems has never worked and in some cases has proved to exacerbate the problem that it was designed to alleviate. Recent reforms in welfare benefits spearheaded by the States have proven that such policies only made professional welfare recipients of many in the system.

The underlying cause of youth problems has always been the fact that rebellion is a normal phase for most young people as they work to distance themselves from their parents. This commonality is seen in youngsters worldwide and has been a pattern since mankind’s first records. It is very normal for youth to rebel, and indeed, it is so critical that it is a part of our genetic code. Through this youthful rebellious questioning, past societies evolved by incorporating a few of the new (old) viewpoints of the questioning young. However, in our society the young increasingly find themselves rebelling in an ethical vacuum in which they perceive all restraints as remote, if not non-existent. The majority of parents of these out of control young people have completely bought our liberal media's campaign against religion-based ethics. As a consequence, they are so bent on the hedonistic pleasures of the flesh, as extolled by Hollywood, that they have left the young people on a playing field with absolutely no rules. Can it be any surprise then that the children are mindlessly rebelling against every aspect of society? To this time, the best effort that our society has been able to martial in its battle with juvenile crime is to bring justice to the young perpetrators with ever increasing severity. This is a step in the right direction, but the root of the problem continues to flourish, and this root is the moral bankruptcy of "liberated parents". They who have willingly discarded the ethics born of thousands and hundreds of thousands of years of trial and error are truly at the heart of the problem.

The adherents of the "new age philosophy", in their haste to discard anything that smacks of religious teaching, fail to realize that the concepts that they now embrace have been espoused many times in the past. Each time most of these new (old) philosophies have been tried, they have failed, bringing collapse to once shinning civilizations along with the pain and death brought about by the uncontrolled revolution of a generation with no moral underpinnings. The "new" intellectuals with their large egos are always sure that their "new ideas" have never been thought of before and in this they completely ignore the history of our race. If they were to study the same history texts they used in high school, which they have evidently forgotten, they would remember the almost infinite number of mistaken philosophies that have ended in total disaster.

The word "tradition" is a foul oath to the new age worshippers; however, tradition represents the sum total of mankind's experience to the moment. It was and is born of the trial and error of vast ages of time. The function of tradition is like the foundation of a building; it provides the stability that allows for growth and progress. This foundation provides the basis for success in the family, the village and hence, whole nations. It is within these structures that children have been raised successfully for ages. The results have been that most such children became responsible adults who in turn pass on traditions that are successful tools in raising children. Within the loving, caring confines of these ancient institutions there are rules that the young can stretch and bang against in their rebellious years, and then comfortably settle into as they mature. They then, as their parents before them, ratify a slightly changed tradition that incorporates the wisdom of thousands of generations. Of course, within the body of tradition, there are facets that are of little value or that are hopelessly outdated, and this is to be expected. It is these that youth can rebel against and change to make "better traditions". The importance of these flaws cannot be underestimated, for without them, youth would cut their teeth on intrinsically valuable rules. The truths of each new, young generation have a way of eventually becoming the rallying cry of a future youthful rebellion. However, it is critical for any society that a few core rules remain unchanged, for they are basic to a stable society, village, or family. Compare the old traditions with those being established by the youthful leaders of gangs, and you find almost complete corruption of that which has worked in the past. Loyalty is probably the only surviving principle, while murder, rape, theft, prostitution, and free love are the new orders of the day.

It does not matter where you look in history, where there was success of a people or culture; there you would find the same rules. Granted they would be expressed differently, but always they are there. Conversely, if you look at times of turmoil and rebellion that ended those same societies you would find that those basic rules had been perverted or eliminated. It does not matter whether these basic rules originate from religious or secular sources; they will always be present where people are happy and prosperous. While it may seem trite, it is never the less true, that the seeds of success or destruction are sown in the home. I am sure that it will offend many, but the Judeo-Christian Ten Commandments typify these immutable rules for success. That does not mean that that code of conduct is known only within those societies based upon that heritage, for these concepts are universal within the human race whether Eastern, Western, Southern, or Northern.

The rebellion of the young in any society is fueled by very fundamental genetic urges. Hence, they are very difficult to control, even within a tightly knit family with a strong set of ethics. The most formidable of these is the hormone-driven sexual bombshell that strikes formerly innocent children. For the harried parents, this change seems to occur overnight, and its impact is greatest with young males. The lust it brings to these emerging men gives meaning to the word stupefying. It of course is natural and necessary that young men and women are highly attracted to each other, but if this process is not controlled it leads to complete disintegration of society. Left to their own devices, the young males and to a certain extent young females would descend to a state of complete animalistic debauchery. One does not have to look far today to see the results this brings.

Even in very primitive cultures, the aggression of young males is very tightly controlled, because to let them grow up without such is destabilizing. Indeed, in our own modern culture in which self-restraint has become unpopular, we can see the results of lack of control in the rise of criminal gang activity, murder and unmarried girls giving birth. Unfortunately, these behaviors are self-perpetuating, like an out of control nuclear reaction. They breed an ever-increasing number of young men who are out of control. This vicious circle of events must be stopped. Just as the control rods in a nuclear furnace remove excess neutrons to control what otherwise would be an out of control chain reaction so the out of control young men must somehow be removed from society until they are able to control themselves. To not do so is to risk a complete melt down of our society. We must accompany this with a strong program of teaching the ageless values that have worked throughout history. There is no other way to do this than to repudiate the leftist new age ethics that have produced this crisis. The changes that must be made are at the roots of society (each of us). But perhaps more importantly, we must convince those who control the media that they to must teach the importance of high ethics and morality. That is not to say that they must embrace religion, which they seemingly hate, but rather that they teach those ethics which have always worked for mankind. Granted this is more difficult than the course they currently follow of displaying violence and sex in their extremes. Obviously, this sort of material appeals to animal in all of us. The other side of human nature is to revere acts of selflessness, honesty, chastity, and pure love. Can we not find joy in the stories of men and women who rise above the challenges of life? Is there no happiness to be found in forsaking that, which is base, self-serving and corrupt, for love of all mankind and striving to reach seemingly unreachable goals?

These sentiments have always been a part of our culture, and they are still there in many homes in America. The answer to our social problems lies with each of us individually. Will we continue to support the media’s corrupting influence with our time and money? Will we demand that ethics be taught in our schools? Will we support laws that remove youthful criminals from society until they come to their senses? Will we give our time and energy to help our fellow man and woman in raising, teaching and controlling the youth in our neighborhoods, schools and churches? These questions I ask of you, not some unknowable multitude, for this change must come from each of us.

Copyright 2001