I feel like you’ve made a break through.
I wish the same thing, more than you do. Way more.
The difference between us you believe you can legislate a “more respectful attitude” toward everything.
I know better.
Your authoritarian high modernism is the cause of your frustration. You can’t force these people to do anything, it’s counter-productive.
The more you grasp at it, the further it slips away.
Freedom is a very messy thing, not yours for you, mine for you. When people have freedom, we have to live with the choices they make.
It’s no different than raising a teenager. There will come a day when they say something to the effect of "I’m old enough to make (some) of my own decisions; and they are. It’s a natural transition. And when you permit it, you have to live with their decisions and they with the consequences of them. That’s how we learn to make better decisions, if it doesn’t kill us.
We have a lot of broken boys in this country, and we broke them. We helicoptered over them to keep them from ever failing, from handling their own bullies, etc. We tried to create a perfect world for them to grow up happy in.
While knowing full well the world is not perfect and they were going to fail and get beat up. And because we took the little failures away from, when it inevitably happens is catastrophic.
We treated them with kid gloves knowing full well life was going to punch them in the face eventually. We didn’t prepare them, we coddled them. It was mostly their mothers, but the fathers let it happen. They need FATHERS, not friends.
The males of this country are absent. Even when they are physically present. These boys need them there.
And guess what else is happening; a lot of fathers in this country are crumbling. Falling apart.
You want to make a difference? Start there. Take some of that Green Myth/Ukraine money and set up support groups for fathers. Get some knights in to talk to them.
Take some of the pressure off. Stop telling a ditch digger he’s a failure if he can’t send his son to college. Fix the schools - refocus them on the basic skills one needs to have a “good life”, not their “dream life”.
Take some of that money and invest it in technical competency. Skills. Stop lying to them by telling them they can be anything they want to be - they can’t.
Take the crit ■■■■ out of orgs like Boy’s Clubs and Boy Scouts (that last is going to take some work).
Stop lying to women by telling they can raise a boy without a man. In fact, when it comes to boys past about the age of 6, women pretty much need to shut up. They don’t know what they’re talking about and no value to add.
Help orgs that help boys without fathers, grandfathers or uncles. I don’t care if it is a church.
Stop calling being a man “toxic masculinity”. Help those who would teach them a creed to live by. A set of principles.
Those organizations are out there, struggling.
Stop suspending them from school for making a pop tart pistol.
In other words, stop ■■■■■■■ with them.
