Most of you know I work in a women's prison, lately here in Racine there have been a lot of home invasion burglaries. Most of them are happening in daylight to the elderly. One of the officers I supervise is 6'5 and a good 240. His elderly neighbor woman about 80 or so had this happen to her.

It seems 2 men dressed in Khaki showed up and said they were inspectors and she let them in, they tied her up and took and ransacked her house.

Earlier this year this same officer has motion lights on his garge and he found 3 young men trying to jump up and unscrew the light bulbs. I expect they were up to no good. He lives a few blocks from me.


Now I normally have something close by for just such an occasion, I have had people at my door at 2 am looking for directions or some other such thing. I usually turn on the porch light open the huse door and speak through the locked storm door and I am not there unarmed. Most of those times the people get their directions and leave.

I am just wondering what is going on in society lately.

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Stan

Common sense has taken a back seat to "book smarts". : (

the perpetuation of several lies.
"work hard and you'll go far" ummm just where are we and what does your chiropractor think?
"theres good money in that line of work" good money drives a Ferrari .. and I dont see many in any line of work.
"crime does not pay" then, why do you think they do it?
"let the police take care of it / dont take the law into your own hands" gray area of late. It seems to me this created a license to steal and no the police cannot take care of it even though they might really want to.

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it just needs more voltage

Stan I also was raised around berlin wisconsin in the 40s and 50s. I doubt we hardly locked our doors and never had any trouble. I graduated from berlin high school in 1958. Drugs or MJ was unheard of back then! I guess I lived what would now be considered a sheltered life! I moved west in the early 60s and got a culture shock! I really belive all this **** started in the civil rights era and really with the viet nam protesters.
The truth is I belive every family has a skeliton in the closet with screwed up kids that are druggers or outlaw bums. I have had many friends that are/were preachers and cops. Made no differance, they have drugger/outlaw bum kids too! I think its a sign of the end times.

I'm glad that I live down here in the sticks. I read these posts from ya'll that live in crime ridden areas, and think how lucky I am. I live on the last plot of land on the original homesteaded property of my closest neighbor. But, in the same thought I wonder how much longer it will continue to be this way here. I think maybe it has something to do with it being somewhat remote, that gives the thieves pause. It's a long, rough way to town to bleed I suppose.
Probably the real reason we don't have crime out here, is the A number one type of folks out this way.
gordon

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better have that checked

You sound like my father in law, who firmly believes that there were no drug problems in the US until the Beatles brought them in ........ Try reading up a bit on drugs in America - they have been in use here since long before you were in high school. To blame drug use on civil rights and Viet Nam protesters is unbelievably naive, and worse yet, uninformed !
And just for your information, I am a Viet Nam vet ..........

Im aware ... just what do ya think was in that old peace pipe anyhow?

what FM refers to is a radical spike in its use in the era.
you know the 60's saying .."if you can remember it, you weren't there"

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it just needs more voltage

It's ALWAYS about money/drugs. They are high, knocking on doors in the day to see who's at home. Then they know when to break in. Locally two dirt bags broke into a home and unexpectedly found an elderly man. Beat him to death trying to get his pin #. When two meals on wheels volunteers showed up, they were both shot. So high. Now they're in prison for us to keep up for 80 years. Same old story.

You consider those statements to be lies?

Regarding the first one, unless you're born into money, try NOT working hard and see how far you go.

Regarding #2, I know a lot of people who have saved enough money to buy a Ferrari...but they won't waste their money on one. That's how they accumulated the money in the first place: by not wasting it on foolish status symbols.

Regarding #3, unless you're a Mafia crime boss or Pablo Escobar, crime usually will only pay for a miserable existence in poverty. That's if you don't get caught. If you get caught, your living standards might improve, but you don't have a lot of "free" time.

With #4, you have a good point.

Hey! ljmvaw124, All I can tell you or am saying that in the 4 years that I went to berlin HS, out of about 520 students freshmen to seniors, there wasnt one arrest of a student for drugs nor did I known of even one that said they even tried MJ. Now how are you going to get around that, ljmvaw?
I havent exactly lived under a rock either since I graduated in 1958, but have worked 36 years of security between the movie industry and the biggest defense contractor in the world, lockheed aircraft.
Of course their has been some drug problems since adam and eve, but dont try downing me man because I give my actual experiances saying there was no drugs in the area where I grew up in my time frame, my folks said the same thing to me too. Too bad I dont have your experiance with being around druggies. NOT! A couple more things: To start off with I worked down south in the civil rights days of 1962 to 1964. After that I worked southern california starting as a guard in the movie studios. I was there as this drug **** grew with leaps and bounds in the protester era. I also had to take some drug detection training on my job. Also had to periodicly look for drugs on my job. (I wasnt good at it). Now I can go to my home area where I grew up in wisconsin and see its bad where in my era there was zero problem. What events happened between 1960 and 1970 to change all that? You tell me!

yes I do consider them lies and of the worst kind.
even before the economy tanked I saw many people trading their health for chump change just to be in debit to their eyeballs some missing body parts for their trouble.

you may call a Ferrari a foolish investment, just as I do SUV's. If you really stop and think about it long and hard, over 90% of all your transportation would be best served in some form of sports car ... that aside ... "Good money" can afford one without the regret that stayed the checkbooks of your many.

umm ... have you seem the price tag on the long list of "bling" that adorns the average gang banger?

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it just needs more voltage

It is my experience that this sort of thing can happen anywhere at anytime. If it hasn't happened to you or your neighbor you are very lucky. Some areas see less of this stuff than others but it can still happen. Most of our problems involve daytime burglaries while the owner is away at work and the crook is not. I think the reason for this is that even stupid drugged up thugs do not like the idea of getting unwanted body piercings while someone is home. The majority of homeowners around here have at least one gun in the house. Most have more that one. The few home invasions we have had in the last few years usually involved at least one person from another part of the country where this type of stuff is more prevalent. All of them were caught and prosecuted before a judge that really doesn't like this sort of thing. These guys are smoking stuff now that makes them even more stupid than they already were. Just a few minutes ago I read about some kind of "bath salts" that cause some pretty scary halucinations. I haven't run into this yet but I expect to in the future. "Dang it, were outa meth, let's try some of this bath salt stuff." I used to leave my doors unlocked while I was at home. I quit doing that several years ago. Even with a marked patrol car in the yard I keep my doors locked and have "surprises hid throughout the house. I won't even go to the mailbox without something in my pocket anymore. Do the things to minimize the problem and stay vigilant.

I am just wondering what is going on in society lately

Too many people having children with no thought/intention of being parents?

I think a lot of it is that we are all a product of the times we were raised in. My father grew up during the Great Depression, then went off to fight in WWII. When he got back, he and his generation then went to work and paid off the debt acquired from WWII in 10 years by paying taxes the we would consider obscene today. Now, having had to really scrimp and save to just get by, he did whatever was needed to make sure that every one of his children went to college so that they might have it a bit easier. Fact is that I did have it easier, perhaps a bit too easy. I also didn't get to see much of my father until after he'd retired, he spent most of his time when I was growing up working 10 to 12 hours a day.

Bascially, the baby boomers never had to work that hard or face the possibility of being homeless. So, we grew up a bit sheltered and had some ideals that a perfect world was possible. Not being used to or really exposed to conflict, Vietnam was a bit of a shock, so we tried to solve the worlds problems with thoughts of Peace and some used drugs to shield them from having to face the reality that the world can be a pretty ugly place. We also passed some of this unrealistic thinking onto our children. In addition, we pampered that heck out of our children and didn't demand a lot from them.

Keep trickling all this lack of parents demanding and enforcing a code of personal responsibility and we have the result we now see today. I call them the Me First Generation, because that is their attitude, it doesn't matter if they've actually earned it, they want it and the Me First generation will take whatever it is they want and they don't think there will be any consequences at all.

BTW, it's a pretty subtle symptom of the Me Firsters but it really peeves me when one of these types feels that answering a text or cell phone call is more important than waiting on a customer with cash in hand.

Fact is that I can only see hard times ahead. The simple truth is that when we make it a habit to purchase products imported from other nations we are actually transfering wealth from the US to those other nations. On one hand this does increase the potential for stability with those countries that supply our needs. However, on the other hand it costs the US a lot of jobs and basic manufacturing skills. In addition, as a nation we really should be paying higher taxes, growing the National Debt is a bandaid will only delay the crash that's coming.

Too many people on welfare, single mothers popping out a dozen kids with a dozen different fathers.....this country can't support millions of anchor babies and aliens......

Be sure to get to work Monday morning, millions on welfare depend on you

Of course you are correct about this. But tell me, why did my childhood home, (Hollins Street in Baltimore), go from a safe family place to a war zone? What changed?

I blame population growth and the decay of family held morality.

VB,

Not to be contentious, but I need to set the record straight for you and others who may read your post. The so-called "peace pipe" (in Sioux, "cha-NUN-pah wa-KAN") was and is a very sacred thing, used to pray to the Creator, and used in all important ceremonies, including the signing of peace treaties. That's how the term "peace pipe" entered the English language.

As to the contents smoked, the traditional material is called "chan-SHA-sha," and is actually the inner bark of the red willow, which has no psychotropic properties. It does have powerful spiritual properties though. Some people make a mixture of chanshasha and bear root. Much less commonly, and usually if the above cannot be obtained, regular tobacco is used to "send smoke" to the Creator to help our prayers reach Him. There is no history of intoxicating drugs ever being used among the Sioux and others (Northern Cheyenne, Arapaho) who consider themselves "people of the Pipe."

In the Sioux Way, the chanunpa is typically made with the bowl being carved out of pipestone (catlinite) found only at the quarries in Pipestone Minnesota, and the stem from wood. The two pieces are never joined, except to pray, because joining them together is a propitiating act, and very sacred. Here is a photograph of mine, which I am posting only for educational purposes:



I am sure that in this day and age, fools of all colors have smoked inappropriate substances in the Pipe. All I know is that this is very uncommon, and a terribly sacrilegious thing to do.

Hope this clarifies things.


Bullseye

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Five screws and 3-1/2 inches.

i'm 53yrs. i grew up in a very good home. my parents were'nt strick, but would "lay the law down" when needed. my older sister and i , also a lot of the kids in the neighorhood grew up under the adage "children should be seen and not heard". we dissagreed with that then. when we went to school we started the day with the "PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE", and a lot times followed by a prayer. if we got in trouble at school or play we were in trouble at home. in know way were we battered or abused at any time, but if i got swats at school i got them again when i got home. i think a lot of our problems now are because "all of the above" have pretty much been abolished. look at this society today RESPECT is becoming an extinct word.

To be honest, I don't really see any more crime now than I did 10-15 year ago. I guess someone can google up stats to prove me wrong, but I'ts how I perceive it. Drugs? hell, I'm 63 and there were some drugs around during my High School years, but, like another topic, they pretty much stayed in the closet.

Back to the crime issue. I don't see crime posing as near a big of threat to our society now as political correctness is doing. I'm serious.

Great post scooter, I think you nailed it. As a nation, we have in many way's gone soft in the middle and will have to pay for it with years of hardship. Which may not be a bad thing.

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OGCA Member.

I grew up in the 60's and 70's, not until the 8th grade did I hear about MJ, we lived in the county. We had kids and adults in the area we left alone, but we didn't normally lock our doors back then. In High School my dad divorced his 2nd wife and we moved back to Racine that was in 77.

Racine had gotten a bit worse for wear a lot of students had been using MJ and other stuff. We knew who the "heads" were and they had their own group. I worked during high school and had my car broken into at least twice. That was my first introduction to crime.

Since then I have seen a lot of it Racine was an industrial city and now is a city with 15% unemployment. Almost everyday I open the paper and find an article about a shooting, stabbing, child porn, burglary and other major crimes.

8 sometimes 16 hours a day I work and watch and control inmates and from listening to them I find they are pretty narcassistic they have concern only for themselves. We had a woman locked up that had 9 of her children locked in dog kennels and let them out to work in her cleaning business. When I listen to them they seem to have no concept that they did anything wrong. Wisconsin has about 10, 000 people in prison and maybe 4 times that number on some form of release in the community. My guess most states are the same, I know Police Officers and Parole Agents and they cannot keep up with it.


One of our former inmate's son goes to the same school as my daughter, he had a problem with another male student she showed up cajoled her son into a fight with the other boy and then when it wasn't working out assaulted the boy herself. I am going to be 50 in 2 weeks and can retire at 55 I will stay until 57 and find some place to retire to. I am just not sure where.

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Stan

IMHO, it started going downhill with....Madalyn Murray O'hare

I don't know about Hollins Street in Baltimore specifically but I would presume the demographics have changed over the years. The current residents are not interested in a "safe family place" any longer.

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... a little behind in my work

No fear or respect of the law. Every day you can read about murders usually commited by long time criminals with rap sheets as long as your arm, 15- 20 crimes (that they were caught at, how many undiscovered?) Even prior attempted murders, rapes, and other violent crimes. What are these people doing out on the street???
Steve W.