This is Sparta: An honest look at the violence problem in America

Mom’s fifth graders are learning about Rome this week. I was sitting in on today’s lecture and my mom said something really interesting pertaining to violence:

“Whenever a country gets bloodthirsty, that’s the beginning of the end.”

It’s true you know. It was true in Rome with the gladiators, it was true in Germany with the Nazi concentration camps. When a country (or empire in Rome’s case) gets preoccupied with the shedding of blood, when they diminish the sanctity of human life, that’s when things start to go downhill.

Maybe it’s a psychological thing that happens to the citizens of a powerful nation. It’s inhabitants begin to feel invincible, like they own the world. The power gets to their heads and they begin to think they can play God. So bloodshed becomes sport.

Or maybe its just a base instinct in all of us, and the powerful nations can get away with it. I’d like to think that’s far from the truth, but maybe not.

Whatever the case may be, this happens often. When a nation gets powerful and begins to devalue life their downfall becomes imminent.

My friends, I hate to say it, but America is quickly becoming that bloodthirsty nation. Don’t believe me? Just look at our entertainment. There are video games in which you, playing your character can murder innocent women and children in their homes. Seriously.

There are entire movie series devoted to killing people. These movies bring in multiple millions of dollars because apparently, Americans want to see that. Blood and gore are commonplace in our entertainment. It hardly phases us anymore that even in our kids movies, people die. People with homes and families are recklessly sacrificed because maybe they just got in the way of our hero’s bullets.

Violence is not only tolerated, but celebrated.

Think about that. Every time you watch a movie and the bad guys are brutally murdered, there is a family that is now without a father, without a husband.

Okay, maybe I’m being a little dramatic, but think of this. In America, more than 1,370,000 woman have abortions ever year. An estimated 1,382,012 violent crimes were committed in 2008. 16,272 people were murdered that same year.

I’m not trying to be a nay-sayer or shout “the end is near”. I’m just pointing out that the America we love is not going to last forever. And if history is any indication, we don’t have long.

That is all.