‘Affluenza’: Is it real?
http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/12/health/affluenza-youth/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
More proof, as if it were needed, of our oligarchical police state. Rich, get off, poor go to jail for the rest of your life. I have no doubt that the ‘syndrome’ is real, but for me it is an _extra_ reason to extend the sentence/severity of the punishment, not an excuse for leniency. No different from sports stars poor behavior being endlessly excused, rich brats will continue to escalate their behavior until it gets them killed or society finally has enough. In the ‘good old days’ (the rich have, and will continue no matter what, always been able to get preferential treatment) society ‘had enough’ much sooner, so societal remediation started much younger. In other words, when the little babies acted out in school they got punished (physically; spanking used to be the norm) so even if their parents excused their crappy behavior they still got punished. Now, with our totally hands-off policy at school, students who act out suffer no consequences whatsoever unless their parents mete any out (and that is increasingly unlikely), so they grow up knowing that any bad behavior gets them nothing but a ‘stern talking to’.
Today our society collectively is fully responsible for any untoward behavior, the parents and the individual have none (which doesn’t mean that poor people get a pass, they get fucked by our injustice system guilty or otherwise; just because society will swallow a dumb-assed excuse doesn’t mean our injustice system will cut them any slack (besides, our prison industrial complex needs as much funds as it can get)). Of course, we simultaneously give society absolutely no authority over anything, so what results is everyone running amok until they finally cross that ill defined and fuzzy line where suddenly the injustice system says it has had enough (which is a vastly lower bar for the poor than for the wealthy; indeed for the poor, you don’t actually have to be guilty of anything in order to get sucked into the system).
It is great to be rich in our third-world country!
