H2O Man Survey #39

[Warpy]

5. Part of it is always demographics, part of it is likely environmental lead

Violent crime started to roll down slowly once they removed lead from gasoline. Smaller cohorts of teenagers and young adults also produce lower crime rates.

However, you're talking about rage, not crime, especially rage against any formerly disadvantaged group that is inching toward full rights as citizens. My own feeling is that it's because in a worsening economy, white males have taken the biggest cuts. Their safe union jobs that excluded blacks and women not only got integrated across those lines, they then pulled up stakes and went overseas. Median wages for white males have fallen and that's the only reason women have done better than getting 59 cents for every dollar a white male makes. She's only getting that 78 cents to his dollar because he's making so many fewer dollars. Her wages are the same shit they've always been.

You can squeeze people only so hard before they pop. The problem with seething rage is that it's hard to control and impossible to predict. That guy cutting you off in traffic might just be that last little squeeze that has you ramming his car and reaching for the tire iron when he gets out to confront you over his damaged bumper.

This is the main reason it's mostly white guys who are slaughtering strangers, neighbors, and their own families. They used to be on the top of the people pyramid in this country. The fall has been rapid and inglorious and there is no hope that anything is going to get any better. Being stuck with that "strong, silent" male paradigm means he's not going to have the outlet of squawking about it, either.

This is a lot of what I'm seeing, at any rate.