What kind of savages are we today? ‘Pick ’em out and knock ’em out’

By David McElroy · July 17, 2012

Have we become a society that has no regard for human life? Or have we always been that kind of callous society? Are we becoming more civilized over the centuries? Or are we hopelessly fallen savages who are fooling ourselves by pretending to be more civil? I can’t decide.

There’s a game that certain thuggish teens in Chicago play called “Pick ’em out and knock ’em out.” (Maybe it’s played elsewhere, but I’ve never heard of it until now.) Three Chicago teens ran across a 62-year-old man last Tuesday when they decided to randomly play this sick game.

“I think I’m gonna knock out this (expletive),” said the 16-year-old who started it, according to prosecutors. They say he started the video recorder on his cellphone and handed it to a 17-year-old to record the attack. He and an 18-year-old took turns recording the beating.

The three thugs surrounded Delfino Mora, an unemployed, partly disabled man who was in an alley collecting cans for recycling. The 16-year-old asked whether Mora had any money. When Mora didn’t respond, he punched him hard enough to knock the older man down. When his head hit the concrete, there was a loud crack that can be heard on the video recording, according to prosecutors.

Then the three teen thugs stole $60 from Mora’s billfold. As they walked away, all three can be heard laughing about the attack on the defenseless older man.

How do we know what happened? Police have the video. Why do they have the video? Because they were so proud of the attack that the 16-year-old posted it on his Facebook page.

Someone found Mora three hours after the attack, but he died in a hospital the next day. It took a couple of days, but one of Mora’s sons eventually saw the Facebook video and called police. The three thugs were arrested over the weekend.

So tell me how it’s possible to stop this kind of behavior. More social programs? More police officers? Some kind of intervention in schools? I don’t think so. I just don’t see it.

The truth is that human beings do monstrous things to other human beings, very regularly. We’re brutal and nasty to one another, at times for absolutely no reason.

At other times, humans are kind and loving to others. We’ve seen examples of that right here regularly. Sometimes strangers do amazing things to help other people, just out of the desire to do good.

Will the real representative of the human race please stand up?

Are we vicious and mean? Or are we kind and loving? Are we civilized? Or are we hopelessly uncivilized?

We seem to be all of the above. I can’t tell if we’re really getting any better or not. Maybe we’re just fooling ourselves when we think so. I’m a believer in the idea of original sin, so I think it’s a part of the package of being human.

We’re never going to be perfected in this world, but I don’t see how we have any choice but to keep trying. Until our Maker comes back to take away evil for good, I have idea how we can stop the viciousness that’s so pervasive in many parts of society.

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We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us — and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which the dumbest of the dumb — who are habitual liars and mentally ill fools — lead us to the disasters and destruction that some of us have seen coming for years. We are approaching that point. And yet most of the idiots around us still wave their rhetorical banners of support for the evil people who are leading us to ruin — and all of them point their fingers at someone else, never noticing that their own enthusiastic support of evil is to blame. When things finally fall apart, blame yourself for your blindness to the evil, not whoever happens to be in power when it happens.

I’ve been making some changes to the site lately and there are more changes coming in the days ahead, so don’t be surprised if you some small differences. This is not a wholesale redesign, but rather the addition of some features. Since they’re smarter than I am, I’ve put Oliver and Alex in charge of the technical work, which you can see in this action photo from the control room of our media complex. I recently added a series of landing pages for readers who randomly discover the site from an Internet search. I’ve also changed the YouTube link at the top of the page to go to the new YouTube channel for video essays that reflect things I’ve already published here. (Here’s a little bit about both of the YouTube channels I’m working on.) In addition, I’m trying to move away from using Instagram, so I’m experimenting with photo plug-ins that will eventually allow me to host the pictures — cats, dogs, sunsets, whatever — that I often take. So don’t be surprised to see more changes. Thanks for your patience. Let’s hope Alex and Oliver know what they’re doing.

I have no use for the theocratic and repressive government of Iran. The people who run the country are cruel at best and evil at worst. The Iranian people deserve freedom. But I have no personal quarrel with anybody in Iran. While I’m not thrilled about a future Iranian government having nuclear weapons, I’m just as concerned about nukes in the hands of politicians in Israel, Pakistan, India, China and Russia. I’m not even thrilled with the U.S., Britain and France having them, either, because I don’t trust any politicians to be responsible with such terrible weapons. All I can say with certainty is that American taxpayers have no business attacking Iran, especially since we’re being forced to pay for this attack in order to benefit the politicians of Israel — and nobody else. If Middle Eastern countries want to fight among themselves, that’s none of my business. It’s not the business of the U.S. government, either. I have no quarrel with anybody in Iran — and having the government which claims to represent me launch an unprovoked attack against a sovereign country will only make all Americans less safe in the near future. This attack is poorly conceived and morally unjustified. Remember that when the Iranians launch attacks that we will then condemn as “terrorism.” What the U.S. is doing right now looks like terrorism to me. And let’s not forget that the attack is the latest in a long line of unconstitutional wars by various U.S. presidents — who have no legal power to declare war on their own, according to the U.S. Constitution.

A child having a tantrum understands only one thing: Did I get my way or not? He doesn’t understand the issues involved. He doesn’t understand the reasons that went into a decision. He doesn’t understand any of the things that mature and reasonable adults have to understand in order to live healthy lives. By his reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to strike down his disastrous tariff scheme, Donald Trump shows himself to be — once more — a screaming child having a tantrum. Outside the world of mob bosses who expect to get their way every time, normal adults don’t act this way, but Trump isn’t normal. He’s an angry and vengeful man who has narcissistic personality disorder. And we are in danger as a result. Trump doesn’t understand the legal issues involved in this ruling. He doesn’t understand economics. He doesn’t understand rule of law. He doesn’t understand that he can ever be wrong. All he understands is that he didn’t get his way. And he is now a narcissistic and raging little boy who also happens to hold life-and-death power over most humans on this planet. He’s dangerous — and the system which gives him that power is even more dangerous.

Is it an attempt to blur the gender line between men and women? Or is it some weird tribute to the traditional Scottish kilt? It’s hard to say, but fashion designers keep pushing for men to wear skirts in the last few years. Both men and women in modern fashion seem oddly androgynous, as though it would be offensive for a man to look manly or for a woman to look feminine. A CNN article about the latest fashions from Paris caught my attention Monday and left me wondering about the ugly clothes the designers are hawking. If a man wants to wear a skirt — or a kilt — that’s OK with me, but I’ll stick with a traditional dark suit with a white shirt and tie. (Well, when I’m not wearing t-shirts and sweats, of course.) I always wonder who actually buys the outlandish garb from fashion designers anyway. I would be humiliated to be seen in any of this stuff, but I obviously have no sense of high fashion.

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