[CaptainCrunch]

Not coming in on defense of the letter, because I don't belive that turning back the clock and repressing females out of the work place and some of the other suggestions are the right ones. However I do think that if you look deep down there is a fraying in both societal acceptance, and in the family unit.

I mean lets be frank, how many people let there kids sit in front of a T.V. or Video game for hours at a time after school and never talk to these kids and then act surprised when little Johnny in a fit of depression and lonelyness picks up a family pistol and shoots up his school. No matter kids are depressed and lonely, for the most part we've made it acceptable for them to be in these little fantasy bubbles with no meaningful communication from his folks.

"Hey dad, why don't you go talk to Johnny, he's in the living room watching T.V.", "I would honey, but the taxes are due, and I'm really tired, I'm sure its just normal teenage stuff".

Where were the parents of those two monsters in Columbine, I mean the police went through the house after the killings and found all kinds of guns and bomb making material lying around.

There is a sense of permissiveness in the schools today, where the teachers for the most part don't interact on that personal level with thier students, and everything that they do is ok because failing a kid is bad or sending a kid to the principles office is bad. Or a teacher dosen't want to get involved because he or she is intimidated by the students.

I was over at a friends house and thier kids were in another room watching a truly horrible horror picture in which the girl was raped and tortured. These kids were 10 and 11, I was shocked, and the 10 year old is quite the warmonger, to him guns and war are totally awesome. I don't care about what they watch, but have his parents sat down and watched these shows with him once, to make sure that its not ok in real life to do these things.

Parents are also afraid to get a handle on thier kids, I'm not talking beatings or whippings. But so many parents want to be little cindy's or little bobbies best friends that they put no freaking restraints on thier kids, they go soft on them, or send them to thier rooms for a time out, let me tell you something, when I was growing up I wished that I could get sent to my room, because all of my stuff was there. Parents don't understand why thier kids run wild. Hey stupid its because you encourage them.

With this moron who did the shootings in VT, I blame his parents, he either didn't communicate his depression with him, which means they didn't set up a line of communication with him, or they didn't see the signs.

I blame his fellow students, this kid was writing these bloody awful murder fantasies, and was obviously depressed and nobody intervened.

I blame his teachers and professors, they even said it, they were scared he would snap. Why the hell was he still at the school.

Society failed the victims in this event, and as liberal as it sounds coming from a hawk like me, the shooter to an extent was a victim.

A Liberal society can be a good forward looking thing, but only if there are fundamental controls in the system, and fundamental values.

The letter above was over the extreme, but first and foremost, I hardly think its a letter that should be slammed, and second of all at the very root of it, outside of winding back the clock on certain rights, I agree that society is becoming very much like the ancient romans at the end of the empire, rotted from the inside out.