Who Will Save Us from Ourselves?
The FBI’s 2020 crime report tells an alarming story about us
Photo by reza shayestehpour on Unsplash
The FBI released its 2020 crime statistics recently. Take a look at the drastic increase in homicide.
Source: F.B.I; New York Times
Violent crime is up by 5.6% overall but homicides are up by over 22% according to my simple calculation.
I have proposed recently that the American public is becoming unhinged in ways I have not witnessed before.
There are regular reports in the news of road rage events that result in the discharge of a firearm.
Flight attendants are experiencing out-of-control violence in flights. Consider the following from an article titled, Dread at 30,000 feet: Inside the increasingly violent world of flight attendants:
A survey by the AFA released in July of this year found that, of the 5,000 flight attendants surveyed, 85% said they’d dealt with unruly passengers in 2021. Disruptive passengers had used sexist, racist and/or homophobic language, according to 61%, while 17% said they’d been victim of a physical attack this year.
I wrote a piece recently called The Ideological Battle for America’s Schools about the chaos taking place at local school boards and the challenge of finding common ground in education.
On an anecdotal level, I recently encountered someone who was on the verge of spiraling into a rage over the fact that I chose to park in front of his house on a public street. My non-confrontational demeanor caused the guy to back down and snap back into a normal mindset.
Have we taken just one step in the wrong direction?
You can walk a mile in the wrong direction one step at a time. Step by step, you get further away from your intended destination.
One step at a time. It may take some time to realize each of those steps landed you in the wrong destination.
You have heard the analogy before: throw a frog in a pot of boiling water and it will jump out. Place that same frog in a pot of cold water and slowly increase the temperature until it reaches boiling point and the frog will remain in place to its detriment.
I wonder if our angry, divisive, and caustic tendencies are growing ever so subtly that we are failing to notice the rising temperatures of our collective waters.
Have you noticed yourself going to places in a conflict that you never used to go?
How many of us are annoyed, agitated, irritated, and on the verge of crossing boundaries we would have never transgressed?
Have you found yourself vocalizing nasty thoughts about other people, whether under your breath or out loud?
Are you writing things on social media that you used to keep to yourself?
Do you find yourself looking for a conflict or even hoping an opponent will test your will?
Could you see yourself getting in a physical alteration?
Our nation and our communities are growing further and further apart.
One step at a time.
“I just want to fight!”
I was recently challenged by someone for my argument that we need more efforts at peacemaking. “I don’t want to make peace. I just want to fight,” was the retort.
David French recently highlighted a University of Virginia poll that found, “A majority of Trump voters (52 percent) and a strong minority of Biden voters (41 percent) strongly or somewhat agree that it’s “time to split the country.”
Americans don’t want to be united anymore. We want to fight or split. How soon we forget. We did this dance once before in the 1860s.
We should pay careful attention to surveys like the one conducted by UVA and to the FBI data.
The trendlines on violence are pointing in the wrong direction and there is a reason.
I am not suggesting that all of us are likely to commit homicide or even aggravated assault.
But, as a society, we are regularly taking more and more steps that make coexistence difficult:
We don’t listen to each other
We regularly misunderstand each other
We quickly dismiss other people or groups
We are regularly using insensitive and caustic language about each other
We are becoming more fearful of other groups
We have relativized truth to the point that proving facts or science seems impossible
In a previous post I put it this way:
Our heated and caustic rhetoric could quickly rise to a level of violence. Disagreement becomes division. Division breeds fear. Fear leads to the need and justified-in-our-minds “right” to defend ourselves and our institutions. Where logical arguments and rhetorical flourish fail to persuade, fearful people will defend themselves against ideological enemies they believe are destroying the country.
The 2020 FBI data tells an alarming story that more American people are acting out of fear, desperation, and anger.
One step at a time until we are eager and ready to fight.
The mass shootings that had seemingly disappeared during the pandemic are returning.
Grocery stores, schools, places of employment, and churches are becoming unsafe again.
Unruly and violent passengers on flights.
High school football players assaulting referees.
Neighbors screaming obscenities and threats at each other.
Grumbled curse words uttered beneath the cover of a mask.
Ugly insults typed on a Facebook post.
Disdain and anger boiling over to hatred in our hearts.
Jesus suggested that “Out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.” (Luke 6:45, NKJV)
Our internal operating system has a deadly virus.
We are corrupting ourselves and destroying whatever frayed bonds that once existed.
One step at a time.
Is it possible for the people of this nation to pause for a temperature check?
If not, who will save us from ourselves?
