A Clockwork Pumpkin

A bunch of spoiled 21st century western kids get bored and decide to act out scenes from a violent video game:

In the real-life re-enactment of the game, the crazed youths' rampage involved mugging, several break-ins and an attempted car-jacking in Garden City. "They decided they were going to go out to commit robberies and emulate the character Nico Belic in the particularly violent video game Grand Theft Auto," said Nassau County Police detective-lieutenant Raymond Cote.

Anyone suprised by this has their head in the sand and anyone who says 'only in America' is fooling themselves.

Gross immaturity and violent behaviour are hallmarks of young people throughout the West, including Australia:

A REMARK about a man having a 'pumpkin shaped head' might have been the catalyst in a violent brawl in which three teenagers were allegedly stabbed, the Southport Magistrates Court was told. "We walked in and had a couple of drinks. I was walking around and I walked past one guy and rubbed his head. I said he had a pumpkin shaped head," he said. "He then grabbed me by the throat and the scruff of my shirt ... I ended up walking away and sat down to think. I stood back up and yelled at this guy."

This is not because the West has lesser values than other cultures but because we have mostly abandoned the values that previously gave young people resilience and real strength, not the mock strength of bravado, bluster and violence.

Young people want for nothing so they are bored with everything, seeking more and greater stimulation to allieviate the tedium of a world where nothing is denied them.

Middle class kids exhibit the extreme nihilist behaviour popularly associated in times past with the spoiled brats of the upper classes while kids raised in more impoverished circumstances soon learn that our world's lack of meaningful consequences for ones actions mean that what you don't have can be taken with relative impunity.

The American video game fans were 15, 14, 16 and 17, were bored so they mugged a man, beat him and knocked out some teeth before committing break-ins and enlisting two more friends to stage car-jackings.

Nassau County's Detective Cote continued:

"These teens have difficulty separating fact from fiction, fantasy from reality. It was quite alarming."

But hardly surprising.

-- Nick