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Cause and effect
2/15/18 | John David Powell

Posted on 02/15/2018 8:00:59 AM PST by John David Powell

Cause and effect. Those are the words on the minds, in some form, for many individuals today, particularly parents regardless of the age of their children.

Cause and effect. How often, though, do we, and that includes me, how often do we become overwhelmed by the effect and miss the cause? Or, worse, fixate on the wrong cause as we go for the quick fix, the easier solution, the bandage we expected from our parents to cover the boo-boo and make it all better, whatever it was.

McDonald's is eliminating the cheese burger and chocolate milk from its Happy Meal. Oh, happy day! Those who speak for Ronald say this is their effort to fight childhood obesity by reducing sugar and saturated fat. You can still order the cheese burger and chocolate milk, but now we're all to feel a little better, a little safer, a little more healthy because a fast-food restaurant is making it harder for parents to fill their kids with sugar and saturated fat, instead of encouraging parents to keep their kids at home and fix them food that won't hurt them, or at least won't contribute to childhood obesity. Cause and effect.

Anxious parents were still searching for their children enrolled at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in South Florida as news outlets danced around the issue of gun control, or at least the wisdom of the legal sale and possession of military-style assault weapons like the one used to murder at least 17 students and adults at the school this week. The cause was easy to see: an assault weapon. The effect was horrible to imagine.

But, once again, those looking to fill air time with a quick fix to a big issue overlooked what may be the real cause or causes. We now know the killer's mother died around Thanksgiving, and that he has been living with the parents of a friend since then because he had nowhere else to go. We now know he was expelled from the school where teachers and other students saw him as a threat to their safety. We now know a couple of months before his mother died, a person with the same name posted on a Mississippi bail bondsman's YouTube "I'm going to be a professional school shooter," according to a BuzzFeed story. The man shared the information with the FBI which paid him a visit, but nothing else was said until yesterday. Something was going on long before the killer awoke before dawn and put his shoes on.

We know the effect, we just don't know the cause. Not yet. But when we do, what will we do? Will we look for the bandage, or expect someone else to protect us from ourselves, or ignore warning signs that scream at us for help?

Cause and effect


TOPICS: Government; Health/Medicine; Miscellaneous; Politics
KEYWORDS: guncontrol; mcdonalds; shooting; society

1 posted on 02/15/2018 8:00:59 AM PST by John David Powell
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To: John David Powell

The cause of losing your treasure is leaving it unguarded.

Banning thievery isn’t going to prevent your treasure from being taken. You’re going to have to guard it. If you don’t mind losing it, then don’t guard it.

That’s it, that’s all. Nothing else.


2 posted on 02/15/2018 8:15:24 AM PST by chris37 (Take a week off racist >;-)
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To: John David Powell
We know the effect, we just don't know the cause.

The cause is a society that decided it's wrong to take a firm grip on the mentally ill if they don't want to be helped. We emptied out the insane asylums and give even the most troubled/sick/homicidal the "benefit of the doubt" as a matter of course - if they don't want to be treated, then the mentally ill get to make the decision. That same society them refuses to admit what they have done so they make excuses and blame inanimate objects for their failing.

3 posted on 02/15/2018 8:28:09 AM PST by trebb (I stopped picking on the mentally ill hypocrites who pose as conservatives...;-})
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To: John David Powell

imho, so well said and spot on. I’ve sent several tweets to Fox News people....when these tragedies happen, we always jump to the same ‘solutions’....usually legislative...yet these tragedies continue to happen. I believe we are not going to the root of the problems. Govt cannot solve this. The break down of family, schools teaching social/political agendas vs academic, young people playing violent ‘games’ on internet, etc. People are becoming detached from reality and from other people. We need personal responsibility ....parents teaching right from wrong, even when no one is looking; looking at people as individuals vs labeling into groups; government can stop trying to divide people in order to gain votes, etc.


4 posted on 02/15/2018 8:30:08 AM PST by 4integrity
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To: chris37

My brother worked for years as a state mental hospital technician. He helped care for the criminally insane and violent. That is, until the Liberals closed-down all the mental hospitals because “the patients’ civil rights were being violated.” So they let-out all the criminally insane and violent. You can now visit with them any day at Boston’s South Station and many other lively places.


5 posted on 02/15/2018 9:54:29 AM PST by pabianice (LINE)
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To: pabianice

They needed their voters out on the streets apparently.

We are not proceeding in a smart manner in America anymore.

Nothing we do makes any sense whatsoever.


6 posted on 02/15/2018 9:58:37 AM PST by chris37 (Take a week off racist >;-)
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To: John David Powell

I’ve never known any weapon to cause any murder. Out of control, undisciplined, liberals, however, have been the cause of most murders.

We need to execute all liberals to stop the violence.


7 posted on 02/15/2018 10:41:40 AM PST by CodeToad (CWII is coming. Arm Up! They Are! Easy?)
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