Susan,

I think we've been on this slope for some time. Rocky's, Rambos, Dirty Harry's, etc.
Violence is a commodity. Apparently in movies, TV shows, video games and other so-called attempts at entertainment, it is rewarded. What keeps it from being a universal disease to infect everyone is that there is a propensity for a social gene that keeps us from ultimately destroying each other because of our social dependency for survival. This is why Libertarianism, Survivalists or the Military Industrial Complex can't co-exist with human nature. Authoritarianism is a dinosaur in the Twenty-First Century. I worry about the belief systems of people and what they are willing to unquestionably accept and enable.

This has a bearing as the US becomes more of an occupier of the world.

The Gay revolution is a good thing because it makes us question what it really means
to be a man or woman. As the sex roles become questioned, the old assumptions break down.

Fortunately as science probes the concept of race, we are made aware of how similar we are to each other rather than our differences from other species. Race becomes a cosmetic but artificial dividing idea. As we learn more about biology, we are finding
that we have propensities for violence but the means to curb and control it. This
is prevalent more in some people, perhaps even as a heritable trait.

I really think that, although I don't believe in miracles, there is something astonishing
about why as a species we haven't killed each other off. Something keeps us
holding to a compass and I don't think we will go off course because historically
we have had plenty of opportunity to do just that. (I remain an optimist.)

Frank Hamilton