[rcentros]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

But the perception that things are more dangerous now than they were in the sixties, seventies or eighties is false. If anything, we are safer now than we ever have been.

It's sensationalism in the news and John Walsh's promotion of the Adam Walsh story that makes us think things are more dangerous now.

Sorry, I don't buy that. I watch videos of stores being looted (and sometimes burned) in broad daylight — which is almost a norm now. That would have never happened (except during rare riots) when I was a kid. Even in small towns now, drugs and the thugs who push them on kids is much more prevalent. And I don't remember ever reading about carjackers forcing old people out of their cars and sometimes killing them (again in broad daylight). This just scratches the surface.

I think there is a tendency by modern pyschological writers to "poo poo" more peaceful times. I know that people, when I was a kid, weren't afraid all the time — most of them didn't even lock their doors.

If you had 10 and 12 year-old kids now, would you let them hitchike?