Wealth in America

We talked about the inequality of wealth in America. A small percentage of Americans have the majority of wealth. Some would say his isn't fair or equal, but life isn't fair. America promises equal opportunity, not complete equality. The Soviet Union promised complete equality, so everyone was poor. do we really want that? Much of the wealth worked their way to their position, sure many were born into but their parents worked hard to get there and benefit their family. Many will say that there isn't really equal opportunity in America, I say that's a lie and an excuse to fail. It's easier to dwell in your own self pity than to work yourself out of your situation. An example from my life is my dad. He grew up in Nevada, Iowa. There was about 1000 people living there and no one went to college. My dad worked 2-3 jobs at a time starting at the age of 13 till the end of high school but he couldn't pay for college by himself. So he joined ROTC Navy and the Navy paid for his college. He got his Bachelor's Degree and served our country, then came back and got his Master's. He worked hard and made sacrifices to improve his situation. It's not impossible to be well off in America, but it does take some actual work.

Saints and Roughnecks

In class we read an article about social deviance. The article provided too classes of people at a high school. The saints and the roughnecks. The saints were rich, white, "good" kids that were allowed to break the rules. when they did break rules and laws it was just considered "boys being boys" or they were just acting out. The roughnecks had it the exact opposite way. They were expected to be bad and eventually were bad. The key point of these was the groups economic back round. The saints had money, the roughnecks didn't. It is as simple as that. Money was the main factor on how society treated them. I would agree that wealth is the overwhelming factor in how our society views people. We expect the poor to break the rules and the rich to uphold them when they want to.

There are definitely kids at my high school who would be considered saints. Without any names, kids with rich parents who play sports, mainly lacrosse and football could be considered saints. I'm not generalizing all athletes, as I once played football myself, because our teams are very diverse. But the richer the kid, the better the kid is at that sport, the more they can get away with. I find that most of the time, the deviance isn't even hidden. It's blatant and no one cares or the people who do, don't matter. The kid's parents can turn a blind eye to such antics.

I would not say everyone is saint, if everyone was a saint at a high school, I do not think it could function. Things would become too much of a problem where no one could ignore it or it would become extremely bad. But the higher income of the school district, the more saints and we live in a very high income school district.

Teens in America

So our society is considered a discontinuous culture. Our entire life we are told not to do certain things and then at certain ages we can suddenly do it. Can't drive till 16, vote till 18, drink till 21 etc. This makes it very difficult to grow up as a teen. There are so many mixed signals we hear as we grow up. Now the whole system cannot be changed but some of it definitely needs to be. We are too large a country to have the same systems as Samoa. We do need a driving age but we can lower the permit age so teens have more time between not driving and driving. And taking the pressure of having to drive also needs to happen. If a kid isn't ready, a kid isn't ready. Simple as that. I do not and will not ever understand why the drinking age is at what it is currently at. Twenty-one years old is a random number that is to high and does little good. Sure it helps keep alcohol out of high school, barely, which is a good thing. But kids that actually wait till their 21 are at an extreme risk of danger. It becomes a shock to their system and they act irresponsibly and can be seriously harmed. The drinking age needs to be lowered and applied similarly to Germany's law. Where if you act the age and can be responsible, you can drink. I can't believe our government would trust me to drive a 6 million dollar tank in the army, but not to drink a beer, not that i would ever do that before I am 21. It is the law.