Thesis Paper – The Lifestyle of Violence

The Lifestyle of Violence

When Violence is brought into conversation, it’s commonly categorized as a mindset that is most abundant when there is deprivation and a lack of outer resources to aid it. Many people abuse this mindset, meaning they think that it’s the only answer to most situations. From my perspective, I see the more violent people, being the people that come from the more violent backgrounds. These backgrounds don’t necessarily have to revolve around their family, but it can also be from the government, cultural deprivation and/or, religion... the list goes on and on.

First, here is a miniscule area where violence is a problem almost every day, Philadelphia. It seems like that almost every day someone is getting shot. There were 148 days into the year as of May 28th, 2012. Parallel to that, according to Philadelphia Police Department, there was a substantial 140 homicide victims as of May 28th, 2012 in the city of Philadelphia. In the year of 2011, there were 324 homicide victims, that’s almost equivalent to a person being killed every other day ("Southeastern philadelphia transportation authority"). Then in 2007, there was an outstanding number of 391 homicide victims ("Southeastern philadelphia transportation authority"). Why are there so many people being killed?  From my standpoint, it doesn’t look these acts of violence are ever going to end.

Secondly, there is a bit larger area where Violence is a nuisance to life, right in the Keystone state, Pennsylvania. Just because many historical things happen here such as the Penn Treaty with the Indians in the 1600’s doesn’t mean anything, that was almost 400 years ago. As of 2010, Pennsylvania contained a whopping population of 12,702,379 people. From that amount, 46,514 are from violence ("Disaster Center"). Yes that is less than 0.005% of the state, but someone has to take care of them, and the people that have to do that has to be paid. And who pays them? Oh thats right, the middle class. This has to be paid on top of many other things that the middle class has to pay for. Eventually this is a never-ending cycle. It’s a never-ending cycle because the middle class has to pay, they eventually run out of money, they do bad things, they go to jail, then they have to be taken cared of. That is how it’s a neverending cycle. From that total of people, 46,514 were arrested due to domestic violence. The question is, where are the majority of these crimes coming from? First is Harrisburg with a crime rate of 170,000 (As of 2009). Second is York with a crime rate of 125,000 (As of 2009). And third, believe it or not, is Philly with a crime rate of 120,000 (As of 2009). It is really crazy to fathom the idea on how many crimes occur is such a little bit of time.

Third and foremost, violence may be a large problem in the Philadelphia, and Pennsylvania, but both of those places exist in one place, the World. If violence takes place in two little fractions of the World, I can already assure myself that Violence occurs elsewhere. There is no need to pull numbers up because I lived long enough to see a lot of it. For instance on September 11th, 2001, the group called Al Qaeda crashed two planes into the World Trade Centers in New York, New York, and they crashed a third plane into Pentagon. Lucky the last plane was not crashed into any big cities due to the brave passengers. Anyway, back to the violence. Many violent things in life happen for many reasons that could easily be avoided but people choose not to. Then again there are many things in life that are violent that people would like to avoid the situations because of the their lack of power. Life would be so much better if the entire government was completely equal. Meaning that there should be no parties in the house, such as the democratic and republican. It’s about money, people say money is a person’s best friend, I say money is the devil, money is the ruination of our economy and relationships with other parts of the world. First you have the Republicans supporting the rich not having to pay taxes, while the poor do, and then you have someone like Barack Obama, a Democrat, wanting to help the economy but all of his ideas are shot down. And the more poor people are burdened with all of these taxes, they will lose money, and find new ways, legal and illegal to be able to have money in their pockets. No wonder why their symbol is an elephant, they’re fat for money.

To close up, I would like to talk about why all of these things are the way they are. I feel like I can really tie together the main reason why there is so much violence in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, it’s because they take place in the USA. And what is the the USA currently? That’s right, a recession. This recession that is occurring is causing many financial problems, many of which people can’t avoid. Then when push comes to shove and the money becomes really tight, many things occur that can be harmful to society. Drugs are being dealt, stores are being robbed, people are being killed, and the list is neverending. So it’s things like this that cause much violence to occur all around the clock. Secondly, things can be explained and factual reasons can be added on why there is violence in the world, but one reason can be explained, just one reason, culture. Culture plays a big role in many places around the world, it can be as small as a family, or as large  as a country. Throughout the world there is much cultural diversity that breaks up many societies and causes problems that vary in different ways. An area of land will be covered with one culture, while the other area of that land is covered by another culture. Then at the point where they meet, there is controversy over whose is better and whose should get the majority of land.

To close, its very easy to see that a majority of these different forms of violence come from the constant need to be most powerful. This constant need can vary anywhere from politics, to finance, all the way down to family related problems. Although power is one thing that makes many things run, it is at the same time, the ruination of many things.