Much has been said and reported recently about how Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice got off with an easy punishment from NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. To merely suspend a player two games for punching and then dragging by the hair his then fiancé, and now wife, through a casino lobby is a joke. And when you compare it to the three game suspension Goodell handed out to a special teams coach because he used a gay slur that was not aimed at any one individual, it just goes to show, Americans at all levels are far too accepting of violence.
Our love for violence is found across all income levels, age groups, races, religions, and genders and serves to convince our detractors we are nothing more than a violent nation. While we are far from that, if you take a closer look at our love for violence, it is easy to see why others will see us as something other than a nation of peace.
The United States spends more money on its military than any other nation in the world. A recent study shows us spending $618.7 billion dollars a year, or 3.8% of our GDP on our military. China, our nearest competitor, spends $171.4 billion dollars a year on their military and just 2.0% of their GDP. Our military spending has wrecked our economy and added to an increasing world view that we get involved in too may wars. However, within our own country, we loudly debate our lack of military involvement in places like Syria, Ukraine, and Central America along with our usual hot spots.
How have we become such a violent nation? Besides military spending, the United States has far more gun violence than any other nation. We have a higher murder rate than our economic competitors. We house more people in prison than any other nation and we love a good execution. All are violent ways of solving societal problems and yet our violence remains.
Our most popular sport is football, a game centered around violence. It is not nearly as complex a sport as commentators make it out to be. More often than not, the team that out blocks and out tackles their opponent, in other words, knocks them silly, wins.
A fast growing sport that yields huge pay per view audiences is MMA, a sport in which the combatants try to force their opponent to submit. It is to boxing what football is to soccer; not for the squeamish. It's top draw is a female name Ronda Rousey, who by all accounts could handle herself quite nicely should Ray Rice work up the courage to punch her.
Our most popular video games are centered around violent worlds in which you must make quick and violent decisions to remain alive in the game. As your skill level improves, the rate of violent situations increase resulting in the player having to make faster and more violent decisions. Sadly, all too often, these games can be played between father and son and are referred to as bonding but are a far cry more violent that when dad would play catch with us in the backyard.
Even companies resort to violence to solve problems. Today, it is not that unusual when a company hosts a retreat to build camaraderie that they will play a game like paint ball (kill or be killed) or take turns watching colleagues straddle a log and pummel one another with pillows or padded jousting sticks until one falls off, usually into water. Somehow we convince ourselves this will make working with someone more tolerable.
What will it take to end our thirst for violence? 9/11 did not do it on a political front. If anything, it only added to the problem. We can no longer blame television or the movies for our violent ways. Lets face it, no one makes us watch films at record rates in which super heroes solve incredible problems through the use of a super power that destroys an enemy.
If remaining the world's super power requires us to lose site of how we have become a nation far more accepting of violence, then we will have failed as a civilization. Sticks and stones as well as knives, guns, and bombs do irreparable harm, especially when they are overly represented as an acceptable form of problem solving.
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