Is there hope and humanity left in the world?

personal rantings that I just need to let out.

I live in a world where the media pounces upon and amplifies tragedy.  Where freedom of speech has crowed out the morals of courtesy and respect.  Where religious wars rage everyday in public forums in every corner of the web.  Where a whole community of teenager’s reality is so skewed, they view a rape victim as the runnier of the rapist’s lives. And as I am so desiring to have a baby, I can’t help but ask myself; is this the world I want my children to grow up in?
I remember when we as children, were sent out side to play.  It was freedom, and fun, and learning all rolled into one.  We were forced to problem solve and work out our disagreements amongst ourselves or risk being the kid that no one played with.  I also don’t ever remember having to be overly suspicious of cars or neighbors or my community, because the community looked out for us.  I took care of a child who could not enjoy playing in his own front yard because every car that drove by looked “suspicious” and might “abduct” him.  There’s a big difference between stranger danger and paranoia.  And that’s just what our media fueled society brings us to be; paranoid.  Of course we want to be honest with our children and make them aware of the dangers that exist, but don’t we also want them to actually BE children?
And we’ve preached the “be who you are with no apologies” mantra so hard and so long that the core idea of it has changed.  It used to be about accepting your own faults or rising above adversity, now it’s about speaking harsh and cruel words because you like to “keep it real” or behaving however one sees fit with no sensitivity or empathy.  Perhaps that can also be attributed to the vast anonymity that the internet provides.  It’s SO much easier to be blunt and hurtful from behind your computer screen.  When you’re face to face with someone, you naturally pick your words more wisely or deal with the awkward glance, uncomfortable silence, or flat out angry yelling that may follow.  And with our youth joining social networking sites at increasingly younger ages, how are they NOT to learn such behavior? 
Today I saw a Facebook image that spoke of Christians being against gay marriage but not hating gay people.  Basically “hate the sin, love the sinner” in so many words.  How nice, because after all, we are free to believe what we choose.  ..Then I saw this comment on the image;

WOW! She turned a nice message about peace and tolerance, back into judgmental hate and bigotry!  She even worked the Jew’s in there too!  Would she have spoken so candidly face to face with a gay person?  What if that person was raised in the Jewish faith?  Would she have casually thrown in that little side jab about Jew’s? 
And do I even want to touch the Steubenville rape case?  It blew my mind to new levels that these teens ACTUALLY blamed the girl who got raped for ruining the rapists chances at college football scholarships!  Are we so good at displacing blame and justifying our actions that we actually buy our own bullshit?  “It’s not my fault I had sex with her while she was passed out and took pictures of it!  She was wasted and had a short skirt on, which means she MUST have wanted it.”  Absolutely disgusting.
The last straw leading up to this post were the many pictures I saw posted and re-posted of blood spattered streets after the bombing in Boston.  Weather they are actual photos or just captioned to “be” Boston… I don’t know or care.  It was disturbing and made me cringe. I don’t think it should have been captioned with things like “RIP Boston bomber victims”.  I truly felt it was distasteful… but it’s not anymore is it?  What once was taboo is common place now, so we have to up the ante and push the limits more and more to evoke the same emotional response out of people.  Has it come to this?   That even an image of the blood left behind after such a tragedy is not beyond our moral limits?
This is all media, news, and hype. When I step back and think about the people I actually know and interact with, they aren’t like this at all.  The people I know and respect are uplifting and post things like this on their Facebook walls;

I married a guy who once chased down and detained a man who tried to abduct a young girl in the restaurant we both worked at.  I know countless mothers and fathers from every religion or belief or walk of life who teach their children morals; right and wrong.  Parents who strive to raise their children into strong, good, morally sound people with confidence and good judgment.  In fact, I can’t say that I know a single rapist, murder, bomber, child abductor, or even animal abuser.  So maybe if I apply that ratio on a larger scale I’ll end up with something like this;


And that’s not so bad.  Not so bad at all.