We see the ugly spectre of domestic violence raising its head once more in the Dropping Off The Edge report with nearby Griffith and Lake Cargelligo among the state’s most concerning areas. 

Violence is something that we cannot continue to tolerate. The thought that anyone would threaten another with violence is unacceptable. 

The rise in violent assaults, ‘glassings’ and drugs that increase aggression is making this an unsafe society to live in.

Is this really the world we want to pass on to our children? One where it is socially acceptable for people to threaten others with violence if they don’t get their own way?

These are not men who threaten others with violence. They are simply boys with the ability to buy alcohol and drive cars.

Sometimes aggression can manifest itself in unlikely places, such as a spectator threatening to ‘smash’ a referee at a junior football game.

US president Theodore Roosevelt was a real man by any measure, and was quite fond of this West African proverb: ‘speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far’. He recognised the value of exercising intelligent forethought in place of using said ‘big stick’. 

Sadly, it seems, we are increasingly a nation of boys raising boys.

-STEPHEN MUDD