Hey, it’s a new year, and an ideal time to scrap inane and worthless policies–right?
I feel I ought to mention that the elementary school, grades K-5, in my neighborhood seems to have a policy forbidding children to walk to or from school. If you must walk three blocks or so, you must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.
When I was in fifth grade, any kid who couldn’t walk home without his mommy would have been–well, wondered at, to say the least.
This 24/7 supervision really has to stop: it’s stunting the children’s mental growth. Is it any wonder we have colleges full of overgrown babies who have to play with Play-Doh because they heard somebody say something that didn’t fit into their ideological straitjacket?
Ooh! But it’s just too dangerous to let the kiddies walk!
At the risk of sounding revolutionary, how’s about we grab those persons who constitute the danger and lock them up? And what say we stop normalizing deviance? Like, we just got rid of the president who tried to order little girls’ bathrooms thrown open to grown men.
So that’s another imbecility that has to be scrapped, but quick–that whole “I identify as such-and-such” business. We don’t need to hear that anymore.
It’ll be hard to get rid of stuff like this, because you-know-who are going to cling to it for all they’re worth: but it’s a fight that must be fought, and won. And won!
Unbelievable! When I was in middle school, a coach and teacher at the school built a roller rink on the other side of town, and I loved that place. It was about 10 blocks from my home. I walked there 3 or 4 times a week and walked there and back, after dark and thought nothing of it. Other friends did likewise. I walked to the grocery/department store several times a week (a little different 11 blocks) and carried large paper bags of groceries home. And I was a short, 78 lb. girl. And I thought that was normal. Wow.
When my father was in school, a lot of kids had guns which they brought to school so they could go shooting later–and never, not once, was there anything like the school shootings that are now a regular feature of our culture.
Hear! Hear!
Starting in about third grade my mother quit paying for the school bus and I walked one mile each direction to school. No one worried about me doing this, it was expected that I take the responsibility. By 11th grade I no longer walked home from school: I ran . . . for the exercise.
There are, unfortunately, deviants that seek to exploit children and I understand the concern. If they punish this as a crime, instead of treating it a disease they would find that the incidence of this sort of thing would decrease dramatically. I also believe that children can fight back. Nothing would break the spell faster than being scratched and bitten by a child that was resisting with all it their strength. I can speak only for myself, but when I was a child, any stranger that tried to molest me would have been badly bitten or worse.
I self-identify as a person that has zero tolerance for child molesters. Maybe they will have to come up with a new gender, “heterosexual male with no tolerance for anyone that would harm a child”. On second thought, I don’t think that’s a new gender; it’s called being a man.
I think we all know what would have happened to anyone, in 1959, caught talking to a child “about sex” (other than the child’s parents, of course). Everybody knew that: and that’s why child molestation was so rare and horrifying a crime. It was punished very, very severely–and the perps were not considered part of the Democrat voter base, and hence to be appeased.
Right on. It is a shame to see how things are going today, but unless people stand up and start resisting, down is the only way it can go.
I think we’ve started. I think that’s what this election was about.
I agree. We’re not out of the woods, but we are at least moving in the right direction. As best I remember, felons are not allowed to vote, although I doubt that the Dem’s want that enforced.
The deal is, we have to have standards. Watch It’s A Wondeful Life and compare the values portrayed therein with the values prevalent in our day. In seventy years we’ve gone from decency to depravity, at least when it comes to entertainment.
I was having breakfast at a local cafe and they had some music from the ’60s playing. Not Top 40 music, but instrumental music, such as A Walk In The Black Forest, which was a real treat. You don’t hear that sort of quality on the radio these days. I came away feeling happy and uplifted, not by some deep spiritual message, but because the music was happy and lighthearted.
The cool thing about you is, you understand the cultural issue and appreciate the beauty of goodness–and the goodness of beauty. I wonder if anyone much younger than us is able to do that. Well, we’ve gotta do what we can to teach them.
Thank you, Lee. I relish the compliment.
I fear that the generations that have followed us face an uphill battle. Very few people raised in recent decades have had the freedom I experienced or the circumstances which I had. The freedom of which I speak is the freedom gained by living in a time and place where serious crime was all but non-existent. It was a time when children were blithely unaware of sexuality and could enjoy innocent fun.
Sadly, I don’t know how such conditions can be attained in today’s world. Many kids are raised by the TV set and influenced by the lowest common denominator of the TV, music and online co tent to which they are exposed. Meanwhile, the schools indoctrinate them with PC rubbish.
But we can teach them. I am a virtual “uncle” to several people in their 20s or 30s. Many of these people grew up without a father and appreciate being able to talk to an older male. In some cases, I see a real hunger in these young people, becsause they have never before experienced having an older male that would give them the time of day.
All I do is listen, try to understand and occasionally proffer an opinion. If I see counterproductive behavior I’ll say as much, but I don’t condemn; most of the time they are acting in ignorance. I’m quite surprised that this has happened, but I find it gratifying and there is an obvious need.
Speaking for myself, the worst thing that ever happened to me was being sent to public school, and then college. Homeschooling was practically unheard of then, and I picked up a couple decades’ worth of bad habits from my age-group peers.
Break public schooling, and you save society.
Amen! Public school was a nightmare to me. I learned to read and to do basic math, but little else. Handwriting was a challenge for me and, for the most part, the schools did little more than ridicule me because of it. Eventually I gave up and dropped out, unable to accumulate English credits because of my poor handwriting.
In retrospect, the reading and math were about all. I had two very good music teachers and over forty years later I visited and thanked one of them in person for her help. There was a band teacher, however, that ridiculed me. I had an ex fighter pilot for a teacher and he taught private pilot ground school, which was worthwhile. But overall, my 12 years in public schools contained, perhaps 2 years worth of real learning.
I quit at the age of 16, but that’s when my education started in earnest. I’ve both performed and taught music, did technical work on aircraft and currently had an IT department, and I do so with a GED.
My point, BTW, is not to ring my own bell. I simply want to point out that the school system is not the only way to learn useful skills.
Here’s another thing we really need to get rid of!
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2016/1229/University-of-Kansas-gender-identity-buttons-Progress-on-campus
Somebody posted that article on my chess page the other day. I think I might post something on it today. Gender identity buttons–aren’t you glad we didn’t have to fight World War II with schlemozzles who needed gender identity buttons?
“aren’t you glad we didn’t have to fight World War II with schlemozzles who needed gender identity buttons?”
That would definitely have complicated matters on D-day. 🙂
I’m sure General Patton would have just loved it.
Which of the 31 genders was Patton? 🙂