Hey there!
On 6/5/99 at 9:58 AM -0500, drose wrote:
> The following is by John Doggett and lifted verbatim from a
> "conservative" website. While I don't agree with everything Mr. Doggett
> has to say - for one, I am not a Christian - there is much here of value
> to consider.
I just wanted to quickly thank you for this post. Well, not so quickly...<G>.
I agree with some of what Doggett wrote of course. We need better
parenting, not new laws or regulations, especially when they involve
intellectual freedom and rights such as free speech via TV, music, the
movies, and the internet. Freedom of thought and speech are pretty
important in the MOQ, in my opinion, and should not be subservient to
society in the far majority of cases.
It was astonishing to me how quickly the Columbine shootings turned from
bad parenting to the evils of free communication in society. I would point
out that there are *many* on the right, especially the religious right, who
agree with Mrs. Clinton that we should regulate free speech to help solve
this problem. Ugh. Regulating guns, which is something I generally support,
would not have helped either and it seems like an abuse to appropriate the
Columbine disaster to further that aim.
The truth is that these kids were taught that murder was acceptable in too
many circumstances. The parents responsible for teaching these children
basic morality failed. Their churches failed. Their schools failed. Society
failed.
No one seems to want to blame the parents...or the society which relegates
parenting to a third-rate task to be done by strangers. I think that is
where the some blame belongs, though. The children who so completely
ostracized these "others" were also victims of bad parenting in my opinion.
Returning to my interpretation of Mary's point, until we as a society
realize that such occurrences can be the result of devaluing our children,
we won't realize that we are also devaluing the need for parenting. Of
course, I realize that school violence has been around forever and that I'm
just appropriating it for my point-of-the-moment as most folks are (see gun
control comments above). Somewhere around here I have a quote from an Anton
Chekhov bio about school violence during his time. Still, I feel that if we
emphasized parenting in this society, such tragedies would not happen as
often.
Doggett also wrote:
> Not one mention of parents. Not one mention of
> churches. Not one mention of commitment and duty to
> children, country and God.
Those children, as I understand it, went to church regularly and wanted to
serve their country in the military. In the end, their parents should have
taught them not to kill so readily.
Cheers,
Mark
________________________________________________________________________
Mark Brooks <mark@epiphanous.org> <http://www.epiphanous.org/>
How do you know who wrote this? <http://www.epiphanous.org/mark/pgp/>
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