Sometimes, the Right Thing, Becomes the Wrong Thing, to Do
In Virginia recently, a teenage girl was given a two week suspension, (and was recommended for expulsion), for taking her birth control pill without permission.
Ladies and gentlemen, in an effort to protect our children, we have become, and we are making our future generations, into, a bunch of nosy wimps.
In our zealorty to make sure our children aren’t addicted, shot, stabbed, beaten or bullied, we have made an effort to take one of our God-given freedoms away. I’m speaking of Free Will….you remember that…that’s what got Adam and Eve kicked out of the Garden. For as long as I remember I was taught right from wrong, and doing wrong brought a price…if you committed a wrong something bad was going to happen, a whipping, you’d be grounded or imprisioned, or…in serious instances, you might pay with your life. It wasn’t ever as simple as Red Skelton’s Bad Little Boy, “If I do it I’ll get in trouble…I’ll do it anyway.” But almost.
But then came the war on drugs, school shootings and claims that…” They drove me to it.” Now no one wants a child drug addicted, drunk, pregnant or dead; but in a effort to protect we got nosy…and lazy. We took the low and easy road…zero-tolerance. You see it’s easy with zero tolerance. You don’t have to ask any questions, allow any questions or even worry about investigation.
Two kids fighting? What difference does it make if one has been abused and bullied all year and suddenly has had enough and decides to defend him or herself. Just suspend or expel them both…problem solved. Hell why stop at school? Let’s carry it one step further, cops show up at a domestic fight, husband beating wife or children, they fight back, let’s jail the family and problem solved.
Got kids, adults on drugs? That’s easy, zero tolerance, throw ‘em all in jail, problem solved. And let’s make sure we teach them a lesson early in life, got a headache in school need an aspirin, take one, get kicked out of school…no child left behind? Who cares. Got a sore throat? Need a cough drop, clear it with the office, but God Forbid if you share one, two weeks at home…alone while mom and dad work; remember that old adage of “Idle mind is the devil’s playground?” Hmmm.
Then let’s go back to the birth-control pill. In a perfect world, teenaged girls wouldn’t be on, or need to be on, birth control; but for the most part, choosing to wait isn’t as easy as most of us portray it to be.
When I lived in Dumas, Texas and reported on the schools, I saw my first school bus with infant seats built in…that is a sobering sight, and a really good commercial for birth-control. We need to STOP taking the easy road, throw out zero- tolerance and start making decisions again, one case at a time.
The word for the week-recidivism
