Culture Of Permissivism

I rarely if ever find myself in agreement with Stanley Crouch but this week he writes about lowering the drinking age and low and behold we share some thoughts about this subject. BLOW ME DOWN!

When I was in my 20's I agreed that the raising of the drinking age was stupid. All the studies showed that most of the drunk driving offenders, statistically, were either under 18 or middle aged men. But Tipper Gore was on a crucade. And funny enough, wasn't it HER son who is now around 30 that was pulled over recently because he was smoking pot and driving like a maniac.

Now about that for a second. I have smoked pot and I have no idea how you do that and drive fast. The fact that he did that makes me very suspicious of his motor skill talents. But I digress.

I never understood how you can accept 17 and 18 year old kids into the army and require the boys of that age to sign up for a draft should there ever be one yet tell them they can't drink a beer. It's just stupid.

But our society has changed. Parents have become demandingly permissive and the mental maturity of our younger people have become stunted.

Crouch says in his article:

"parents even get in the game by demanding less pressure on their children."

And then he states how parents are "befuddled by the behavior of their spoiled kids."

"The current mind-set is that if a child doesn't like something, it should be changed to fit his lack of understanding, his impatience, his laziness."

With that last statement he is 100% correct. As someone who began babysitting other's children at the tender age of 12 and at one point became a nanny to help pay for college I watched this mindset prosper before my very eyes.

Today we see shows like Super Nanny. Nanny Jo comes to the home of some pathetic couple who has no control over their own children and cannot understand why.

Nanny Jo is making a lot of money because we spent the last 30 years letting our own emotional baggage change the way we raised our own children.

When I was 18, 18 year olds were more mature and ready for the adult things in life, although not nearly as mature as our parents were when they were 18. Today our 18 year olds are for the most part stunted emotionally and completely lack critical thought processing skills.

Case in point: they can't see the difference between Russia crossing borders into Georgia and the U.S. invading Iraq. So let me dumb it down for all of you folks who fall into this catagory:

Think back to your playground days. You're sitting on the swing with your friends having a good day playing. The big bad bully comes along and decides he or she wants your swing. It's not good-enough they had their own swing on the other side of the playground. Your swing is closer to the building which means that when recess is over you and your friends have a shorter walk to the lunch line and get the better tator tots.

So bully comes over and pummels the shit out of you and your friends.

THAT'S RUSSIA!

The next day when the bully is on your swing set and you are in the infirmary a new group of kids come over to the bully and tell him or her that what they did wasn't nice or fair and that they won't play with him or her until the bully gives the swing back to the kids he or she beat up.

THAT'S Europe!


A few weeks later you [the kid that the bully beat the shit out of] gets out of the infirmary and the bully is still sitting on the swing he or she took away. You [the kid that was originally beaten up] goes up to the bully, says nicely that he needs to give your swing back. Bully laughes and kicks you. You smile at the bully and then proceed to trampel the bully with every muscle and fiber of your being until the bully has broken arms and legs and blood spilling from their mouth.

All of your friends and you go back to your swing and protect it from any other possible bullies.

THAT'S THE UNITED STATE of AMERICA.


Sadly however too many younger folk don't understand this at all. They can only see the correlation between two people fighting and nothing more.

Do we really want to give young people who don't or can't understand this difference the legal right to drink alcohol and further impair their judgement?

I propose the following: if you choose the college route you have to wait until 21 to drink legally. If you choose to go into the army and risk your life for your country, after 6 months in the service you are given the right to buy alcohol. 'Nuff said!

Not convinced? Read about Russia's bedfellows here.