The House and the Home
by Don Wrege
One problem with good intentions is that the road to Hell is paved
with them. When politicians seize the tragedy of the day to generate
feelgood legislation for the sake of their political image, we wind
up complicating an already overburdened legal system and usually
miss the underlying reasons for the problem at hand.
Columbine High School isn't that far away from Boulder, Colorado
where I live. In the wake of the tragic shooting of thirteen innocent
people by two twisted punks who would rather die than grow up,
lawmakers have lined up in front of the television cameras to decry
everything from the internet to video games. From Hollywood to
Madison Avenue, we are told by the Washingtonians, there is filth,
hatred and violence emanating from the culture makers. This must
not stand.
Please note: When a Republican complains about Hollywood it's
censorship. When a Democrat complains about Hollywood it's
compassion.
It is far more comfortable for our collective psyche to make the
cartoon shock rocker Marilyn Manson the problem instead of the
perpetrators parents. Why, how can we EXPECT parents to know
what their kids are up to? If we had MORE LAWS this wouldnt have
happened. More laws and less Marilyn Manson!
Would it were this simple. Gun control, dress codes, metal detectors
and more laws will not prevent another such tragedy. Parents who
are in touch with their own teenage children might. At least one of
the killers, who was under the influence of parent-approved,
physician-prescribed psychoactive drugs when the murders were
committed, had given sufficient signals to anyone who would listen
that he was troubled and capable of horrible mayhem. The first
crime committed was that no one listened. The second crime we all
read about in the papers.
Unfortunately we can't pass a law that forces parents to actually
care for the kids they bring into the world. That would be
unconstitutional.
Light anyone?
