Spiraling Ever Downward

By Benjamin Smith

Exactly what is this world coming to? We are letting the most needed, most important things slip away from us, and the most pathetic invade our daily lives. We care much too much about stupid things and not enough about those issues which really matter.

For example, this past Saturday, Mike Tyson was released from prison after serving three years for rape. A convicted rapist was being released from prison and the media, fans, promoters and spectators were there to watch. What is wrong with society where we show up to watch a criminal be released from prison? This man, a former sports star, was convicted of raping someone. A crime thought heinous by society except when committed by a sports star. Is this another example of a double standard? There should have been nobody except for close family and friends around when Mike was released from prison. The media waited for his release, probably even counted down to this spectacular event. When it finally arrived Saturday, it was accompanied on Sunday by five separate articles in one newspaper. Five articles on the release of a rapist! It doesn't matter whether you thought he was guilty or innocent, he was CONVICTED by a jury of HIS peers. Now we celebrate his release as if it should be this great national holiday.

Not too far away from the bizarre, on Friday, Senator James Exon (D-Nebraska) introduced a bill to limit pornography on the Internet. Please do not take my comments to be supportive of pornographic rights. Now I wonder with all of the crime, homelessness, unemployment and instability of the economy why pornography on the Interment suddenly requires the regulation of the Federal Government. Now those of you who regularly surf throughout the Net realize that pornography is widely available be it from pictures to the home pages of Playboy and Penthouse must also realize that all of this available from the local newsstand. If we really want to regulate pornography then why don't we start at the newsstand? There is but a simply reason: your First Amendment rights. Protecting the First Amendment is by far the one reason to live in this country - freedom of the written word. While researching this, most of the pornographic material I found is usually prefaced by some disclaimer telling you if you are offended then skip the material. If you don't like it, you can skip it. The same approach can be taken with newsstand publications: if you don't approve don't buy it. I do believe that there exists the opportunity to regulate the material in some degree. For example, newsstands I believe don't sell pornographic material to those under the age of 18. Well, those users of the Internet who have a direct connection through their company, college or government agency, you are above 18 so it doesn't matter. But for those users who wander the Net through a commercial company (CompuServe, Prodigy, etc.), I feel that the company owes their subscribers some of the same regulation as those chaps running the newsstands. Of course nothing is foolproof, but hey that's life. Maybe Congress should consider trying to make society better by providing the country with better jobs and education than worrying about whether little Timmy is downloading a nude photo of the latest Playboy centerfold. He'll learn about the body someday, but not if he doesn't know how to read!

Our current views on education force more downward spiraling. Can someone answer me just one other question? Why is it that when the government needs to trim the budget they always look to education first? Now it would seem to me that education and its associated programs are a little more important than some of those other social programs. Are the bureaucrats and politicians really stupid enough to think that the best way to balance a budget is at the expense of the children? Now my logic may be flawed, but I would tend to think that the budget would be easier to balance if the population were better schooled in the beginning. Everybody is so concerned with education but nobody is doing a darn thing about it. How can our children learn in public schools if they are forced to learn to read from books published in 1978, or from history books which still recognize the Soviet Union as a socialist state rather than the independent states they claim to be? How can our children in public school compete with those who can afford to attend private schools?

Well, one suggestion would be to pump more money into education, or to improve what we already have. From what I have seen even the current administration in New York thinks it can trim programs and make education better. Have they stopped to think that cutting all of these programs may do just the opposite? With most employers reaching for more skilled more educated workers, how are people supposed to find jobs? A high school diploma no longer guarantees a job as it did in the past. As we cut more and more money from education we may force more and more citizens into other social programs because they are not able to find the type of employment which would allow them to be self-sufficient citizens. At the cost of a needed part of society we bloat all other programs. More programs which are frowned upon will grow and force budget problems. In return the current government will churn out more uneducated, illiterate citizens. What a benefit!

There are no cures to all of society's ills. But maybe there would be more solutions if everyone stopped to think about what is really important. When I pick up my Sunday newspaper, my cover photo and lead article should not be about the latest rapist to be heralded upon his exit from prison, but maybe coverage of more important local and national issues. With all of the recent publicity on budget quarrels in Washington, maybe one more story wouldn't hurt. It would serve to educate the population, something we are neglecting everyday. Without education, this current society will just continue to fall right down the tubes. We'll get caught up in regulating useless issues and celebrating criminals rather than caring about the fate of the world!


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