It’s been well known for sometime that our nation has been going to hell in a hand basket. Recent events have made me re-think this matter and I now realize that a more accurate analogy would be going hell on a high speed monorail.
I live in a rural county with a population of about eighty-five hundred. Aside from a bit of snobbery towards anyone not from a well established local family, it’s always seemed about as close as you can get to Mayberry U. S. A. This past Friday my ten-year-old granddaughter brought home the following note from school:

ATTENTION . . . . . . .ATTENTION . . . . . . . ATTENTION

Dear Parents,

On Thursday, August 25, in Fair Play (a nearby town) a man tried to take a female student from the school. This was the second attempted abduction in our area recently.

We want you to know that we are taking many precautions here at our school. Our faculty and staff have been made aware of the situation and are very knowledgeable of our safety procedures. Our students also have been made aware about the dangers of talking to strangers, and we would encourage parents to discuss this with them as well. We will be practicing “lock-down” drills from time to time with the students and all our outside doors are kept locked allowing entry through the only front doors. All visitors must sign in and wear a visitors tag.

For the safety of your child you must call the school in the mornings of your child is not going to be at school. If you don’t, we will be calling you.

We are very concerned and will continue to be vigilant in this matter.

Sincerely,


Xxxxxxxx xxxxxx
Elementary Principal

This happened at an elementary school, a school with our youngest and most vulnerable children. The almost victim was a seven-year-old girl.

When I was this age I walked more than half a mile to and from school each day. Many other children walked much farther and never once do I remember hearing of any child being accosted during my entire time in elementary school. The only untoward incident of any type is when a young boy was being a boy and carelessly ran into the street without looking. He was hit by a car and spent only a couple of days in the hospital. Never was there a warning of strangers trying to abduct a child, or even of an angry parent trying to grab their child because of disagreements with their former spouse. We were far more concerned with the “Red Menace” and imminent nuclear attack.

For me school was a place to learn all of those things that I’d never use again in my life, to meet with old friends and build new friendships, and a place above all else where we felt as safe as we were when we were at home with our parents.

The same day I learned of this incident I witnessed something else that not only sickened me but cast a cloud of blackness over my heart. My daughter, who I have always believed loved and cared for her children as much or more than could be possible, proved me to be very much in error on this matter. I watched in shock as she allowed her seven-year-old son to rush through dinner so he could get back to his video game. The game he was playing is called “Grand Theft Auto,” in which the idea seems to be to steal as many cars as possible and being required to kill innocent people in order to accomplish this “mission.” It is full of graphic violence, the foulest of language, and the most depraved set of morals that has ever been foisted on a complacent and uncaring parent in the name of “entertainment.”

I love my daughter more than words can express and had always thought of her as a good and caring mother. Now, however, I see that although she may love her four children she like so many others would rather give in to what is easy rather than do what is harder but right. Giving in is easier than doing the work of raising them with proper values despite what “everyone else is doing.” It is obvious that being a buddy or giving in to that old argument of “everyone is doing it” is easier than taking a stand for what is right and risk her children being upset with her. She would rather be “a cool mom” instead of doing what is best for her children.

When I questioned the appropriateness of the language my son-in-law was actually stupid enough say that if they don’t hear it in the game they will hear it on television, or at school and that it wasn’t as bad as language as is in some other games. He said that quantity was the only issue, not quality. From these deeply moronic thoughts I guess it will be fine with him and my daughter if the children decide to become homosexuals since they are told in school and on television that it is an acceptable life style. I thought I had taught my daughter that what other people say and do is up to them but it does not make it right or acceptable. That real people are willing to stand apart, to emphasize quality rather than quantity and that taking the easy way out, such as giving in to children who are supposed to be the learners not the teachers, seldom leads to good results. I thought I had taught her that being like everyone else, that being a sheep and following blindly behind the “leader” led only to slaughter. I really thought I had conveyed the message that being right was far superior to being a lemming and blindly rushing towards the sea.

Our country has been inundated with perversion at every level. It is in our schools, our government, our entertainment, and our families. I did what I could to teach my daughter what is right, what is the proper way to view life but obviously I failed in that endeavor. Like so many other parents she has decided that doing the back breaking, never ending work to raise your kids with real values is to hard. She has decided that letting the child make the decisions is easier than doing the real work of parenting. I knew this foolish attitude had struck countless families across this nation, I guess I had allowed myself to become blind to the fact that my own family is dying of this cancer as well.

In short, with schools being forced to guard against pedophiles kidnapping children for their own sick pleasures, with parents letting the kids make all the decisions, with morals nothing more than an obscure word in the dictionary that has no meaning any longer, only one conclusion can be drawn. Our nation has no future. Kruschev once said that “they (the Soviet Union) would bury” us. They didn’t get around to it before their own nation fell but it really doesn’t matter. Our heart has ceased to function, we’ve dug the hole, now all that is left is for us to pull the dirt in on top of ourselves.