Time to wake up if moral decline is to be stopped

Boston Herald ^ | January 18, 2003 | Joe Fitzgerald

[SamAdams76]

Bullying is nothing new, but when a 12-year-old engages in it by making sexual demands on a 4-year-old, which allegedly happened on a Boston school bus this week, it ought to be a wakeup call for the rest of us.

Adolescent sensuality is nothing new either, but when a 15-year-old girl, acting on a dare, publicly participates in sexual activity with a 16-year-old boy, which allegedly happened on a South Shore school bus a week earlier, it, too, ought to be a wakeup call for the rest of us.

These are more than isolated incidents; they're reflections of the mess we've made of this society, all of us, because, as Albert Aymer direfully noted here in 1994, we all have roles to play.

Remember him? He was the minister who came to Boston to preside over the funeral for his boyhood friend, Accelyne Williams, a retired Dorchester minister who suffered a fatal heart attack when Boston police mistakenly raided his apartment.

Aymer's words have echoed here ever since.

``By allowing society to get like this,'' he said, ``we become a part of its creation. We like to think we're not responsible for the way things are. We like to think we had no active role in getting to this point. But no society just happens. There are a lot of players.

``There are players by intention and there are players by neglect. We all have roles to play. We either do something to prevent situations or we sit back and do nothing, and by doing nothing we become participants through neglect.''

Four months ago, a group of Bridgewater-Raynham High School football players gave a wonderful demonstration of that, rejecting the appearance of a stripper at a preseason team party, much to the embarrassment of the host parent who had hired her to perform.

How many adults would have had the fortitude to do what those kids did?

``I think there is a fundamental unease in the land right now about those who would tell us what is right and what is wrong,'' Congressman Bill Delahunt said in 1999, explaining his unwillingness to condemn Bill Clinton's scandalous behavior. It was that kind of timidity that allowed Clinton to get away with unconscionable conduct, but don't think there wasn't a price to be paid.

Remember Neomai Cavicchi? She appeared here more than once during those miserable days of deceit, distortions and presidential depositions. A Gold Star mother whose son died in Vietnam, she ran a day care center for children in her Randolph home and told of having to deal with questions from 5-year-olds who'd heard enough on television to have their curiosities piqued.

``I can't come right out and tell them what he's accused of doing,'' she said. ``So I try to explain how there's good and there's bad, and how sometimes it's hard to be good and easy to be bad. If you're dealing with kids, you have to have a quick answer and an honest one, too.

``I just can't stand to think we've sunk so low that they have nothing and no one to look up to anymore, where the White House is no longer a respectable place, where rather than encouraging children to admire the president, you have to hope instead they won't ask you anything about him.''

That might sound like ancient history this morning, but it's a perfect illustration of a timeless adage holding that we reap what we sow.

Everyone talks about rights, but who wants to talk about responsibilities? Hollywood? Television? Talk radio?

Fat chance. They contemptuously laugh at the notion of responsibility, and no one holds their feet to the fire, which is one reason our popular culture is turning into a sewer.

But who's willing to say that, willing to be called a prude?

Pols? Please. While they're running for cover, the ACLU is running amok.

And you wonder why what used to be shocking now seems to be everyday news?

A month ago the Associated Press ran a noteworthy story from Philadelphia that began: ``One student hit a pregnant teacher, another exposed himself, and a third stabbed a classmate with a pencil. All have been suspended.''

What made it noteworthy was the next sentence: ``All are kindergartners.''

Reaping what we sow?

You bet we are, and the harvest is becoming more bitter every day.

[ventana]

I think when kids are little it's a bit easier to control, when they get up near the teen years it becomes a lot more difficult. So, I got rid of it altogether.

[GrandMoM]

It started in the late 60's early 70's when the government and the so called establishment started bringing so called mental health officials out from under rocks to tell the world that spanking and discipline were wrong and that we were supressing the freedom of being oneself

....still practiced today!!!!!!

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

True Very True !