Island Richards

In today’s news, I read that Judy Shepard is visiting with members of Congress in Washington asking for hate crimes legislation. In that same city, members of Handgun Control, Inc. are lobbying to increase gun controls, and President Clinton is asking congress to pass laws that would make parents criminally responsible when their children commit crimes. Investigations are being called for to review the violence contained in our movies and video games, and Senators are seeking ways to limit access to information on the internet that they deem unfit for public consumption. People are suing tobacco companies because the people themselves were foolish enough to pick up a cigarette and smoke it and now someone is suing a gas station because they sold him gasoline before he went out and got in a wreck. A jury awarded a lady four million dollars because she was dumb enough to spill hot coffee in her lap, and in a health spa in California, soap and shampoo are banned in the showers for fear that someone will slip and sue.

What’s happening in our world? A library in the Northeast was sued because someone’s kid viewed pornographic materials on the web using one of their computers, and outfitters in Wyoming are suing the state because the Game & Fish does not guarantee them customers every year. In Yugoslavia we bomb a country out of existence because of the leader’ genocidal rampage, while we give most favored trade status to another who has committed unrivaled humanitarian crimes and engaged in a decades long campaign to steal our most vital military secrets. We ban a drug that can be used to make another drug that can be used for date rape, but we allow a man who has been accused of rape, among numerous other crimes, to lead us. We sue to keep the West pristine, yet continue to allow the East to be ravaged by industry and population without challenge. We throw paint on someone who dares to wear fur, yet turn our heads when countless thousands of homeless are forced to live in squalor on and under our streets.

In every facet of our lives we have become bombarded with inexplicable ironies that do nothing but confuse our senses of justice and morality. We allow others to make excuses for our actions and fight for the right to do nothing about it. Our lives have become a constant search for something just a little more shocking and the world has been quick to rise to the occasion. On television, instead of seeing stories that inspire us to be better people, we see live footage of bodies being ripped apart in a war torn nation, and of drug addicts throwing up on the feet of laughing police officers. We see disgusting displays of arrogance from our nations leaders, and victims seemingly made into criminals to quench our unquenchable desires for seedy gossip. We have become so addicted to shock value that we are bored with our everyday lives. Then we are shocked when the shocking stories we see on television suddenly become shocking realities in our own communities. Yet, we are untouched when our politicians use those tragedies to spin their own agendas and lobbyists use them to further their own pet projects. Over the last few decades we have surrendered our right to know the truth for the simplicity of allowing the media to tell what they think we should know, never asking who filters those truths and who decides which of those truths should ever be known.

We have given up our independence, our common sense, and our self reliance and traded them for a world full of idiocy and irony. We have done it with our eyes wide open, with no remorse, no regrets. And in this madness, this crazed indifference, we raised our children. No wonder.

Peace,

Wisdom