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May 31, 2004 With this being an election year, we will be bombarded by advertisements from both sides, each trying to convince us that the other guy is what’s wrong with America. If we just vote for ______, they’ll tell us, and ____ will make everything better again. The sad thing is, there are millions of people out there who will believe them. The only problem is, what’s wrong with America isn’t something that can be solved by some stuffed shirt in Washington, D.C. What’s wrong with our country starts at home, in my home and yours. WE are the problem, and no amount of legislation can change that. Don’t believe me? Try this. Get up early some Saturday morning and go out to the mall, or to a ballgame, or anywhere else that large groups of people gather; then watch how people interact. Try to count how many acts of selfishness, rudeness or inconsideration you witness. You’ll lose count, because it’s rampant. We have become selfish, inconsiderate, and rude. Even worse, we have taught our children to behave in the same way, which adds to the problem. Our inability to interact with each other in a civilized manner has resulted in our becoming angry and in some cases, violent. I am twenty nine years old. When I was a child, they thought of taking a gun to school was alien to me. It was to most people, it just didn’t happen. Today, it happens several times a year. The reason is usually the one of a few select things: boyfriend/girlfriend broke up with them, kids at school teased them, teacher was too tough on them, etc… Let me set the record straight. I was picked on, I didn’t shoot people. I didn’t even have a girlfriend, I didn’t kill people. Teachers were tough on me, I tried harder. I was taught to overcome things, to meet and defeat obstacles that were placed in front of me. My generation was the last generation to be taught that if you wanted something, you had to work for it. Then, somewhere along the line, people began thinking that if they wanted it, they should just have it. Suddenly, an obstacle wasn’t something you overcame, you removed it, by any means necessary. This is why kids are so maladjusted, that they cannot handle such trivial things, things that every school kid has gone through at some point in their lives. Read any newspaper from any midsize or bigger city for about a week and see how many stories you see about assaults, drug usage, arrests or worse that involved minors. It’s shocking, especially for someone with one daughter in school and another ready to start in the fall. No wonder people have taken to home schooling. This isn’t limited to kids, however, adults are just as guilty. Over the Memorial Day weekend, we took our daughters to the local amusement park. My youngest just barely reached the 42” size requirement to ride most of the adult rides. Yet, the woman at the ticket counter argued with us and refused to let us pay the adult admission to the park. Still, we got her on most of the rides by showing the people that she was tall enough. However, when she was barred from riding the only ride she really wanted to ride, and one that she had ridden with us on a previous visit, we went to see the manager. First he told us that she was too young, although it doesn’t go by age but by height. Then he also argued that she wasn’t really 42”, then he admitted that he was afraid of lawsuits. Everyone is afraid of lawsuits, and that is a problem. You can’t go anywhere or do anything without someone being afraid of lawsuits. One dummy spills coffee in her lap and suddenly you have to have disclaimers on everything. “WARNING: COFFEE IS HOT AND COULD BURN” Duh! An accident is no longer an accident, a mistake is no longer forgivable. They must be punished, by monetary means. Suddenly, the coffee burns aren’t so terrible when I’ve got a big fat wad of cash in my account. Now, people go around looking for a reason to sue, so they can get rich quick. Who cares if it’s people like you and me who suffer. I work in insurance, and I get it from both sides. Customers tell me how ridiculous their premiums are, that they are being cancelled unjustly, and on and on. Then the company talks about fraud, false claims, scams and the like, and that is the reason companies have to raise premiums. It’s a no-win situation, high prices result in people trying to get something back, which results in higher premiums, and it continues. So, the scams of selfish people are taken out on the innocent, hardworking people who struggle to make their payments each month. We get angry when we see people living on easy street who got there not by hard work but by a frivolous lawsuit or some stroke of luck. So we begin looking for the easy way, who cares who we hurt. Look around, companies have to cut jobs because of lawsuits or threat thereof. Doctors cannot pay their malpractice insurance because of all the lawsuits. This is the direct result of our sue happy attitude. Who pays in the end? Not the CEO with the million dollar house, it’s the family man making twenty thousand a year who gets his job cut to make up the difference. You and I pay, every time we go to the doctor and get hit with the big bill at the end of the visit. Our collective attitudes are what has hurt this country. Politicians can pass all the laws they want, but they cannot legislate the way people behave. You cannot make selfishness illegal. You can’t make people be considerate of the people around them, or make them deal with a problem instead of sue it away. Yet, every day, the things that bug me most aren’t laws passed by Congress or a President’s flaws, it’s the way common people act and react. It’s the fact that I can’t let my kids go to the park unsupervised like I used to, because some pervert might try to take them. It’s the fact that if someone gets fired at work, they might get a gun and decide to kill everyone in the office for it. No president can change that. So, when you are bombarded by the candidates incessant finger pointing, think about your daily lives, the things that really make you angry or frighten you, and ask yourself who can make those things better. Ask yourself if you do the same things to others around you. Think about these things before you act. The only way we can really make America better, is by starting at home. ------------ About the author Donny Hunt: I am married with two daughters and live in Amarillo, TX. I currently work in insurance and am going to school to become a teacher. I have had several poems published and I looking for a publisher for my first book, which I recently completed. Email: donnyhunt77@hotmail.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ |
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