"I long for the days when school violence consisted of a brief altercation on the playground with fists ... Everybody walked away from those, maybe a little scuffed up, but alive."

"If people admit that they will have to admit that the system and we are failing our children. Most people would rather blame something or someone else rather that admit responsibility."

"His parents were enabling him, not stepping up and acting like parents."

"Have we allowed ourselves and our society to stray that far from civility?"

A) Your kids go to a school that is so politically correct that the kids will be EXPELLED for fighting. Do you think this helps or hinders bullying and intimidation problems? How do you think these rules will help or hinder the lives of your children ten years from now?

B) The system is not reponsible for your kids and their behavior. YOU* are responsible for their behavior. If YOU* don't like what they're being exposed to at their school, YOU* can remove them from the school and either put them in another school, a private school, or homeschool them. YOU* have options, but they take some thought, and probably more financial control than you're exerting now.

C) Most parent/child relationships have been reversed. The children are calling the shots, the parents obey.

D) The veneer of civilization we wear is so thin that it is virtually non-existent. We are the same people as the citizens of Rome fifteen centuries ago. In Edward Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, he cited laziness, softness, loss of civic virtue, and outsourcing their duties as some of the reasons for its downfall. Which of these do not apply to us as a country right now, and have for some time?

We have been trained, and trained well, not to think for ourselves, to do as we're told, to be good consumers (on credit), not to stand up for what we know is right, not to care about anything of an evil nature unless it is approaching our front door.

(*I refer to the editorial YOU, not the specific YOU.)

I suspect that the people who peruse this website, actively or anonymously, are those who either suspect or KNOW that all of this is wrong, and want to make some plan, and/or make some decisions that could possibly change their small part of their existance.

On a wholescale, countrywide scale, I think it is simply hopeless to expect. The avalanche has already begun.

Sue

Time to Get Tuff! Time to do something Radically Opposite and Different! Long Overdue High Time! (Train and) Arm the Teachers. Have Armed Security Guards, even School Police, (as Rediclous as this should *Ordinarily* be!), -in and around the School. For Real! I'm Serious!

*Don't* Come Down on the Little Kid who brings a plastic Squirt Gun to Show and Tell! To then say that you have suppossedly Gotten Tuff.

*Do* Meet the Real (and Wrongful) Force out there, -with Equal to Overwhelming Force of your Own. There is Real Proper Tuffness. Then and There you are Really Properly Addressing the Problem!

We as a People, Culture, and Nation are here like the Kid back in School, -who keeps on getting Hit! -But Amazingly keeps on Standing there!, -Taking it!

Quit being so Darned Nice! Niceness has many Places in Life, -but this is Clearly *Not* one of them!

Seriously and For Real!!!

Yes, -There've always've been examples of this. But Romeos and Julietts used to come along in the Bluest of Blue Moons!, -once in every Great Whiles! But nowadays a Jonesboro or Columbine seems to come along what, -every Two or Three Months or so!

Bingo...You've hit the nail on the head with that point Susan. You guys ever watch primetime TV? Ever notice how the Dads on TV are portrayed as buffoons, while the kids are shown to be wise beyond their years? The kids on TV disobey their parents, talk back, slam doors & the kids watching it at home for 4-5 hours a night think that it's normal to be that way. I may be stretching, but I think I'm on to something. We all would be better off with less TV. Who knows, kids may actually talk to their parents if they didn't have the TV on so long...they may start to look-up to their mom & dad. Kids may even learn to pick-up a book every know and then...wouldn't that be something?

In a Worst Case Scenario, -as your last paragraph seems to describe, -I think there *may* still be "Pull Out" Hope for the Society and Country! Its like a Long Collapsing House, thats Routinely Ignored! Finally the Real Collapse occurs! In an Instant with the Inhabitants in it. Then!, -We may Finally Get Up the Will!, -and Know!

Question is then, -Will we be Strong and Quick Enuff to Catch, Stop, and then "Reverse Back on Up", -the Collapsing Walls?!

Or will we be like the Trapped Animal who only Finds Out, -once the Cage Door Slams Down Behind it! Then Too Weak and All to get the Door Back Open?! (Better Hurry Up!, Before our given X Enemy, -whoever it is, -Comes Round to Check on his Traps! Or will we be Too Slow and Soft even there?!).

Its also Important to Know and Remember!, -"In Times Like These", -That its still a Good Ways from All Lost and Bad and All! There's yet Plenty of Decent, Sensible People around! You See and Meet them Every Day! For every Harris and Klebold out there, -there's at least 2,000 OK & Normal, -to Good, to Great!, -Students out there! The Great Silent Majority! (Well maybe that Majority should in some ways, -Quit being so Silent about it!).

Problem is, -there's a Good Deal of Societal Rot and Water Left Running!, -too! Certainly Plenty More! Than in Earlier Times and Days!

"The system is not reponsible for your kids and their behavior. YOU* are responsible for their behavior. If YOU* don't like what they're being exposed to at their school, YOU* can remove them from the school and either put them in another school, a private school, or homeschool them. YOU* have options, but they take some thought, and probably more financial control than you're exerting now." When I said the system I meant that WE as adults are failng the children not only our own but all children.

"When I said the system I meant that WE as adults are failng the children not only our own but all children."

Yes, I know that is what you meant. I'm sorry that I didn't make that clear.

And it is sad and frustrating.

Sue

Speaking of mentally disturbed, the CA governor has signed into law SB 777, which, among other things, will allow male students to enter female restrooms and lockers rooms, and vice versa. The assumption is that the enterers (is that a word?) will be "transgender students," but what 17 year old male student, hormones raging, would pass up a chance to legally wander thru the girls locker room???

source

Uh, What the &$%_)@#()&*""!!!!!!

What is this transgender nonsense???!!! If they are a boy, then they belong in the boy's facilities. If a girl, then they don't.

Transgender this. Any boy (anatomy determinant, to be precise) that walks in on one of my daughters unwelcomed (maybe even if they welcome him, I am a dad after all), could face IMMEDIATE TRANSGENDER REASSIGNMENT, via involuntary removal of their male parts. Until they lose the cajones, they simply can't be trusted, I don't care how effeminate they act.

Yet another example of stupid policies.

"...Yet another example of stupid policies..."

Welcome to the wonderful world of California. Which is why we are in Wyoming. You wanna buy our house in CA???