So here's the thing ... How honest dare we be in a public forum like this?  Seems to me, that being honest can be kinda dangerous ... even more than taking a stand on a volatile issue … ???

In my observation, there is a common root:  irresponsibility, and it seems to be epidemic in our culture.  From the top to the bottom, we are all to eager to post all blame for our "problems" on someone else ...  our parents didn't love us, our parents divorced when I was a kid, our parents beat each other ... we're poor ... whatever ... Whether it's the corporate greed of big business or the vast numbers of fatherless children all around us, we live in a dichotomy that goes far beyond political parties or religious preferences.  It seems everything from teenage pregnancy to aids to political apathy is someone else's fault. 

There are few things that light my fuse faster than hearing something like this. Our society has "evolved" in one of any number of paradoxes.  On one hand we claim to teach our students the "logical" system of evolution, but evidence screams that, if indeed, we are a product of the "fittest", why is our society deteriorating?  We are smarter, more technologically astute, living longer, yada, yada, yada ... but random violence continues to increase, our youth are confused and lost without purpose or goals.  We teach our children they are animals (primates, only slightly ahead of the gorillas etc) and lower our expectations to that place ... saying, "We understand that you are just animals and cannot help yourselves and must have sex, but here is a condom."  In fact, our kids have little or no idea what real love is, the forever kind that is more than lust and emotion forged together ... the sacrificial kind that is divine in origin.  Many of our children are expected to perform academically, athletically, but morally, they can make up their own rules or not.

Now I know this is a radical thought, but why can we not teach our selves to be responsible for our own lives, our own words, our own actions & attitudes?  If we can teach ourselves, maybe our children will have something worthwhile to learn from us.  We talk about being free.  THIS is freedom, being responsible for the person I am ... not necessarily for who others see me to be or want me to be.  We can teach ourselves and our children to be responsible for the choices we make, i.e. that is it acceptable to say "NO".  Once responsibility is learned, there is a sense of achievement that also naturally boosts the self-respect by empowering the individual with intelligent choices.  By handing out condoms, we are stripping our young people of the choice to say no ... or at least validating the hormones that say YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS and at the same time calling it freedom!  Since when is limiting choices the same as the increase of freedom?

Today's Impressive Thought: 

We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.
                                                          -- Sir Winston Churchill