Community standards should go up, not down!
Just about all societies ills stem from the same problem that has befallen societies throughout history. They have succumbed to the normalisation of things that should have been stopped before they even got started. I’m all for freedom and progress, but there are some things that should not be allowed to fall by the wayside in the name of “I’ll do what I want”.
Freedom of expression is a good thing, but it should be something that is earned like respect. It’s not be something that you should have from the day you are born. More freedom as you get older and are able to handle that freedom sounds like a much better deal than kids wandering around telling their parents that they will do as they please. Should children have the right to express themselves to the point of abusing their parents whenever they try to get them to behave?
We have allowed our children to get out of hand. Try walking down the main street nearly anywhere without hearing the most foul language possible from the mouths of minors. But go and do just that in ‘posh’ suburb and you are quite likely to wind up in court. Double standards much?
The bleeding hearts that say you shouldn’t smack your children have it so that parents are so afraid to discipline their children that the children are now beating up their parents. Respect for one’s parents is dying very quickly.
Try riding a train and having the peace and quiet to read a book or the mornings paper without having to put up with the music from some idiots mp3 playing phone.
Get a copy of the road rules and look up what the rules are for roundabouts and then take a chair and sit near one and watch just how many people have no idea how they should work. It’s become a free for all that is now spilling over onto other intersections. Very little respect for others on the roads anymore.
It’s so much fun to get caught by that red light just in time to have some dickhead pull up beside you with his or her music blaring so loud they couldn’t hear an ambulance siren if it was sitting right behind them. The thumping base must be doing a great amount of damage to their hearing and yet they couldn’t care less. Why are sound systems of this power legal in cars?
There are rules about smoking within a certain distance of exits from buildings but when was the last time you saw anyone actually walk outside that area before lighting up? And then they probably don’t keep going afterwards. Just last week at our local hospital, visitors standing right next to the sign that plainly says ‘no smoking within the marked zone’ and yes, the zone is marked quite clearly with bright yellow lines.
I used to think it was quite disgusting to see people spitting into the gutter, but that’s nothing to having people just spit right on the path in front of them oblivious to other people around them
Roadside advertising signs are another problem these days. They can be informative, but it should be kept to a minimum so drivers attention isn’t being diverted for lengthy periods of time. What is worse are the explicit lingerie adverts or others that show scantily clad girls advertising something that has nothing to do with what is depicted. How many accidents are caused by these advertisements taking drivers attention away from the road? It’s not just the danger. How about the blatant advertisement of such things to children? You couldn’t legally put that stuff in a children’s magazine, so why is it where they can see it day after day? No respect for parents wishes.
I drive past a school a few days ago only to see a parent getting a small child out of a car that has emblazoned across the rear window the following: Caring Understanding Nineties Type. I don’t know about you, but when did it become acceptable to throw that in our kids faces right out in front of a school? If I choose not to have that become a part of my children’s upbringing, it seems that society is now telling me I don’t have that right.
The big movable signs that roadworkers use to inform you of roadworks and detours are now being used by businesses to advertise sales. We take our attention away from the road to see what may be important only to find there is a sale on mattresses.
Just because there aren’t specific laws to stop most of this behaviour, doesn’t mean that it should just be shrugged off and allowed to continue.
Are we now at the stage that the ‘lowest common denominator‘ is the major stockholder in our collective futures? If I said that we are now living with anarchy, I’d be wrong, but if I said that we are well on the road to such a situation I’d be right. Somewhere between now and then, there is a line that will be crossed. Do we cross that line and then be unable to retrieve the situation or do we hold that line and save some kind of community standards for future generations to live by?