A trial concluded recently in Southern California. A 13-year-old boy was found guilty of murder. He clubbed a fellow baseball player in the knees and then over the head with a baseball bat. The sentence hasn't been handed down yet, but he'll probably get the maximum of 12 years.
The convicted boy was wrong, of course. But, based on testimony, the circumstances leading up to the incident demonstrate some of the points I've been making over the past several months regarding discipline and following the rules. Apparently, again based on testimony for the defense, and reported by local news media, the victim was alleged to be a bully. He was known to throw his baseball helmet. He was known to throw his bat at infielders. He was known to double flip off umpires if he didn't like a call. If you read the reports, it appears that he got away with much of these antics without repercussions. Apparently, the victim was picking on the 13-year-old and this boy couldn't take any more.
When I played baseball, if I threw my helmet, I was suspended for one game. If the manager didn't do it, then my dad did it for him. If I had flipped off an umpire? Well, let's just say I would have been reading a lot of books that summer.
As I've stated many times before, and I know it makes me sound like a republican, but rules are too lax now and people are taking advantage of it -- young and old. Racing through red lights, even with baby strollers in the crosswalk, firecrackers going off from 3 July to 5 July in fire danger zones, and so on.
We need to get some order in the house.
4 comments:
Hear, hear. And I still believe that you can have common sense, decency, and an understanding of the responsibilities of being a good citizen without being a [shiver] Republican.
Parents don't discipline their kids today. I know my sister just threatens and threatens with timeout and taking this away or that away and never follows through, which is awful.
I couldn'g agree more. If I would have flipped off an umpire growing up, I swear I'd have eight fingers now. My mother would have ripped off one, and my father the other.
But I never would have flipped off anyone else.
Now it's all about "What did you do to my poor son to make him react that way."
Some kids need a boot in the a$$, as that's the only logic they understand.
See, I think it is NOT the liberal parents who are the problem here, but the Republican ones. The parents whose sense of entitlement and complete lack of respect for the public sphere extends to their children, the parents who think that "I'm paying for it" (college, summer camp, whatever) means "I'm entitled to satisfaction," with "satisfaction" defined as "don't you correct my child." I think that it's an inherently Republican value to think that "parental responsibility" for children means "society as a whole has no responsibility towards children," which means that (if the children are poor or brown) their "parents need to take responsibility" and (if the children are mine or my friend's) "other people have no business talking to or interfering with my kids."
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