"Young people today have no respect!"
I used to hear my father say it, and his father before him. My great grandfather probably said it in some foreign Eastern European language, and I suspect there's probably a well worn Latin or Ancient Greek version.
It seems each successive generation looks at those who come after with disbelief, fearful for the future of society and the world. Despite those fears, each successive generation seems to muddle through, and the world our forefathers have built is a pretty good one.
That's changing because I believe that world is about to come crashing down.
Young people today really do have no respect. They don't respect the law. They don't respect those around them. They don't respect standards of common decency.
Why? Because our generation of stupid bleeding hearts has removed punishment as a sanction. If you're under 16 these days, you can do pretty much anything you like knowing that the worst that's likely to happen is you'll get a session of "counselling" during which some limp do-gooder will tell you in their softest, most unthreatening voice, that what you might have done may not have been appropriate.
No criminal conviction is recorded. You're not sent away to some child correctional facility, and no-one is allowed to give you a swift kick in the backside (literally, not metaphorically).
So that there's no mistaking the point I'm trying to make, let me state it clearly. I believe the success of Western Civilisation has been built on mutual respect and a sense of community. At every level of society, our forefathers acted (mostly) for the common good. Yes, they had a degree of individual freedom, and yes, that freedom allowed them to do much as they pleased, but there was an understanding that expression of that freedom came with a responsibility to use it to preserve common values and build a better future.
Today, young people are raised to believe it's everyone for themselves. We pander to the excesses of youth with plattitudes... "oh... they just need better guidance", or "they're just expressing their individuality".
We don't even draw proper boundaries. Last week, the government here in New South Wales was forced by public outcry to withdraw a brochure advising teenagers of how they should experiment with drugs "responsibly". They called it "harm minimisation", and all the bleeding hearts were shouting "but kids will take drugs, so we have to give them the right information".
Crap. It's the wrong signal. It says "look... we know these drugs are illegal, but we also know you're going to take them and that's ok." No. It's NOT ok, and to say it sends very mixed signals indeed.
Take the case yesterday in Canada, where the Quebec Superior Court overturned a father's decision to ground his 12 year old daughter as punishment for disobeying his direction not to visit websites he deemed "innapropriate". (She had disobeyed him by going to a friends house to post improper photographs of herself on some "social networking" site.)
Are they serious? First, what is a 12 year old girl doing taking her parents to court so she's not grounded. Second, why is the state funding this stupidity, and third, what was the judge thinking?
I don't know what it's like in Canada, the UK, the USA, or any of the other places my readers live. I just know what it's like here in Australia. Children are an undisciplined rabble, subject to minimal parental cotrol, prone to binge drinking, antisocial behaviour and an utter disregard for theose around them. They seem born to accept that the world owes them, and that there are no sanctions for ill manners, or even criminal activity. They get into their 20s unemployable, with a sense of entitlement that they have not yet earned.
Enough is enough. It's time we wrested control back from the social engineers and began applying and enforcing standards of decency and behaviour. If we don't, Western Civilisation will continue to teeter towards the edge of a precipice.
