On Thu, 22 Jan 2004 08:02:43 -0000, Alandem <alandem.TakeThisOut@ntlworld.com> wrote:
> Let them respect life and life will respect them.
> Rant over.
You, and a lot of other people, have been ranting and raving about this
from *entirely* the wrong angle for years.
There is *no* need to have respect for life. There *is* need to have
respect, *period*.
If gophers are a problem, and some must be eliminated, then why not have
fun doing it? You then mentioned kids moving "up the food chain a bit"
and shooting someone's horse. Those kids know horses are a commodity,
they know it probably belongs to someone. If they shoot at it anyway, the
problem is *not* a lack of respect for life, but a lack of respect for the
structure of society.
By the same token, shooting at endangered species shows a lack of respect
for those who are trying to conserve them. Nobody shoots at such a
species with the intent of driving them to extinction, they simply have no
respect for the feverish work of others.
And finally, there is respect for the firearm. If you own a gun, don't
hide it; TEACH YOUR KIDS TO USE IT! Accidents concerning kids playing
with guns, which have fueled the rage-fires of gun control activists,
happen almost exclusively in situations where the gun was hidden away and
found by a curious child. Instead, take your kids to the local firing
range; show them that a gun is a tool to be respected, like a sharp knife
or a glowing stove element. All can be useful but likewise all can be
misused to exact serious injury.
You can bet that most of the cases of school violence worldwide involved
kids who'd never used guns before; or if they had, probably without
parental supervision to guide and teach.
Trying to save animals by preaching "respect for life" is equivalent to
trying to stop a bullet by talking it down. It ignores the origin of the
bullet: the maladjusted bully who has no respect, neither for what the gun
is capable of nor for *you*.
The answer is to target the *root* of the problem: the growing trend which
takes "cool to disrespect society" to the extreme. Combat of this problem
begins at home, and at a young age; it can't be accomplished by a
government penal system. At present all we're doing to kill the weeds is
cutting off the tops of dandelions. Sure you won't see the yellow for a
while, but you really haven't done *anything* in the long run.
And that's *my* rant.
Grey
--
The technical axiom that nothing is impossible sinisterly implies the
pitfall corollory that nothing is ridiculous.
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