My Home Town - Continued
Further to the posting of TURNER - THE MIDNIGHT THINKER...
Yes, identity. Agreed. that is crucial.
And values.
Values are central to this discussion.
It is always risky to open the cask labelled "values," lest a hoard of bible-based, Koran-thumping, Torah-waving zealots jump on board.
But I think the changing and abandoning of certain values is at the core of what has happened to Vancouver - and the world - in the past four decades.
Here is a lift from the morning Vancouver Sun:
"Teachers complained Sunday that school principals are ordering them to never give zeros when marking class assignments, to accept late work and to allow students to rewrite tests as many times as it takes for them to get good marks."
What does that say about values?
It says that we can never say, "No," to the precious little princes and princesses known as children for fear they may no longer love us, or they may report us to higher authorities or they may run away downtown and be given money by social workers to live in hotel rooms.
It says, that in spite of spending billions of taxpayers dollars and completely disrupting the lifeblood of the city on a sports competition called the Olympics, in spite of all that, we, as a society have otherwise made competition a dirty word. Children must cooperate. They needn't compete. Everyone gets a ribbon. Everyone is a winner.
Swill.
Soft-brained wish-fulfillment drivel.
Life is endlessly competitive. In the home, in the 'hood, in business, in politics, in war. Doesn't necessarily mean that is a good thing, but that's real life. Try being 15 years old and living in China and looking for your next step in education. You'll experience some real competition.
What about other values?
What about giving heroin addicts needles and places to shoot and giving crack addicts clean pipes to smoke?
What do those public policies - aided and abetted by pseudo-science and the agreement of the silence of the masses - say about our values?
Do you rally want to live with a using addict? Do you want to aid and abet misery? Because heroin addiction and crack addiction and alcohol addiction are misery. They are degrading hideous nightmares. Don't you want to see people get off the cycle?
What are your values when you want to help them stay stupid and miserable?
You think you are reducing harm?
Why? Because a criminologist hiding in a tiny cubicle in academia told you so? Because it is the official story?
But would you actually walk across the street to give a drunk a clean shot glass?
Values.
Vancouver has rightly and sadly gained a world-wide reputation as being soft on crime and soft on drugs.
You actually can still rationalize that your little weekend pot habit is cute and O.K.?
You have no understanding of the murderous trail that has put that pot into your hands?
Our courts long ago abandoned "protection of the public" as a core idea in sentencing.
Psychos, murderers, rapists are released every day on parole, mandatory parole, probation, time-served, double-time served, anything that will recognize the inalienable rights of the accused.
And the rights of the community?
Values.
It has been said often enough that we get the Shakespeare that we deserve. Or the politicians. Or the pop singers.
And perhaps we get the Vancouver that we deserve.
Gangs that can't shoot straight haven't sprung willy-nilly from the ooze without warning.
We have nurtured them by being laissez-faire, laid-back, oh-so-cool tolerant of the worst in our own behaviour.
We let our young girls dress like whores in public and we let our young boys emulate gangsters. It's cute, apparently.
A mother and a daughter shop at Costco wearing matching grey sweatpants that say something adorable like, "Ass" across their ass.
We make a point of parking in handicapped spots "just for a minute," even when there's a whole empty lot available. We are teenagers all, pathetically rebelling against the social compact.
Nobody can tell me what to do.
Values.
Every time we speak of public policy, whether it is about garbage or botany or tax rolls, we are speaking about our own values.
Vancouver might be a healthier place if we truly cared about what we really want in our lives.
4 comments:
What we need Mr.Berner are,
leaders who can be role models, not war/whore mongers! This society has lost their moral right to speak with any sense.Greed, self indulgence, is the world we live in. Why? Because 'we' follow/vote for those who profess the know the way. Gordon Campbell, the anti-robin hood who takes from the poor and give to the rich. Selfish, yes, and selfishly we follow!? There is a better route to take, it just happens to be under a gag-order. Made in Canada.
Wouldn't it be better for the feds to legalize and regulate marijuana?
We can keep arguing that coffee,cigs and alcohol are far worse, and in some cases prescription drugs. Tax the weed, and put the money into the military and medicare. The 'murderous trail' IE; the under gound market are richer then the rich! Fight crime and take away the POC!
David, how can you expect society at large to have 'values', to do the right thing, when the ruling class, the powers that be, be they politicians or heads of corporations, consistently avoid playing by the rules and consistently shift the blame when they are caught and consistently hold on to their piece of the ill gotten pie? Why should we expect high moral standards, from regular folk, the unwashed if you will. In my opinion it is crucial that our leaders show us that they are not corrupt, that they can't be bought, that there is honour in doing the right thing. Until that happens, I believe we are doomed. More often than not our politicans and heads of industry are nothing more than sanctioned criminals. We are more and more third world in the way we accept corruption as part of 'the system'. We may not accept it officially, but we accept it nonetheless -- we do not have high expectations from those among us calling the shots and that, in my opinion, leads to moral decay. It comes from the top.
Mo.
"Nobody can tell me what to do". Indeed David, and another one is of course "if it feels good........ do it". The Hell with the consequences. After all, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Universe is ALL about ME! ME! ME!!!!!!!
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