In the spirit of refuting the Big Government Nanny-State, I offer the following. I keep this posted on my fridge door.
This is something Peter Worthington wrote for the Sun a few years ago:
The following piece appeared in The Scottish Banner, with the request to pass it on "to others who have had the luck to grow up as kids before lawyers and government regulated our lives for our own good!"
I don't know if this piece originated in the Banner, written by Will MacKinnon, but the copy I saw had been edited to apply to North America, not just the British Isles.
It generates a felling of wistfulness for days that are no more, and a time that's unlikely to be repeated.
"According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those who were kids in the '30s to the early '70s, probably shouldn't have survived. For example:
- Our baby cribs were covered with bright, coloured lead-based paint.
- We had no childproof lids or locks on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets.
- When we rode our bikes, we had no helmets.
- We played hockey and baseball without helmets and mouth guards. Our parents rarely attended shinny games.
- Then there were the risks we took hitch-hiking.
- As kids, we rode in cars without safety belts or air bags.
- Riding in the back of a pickup truck was a special treat.
- Public swimming pools actually had diving boards - a low one and a high one on which we tested our nerve.
- We actually went swimming without a lifeguard or adults present to make sure we didn't drown.
- We drank water from a garden hose, not from a bottle. Horrors!
- We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and soda pop with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing.
- We shared pop with four friends, all drinking from the same bottle, and no one actually died from this.
- We spent hours building go-karts out of scraps, and then rode down hills, only to find that we had forgotten about brakes. After running into bushes, we solved the problem.
- We would leave home in the morning, play all day, and as long as we were home when the street lights went on, no one worried. No one was able to reach us all day. No cell phones.
- We didn't have Playstations, Nintendo 64, or X-Boxes. No video games, no 99 channels on cable, videotaped movies, no surround sound, personal computers, no internal chat rooms.
- We had friends. We went outside and found them.
- We played dodge ball, and sometimes the ball really hurt.
- We fell out of trees, got cuts and sometimes broken bones and teeth, but there were no lawsuits from these accidents. No one was to blame but us. Remember "accidents"?
- We had fights and punched one another and got black eyes and learned to get over it.
-We made up games with sticks and tennis balls, and although we were told it would happen, we did not poke out any eyes.
- We rode bikes or walked to friend's homes and knocked on the door, rang the bell, or walked in. Doors were seldom locked.
- In the fall, we raked dead leaves off lawns for cash, piled them on the street, and then set fire to them. Rarely did we burn down the neighborhood or contaminate our lungs with smoke, or break pollution laws.
- Some of us in small towns actually owned .22 rifles and went shooting groundhogs in farmer's fields on weekends.
- Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't, learned to cope with disappointment.
- In school or organized games, we kept score and had winners and losers - not bland, no-score contests.
- Some kids weren't as smart as others, so when they failed a grade in school, they returned next year to repeat the year. Horrors!
- Tests were not 'adjusted' for any reason.
- When teachers were cross with us or punished us, our parents never threatened the teacher, but were inclined to side with the teacher.
- Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected.
- The idea of parents bailing us out if we got into trouble at school or broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with authority.
These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem-solvers, inventors and self-sufficient citizens in our society.
We had freedom, failure, success, responsibility, and yes, disappointments. But we learned to deal with them.
Are you one of these? If so, congratulations!"
Feel free to pass this along. Maybe, just maybe, if enough people read this, we can undo some of the damage, and recover some portion of what we've lost.
"I know a guy who confronted a thief breaking into his Jeep. The thief pulled a knife, so buddy hit him in the head with a 4' Jack-All.
"Moral of the story: Some people are gullible pussies who'll give you money for trying to rob them, and some people will fuck your shit up with a HiJack.
Since you can't tell which is which without it being too late, it's probably best to err of the side of caution and not fuck with other people's property." ........ TKRIS
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