In article ,
(CA-TINA WHIDDON) wrote:

The majority of today's kids have no respect for their elders.

Y'know, I've always been aggravated by that very problem.That's why I
wrote...

~~~A Modest Proposal~~~

Although contemporary society is by and large a vast improvement over
its ancestors, baby boomers and their parents alike will readily agree
that not everything has gotten better with time. Television, for
example, has never been known for high-quality content, but while there
were once a reasonable number of watchable programs on the air, Newton
Minow's famous words, "I can assure you that you will observe a vast
wasteland.", are far truer now than they were when he originally uttered
them in the sixties. Yet as far your average mother and father are
concerned, what's on TV is a mere trifle compared to what's up with the
kids. And I perceive that figuring out the latter is a far more
difficult task than it was in former centuries. This is only one of the
many consequences of a fundamental flaw in today's youth: a lack of
proper respect for their elders.

Parents, in their great benevolence, are wont to grant their progeny the
benefit of their superior knowledge and experience by helpfully doling
out tidbits of grown-up wisdom as they become relevant: "Eat your peas."
"Don't stick anything in the electrical outlet." "Praise the Lord and
pass the ammunition." Once upon a time, these and similar rules of
behavior were strictly enforced, but since then, we have grown lax, and
children (along with those accursed traitors, their adult advocates)
have taken the opportunity to promote the dangerously subversive idea
that humans should be allowed to exercise some small amount of free will
_before_ the age of eighteen. So thoroughly ingrained is this morally
and rationally backwards principle in our society that no amount of
pushing and shoving could ever hope to uproot it.

And 'tis an awful pity, for the disobedience and disrespect of our
children wreak havoc on our lives. When little Johnny is burned
hideously after carelessly toying with matches, we are forced to suffer
for its sin by paying an exorbitant fee to its doctor. When little Suzy
forgets itself one fateful night and subsequently tests HIV-positive
well, just think of what the neighbors will say! Clearly, it is in our
best interests to more strongly impress our values on tomorrow's leaders.

To that effect, I, the author, humbly propose an arrangement that I
believe, if carried out, shall prove to be, in due time, with any luck,
regardless of the ridiculously convoluted construction of this sentence,
quite satisfactory to all parties involved. The citizens of the society
in _Brave New World_ manage to live in peace, harmony, and happiness by
teaching their ideals to their youngest children in a very direct
manner, through such methods as hypnopaedia and conditioning. Sadly,
these processes do not actually work in the real world with real humans,
but similar effects can be achieved with more subtle techniques.
Consider how a man's religion may completely shape his opinions and
actions, to the point where it may take a higher priority over every
other part of his personality when he makes a decision even if he was
simply trained to practice the religion from birth, as opposed to
choosing it himself. What if we taught a kind of religion, in which good
children were rewarded and bad children punished, to our little ones?

I suppose that cynics and other sorts of people who are apt to criticize
ideas before they've fully taken shape will immediately object to this,
saying that the average American parent hardly has the time and patience
to learn a religious dogma for the single purpose of teaching it to
their children. But I insist that it need not be terribly complicated.
All the mother and father of little Johnny or Suzy would have to tell
their little scions of are what supernatural horrors await those who do
not obey their parents: "Disobedient children shall be flung into a
great lake of fire, where they shall burn forever, but blessed be those
good little children who always listen to and are humble in the presence
of their betters, for they shall ascend to Paradise, where endless
sugary and/or erotic rewards await them."

Were these simple ideas said and repeated to the children, then all at
once, I predict, things would change, swiftly and drastically. Advice
from parent to progeny would transform from mere conventional wisdom
into the One True Path to ultimate salvation. Curfews and limitations
would be obeyed and revered as thoroughly as fundamentalist Christians
abide by the Ten Commandments.

The benefits of carrying out my plan would be highly tangible in only a
generation. Consider how many younger children cause mischief, and how
many teenagers commit crimes a sizable number according to any source
and by any standard. Now consider how these numbers would change if only
the demographic involved believed that their behavior held eternal,
irreversible consequences. I think it would be a very conservative
estimate to suppose that all of these incidents would be reduced by a
factor of three.

My plan has an additional advantage in that even the children, if their
feelings are worth considering, would come to be happier because of it,
as well. Naturally, they would follow the guidelines of their religion
to the letter, and thus would feel secure and assured of their salvation.

Certainly, however flawed you may believe my proposal to be, you must
admit that it is far more desirable than any of the alternative
solutions to this most troublesome problem. Some people have suggested
truly inane ideas, such as reversing this hypothetical paradigm by
teaching adults to respect their children _despite_ the painfully
obvious fact that grown-ups are far superior to minors by virtue of
their advanced age. Some have said we ought to give children even more
privileges and freedoms than they already have, in the vain hope that
they might magically become responsible simply because their parents
trusted them an obviously backwards plan, as children cannot gain
judgement and self-control any more easily than river-water can flow
upstream. Some have claimed that explaining the real consequences of a
child's actions to a child would cause it to come to reasonable
conclusions all by itself this is stupid to the point of humorous.

Once again, for the sake of clarity, I reiterate the many possible
benefits of my proposal: it will cause children to live virtuously,
respect their parents, and grow up to be the very people their parents
wish them to be, while at the same time giving them the infinite comfort
that comes only with the knowledge of an ultimate reward. I assure you
that I make this proposal only for the public good, and have nothing to
gain by it, for I do not believe in karma or sin myself, and would not
even if my parents told me to, and furthermore, I do not plan on ever
having children of my own.