Rant: Over indulgent parents strike again

Demetrius XXIV and the Gladiatores wrote in message . ..
On Thu, 08 Jan 2004 01:05:03 -0500, Jon Walters
wrote:

About 7-8 teens (12-15) received these motor cycles/scooters
this Christmas and they ride (speed) up and down the street
and don't even use helmets! The law here requires helmets
for bicycles so you'd think the parents would demand they
wear them .... but they (kids) always get "their way" but
this will change when one of them is seriously hurt! They even
ride through this neighborhood at night with no lights attached
to their motor cycles. Where are the parents?

I'll tell you where... they've been stupidified by our nanny
government (both liberal and Konservative) and are incapable of using
common sense. They need someone to pass a law and regulate their lives
otherwise it doesn't occur to them.

I think that's mostly a crock.

As a kid, I remember school sponsered races for home made go-karts.
Typically they'd go maybe 25-30 mph, but most kids could never figure
out how to get the brakes or steering to really work right. Helmets
were of course optional.

Since we were still in the middle of a space race with the Rooshins,
chemistry experiments were also encouraged, do it yourself rocketry
and pyrotechnics. One unfortunate non-sanctioned experiment blew out
a portion of the chem lab and sent a kid to the hospital with shrapnel
wounds when somebody tried to grind dry explosive in a meatgrinder.
I recall a friend and I used to amuse ourselves by shooting off
homemade rockets made from empty CO2 cartidges. It wasn't until
many years later that it occurred to me to wonder where the things
had been landing.

Attitudes that seemed completely unremarkable a couple of decades ago
now look like they came from the 19th century or perhaps the dark ages.
I suggest that from one generation to the next we're becoming more
and more a nation of safety nazis.