Letter to the Editor
Can we survive?
Published Saturday, March 1, 2008
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To the editor:
What has happened to the ethics of this country? TV has turned abysmal. You turn on your set and you receive cable channels you didn’t order. The entire programming is geared toward the breakdown of the family. Some Playboy bunny, with her dysfunctional partner, is driving around in a stretch limo trying to be mentors for the American family. Some singing celebrity is bragging about taking on 200 women during his career. Makes you feel a little embarrassed to be part of the entertainment industry.
It is more important to be skinny and pretty than to be friendly and caring. It is more important to have the latest electronic gizmo, classy clothes, fantastic car, than it is to do something real. Heaven forbid reading a book, learning to paint, composing good music, writing worthwhile literature, these are things that take time and work.
Oh yes, I forgot, these people all have had this terrible life and upbringing! Don’t spend time showing kids how to carve wooden duck decoys, they will cut themselves and you will be sued. Don’t take a 20-mile walk with your kids, it might teach them how to reach a hard-to-reach goal.
I just figured I would relay a few thoughts on our race for technology. Oh yes, can anyone figure out how to use this phone?
Community Discussion
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To your first sentence, I think you could write up a couple War & Peace volumes on how our government has abandoned ethics with a sharpening pace this century. Did 9-11 require us to throw out key parts of our Constitution? Did it make it ethically OK to now engage in preemptive war and occupation to bring 'freedom, peace, and democracy'?
Your description and warning of American society's erosion is accurate (our government's role model encourages us to throw ethics out the door...). Our technology has helped escort us into a lazy, unimaginative bunch. Don't even get me started on TV....
to many of us this description of how society has become is neither a mystery or a surprise. it is just an accurate description of what people are like in the days not long before the second coming of christ.
When was TV not abysmal? And to MoreNames: You have a very important story to tell. Please write that same response each letter that appears on this website, regardless of topic. But use your real name, so we'll know who to thank.
Ethics isn't really the government's business. Nor is there much difference between this so-called Islamo fascism or the kind of Christian facism that's become prevalent in our country today. I don't want my government telling me what's right or wrong, nor what god I should believe in.
We need a government that builds roads, takes care of our country's infrastructure, and as the Constitution says, promotes the general welfare while securing the liberty of our citizens. What our troops don't need to come marching home with are more record profits for the big oil corporations -- which is what the war in Iraq is all about.
Come on Joe, you cannot be serious. There is no difference between "so-called Islamo fascism or the kind of Christian facism that's become prevalent in our country today." ? I haven't seen any Christians whacking off heads. Oh yea, Sunday School is a bastion for terrorist training. That big meanie, Billy Graham.
Oh, it's sad.
You're right Glacieries, I wasn't serious. But the trend is there. Christian fundamentalism hasn't yet hasn't yet reached the level of the Islam fundamentalists. I wasn't being serious. I couldn't come up with a serious response to Morenames because the post was so ridiculous.
If you want to be a Christian then be a Christian and more power to you. If you want to be a Muslim, then be a Muslim and more power to you. But I've had more problems with Christians demanding my rigid obedience to their beliefs than I've had with Muslims. 9-11 wasn't as much a religious attack as it was a cultural response to our own country's self-serving role in the Middle East. That role was pretty much dictated by big oil and other multinational corporations.
So don't be sad. Be happy that you live in a country that at least makes some sort of attempt at religious freedom. Religion and government don't mix. The Taliban need to learn that. Israel needs to learn that. And we need to keep reminding ourselves of that.
Comments like those of MoreNames have no relevance in the real world.
I agree with Joe Murphy. If you want to be a Christian, by all means, do so. If you want to be a Muslim, by all means, do so. I do NOT want my govt. telling me how/what to believe. And if you do not think religious fundamentalism is not scarey, listen to Mike Huckleberry when he says we need to change the US Constitution to match God's law instead of man's law!! Do people not realize that the United States was conceived and inspired by men that wanted people to worship as they chose, but yet have the freedom NOT TO worship if they chose. Also, they wanted to ensure that the govt. did NOT establish a religion for its people. We need to get back to the Constitution and the values that have sustained this great Nation for centuries!
Morenames, the only truth I see in your comments is that you don't have the guts to sign your real name. The flip side of freedom is responsibility, which in this case, means standing by your opinions and identifying yourself. I said what I wanted to say, and I stand by those statements by saying who I am. If you Google me you can find out who I am, where I live, and in some measure what I stand for. It is a sad, sad commentary on our so-called "free" country that so many are unwilling to do so.
I am not related to Rosie O'Donnell, but at least Rosie and I both know that proper nouns begin with capital letters, how to spell our names, and that questions end with question marks.
I urge you as a fellow American to educate yourself.
Morenames, You seem to equate more mosques being built with Islmo Facism. Islomo Facists blow up mosques not build them.
Your ignorance of Islam Faith is astounding.
But your hate mongering is what is frightening to me, along with your attempt to insult and belittle Barak Obama because of his name. The names Hussain, Osama,and Sadam have been around long before a tyrant dictator and a Jihad terriorist had them. Thousands and thousands of people have those names through out the world. Your attempt to belittle Barak Obama with Sadam, or Osama is like attempting to say all girls with the name of Brittney are unbalanced pop stars. Or that all men with the name Joeseph are communist leaders like Joeseph Stalin.
You need to wake up and get an idea of the worlds population and religion and ethnic breakdowns and relize that Americans are just a small portion of the whole.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldwide_r...
rubberroomhotel....well said!!!
A name says a lot about a person. We picked our baby's name very carefully. I dont want my President to be named B. Hussein Obama. Thats a welcome invitation to the end times.
Now there's a relevant comment. Written with intelligence and rationale. Well said Mr. Hotel.
Hotel rocks!
AJ Stratman when you pick your childs name you have no idea what type of person they will be 45 years later. You can hope you can educate and you can guide. But you have no way of knowing when you name your child. Yes names are often chosen with great care or maybe emotional ties,say after reletives. Were Barack Obamas parents supose to use a crystal ball to look into the future before naming there son? Because Sadam Husain and Osama Bin Laden were not in power. Sudam came to power in 1979, Osama Bin Laden was born in 1957 Osama was 4 years old when Barack was born in 1961. How were Barack's parents to know that those names would be tied to in later years.
"I haven't seen any Christians whacking off heads. Oh yea, Sunday School is a bastion for terrorist training." -glacierles
Not so long ago some conservative Christian groups felt that it was ok to bomb abortion clinics, murdering any inside. Some Christian groups currently think that it is ok to picket soldiers funerals because it is God's retribution for our "lenient" attitude toward homosexuality. Not the same scale as 9/11, but appalling nonetheless.
Quite honestly I could care less what our next president's name is or if their skin was neon green with pink polka dots, as long as they had a progressive, transparent government that sought to right the wrongs of the last 8 years.
Food for thought.
This letter to the editor was about the erosion of ethics in people, not our government. This letter was about the influence of technology - and by extension, the entertainment industry - on this erosion of ethics IN PEOPLE.
Mr. Kennedy, I wholeheartedly agree with your lamentation. It's deeply regrettable to see how pervasive the decay in our ethics, values, and standards has become in American society.
I saw a wonderful documentary on PBS this past Thursday night, "Alone in the Wilderness" . . . "A chronicle of Dick Proenneke's adventures living off the land in a remote part of Alaska."
Over and over again as I watched this show, I marveled at the man's skill in building a log cabin by himself, with no power tools. All the way around, he had awesome outdoor skills, he could build his own house, hunt his own meat, raise his own vegetables, provide his own entertainment via hiking in the mountains, paddling his canoe on the lakes, watching wildlife.
Over and over again, I wondered what culture produced such a capable, admirable human being. American culture did, that much I knew. But where did he grow up, what role models did he learn from, what were his core, fundamental values? This much I didn't know, but the results his learning and values was obvious. And impressive.
Mr. Kennedy, I don't know how to remedy the erosion in ethics you wrote of. Except in one very small way: by your behavior, way of life, by what you communicate, be yourself a model and promoter of the ethics you say are lacking in society. Everybody's got a circle of influence, no matter how small. Work within your circle. Teach those kids how to carve wooden duckies. Organize 20-mile hikes. Let kids, and adults too, for that matter, know what options exist within their own community that can teach them how to paint, or compose music, or develop other talents in some rewarding and fulfilling way. Give them, or let them know of alternatives that will engage their minds and imaginations. Do that, and you'll start seeing less interest in gadgets and gizmos and lame t.v. shows.
Change the world by effecting change within your own world.
Joe Murphy's point about names is important. The comments on the ADN site are dominated by ill-considered and irresponsible statements that most people would not make without the shield of anonymity. The News Miner's comments feature is new, and we can make it better than that.
I think that if people used their real names, they might post better, more thoughtful, and less ridiculous comments. And other people would take those comments more seriously. Also, when responding to letters to the editor, consider this: letter writers do not have the option of anonymity. Does it seem fair or right or commendable to respond anonymously?
One last thought and I'll shut up. I think it's too easy to attack people's credibility by pointing out mistakes of spelling, grammar, style, and so on. We were not all blessed with good educations.
I would ask all of you to look back on what is being said here. The grip on reality is almost nonexistent and there is very little emphasis on truth. Almost no knowledge of religion or the governments responsibility to its people.
The original article was a good one about our society and not our government or the war on terrorism. I also would ask that you stop hijacking these comments for your own twisted agenda.
Sorry but enough is enough.
LadyNYC- to this day, one of my favorite books is Dick Proenneke's "One Man's Wilderness". I have heard the film is great and need to check it out...
He lived a dream many (especially those of us in AK) embrace.
Well, gosh, TDoval, can we separate ethics, government, and culture into their own neat little pigeon holes? I'll concede that some of the comments have gone off topic, but the original post commented on TV (government regulated), fashion (cultural regulated) and technology (regulated by science and commercial demands).
I'm happy to encourage and support Mr. Kennedy if he wants to turn off his TV, and more importantly encourage children to do something better than watch it. If he wants to teach his children to carve ducks, or walk twenty miles, then he's proven himself to be a far better parent than many others. However, if he's got the dedication to stick with those activities, he's certainly proven he has the ability to read his phone manual and deal with his phone -- or throw it away and carry on without it.
If some of us have approached the topic through different avenues, isn't that what a public discussion is for? Doesn't your own condemnation of "active discussion" constitute your own agenda?
Ian, I have to respond to your "last thought" because of the very nature of the topic here. Not everyone, as you say, is blessed with a good education. I would submit, for clarity's sake, however that it's not simply a matter of education. It's simply common courtesy to address someone by properly spelling their name. It's also a matter of responsibility to "edit" one's thoughts with respect to politeness, appropriate conduct, and clarity. Both courtesy and responsibility are ethical behaviors and often lacking in our television-oriented society. I corrected someone whose post lacked both courtesy and responsibility.
I like many others failed to absorb these lessons during my formal education. I came by them the hard way. However, your point is well taken.
Morenames, yours is one of the saddest posts I've ever come across. You don't seem to know how to write. You don't seem to know how to read. Your Moscow reference seems to indicate you don't even know what decade you're living in, or have any actual knowledge of the world around you or the political histories of the countries involved.
All I can say is good luck to you and I hope you find some positive aspects in your life that will help you deal with all the hate inside you.
Morenames, I am not sure what guessing you are refering to.
Mr. Murphy, I sadley agree with your assement of Morenames.
Morenames you seem to know so much about me. Does it suprise you to know I am actually a Mrs.?
I find that Morenames seems to be exactally what Mr. Kennedy is writing about.
shishhhhhhhh look at something a little more serious and local.... www.ftknox.info
While I think that Joe Murphy and I disagree politically more than we will ever agree, he has two very strong points in suggesting that we turn off the television set and the the credibility behind using a real name.
Knowing that it's possible for everyone reading what you write knowing who you are makes you accountable for (at the very least) what you put down in words. It usually means you are more polite and think a little deeper about what you want people to know about you. Accountability is something that I find lacking in today's society, which concerns me much more than so-called ethics.
My solution with problems in the media is as follows: there are shows that I will not allow my children to watch, even though they seem to be aimed at them and play during "prime time". That's my choice as a parent. I decide (yes, my kids have a vote, but I get the veto) what to listen to on the radio and I prefer to see movies before I allow them access. Obviously there must be failures in my parenting in some areas, but I do have control over what my children experience in my home. No, I cannot control everything in their environments, but things that they encounter out in the real world (magazines, peer interactions, etc) they oftentimes bring home to me and we discuss their reactions and thoughts. My kids aren't perfect, (and until I'm perfect I can't very well expect them to be), so until then, I monitor what I can and make every attempt to mitigate where I see our society failing ethically.
I tend to agree with Mr. Kennedy about some of the issues facing society, but while I can't necessarily control all the information that the media puts out there, I always have the option of turning off the TV or the radio and limiting internet access. I'm thinking that awareness and intelligent discussion is much more effective than ignoring what's out there - (especially when you allow people to know who you are).