[redforever]

Sorry I dont have a quick link for this. I heard this letter being read on the radio, wrote them for info as to where to get the letter that I heard and they sent the whole letter.

I was really quite amazed at the insight this 18 year old had about all the killings at schools and universities. Yes, it can be argued that most of those who kill have deep psychological problems, but perhaps if our society were a little bit less about "me" and a little bit more about all of us and how we can help one another and be a bit kinder to one another, some of these tragedies might be preventable.

FROM WHERE I STAND: A Teenager's Voice from Inside the Culture of Death

by Sarah Roney


On April 20, 1999, there was yet another gruesome shooting in Littleton,
Colorado. Kids killing kids. And again, the entire nation in its uproar is
trying to figure out why. I am eighteen years old. I live in a Small town
near Madison, Wisconsin. A small town just like the ones where these
horrifying shootings always seem to take place.

Every time those stories come on the television, I can't help but notice how
easily it could be my small town next. And I want to know why this is
happening just as badly as any parent or police chief or anchorman. The
thing is, I am right in the middle of it. I am in the same age group as all
of these high school kids. So I may have some insight for the world that has
been otherwise unattainable since these shootings started some years ago.

The night of the Littleton shooting, as I was flipping through the various
news channels that were covering the story in Littleton, Colorado, I heard
something that struck a chord in me. An anchorman was interviewing the
mother of a victim in the Jonesboro shooting. His question was: "If you look
at America in the 1950's, you will find that this kind of thing never
happened; whereas if you look at America today, this kind of thing is
becoming more and more frequent. Why do you think this is happening?" The
woman, of course, could not answer the question. In fact, she didn't really
even try.

But I did. I thought about it for a long time that night. And again the next
morning, when my favorite morning radio talk show asked its listeners why
they thought this has been happening. Many people said it's the parents of
the kids. Many people suggested television and video games. Many people even
turned to popular musicians, looking to put the blame somewhere. But I will
tell you what I think it is. What I, a regular teenager riding on the
coattails of Generation X, blame it on. It is not the parents or the movies
or the rock stars. It is AMERICA. It is this culture of death, this culture
in which liberals and feminists and activists are so anxious to let anything
be "OK" that the once tightened, knotted rope of society is unraveling right
beneath us.

Don't you see? There can be no order without discipline. All of those things
people think are causing children to run into a school and shoot their
teachers and peers and even kids they don't know - the movies, the video
games, the parents, the rap artists - they are only REFLECTIONS of our
society. Society breaks down, from one big metaphoric "family" into 50
metaphoric "families" and so on and so on, until you have the actual FAMILY,
the one with the parents and the kids and the dog. It is not one thing or
two things; it is the attitude of an entire "familiar" nation being
reflected back at us in the kids.

Just as that anchorman suggested, something was different about the 1950's.
WE WERE CONSERVATIVE. We had boundaries; we had a definite knowledge of
right and wrong throughout the entire nation. We didn't have feminists
pushing women so hard to go get a job that a woman who didn't have a job was
somehow "bad," thereby leaving kids at home with inadequate parental
guidance and often times with parents who were truly unhappy. We didn't have
liberals fighting so avidly to legalize everything that it was at the point
of completely blurring the line between good and bad. We didn't have a
nationwide media surge dedicated to sex and violence so intense that if you
weren't playing killing video games at age 14, then you were trying to
choose between contraceptives beforehand or abortion afterwards. We didn't
have disputes over whether or not we should help someone who is dying die
sooner - over whether or not we should ASSIST them in committing SUICIDE.
And we certainly didn't have a President who was in favor of NATO bombing
and killing children in Serbia come on the television to grieve the loss for
the families of children killed in America.

We live in a loosely tied society, a culture dedicated to death. If you
don't want the kid, kill it. If you don't want tolive out the rest of your
God-given days, kill yourself. Or better yet, have someone else come help
you do it. I guess, no matter how horrible or gruesome or gut-wrenching it
may be, it was just a matter of time before someone got that
"killing-as-a-means-to-an-end" idea stuck in their head for the part between
birth and death as well. Everything that happens in families and cities and
states and countries is the mirror image of the big picture.

We are falling apart as a society. Am I - some random normal teenager in
Farmertown, U.S.A. - the only one who sees that? It's sad and it's hard to
believe, but what's worse is that it's scary. I think it's time for our -
America's - Mom and Dad to ground us - to say, "If you don't shape up by the
time I count to three..." And then really count to three. Because we are
running wild and pretty soon we're going to be too far from home to ever get
back.

There was once a great saying by a famous man that has rung true throughout
the history of mankind - in every family and in every society and in every
social group and in every religion - it was a frighteningly true statement
that cannot be disputed. I am reminded of it now, in the wake of yet another
indescribably tormenting result of a nation gone haywire...

"By their fruits you shall know them."