It Doesn't Count Any More

A good friend of mine teaches high school. The stories she comes home with involving petty jealousy, selfishness and senses of entitlement actually worry me as the direction our society is taking seems to be plummeting further south by the day.
Then she tells me about the students. Last week was the glorious home coming dance in which my friend coordinates as a responsibility that attaches itself to running the student government. Teenage girls furiously rush through a ritual of beautification activities. Teenage boys practice speech, struts and body language in front of the largest mirror in their homes for hours. Parents of teenagers age a decade that night. Each year permission slips are sent out to parents weeks before the dance with a list of rules and regulations listed on them including pick up time for their kids at the end of the dance. For the most part parents comply with the basic requests and the dances go off without a hitch, but a strange phone call almost derailed my friends perfect score of getting the dance finished without incident. A parent called to find out what accommodations were being made for the Phillies game which they had tickets to. It seems the game would not be over by the time dance ended and this concerned parent wondered aloud to my friend how the school would make sure their kids would be safe until they could find the time to pick them up. When the parent was informed that not only would no adjustments be made to the plan but the game would not be shown during a school dance inside a school cafeteria for his precious child, this parent became irate, informing my friend of her selfish attitude.

Does anybody fear or even prepare for consequence anymore or does everyone think there is an infinite supply of rule changes that will accommodate whatever adjustment someone requests? Apparently there is.

The NFL drastically changed its penalty rules after a rash of injuries took place during week 6. Desean Jackson from the Philadelphia Eagles looked like he was dead. It took him a good ten minutes just to get back to his feet after getting creamed by by Atlanta Falcons Corner Back Dunta Robinson. I argue the hit was clean but this incident coupled with a few others have inspired the NFL to inflict startling new penalties for helmet to helmet illegal tackles. The problem with this is what happens if its an accident? Accidents. Remember them? They're not allowed anymore. Consequences are truly illegal today. Football is a violent sport. Its downright brutal. Where is the outcry for boxers to stop causing brain damage to their opponents which is actually the purpose of the sport. You want your opponent beaten to the point where getting back to his feet is an impossibility. Football players actually have it a lot easier wherever saftey precautions and protection are involved. Sure there are risks. There are many risks in life. These men are paid for their risks. Sometimes accidents happen. Now a player has to pull back just a little further, think about his opponents safety more when his job is to knock him so silly he drops the ball, in case a hit becomes illegal with one shift of his opponents shoulders, one drop of his opponents head renders a legal tackle illegal. Whatever happened to risks? No one WANTS to see someone else injured but you can only go so far to prevent it before we're all watching low impact semi contact chess for fun.
There needs to be consequences and as adults, we need to risk them in order to achieve what we desire. We're taking the passion out of EVERYTHING by turning this society into a bunch of whining, self centered, female reproductive organs