Consider This

By LC Van Savage

A Small Primer On Saving The Human Race

I want to talk about a couple of things that are upsetting me, and if you'll read this to the end, I'll let you know what they are. I know I'll annoy a few of you today. Sorry.

Here we go. How come we're being so polite to the bad guys by letting them know on store fronts, sides of trucks and restaurant doors that the cash on hand within those places only adds up to $20? We tell them too that the vending machines are emptied in daylight hours when there are plenty of customers around, leaving only $25. in each. Gas stations. Seven Elevens. Pizza and other types of delivery trucks all admonish the skulking bandits to not bother to rob them because their pickin's are slim. Folks, I can't believe this. We are giving friendly advice to the bad guys! We are helping them do their dirty work! We're telling them, "Hey hoodlums, go elsewhere, OK? Go rob my neighbor down the street. He has lots more money in his till than I do."

OK, I know. We do this to save ourselves. We really think if we tell the perps there's no need for them to trouble themselves with our particular business establishment and kill everyone inside because they'll only get $20 for their trouble, (as if that matters to your basic thieving slime-bags) then they'll just go away. Right. Has that stopped them before? Why do we bother? And, does this work?

Here are a couple of other things that rankle me. I'm disgusted with my fellow citizens who won't protect the world, for example, by voting to hand out condoms and clean needles. When will we ever get it that the irresponsible things we humans do ourselves, and then are shocked about when others do them, are not ever going to go away? You know what they are. I know you do! I recall talking with a friend about the possibility of our local schools teaching about birth control and the dangers of AIDS and drugs, and she said "oh but if we teach them about kind of behavior, then they'll know all about it and will think we're just condoning everything and giving them permission to have sex and do drugs." Oh, for the love of Great Jehovah. Give me a break! My response to her was, "We are talking her about saving the human race here, JERK!" She gave me a forgiving smile. (I confess I only thought the "jerk" word.)

Why do we "adults" think if we just give young people a sound tongue lashing or a stern talking to, that that will instantly stop them from doing all the things of which we disapprove and which we ourselves did? Sex and the back seats of cars and drug use are never going to go away, so let us deal intelligently with these things, teach everyone about condom, birth control and drug use, and hope we can educate our kids about responsibility while protecting them at the same time.

Now, about the clean needles. Come on. Think about it. The drug war is winning, always will, always has. Let's get realistic about this issue. It is too huge a situation, too out of control, too wealthy a pastime to just vanish because of herculean (and largely useless) efforts on the parts of many well-intentioned individuals who spend trillions of dollars trying to solve this unsolvable problem. No matter how desperately we struggle to stop the spread of drugs, when people world-wide have a choice between living in the scraping poverty of their childhoods, maybe making a few bucks a week at hard, menial jobs, or living in luxury making the equivalent of $5000 + a day, which one do you think they're going to choose? We are not joining the drug pushers by doing this, so let us get over the clean needles resistance and consider that by doling them out, we are saving the human race. We can save lives, you know. Perhaps these things are already in place in spots around our nation. I hope so. But they must be global. The human race seems to be everywhere.