The first, most enduring responsibility of any society is to ensure the health and well-being of its children. This world remains a threatening, often dangerous place for people young and old. In our country today, the greatest threat to the lives of our young people is not disease, abandonment or even starvation but the terrible act of violence. Not meaning to stereotype, but there is a nine out of 10 chance that every time a violent problem occurs, it involves a minority race. Violence may be more prominent in big cities, but it is here as well.
People cannot have fun anymore due to violence and stupidity. Recently, there was a shooting at a local nightclub, and a week before Spring Break, I was attending a party that got shut down because a group of athletes decided to jump someone, proving what point? I don’t know. What sense does any of this make? We, as college students and young adults, need to realize that we are not kids anymore. It is OK to walk away from violence. We do not have to prove ourselves to anyone. What is hurting someone else going to prove, other than your own ignorance?
Violence affects our entire society, even our government and military. We have no business retaliating. I am sorry for what happened Sept. 11, but killing thousands of other people is not going to bring them back.
Communication is a much better way of working things out than war is. War is wrong, no matter what the situation may be. We had innocent people to die; now there are even more innocent people gone.
This world should not be based on an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. If that is the case, how are we supposed to teach our children to live?
Between 1983 and 1993, arrests of youths for serious violent offenses surged by 70 percent; the number of young people who committed a homicide nearly tripled over the course of that deadly decade. What are we going to do about this situation? To make this world a better place, we have to control the violence and stupidity of our nation; it should not get the best of us.