Repost of a Section of a Longer Rant on my Myspace Blog

If you really want to change things, in any way, for the better, it's wise to start investing your time and energies in the upbringing and positive regard for the youth. Seldom do their needs get considered, except in terms of numbers or when some event (such as Columbine) makes the headlines. Even then, they're only used as platforms for various political parties. We had a "Million Mom March," now how about a "Million Youth March?" A lot of kids are disgusted with the moral decay and lack of concern in our nation and in nations abroad, but unfortunately our nation seems to be more concerned with sating or sedating the kids, streamlining them into one political party or the other, and saturating them with "SOL's" that don't provide coping mechanisms. Prayer in Schools: there's another issue that gets bandied about a lot, but it's a contemtible attempt by parents to shuck off the responsibility of their children's spiritual growth on a bureaucracy that is run by out-of-touch politicians and delegated through a bunch of overworked, underpaid teachers. I always felt like the prayers uttered by the various representatives of the school system were "recorded messages," completely devoid of meaning. That didn't stop me from praying on my own . . . silently, or with a group of friends who shared a common Faith. I certainly don't want the spiritual growth of my niece and nephew to be "handed off" to some faceless bureaucracy that claims to care for them while it's strangling the life out of them. From my own standpoint, the Christian Church is partly responsible for moral decay . . . by succumbing to various political views, by extravagant expenditures on funds to improve the buildings that house the body of believers as opposed to doing something constructive with the youth. I'm not talking about shallow indoctrination, either . . . kids AREN'T mass-produced, and have individual concerns and needs that vary greatly depending on their situation. There's that old saw about "you can't fit a square peg into a round hole." Well, then, STOP DRILLING ROUND HOLES! Stop EXPECTING everyone to easily be categorized or pigeonholed . . . to do that is to rob the individuals of the very individuality bestowed on them by their Creator!