And So It Goes

Since I did the post on Amanda Todd, the young woman who killed herself after being “bullied” for years, I have done a lot of surfing. That issue came up again, but in a little stranger place and, kinda, caught me off-guard.

So, I am surfing. I am, actually, reading new posts and trying to get a handle on the fact that I started following a whole lot of people that I didn’t mean to and am working on fixing that situation. If I follow you, I try to read all your posts and, in some way, let you know I did. But I can’t follow 137 posts and I know it, so just know that, if I stop following you and I have been for several months, let me know – I can fix that if I know.

OK, back to the article.

I was reading The Scarlett Heartt‘s post for today.  To the right side was listed some articles.  I decided to read this one: Porn producers threaten to flee LA over condom rule http://t.co/FOBr1NP6 .

When I read that the porn industry does over a billion dollars a year of business in that county, I was a little amazed.  I decided to try a post concerned with how this amount, though small in many respects, is measurable against our country’s national debt (Yeah, about 1,200 years of that income would clear it if we don’t increase it again).

Sorry for the pic, but thought you should kinda “see” what I am talking about.

Reading that article, begged the reading of this one: Girl Power Eroded by Cheap and Smutty Schoolgirl Photos .  Now, that one would’ve made a decent article (“decent” taking on a, perhaps, different meaning here), but I started reading the comments (as there were 211)

As I read through them, I was irreverently struck by the idea that so many people out there have little or no feelings for how “kids” are being treated.  Then, the article topped it off with a reference to Amanda Todd.  That got my attention and my article here was born.

I would encourage you to read the three links above and start reading the 210 comments.  See if you don’t get inflamed by the callousness used there.

Now, I will state that, when a person turns 18 (in the US), then their decisions (Unless a mental problem exists) are law-abiding and should not be considered “underage”.  However, so many of these comments were firing insults and harsh tones at the younger ladies (14 or so) who made the mistake of going into a bar while underage and drinking, then making choices (flashing), getting their pictures taken this way, and those pictures finding their way onto Facebook and other sites.

Underage means not old enough to make clear, good choices.  A lot of people forget that the US lowered that mark from 21 to 18 in the last 40 years.  All of a sudden people who had been “kids” were automatically adults.  Do you remember being 14?  That’s usually about 8th grade.  Did your decisions all make sense back then in the context of the world?  I trusted people I shouldn’t have trusted.  I got angry with people I shouldn’t have gotten angry with.  I made all kinds of mistakes.

So, my simple, humble opinion is that a 14 year old can’t make a good solid decision to stay out of a nightclub and can’t make a good solid decision to not drink once in there.  So, if they want popularity and to feel, temporarily, good about themselves, how can they make a good solid decision, while drinking, to not flash a little for someone who is complimenting them highly?  Then, they wake up the next day and soon find they did these things and want them to be deleted.

Why not?

They should not have been done in the first place.  There was no consent signed and, even though it was a public business, if they were going to pose a little compromisingly, the owner (ah, an adult) should have been the one to make certain he had both permission and legal rights (id) to post those pics.

I am not totally disagreeing with everything  said in the comments.  What I am saying is that we, as adults, have this tendency to either treat young adults (18-23) as children or to tread kids (12-17) as adults.  Neither of these is correct and will lead to problems.  I bring back in Amanda Todd here as a prime example.

Many of the comments told readers that the girls needed to “grow up“…right, precisely my point.

Namaste,

Scott