The War on College Students
POSTED BY: SergeantX
UPDATED: Sunday, June 28, 2026 20:30
VIEWED: 8520
PAGE 10 of 12
I get it, and I don't disagree with it. That's a tough sell for a lot of folk though. Easier to stick with the failed model they're familiar with than to try something new. All I know is that I'm turning 30 in a year, and then I'm going to be on the other side.... the one that kids automatically don't trust. And that to me, is kinda sad.
I'm never going to let my kids believe in Santa that's for sure. I remembered figuring that out on my own and being pretty pissed off at the time. I find the whole experience horiffic actually, and I can't believe that millions of parents every year fill their kids heads with this these lies of a magical world, only to have it ripped away from them when they're finally too old to believe in such non-sensiacal things.
Like that one time when I turned 17 and figured out on my own that Santa wasn't real. I cried for days on end. Then I found Satanism and started smoking excessive amounts of pot and cigarettes, drinking a half of case of beer every night, and started having insane amounts of wild unprotected orgy sex every night since.
I'm actually having sex with a donkey and shotgunning vodka and redbull before exhaling my bong hit and getting a taint-tickle by some skanky goth chicks while I'm writing this. At least... I think they're chicks.... who cares? It just feels good, right Donkey?
"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." http://www.myspace.com/6ixstringjack
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I'm actually having sex with a donkey and shotgunning vodka and redbull before exhaling my bong hit and getting a taint-tickle by some skanky goth chicks while I'm writing this. At least... I think they're chicks.... who cares? It just feels good, right Donkey?
It's really not safe to read this board before breakfast...
/me looks for something sharp to gouge out his mind's eye.
But you gotta let your kids believe in Santa. It's one of the healthiest lessons that we teach children.
SergeantX
"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock
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Quote:
Originally posted by SergeantX:
/me looks for something sharp to gouge out his mind's eye.
Here ya go Sarge.... use this steletto heel. It's one of the vampire goth shemales' so don't worry yourself about washing any blood off it when you're done.
"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." http://www.myspace.com/6ixstringjack
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http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-stein9-2008may09,
0,1639734.column
"I always wondered what would happen if marijuana were legalized for anyone over 18. It seems it already has been, and nothing happened." "A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." http://www.myspace.com/6ixstringjack
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Jack, it's all in how you come at them,
See, kids have notoriously effective bullshit detectors, and are very good at giving you a cheerful stonewall while parroting all the socially-accepted challenge response answers, and all the while hating your guts behind the facade.
My approach is based on the social jungian arch-types and how we respond even unconsciously to them, combined with a real world understanding and compassion for them that cannot be faked.
I don't come across to them as an ordinary adult, but rather I play to the wise old man/mentor archtype with a side order of crazy uncle.
Most kids, especially in this day and age have what would be best termed a psychic gap, they're unknowingly looking for an adult who is not part of their perceived authority structures who might be willing to part with 'secrets' - it's almost a psychological imperative at those ages to desire wisdom and seek to obtain it, going to "visit the hermit" and seek his wisdom has been culturally and psychologically part of us since primitive times.
And so, when they find someone who so clearly fits the bill, they pull up a chair and listen, and the combination of respect, compassion and actually imparting that wisdom such as you may be able, lodges you in their mind in a fashion they don't have the world experience to completely comprehend yet.
This transaction, passing the knowledge and experience of the elders down to younger generations is a venerated tradition mostly missing from our society in part due to our educational system, which may impart knowledge, but is incapable of imparting wisdom.
Subconsciously, they feel the lack, an emptyness they couldn't put into words even if you asked them, but it's clearly there to anyone who understands that level of social pyschology - believe me, there are many bad actors who play to kids other psycho-social lacks every bit as effectively.
Once you've bridged that gap, as long as you treat them with respect and compassion, and set an example with your own behavior, you WILL get respect in return, and depending on the child and how socially, mentally and emotionally deprived they are, you might wind up having to deal with near deification on their behalf, at which point it's a good idea to point out your own flaws and explain some things about human imperfections, before that goes in stupid directions.
Kinda sucks though, when someone with real world experience and true craft isn't qualified as a Guidance Counsellor cause they didn't spend years in the artificial bubble world of a college and mortgage their entire life for a job that will never recoup even half the price....
And the clueless dweeb that did is so wholly ineffective at his job that he's a virtual laughingstock of the entire student body.
By the way, not only did the kid I mentioned before successfully fix the washer, he's talked the folks into letting him install a garbage disposal under their sink come summer vacation.
THAT kid has a serious future as an appliance tech, and I have put a reccommendation for him in at the local Vo-Tech.
-F
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Oh, yeah, worthy of note since no one else seems to have mentioned it yet...
The first attempt to prohibit Weed was in fact by taxing it out of existance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1937_Marihuana_Tax_Act
That was eventually shot down on Constitutional grounds by Tim Leary, only to be quickly replaced when there was no longer a need to pretend it wasn't intended to be prohibition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_Substances_Act
So, when big daddy gov slaps that "Fat Tax" on your cheeseburger, maybe you oughta ponder a little history.
Meanwhile, some folks are makin a MINT on truckloads of smokes runnin northbound on I-95.
Commerce Continues.
-F
It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it
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I think Frem and Jack have got it right(except the donkey part). My daughter is Jacks age and has never really been interested in drugs or alcohol. I attribute this partially to the honesty with which we treated the subject when she was young, and the other part is that our family is not prone to addictive behavior. I remember when I was young and my mother gave me the don't use drugs speech. My mother was a mental heath professional at a VA hospital for years and saw first hand the worst case scenarios for drug use. Despite that, the anti-drug speech she gave me was a totally factual description of the effects of different drugs and the potential effects of abuse. It was quite a shocker to me considering the anti-drug propaganda I had been taught in school to that point. Her primary concern was that I stay away from methamphetamines because most of the really bad cases she saw were due to them. This speech took away all the mystery of drugs for me and also took away the "forbidden fruit" aspect. I am very grateful to my mother for giving me the ability to share the same knowledge with my daughter. I do understand however that if my daughter or I had a genetic disposition toward addiction things might have worked out differently.
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Quote:I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t think that will solve anything. First of all, I don’t believe that 21-22 number. I’m sure many people much smarter then me on the topic could speak at great length on why that number is significant, but the in my experience the end of childhood is much older 25-28, on average. But still, I know 14 year olds that I would consider more mature then some 30 and 40 year olds. The need for an age of adulthood is not based on the view that at some point people mature, but that society cannot coddle them forever, so we demand them to mature. Eventually we have to say that at some age, you’re essentially on your own for all legal intents and purposes. That’s fine. I can accept that. At some point we must all become responsible for our lives and the choices me make. What I don’t like is the view held by some legalization proponents that they are somehow exempt from responsibility in the matter. They preach responsibility as the solution to avoiding using drugs in a society were drugs are legal, but they don’t seem to want to accept responsibility for that legalization of drugs that ruins the lives of young people who might otherwise never have touched the stuff except for the fact that legalization has proliferated these drugs like alcohol. All the proponents of legalization that I know would never touch the hardcore drugs, but they don’t seem to have any problem letting these drugs ruin the lives of young people just so they can feel as if they could use those drugs if they wanted to.
Originally posted by rue:
"You were the one who used as your example drugs on a college campus, mkay."
You watch South Park ? (I probably would have spelled it 'm'kay ?' .)
While brain physiology, biochemistry and other studies put the end of teenage brain remodeling at around 21-22 (with females earlier and males later, in general), we are stuck with a society that places the end of childhood at the end of high school for most things. Maybe that needs to be revisited.
And I do watch South Park.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Quote:It wasn’t that long ago that I was the only person, as far as I know, who didn’t smoke - so I don’t accept this argument. The difference here is that nicotine is not a very dangerous drug, all things considered. And it’s not that difficult to get off of. Over the course of the last twenty years practically every friend, and family member I’ve had, has stopped smoking without much more inconvenience then a few bitchy weeks. But heroin is not so easy to quite. Many people never manage to get off of it, even though their life crumbles around them and those that do get off, only do so after they have lost everything. And as soon as thinks like heroin are legalized, assuming it ever is, and it’s available down at the corner market or wherever, it will be everywhere. It will be like cigarettes. It will become the symbol of the real man for some people. Most people won’t bother with it, but some will, and probably the young naïve ones. And like cigarettes, that story won’t last. Cigarettes for a few decades where in every nook and cranny of our country, until finally we wised up and now cigarette users are a pariah. That cycle will probably repeat much faster with heroin, because the effects of heroin are astronomically worse then cigarettes and it’s possible heroin might nearly disappear after that, but not before the pile of ruined lives peaks to an all time high.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Buying, selling and smoking cigarettes are still legal in this country, but you ask a majority in here you're going to find that most folk don't think it's okay. Just because something is legalized doesn't mean that overnight you're going to be the only person in the world with sense enough to know that it isn't good for you.
As far as your parenting advice. I don’t buy into the defeatist view of parenting. I don’t assume that children will be fuck ups, so that I must protect them from themselves by providing them with the tools and encouragement they need to make shitty decisions, because I assume they will make them anyways. So I don’t feel the need to expose my children to drugs so that they can become potheads and junkies in the safety of my living room. I think they are smart enough to avoid using drugs, my lack of faith in them will serve to do nothing more then make them feel as if they aren’t smart enough and make them more likely to become drug users.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Ah, so you don't allow the real world to intrude on your parenting either.
Nice to know you're at least consistent in your delusions.
-F
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