A nation can be measured by how it treats its children and elderly, so I have been told. Unfortunately, America’s treatment of both is woefully disgraceful and the children become blameless victims.
The animal kingdom
The National Geographic Channel is a wonderment of natures’ natural selections. Female bears will defend their young with prowess, teeth, and claws. Alligators place their hatchlings in the grips of their razor sharp teeth to carry them to safety. Male penguins sit on the eggs in sub zero temperatures until the chicks hatch. Elephants will not leave a dead cub; the latter appears to be the elephant’s display of profound sorry.
Male lions will kill baby cubs in order to mate with the lioness; this is the natural selection process that nature repeats day after day. In some tropical environments piranhas eat baby birds that fall from the nest and land in the waters below. However, as the dry season approaches, the piranha are stuck in the mud and the birds fly down from the trees and feast on the caucuses of the piranha.
The human kingdom
There is a balance to nature that is timely and predictable. However, in the human world the balances of humans’ will to kill is neither timely nor predictable. Mankind kills for sport, for malice, for power, and sometimes it appears the kill happens for nothing.
Her own mother stabbed Tamiera Greene to death, allegedly. Eight-year-old Tamiera lived in the Martin Luther King Homes on the East side of Detroit. In spite of neighbors’ calls and Social Services’ intervention, this little girl feel prey to her mother and the indifference of the judicial system. The coroner’s examination revealed human bite marks on Tamiera’s body. Tamiera might have faired better with the bears.
The United Shame of America
“America is the undisputed world leader in gun violence. Analysis of the most recent data from 23 nations shows that 87 percent of the children under age 15 killed by guns lived in the United States” http://www.eurweb.com/2012/04/how-many-children-must die/#74oVuJIX8U9Apq6A.99. With that being said, there exist a classroom in Connecticut that is empty for the January 2013 school year. Twenty or so first graders were slaughtered at their desks in the now empty classroom at Sandy Hook Elementary. The children were not murdered for mating rights, nor were they murdered for food. They were just murdered.
America’s children are suffering from a pandemic of child abuse and neglect. Each year it is estimated that 3.3 million reports of child abuse are made in America (a report can include multiple children). Our nation has the worst record in the industrialized nation – losing five children every day to abuse-related deaths. Approximately 80% of children that die from abuse are under the age of 4, according to http://www.childhelp.org/pages/statistics#1.
The nation was shocked by the Casey Anthony verdict in which the jury found Casey not guilty of first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse, and aggravated manslaughter. She was only found guilty of lying to investigators http://www.ibtimes.com/casey-anthony-acquittal-200-women-kill-children-every-year-us-296251. A small price to pay; would you say?
Over the past two-years, if all of the children who were killed in America were alive today, they would fill 229 public school classrooms http://www.eurweb.com/2012/04/how-many-children-must-die/#74oVuJIX8U9Apq6A.99 . The question begs to be asked, “Will the children be alright this year”?
What manner of man?
“Behind the numbers is the real story of devastation and heartbreak as families continue to deal with the loss of their loved ones”.
http://www.wxyz.com/dpp/news/region/detroit/the-murder-rate-to-be-released-thursday-tells-the-real-story-of-devastation-and-heartbreak#ixzz2HJ5q1NNU. A mother of a murdered child in the Columbine shooting proclaimed that people told her the pain would lessen as the years go by, “I’m still waiting”, she said.
Often I attempt to write an article that is objective and bias free. However, I cannot put pen in hand and not feel much anger over the mistreatment of children in America. When I drive to work and see a small child walking with clothing that is not appropriate for the winter weather, I shed a tear. When I hear a parent in the super market scolding a child with profanity and belittlement, I feel despair; when I turn on the news and hear about the death of a child at the hands of the mother, the mother’s boyfriend, the father, the father’s girlfriend, or the child’s caregiver, I become furious.
Does anyone hear me?
The first President of America, George Washington, was quoted as saying, “The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference – they deserve a place of honor with all that is good.”
The Holy Bible proclaims, “Without vision the people perish” —and since the Holy Bible has been around longer than George Washington, I am going to surmise that America is perishing, and there is no place of honor nor good found in the murder by firearms exacted on children.
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