(...Sort of like bounty hunters hunting and eliminating the law...)

In this “article” I’d like to continue talking about policing. (Let’s not bring Freud into this!) More specifically, about whether or not police officers receive the respect they deserve in their communities. In the first article I talked about policing and its difficulties in general as well as made some comments about immigration and emigration. During the past year, I read an article in Reader’s Digest that especially provoked my concern. It had to do with kids and teens playing games in which police officers were targets of all kinds of attacks, but worse, they were killed in many of them. Sort of like bounty hunters hunting and eliminating the law. Our first reaction is to resort to censorship. Why are those kinds of games allowed? Also, why do our youth have access to those games? (Teen access—that’s a whole book, isn’t it?)
Video games in which police officers get murdered can be catalogued close to where porno and illegal drugs are catalogued. I’m not saying we need censorship. Good heavens, I’m a lit major and product of heavy reading an entire lifetime! Much of what I read was what I wanted to read (allowing for language and availability) and if censorship existed officially, more than half of those books I read would be burned probably. (Remember as a teen looking expertly for the “good” or juicy parts in the paperbacks in the jiffy stores and drugstores?)
Here are two big questions more important than the censorship issue: (1) Not that these video games are available, but Why are they exciting to our teens? Why do they find these games entertaining? (2) Where is parental/guardian supervision of minors? Why are these minors allowed to spend countless hours playing video games that are completely unrestricted?
Here, we can compare the issue to that of illegal drugs. It’s not so much that illegal drugs are coming into the country—although that’s certainly bad enough—but it’s why are the drugs so coveted? What is so attractive about these drugs that spellbound our country’s youth? The demand side, in my humble opinion, must always be scrutinized more heavily than the supply side. The demand side is where the ill lies. The supply side is the mere response to a demand. Who has the greater guilt—the hooker or the “looker”? The looker being the customer, of course. It’s a combo situation. And it’s sad.
It’s sad that hard currency has so much control over our lives. Perhaps it always has throughout history. Most likely we have all seen what people will do for money. If you haven’t, take a half hour to navigate the porn offerings on the Net. If that doesn’t wake you up, then I have no idea what will. All those models, stand-ins, actors, what-have-you, are there in that X-rated picture you see for the money. Not for their health or out of boredom! They will deny many times that money is in the picture, of course. But who’s going to believe them? I always remember Tallulah’s words in the office: “We’re all here for the money. If they don’t pay me tomorrow, I’m not coming to work tomorrow!”
Anyway, to start wrapping up, in the best homes parents supervise what their children watch, play with and have “access” to. What is sad is that these kinds of homes are undoubtedly in the minority. As the song goes: “It’s me, it’s me oh Lord, standing in the need…” I, of course, need readers. If you have gotten to this point, thanks a million and cheers. 