Your comment on DARE reminds me of my objection to the programs to reduce teen pregnancy. It seems that abstinance is the curriculum of choice under “W” and kids are now being forced to sign documents promising not to have sex until they get married.

I am totally in agreement that most teens are not responsible enough to have sex, and should avoid it. However, forcing them to sign a document like that is ludicrous, and to me undermines the whole concept of “pledging” to do or not do an action.

Pledges of abstinence and staying drug free are dangerous in my mind for the simple reason that they tend to make a lot of parents complacent. Education and knowledge go a lot further to keep kids off of drugs and from engaging in sex before they’re ready a lot better than coercing them to sign a document and expecting a guilty conscious to keep them from breaking their promise. The kids that sort of tactic works on are already the least likely to engage in that sort of activity anyway.

It also tends to increase the “forbidden fruit” allure of said activities which is counter-productive to the goal those pledges supposedly share. The truth is that sex and drugs are fun to a certain extent. If they weren’t, people wouldn’t go through so much trouble to experience them. However every decision has consequences, some of them dire, and anyone who engages in those activities had better be ready to accept the consequences of their actions.

But that would be teaching kids that they should be responsible for their decisions and that is totally un-American these days. No, we’ll just get them to sign a piece of paper and then Mom and Dad can go back to not worrying about what little Johnny is doing behind closed doors because it’s certainly not sex or drugs. He did sign the paper, after all.

Amen, brudda Les! You got this one right.