The No Rules Blues

I may be showing my age but when I was growing up we had rules.

Whether it be at home or when we were out playing with our friends there
were always rules.

If you hit the ball past the second sewer and it went into Mrs. Guido's
yard it was a double.

You were only allowed to rush the passer after 10 Mississippis.

You were expected to be home by a certain hour and if you were late you
were grounded.

You were taught to respect your neighbors and nobody ever called their
friend's parents by their first names.

You never wanted to be brought home by the police because you were more
afraid of what your parents would do to you if you were.

Life was much simpler back then because of these very simple rules.

Unfortunately rules went the way of black and white TV's and for the few
rules that still do exist, it appears that playing by them is now the
exception rather than the norm.

Now we could spend hours debating why this happened but the fact of the
matter is that it did.

My take is that the current generation has seen nothing but rule
breakers from the top on down so they don't see any reason to follow
rules.

We have a Supreme Court that has made a habit out of making laws instead
of enforcing those that exist.

We have elections to put laws into place and then we have elected
officials ignore or overturn them when they no longer suit them. (Did
anybody say term limits?).

We have cabinet members that don't pay their taxes.

We have millionaire elected officials living in rent controlled
apartments.

We have half our athletes looking to renegotiate their contracts every
year with the rest pumping themselves full of steroids or human growth
hormones to get an edge.

We have even changed the basic rule of work hard, do a good job and you
will succeed to cook the books, bring your company to bankruptcy and you
will get a bailout.

And our government is the biggest offender continuing to pay contractors
who run over budget and do not deliver on time. (Just take a look at the
WTC).

And the list goes on and on and the new mantra appears to be:

Rule 1 Don't follow any rules because nobody will hold you accountable
if you don't

Rule 2 Refer to Rule 1.

The bottom line is that if there are no rules or no penalty for breaking
rules there is very little hope for our future.

Our Founding Fathers knew that the country that they were creating would
not last without some basic rules and the Bill of Rights was created.

It was a good idea back then.

Maybe we should give it another shot.