Bang!  Bang!

By Tammy Derouin

I witnessed something extraordinary on a school playground.  An activity which was once typical child’s play has been banished and is now treated like criminal activity.  I probably spent more time watching and gauging the reaction of parents and wondering when the SWAT team was going to descend from the trees than I spent watching the kids.

The kids were enjoying one of my favorite childhood activities, a game of Good vs. Evil, or as we called it in my day, playing guns.  The “bad guys” have changed but the objective remains the same.  I remember playing Army with the neighborhood kids.  I fought the Nazi’s on the ground and the Commie’s in my fighter plane.  We also played Navy.  One of the neighborhood boys had a basement which was perfect for pretending we were on a submarine.  Yeah, we torpedoed the enemy! No, we didn’t apologize!

In this particular game, Zombies were the enemy.  The kids knew who and what was evil.  They even knew the objective was total elimination.  A familiar sound of chasing and defeating the enemy filled the air. Bang! Bang!  Nerf Guns were the weapon of choice.  Several kids ran around with Nerf Guns and to my pleasant surprise, no one felt the need stop them.  Toy guns weren’t confiscated and no one was suspended. 

Oh, the fun I could have had if the Nerf Gun would have been around in my youth.  Watching the kids run around with Nerf Guns and a plastic medieval sword was refreshing.  It took me back to a time when you could openly state who the enemy was and what you wanted to do about it.  Until recently, children grew up with a sense of pride and a basic understanding of why it’s necessary to fight and defeat the enemy.  Remember when defending the homeland was noble and kicking the enemy’s backside was heroic?

The government wants us to believe they know what’s best.  The example our government and this administration has been setting is pathetic.  Who in their right mind would volunteer to be on a team where the team captain betrays you and exposes you to your enemy?

Would you want to be on a team where your flag is considered offensive and your weapons are reduced or taken away?  Would you want to be on a team where the captain invites your designated enemy into your headquarters and allows them to rewrite the code of conduct for your team? Words, considered to be offensive to the enemy are eliminated.  Your behavior is modified to suit their sensibilities.  The captain enforces the new rules effectively tying your hands behind your back.  It kind of makes you wonder if the captain is preparing you for surrender.  

Would you want to be on a team where you are instructed by your captain to allow the enemy to freely cross into your territory without consequences?  What if you were told that you had to provide the enemy with the same benefits and amenities you have as a team member?  How about being instructed to relocate the enemy deep inside your territory?  That doesn’t sound like a good security move, let alone logical or ethical.

Whether it’s a child’s game of make believe or true blue reality, no one likes to be betrayed, sold out or deceived.  No one, in their right mind would agree to play a game with rules that work against you.  We wouldn’t allow such ridiculous rules and behavior in a game of make believe, why do we allow it in real life?  Why has the top commander tied the hands of our military and border patrol?

Such unethical and disloyal behavior would be recognized immediately by children.  The person in question would be confronted and questioned.  If, and it would be a huge if, a second chance was given to the weasel, the eyes of many hawks would be upon him.  If such unethical behavior and betrayal happened again, he would be kicked out of the game, banished.  Such a person would find it difficult to find friends willing to trust him ever again.

We learn many lessons as children.  Each lesson prepares us for a new challenge.  Moral and ethical behavior is no longer valued. Our government lies, cheats and betrays.  The entertainment world glorifies and promotes bad behavior.  The so called news media sweeps it under the rug.  With such wonderful examples, from the top down, for our children to follow, is it any wonder we are in the shape we are in?

“If a nation expects to be ignorant – and free – in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”

Thomas Jefferson