Nothing But a Hound Dog

The bait was laid at lunch time. Soon the victims would enter the killing fields. Johnny looked at his watch. Five minutes into study hall and all was going according to plan. He eyed the trap, watching his prey buzz about. They had no clue what he had in store for them. There would be death, pain, torture, agony. Sure it had been done before, countless times. But this would be on a different scale. More deaths in less time than ever before. There was one, it was time. Steady, steady, aim, whomp. Johnny's hand swooped down snatching that old fly right off the jelly puddle he had left behind. Johnny did the shake. Like music the loud buzz rang in his ears. He pulled one wing off, then another, then the smash onto the cafeteria floor. One down, hundreds to go.

It could have been me. I idled away countless study halls in pursuit of flies. And no doubt I had bleeding heart teachers watching me, wondering if stray cats would be next. Violence, they all reason, begets violence. I would argue, however, that the recent rash of school shootings has little to do with violence on television, or in video games, or anywhere else. Rather I suggest that the killings are the natural fruit oil what goes on in the classroom. It's not that the bleeding hearts haven't done enough, but they have done too much.

Consider science class. Here Johnny sits and listens to his teachers explain the origin of the universe. "There was this primordial soup, see." "Where did that come from teacher?" "Hush Johnny, don't be so inquisitive. There was this soup and what with the wind blowing about and thunder and everything, out popped amoebas. The amoebas studied hard and became, uh, jelly fish. Yeah, and then came dolphins, then monkeys and then us. So you see, we're not so special. We're just the happy result of accidents in the soup. But don't let that hurt your self-esteem, because, well, because self-esteem is important. All the scientists say so."

Having learned of man's less than auspicious beginnings, Johnny next learns all about the environment. "See, we keep messing things up. Who is to say that we're more important then the snail darter? That's just prejudice. And we don't go in for that kind of thing. See, it says right here in the teacher's guide, 'Prejudice- Bad'. Man just ruins everything. Why before we came along, everyone got along, well, except for the dinosaurs. But it was really nice, and we keep ruining it. If only there were less of us then we'd have more snails and trees and things. Wouldn't that be nice class?"

Next it's off to English class. Or maybe language arts. Calling it English class hurts the self-esteem of the Hispanics. Here the students read the wisdom of the wise ones. "A pig is a rat is a dog is a boy." Ohhh, deep. "Distinctions only uh, divide things. We can't have that anymore. Everything is one, except for things that divide things. They're not welcome in our community of caring. So remember class, all is one and one is all, I am the walrus koo-koo-ka-choo. Dismissed."

Next stop History Class. Here Johnny is told this, that every social ill on the planet, if you trace it long enough, will lead you to the cloven-hoofed feet of a southern white male. History is the story of one group oppressing another, and surprise, we're always wearing the black hats. But don't forget, you're someone very special. You can be whatever you want to be. And no one can say that what you want to be isn't great.

Even some psychologists are suggesting that the problem is in the curriculum. One expert argued that all the self-esteem mumbo-jumbo doesn't work. The kids believe, but only barely. If you get snubbed by the cool kids after hearing teachers tell you how wonderful you are all day long, well then you might catch on that the teachers are lying. All the emotional energy you put into loving you is challenged. And since you're not old enough to vote, you get mad when authorities lie to you. And so you go postal.

The bottom line is that today's government school students are being told at the same time that they are everything, and that they are nothing. They either believe that they're nothing, and so end their lives, or they believe that they're wonderful and everyone else is nothing and go hunting. The result is either an utterly sane insanity, or the insane sanity of the playground killers.

Ideas have consequences. And because man is not a machine to be manipulated by the latest lies approved by the school board and the National Education Association, one can expect to see the kind of malfunctions that are becoming a staple of our daily news. And all this happens without an unkind word being said about Jesus. It happens after See You at the Pole and before the after school Bible club. It happens because the lies that we are nothing and that we are everything are part of the warp and woof of every day school. It doesn't just happen in some Self-Esteem 101 class that you can opt out of. It happens all day, every day.

Add to that the incessant message that there is no right and wrong, and the real mystery becomes why this doesn't happen more often. Why don't more inmates revolt against their lying jailers? The lie is being spread right now, right down the street, in Jonesboro and Johnson City, in Little Rock and Kingsport. The special little nothings, the ones who are the offspring of amoebas, with a destiny as dust, somehow it keeps making us sad when they shoot each other.