A Lost Sense Of Perspective

To the Editor:

I was expecting to get away from petty politics and mass hysteria during my brief visit to my native sensible Northeast. What I am surprised to find is the firestorm of controversy around what should be considered exemplary parenting has instead provided infinite entertainment for me. This entire debacle does illustrate some of the more shocking, disturbing, and despicable traits that have developed in our modern culture of illusion.

The most obvious sign that certain members of this area have lost a sense of perspective is the rampant hypocrisy that can be seen by even the most casual reader of the letters to the local news. To those who think that overreaction and the locking down of control will lead to a societal group that will confine to the idyllic system being impressed on it might want to take some notes from recent history — say prohibition perhaps?

I also find it equally astounding that a family can be vilified so thoroughly for taking every precaution and preventative measures to not only follow the will of other parents, but also the law. It is an incidental matter entirely that this law is misguided in pinning responsibility on those that have committed no real crime.

There is a portion of me wanting to say that the responsibility for bringing in the keg should be pinned solely on those students that brought it. I am reluctant to suggest what might normally be the most reasonable of ideas simply because the blindfold that this town has publicly put over its eyes has served to amplify, not diminish the effect that an overprotective mindset has done to this country. It is therefore unnerving to me that a student’s life could be so drastically impacted in a legal manner for doing what would have been commonly accepted in the generation of their parents.

Before I get to run off to my paradise in the south for some more time, you should of course note that this is being written by someone barely older than those that “on a developmental level...lack the maturity to make responsible decisions,” as so eloquently and tactfully put by another writer to this newspaper.

Steven Truitt

3 Winesap Road, Sandy Hook                                          May 29, 2007