Our society is emasculating young boys through media & drugs

To The Daily Sun,

This is my 45th report. Since the Legislature isn't in session I’ll share some personal thoughts about the status of our state and nation. Frankly, I am concerned about what we are. We seem to have regressed from an independent, self-sufficient citizenry to one where people are asking not “What can you do for your country, but what can it do for you?” to paraphrase John F. Kennedy.

We find it increasingly hard to live within our personal and governmental financial means. We pile up debt and ask for a living wage for an entry-level job. We expect government to provide retirement and health care as a “right.” Social Security is a tax, not a retirement investment and health care is our individual responsibility. Young people look at the home their parents worked diligently to achieve and think they should begin where their parents are. Their parents started with a rental, a starter home, added some elbow grease and several years of devoted work to get there.

Our schools have usurped the role of parents, abandoning education as is revealed in test scores where about half of the students are less than proficient for their grade level. Yet, schools continue to ask for more and more money to teach fewer and fewer children. For what reason? When half the children cannot read or do math at grade level they are destined to a life without the basic tools to explore their universe. It is costly and less efficient to remediate the child after the fact. Every effort should be made in the first three grades to achieve proficiency for ALL students. One solution is to remove some of the administrative and remedial teaching staff at upper levels and assign them to the lower grades even if it means a longer day. Help the students with the basics. Let’s get it done!

This next part may offend some. But men need to stand on the wall to lead their families in a moral and righteous way. Our society is emasculating young boys through the media and with drugs. We let them play violent video games but tell them to show their feminine side and sit down and shut up in the classroom. When they don’t, they are coded, drugged and told to be good little boys. We pass laws that rob girls of their femininity and now will enable boys with “sexual dysphoria” to compete as “girls” in sports like wrestling and track. Men, where are we going?

We can do better, but we have to stop and assess what we are or we won’t survive. As John Adams said “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” I believe it is still true for our state and our nation.

Dave Testerman

Representative for Franklin and Hill

Franklin