Arthur Webster   Just plain honesty
We live in a strange world where, it seems, everybody trusts nobody in real life but seems to trust people they do not know, have never met and who may not be what they say they are on the internet.



I think many people are aware that sites like facebook are trawled for information by, let’s say, the less salubrious of our neighbours. It is a bottomless pit of  carelessly dropped information about members that would never be revealed in the real world.

Worst of all, anybody can read anybody else’s personal messages - it’s actually designed that way! Go figure.

One young lady has discovered, to the family’s dire cost, just how much damage a thoughtless entry can be.

What she did was innocuous enough - announcing a 16th birthday party at a villa in Marbella, Spain.

What followed was a nightmare orchestrated by the Absolutely Brain Dead Idiots Guide in how to  really destroy . . . . . anything.

The announcement was jumped on by somebody who decided to change the nature of the party. It became an invitation to “trash the villa because the parents are getting divorced”. With the new details, it was made into a free-for-all, anything goes, orgy of theft and destruction.

Instead of the 400 or so invited guests, THOUSANDS turned up. Some went to steal. Some went to wreck. Many went to do both.

A $9,000,000 villa was made unliveable. Walls were wrecked, banister rails were broken, carpets were ruined, the pool was filled with furniture and any other stuff (including a TV) that the morons in attendance could throw into it.

The owners lost thousands of dollars of property and jewellery that was simply carried away by the mob - and YES one of the parents WAS in attendance, but what is one person against thousands of berserk teenagers? 

What is most sad about this story is that very few people will be surprised by it. This sort of thing has happened before and it will happen again.

The people who changed the message were probably nowhere near the scenes of riot and destruction that they created - but they probably had little girly giggle fits (even if they were male) as they posted their warped version because, like so many who consider themselves tricksters, they would be too scared to go anywhere near the location - or they live too far away.

But why do these things happen? Why is there no respect for people or property any more? Why do young people run wild?

I’m afraid that we, adults, must take most of the blame.

We sat back and idled as successive governments removed discipline, respect for others and self respect from the curriculum of life.

We sat back as more and more “human rights” were assigned to criminals and vandals AT THE EXPENSE OF OUR OWN HUMAN RIGHTS!

We let television become the centre of the universe and watched, carelessly, as violence and criminality became glorified and normalised.

Worst of all, we allowed punishment to become a term to be found only in history books and dictionaries. We looked on in bewilderment as our rampaging kids took no notice of our reasoned arguments about good and bad behaviour. We did not understand why the social engineers arguments did not work even though we all knew (and know) that punishment is the only way to ensure that kids know where the lines are that they should not cross.

WE, PARENTS AND GRANDPARENTS have failed two whole generations because we were stupid enough to believe that the government knew better than us how to treat our children.

The situation can be recovered but, unfortunately and ironically, the measures that need to be taken ARE NOW AGAINST THE LAW!
Jun 1st 2008 11:09