Ultimately, consistency may prove to be the weak suit of the Neocon Carne column. Two semesters worth of good, old-fashioned, right-wing vitriol under my belt, and suddenly I go and discover I have a heart. It's hard to work up a good froth over partisan politics when stories like the recent one out of Homosassa , Florida come across the wire.
If you're not familiar with the story of nine-year old Jessica Lunsford, you should be. Jessica was just one of a series of abducted young girls in recent headlines. Tragically, most of these stories are resulting in unhappy endings: child after child abducted, sexually abused, murdered and then discarded like so much trash. The Lunsford case, however, was the Webster definition of heinous.
Young Jessica, after being sexually assaulted by a convicted sex offender, was forced to kneel in a hand-dug grave. Her hands were bound, and a plastic bag was placed over her head. She was then buried alive and slowly asphyxiated, clutching a stuffed, purple dolphin, which she could only feel, not see, since she died in utter darkness.
Jessica's story has affected me in a profound way, though how it will manifest itself remains to be seen. I continue to go about my day-to-day activities, but in light of this story, all my pursuits seem suddenly selfish and meaningless.
Stories like this surface every day, but shy of shaking our heads and saying, “What a shame,” the vast majority of us remain completely uninvolved and unmoved. Most people—myself ashamedly included—would sooner vote for the next American Idol than contact their Congressperson and demand some sort of action.
Something clearly needs to be done, but I must admit I have no idea what. All I know is that writing a monthly, right-wing rant in a school newspaper accomplishes nothing. Nor does plastering one's car with pro-choice, anti-fur bumper stickers. While half of us argue politics and the other half immerse themselves in pop culture, children are being brutalized and slaughtered on a daily basis with barely a raised eyebrow from the general populace.
It's said you can't change the world, but perhaps that's because not enough people have tried. After all, Gandhi, Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa did a good job. Sure, we can't all abandon our present lives and dedicate ourselves mind, body and spirit to saving the human race, but somewhere between becoming an ascetic wanderer and devoting one's life to the pursuit of hedonistic delights, there has to be a middle ground. Maybe we could indeed save the world if a few people volunteered an hour per week helping abused children. Or donated ten dollars to a charity. Or called a Congressperson demanding immediate and drastic reform of sexual predator laws. Perhaps this would accomplish little more than satiate our guilty consciences, but so depraved has mankind become that this may be all we can hope for.
Some may be silently cursing me for ruining their summer breaks by filling their heads with inescapable images of a young girl being brutalized and left to die in an utterly despicable fashion. If so, I'm glad. Burying our heads in the sand is no longer an option, given the specter of Jessica Lunsford being buried alive. |
