FOR preventing the teenagers in the United States from being a burden to parents or country; and for making teens beneficial to the public
1997
The Tragedy
OH what a dire sight indeed for adults who walk through the halls of America’s high schools. The teenagers one runs into (because teens do not know how to walk) are a batch whose belief and behavior so shock maturity as to create deep fret for the nation’s future. These morally needy “students” will soon walk the streets (running into people, no doubt) and this great state will permit teens to breed irresponsibly and wield power irrationally. Adult society should promptly resolve this teenager crisis, so teens will not roast, devour, and excrete the tender baby named Precious Civilization.
The Problem
EVEN though the effects of the teenager crisis may be modern, the root cause remains as old as time. Nature plays quite a joke on adolescents, giving a burst of wild ambition, yet not enough experience to accomplish anything but mischief. Teenagers sabotage the plan of parents and society because the desire for premature independence blocks all sanity. Of course, I do not mean to fix blame; adults should restrain from condemnation since uncontrollable ravaging hormones dominate all adolescent thought and action. Nonetheless, teenagers subvert adult ideals in many ways (various addictions, prolonged solitude, crime, turning a deaf ear to elderly wisdom, anti-Americanism, depression, satirical writing, suicide, etc), but in every way, teens characterize delinquency and endanger the public.
UNFORTUNATELY this instinctive defiance evades lenient solutions because it infects every juvenile mind so completely that the cancer becomes the teenage brain. Thus caring parents’ attempts to remove the malignancy appear to rash youths like an adult effort to erase individuality. Woefully this teenage denial breaks families, turning sons and daughters against fathers and mothers. And broken families beget a broken nation.
ALTHOUGH many adults sympathize with teenagers’ desire to ignore the truth and although not all teenagers intend malice, all teenagers require significant modification. Only two brands of teenagers exists: those who know evil and those who know no better. My proposal does not intend to maltreat helpless adolescents, but offers a better alternative for both society and society’s unthinking executioners.
AFTER all, is a little domestication too much to ask for?
THUS all intelligent parties conclude that whosoever could find a fair, cheap, and easy method of making adolescents sound and useful members of the community would deserve a statue erected in their honor for a Savior of the Nation.
The Solution
I SHALL now humbly recommend my own thoughts, which I doubt will be liable to the least objection. Recent cybernetic and surgical advancements enable computer chips to mimic portions of the adult brain. If these implants can function as a portion of the adult brain, reasonably they should function as the whole of a teenager brain, since teens have so little on their mind.
THANKS to this new technology, adults may now insert moral standards into the most resistant of teenagers without the possibility of transgression. I, therefore, modestly propose society install these improved brains, wired with unbreakable virtue, into all the teenagers of the nation.
The Advantages
THE eight pounds atop a teenager’s shoulders cause America more problems than one can count. Thus the advantages of my proposal appear endless.
FIRST, this solution would single-handedly stop the tag-team terminators of communities: crime and drugs. The nation could stop hundreds of billions of dollars and millions of deaths in a mere generation by shattering the keystone of the whole drug trade: today’s teenagers. Obviously, no adult would ever sell or abuse drugs if straightened out during his or her teenage years. SECOND, this proposal would halt teenagers’ incessant transmission of sexual diseases. Attempting to stop STDs and AIDS without stopping adolescent sex is futile poppycock. Even teens who do not constantly copulate, hold nothing else in mind except the chance of “getting some.” Cybernetically speaking, society only need program the implanted chip with sexual abstinence and cleaner pastimes. Clearly, no adult cheapens his or her body like promiscuous juveniles.
THIRD, when speaking, teenagers rape the English language. Teens cannot communicate except through the most foul speech saturated with ghastly grammar and profanity. (And many teens dare complain that teachers and parents do not understand them.) Since the language people use determines intelligence and ensures fraternity, programming good linguistic skills now means reaping a wiser, more affable, and more dignified society later. FOURTH, ending welfare would require no sweat off the backs of legislators; simply program minors with the necessary information to be employed in the fields parents choose for them. Further, the nation could program teenagers with the desire to work in predestined jobs. Many misplace blame on adults for impoverishing one of every five teens, when clearly teens deserve poverty. The cybernetic elimination of teens’ shortsighted career decisions and of teens’ honest-work-hating subterfuge would effortlessly end poverty, homelessness, unemployment, and job inefficiency. FIFTH, the more society replaces teenagers’ erroneous beliefs with national ideals, the more the nation will unify. For instance, if the government programs teenagers not to favor one race, sex, or class over any other, a less discriminatory and more loving society will flourish. Moreover, the less freedom teenagers possess, the more freedom adults possess. For example, when teenagers use cigarettes, alcohol, and other drugs immoderately, adults question whether the right to use such substances should exist at all. During the 90s, before engaging in any activities unfit for teenagers, adults asked (or other adults ridiculed them for not asking), “What message will this send to the teenagers?” (As if teenagers received any adult messages anyway.) To remedy this, I suggest the government only bestow rights to right-minded people (i.e. adults). Once society installs right minds into all teenagers, adults need not worry about the “messages” teenagers receive, and the government may grant all freedom to all adults. DIGRESSING on that last point of freedom, I cannot remember the last time a class of adolescents said the Pledge of Allegiance with any more enthusiasm than mumbles and annoyed looks. (If teens remember the words at all.) If it is asking too much to demand teenagers to be patriots before society grants teens the freedoms which sustain patriotism, then this democracy remains brainless. Thus to program patriotism in the minds of the nation’s youth is to build a rampart of liberty for the whole nation.
ECONOMICALLY, the money saved from the elimination of adolescent recalcitrance shall be extraordinary. Juvenile crime, drugs, AIDS, lack of education, useless toys, welfare, immoral behavior, and radicalism sap trillions from government’s treasuries and citizens’ pocket-books. The initial installation cost would be immensely compensated and should be considered a sound investment in posterity.
Some Misguided Solutions
SOME claim the answer lies in reforming the public education system. However, it is foolhardy to think the schools can teach students morality, patriotism, and responsibility when schools fail to teach elementary facts and skills. The stress of endless assignments simply cannot mold students into productive future citizens. Under the current system, lackadaisical students carelessly shirk responsibilities as fast as adults invent new ones and assiduous students, who actually work to achieve good grades, usually break down and become useless. Put simply, you can lead a horse to water (keep teenagers in school), but you cannot make it drink (convince teenagers to be rational). AMIDST schooling’s abysmal failure, some maintain that schools should stop treating students like empty vessels for society to fill. I could not agree more. Teenagers are not “empty vessels”; teenagers are trash cans. The nation must dump out the rancid contents of the teenage brain before it can hope of filling it with more sweet-smelling thoughts, such as rationalism and obedience. Now rational and obedient teenagers no longer reside in science fiction, but reside in the very real possibility of cybernetically remaking youths. I READ at least one blockhead who advocates abolishing every law and cultural distinction that discriminates between adults and teenagers. I ask those like-minded, are you mad? Granting responsibilities to teens – all so mentally-incapable – harms teens as well as society. The blockhead’s proposed “equality” would corrupt the sanctity of adulthood with the perversion of teenagers. Thus the public maintains a definite interest in keeping teenagers “subjugated” (as the blockhead referred to adult protection of teens). “Emancipation” wrongs both adolescents and adults. THEREFORE let no person fault my solution until s/he offers a viable alternative to the teenager crisis. Anyone who would propose a substitute, I pray you ask one question: who adult would not, in regret of all the misfortunes originating in his or her youth, ask (indeed, beg) to repeat the teenage years with the experience of his or her adulthood? And if such experience could be imprinted on a computer chip, and installed in his or her brain at thirteen, who adult would turn down the opportunity?
Some Misguided Protests
MANY daft dolts (obviously not the intelligent majority reading this) would think my proposal inhumane. But teenagers are not humans to which actions could be inhumane. Teens are not innocent like children, nor civilized like adults, and thus, teens retain little worth unless providing for the greater good. At our house, for example, our family pooch loves to chow down on unhealthy red meat. Is it inhumane to force her to eat a healthy diet of specialized dog food? No. And equally so with adolescents. SOME ignoramuses may equate my proposal with an “ageist prejudice” or “adultist bigotry” or “the oppression of young people.” They might claim that it arbitrarily and abusively discriminates against teenagers, like racism against non-whites and sexism against women. But history proves that all people can be civilized except teenagers. Examine every culture since humans began walking erect and the same “adultist” stigma applies. Therefore universality justifies this “abusive discrimination,” while not justifying racism and sexism. Besides, the blame for any discomfort minorities, women, and poor persons find today probably rests on teenagers anyway.
WHEN I suggested this proposal to others, a small, disgruntled minority labeled it “brainwashing.” Although a culpable word, I must ask, what is so evil about purifying one’s mind? Considering the futility of education, undoubtedly teenagers do not need another cleaning behind the ears, but a cleaning between them.
The Triumph
SOME true patriots informed me that teenagers may read this proposal and prepare for its suggestions by fighting against so-called “adultist oppression” like blacks fought and continue to fight against racist oppression. Although I respect these patriots’ intentions, I laugh at the folly of a teenager ever voluntarily reading (or writing) anything. So ignorant and rebellious, teenagers even skip the literature assigned in class (unless one counts the occasional Cliff’s notes). I daresay teens could not understand the foundations of freedom in this great nation even if implanted with the knowledge. So society must try not for understanding, but for obedience, waiting for the epiphany of reason which comes the second one blows out the twentieth candle of his or her birthday cake.
I DO not doubt that many reading this now will label me biased, because they assume that I am an adult who bashes teenagers in the same way idiots bash homosexuals. I can quickly dispel these accusations; I am a teenager who humbly recognizes my own inferiority. I am biased, however, for I love my proposal. I simply cannot wait to better serve the nation when it supplants my adolescent immorality with the national morality I cannot yet grasp.
By Kevin Sanchez- A Domesticated Teen In Support of the Impeccable Elders
