Our society is literally being destroyed from within. The public discussion lately about F-16's is less urgent than this 'new values' time bomb.
The life of many New Zealand young people are increasingly grim.
Many young people don't have love, peace, joy, patience, gentleness, goodness, faith , meekness and lack of self control.

Some data:
An Auckland University study showed the average amount of alcohol consumed in a drinking session by 14 to 18 years old went from 3 cans of beer in 1990 to 5.5 in 1995.
From Christchurch Child Development Study, of 1265 children born in 1997, showed 15 per cent of males and 6 per cent of females were dependent on cannabis. Drug addicts are 350% more likely to commit suicide than are non addicted individuals of the same age.
A daunting 34 per cent of children leave schools with no higher qualification than School Certificate.

Some headings in the NZ - Herald, Challenge Weekly, Editorial and Letter to Editor.

• Something rotten in the state of NZ.
• School told use of cane against law.
• Pupils carry their belongings at all times for fear of theft.
• Departure from a less honest society.
• Honesty in business dealings enforced by legislation.
• The level of violence is unacceptable.
• Underdeveloped set of moral values.
• Many sole parents are struggling to bring up their kids as good citizens.
• There has been a good deal of mis-education in values.
• Produce leaders, role models.
• We have exposed ourselves to the risk of moral bankruptcy.
• Character education is so important.
• Teachers cannot so much impart values as model them.
• No clear understanding of what is appropriate behavior.
• Youth suicide alarming.

 

Day in and day out we are bombarded with values from another kind. And our kids today are the most vulnerable victim of the new set of values. They are committed to immediate self- gratification and short term answers.

Historically three institutions share the work of imparting values; home, the church and schools. Thousands of children get little moral teaching from their parents. When influences such as the church are absent from their lives, how can we expect to survive as a once good moral nation ?

Moral corruption comes mostly through TV, play stations, peer pressure, and some of it from our education system.
If the mass education system is reluctant to address the spiritual and moral dimension of young generation, democracies might not survive and humanity itself could be in jeopardy.
That's why the NZ Herald began to raise the issue at the beginning of March 2000.

Is banning corporal punishment years ago part of the problem ?
Dr. Robert Mann, a retired senior lecturer at University of Auckland, wrote in 1997: "If children are safely to survive the perils of childhood they must learn to obey adult commands and will probably need well-chosen, careful applications of corporal punishment"
School situations could be fixed in minutes by bringing back the cane. Proverb advised us:
"Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him.
The rod of correction imparts wisdom, but a child left to himself disgraces his mother."
People nowadays are nervous about Biblical values.

There is something vulgar in the student Orientation Magazine 2000 at Auckland University. Under the title 'Check your head ' many innocent new students found an article promoting safe sex devices to prevent STD. There are even pictures showing the diseases. On another page 'Nothing Queer As Folks', the author wrote brief on behalf of "my people". TV4 is innocently broadcasting it for impressionable youngsters. Are we already trotting in the path of a depraved mind syndrome ?

No wonder that many raised alarmed for what is happening in our youth.
We might wonder if still 'God Defend New Zealand'.