Right in the centre - Discerning right from wrong

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Published on Thursday, July 25, 2024

By Ken Waddell

Neepawa Banner & Press

I used to tell my kids, “Ask yourself if it’s right or wrong and if it’s wrong, don’t do it.” I still think it’s good advice but in the 40 years since I used spread that advice, there’s been a deluge of change about what is right or wrong.

Not all of the changes have been bad. For example, smoking cigarettes isn’t as popular as it once was and I guess that’s a good thing. However smoking cigars has gained in popularity, vaping is a big thing now and now marijuana is legal and promoted. These are really pretty dumb things to do for the individual user and annoying to anyone in the immediate vicinity.

I would have to say that smoking used to be bad in my opinion and it still is. Expensive too. Don’t complain about your grocery bill if smoking products are on your shopping list.

I have a long list of things that I think are wrong. I have often written about them and I won’t bore you by re-listing. I am not sure any adult makes successful change in their habits by being told what to do. Children need to be told, but adults should just know better. It’s not as if there is shortage of information for adults.

I am more concerned about kids as more and more parents leave the instruction and care of their children to the daycare and schools.

Both adults and children learn more by example. I will give you a story about examples. My Dad taught me to encourage people and give people choices. At least he did that some of time. We lived a short five mile ride from town but we didn’t run to town every day. Up until my early teens a trip to town was a bit of a special event. Dad would say, “Do you want to go town, just for company.” Nothing like car rides alone with your kid, even a short ride, to stimulate some talk, some rapport.

Some times I got to go the stores with my Dad and there I learned about the wide array of food and goods that were available, even in a small town general store. The shoe and boot section had a special smell to it that still causes me some wonder. In the general store, I learned how to budget my money, how to shop and how to interact with the store staff and owners.

If it was only a quick town trip, I had to stay in the truck. Dad would park at the top of the hill on Broadway Avenue, in front of the bakery. He would walk down the street, pop into the bank, then the Post Office and head back up the hill to pick up a couple of fresh loaves of unsliced bread. Along the way, Dad would talk to people he met and while I couldn’t hear the conversations, I knew from the body language that he left everyone laughing. Keeping people jollied up was one of his many traits. I appreciate all the humorous people in my life and I wish there were more of them some days.

In the intervening 60 plus years between those town trips and now, much has changed. Values are not taught the way they once were. The Lord’s Prayer and O’Canada are not heard in most schools. Somebody might be offended you know. Bible stories are non-existent in most schools and indeed in most homes.

If people are offended by traditional, time tested values, then they may be in for a big shock. The upcoming US election and a year from now, the Canadian election is going to be all about values. Liberal-minded people are shocked by how popular Donald Trump has become (again) and how much pressure was put on US President Biden to step aside. The reasons are very clear. 

People are very tired, disgusted even, at being told, what they can say, what they can do and what ideas and policies they have to adopt, even when it amounts to perversion and stupidity. It doesn’t take much research to realize that people are fed up with many ideas that are being foisted on us.

I can’t predict how elections or the future will unfold but I do know you can only push and suppress people for limited amounts of time before there will be an eruption.

I know my Dad would have been well past his emotional breaking point by now and many of us in the next generation are getting close.