The Death of Our Culture & Common Sense

Earlier this week there was a report that someone ordered "all the black people" out of a Wal Mart store in New Jersey.

Naturally everyone was up in arms about it. Boycotts have ensued. Lawsuits have been threatened.

But it turns out that it was a customer who was responsible for "borrowing" one of the intercom phones and making the announcement. An arrest reportedly has been made.

Of course, now Wal Mart is taking heat for having its intercom phones "too accessible."

For crying out loud, is common sense completely dead? Under the social compact which has governed our society for, oh, the last hundred years or so, it was understood that non-employees keep their grubby little hands off store equipment. It was assumed that people were civilized enough to obey this little rule, and if anyone did violate it, the general assumption is that the individual would pay the consequences, not the store!

Anyone attempting the argument that Wal Mart should hide its intercom phones, or put security codes on them so that they cannot be used by any passing nitwit, is admitting that we now live in a culture so debased, so wantonly criminal and stupid, that everything must be child-proofed for ages one through 99.

That may be true, but a little tough love would cure it.