I grew up respecting intelligence, logic, and analysis. In my undergraduate days at Iowa State Teacher’s College we had a healthy respect for professors who were “a community of scholars searching for truth”. They were expected to apply the best learning techniques to train their students to be of service to the community in which they might be living. We were indoctrinated with a deep respect for honest, objective analysis to the best of our abilities but after seven years of public school teaching I came to the university instruction and coaching to encounter a small group of professors unlike the great majority of their peers who seemed to have a deep-seated disrespect for discipline. There is no better illustration than the recent congregational debate over impeachment of President Clinton. With the nation in desperate need for decisions on legislations of national importance hours and days were spent on confusing the issues to the point at which a clear decision on perjury was finally dropped to decide that perjury had not been committed. What an example to set for the citizens of the nation and the world.

There had been appearing in the press for over 40 years “There are no absolutes” authored by a Harvard professor. He used two negatives to prove his point. How does he get by with it? A professor from a West Coast university suggests that each individual be allowed to set his own set of values. WHAT? Any twelve-year-old kid could predict the outcome of the procedure. It would result in chaos. Over the years I have failed to see even one public challenge to those assumptions from any branch of our society. Recall that one of Hitler’s favorite propaganda tricks was “Don’t tell little lies. Tell big ones and keep on repeating them. Some of the public will accept them as truth.” They did. If even a very small portion of the public accepts them we have the basis for the recent school tragedies.

Once I could depend on the likes of Jonesboro, Oskaloosa, Littleton and Columbine High and next Atlanta for havens of safety, but no more. Have I given up? Definitely not. But I wonder how many of our good citizens have done so. The quickest way to lose our freedom is to take it for granted. Stay alert.

If all of those young criminals had ever been Boy Scouts or had attended Sunday School, what then? Answer is obvious.

Don Klotz

Wellman, Iowa