THE TIMES, THEY NEED A-CHANGIN'

WHAT was it ... 34 years since Bob Dylan recorded the song that became the
anthem of the hippie generation, the birth of political correctness, The
Times They Are A-Changin'?

A couple of weeks ago I asked myself are there any benchmarks of time, any
indicators which might let us know when a given generation's time is up?

How will we know when the "times" heralded in by Dylan's famous song back
in 1964 have had their day like the worn-out "times" officially booted out
by the same song?

I mean, fair crack of the whip. Thirty-four years of the times they are a
changin' is not a bad innings for any generation, particularly when most of
its innovations have turned out so disastrously wrong ... so costly for
society generally.

I'm not talking about the monetary cost. I'm talking about the real flesh
and blood costs the Western world is today paying for the changing times
heralded in by Dylan ... the costs that are escalating daily, measured in
silly young lives lost to drugs, in defenceless babies beaten and killed by
drug-soaked maggots, in innocent bystanders robbed, maimed and killed to
support some stranger's drug habit.

Don't let anyone tell you that the feel-good philosophies of the hippie era
which made drugs a fashion, demonised traditional families and ushered in
this modern blight of political correctness were not the foundations of
many of today's problems.

Today those problems cover society's spectrum, from the raising of children
to have respect for themselves and others, to the gutlessness of even
conservative governments to get positive about the wishes of the majority
of caring people to get tough with drugs, from big-time dealers right down
to the hopeless addicts.

I cheer when I hear great news like this week's $400 million heroin
seizure. How many lives will that save, how much less misery for the
surviving users, their friends and families? Then I fall silent when I
realise the human maggots responsible will cop a few years' jail and be
straight back into the greed trade again. Why not get rid of them
permanently? What's that? It doesn't stop the trade? Perhaps. But that's a
few more we don't have to worry about in future ... and a few more who
could be frightened out of the trade by death penalty threats.

The problem is this: in common with the Western world that embraced the
changing times in the '60s, Australia today faces a staggering problem of
homeless, drug-addicted and prostituted children. I include young adults in
that category because any immature person who has been forced on to the
streets in their early teens, sometimes officially and financially
encouraged to do so in these politically correct times, has not experienced
real life and cannot be considered an adult.

Would you, for instance, consider the heroin-addicted 19-year-old King's
Cross prostttute Samantha Jewell capable of caring for herself? You'll
remember young Samantha.

Her father was lucky to escape jail for "kidnapping" her from The Cross in
an attempt to save her life. Or do you piously consider her human rights
have been grossly infringed because her father tried to stop her from
slowly but surely killing herself through drug addiction or sexually
transmitted diseases ... or both?

Maybe it's time for another change, a change that will see a government
with enough guts to cut through the PC mumbo jumbo and take charge of
hopeless, immature addicts like Jewell, place them in strict care and
supervision under which they can dry out the hard way, surrounded by much
compassion and medical help but definitely no airy-fairy drug substitutes.

It will probably hurt like hell for a period, but what's the alternative?
Death or a hopelessly wasted life is - the alternative. Or are there some
clowns out there who believe death by drugs or disease is a human right?

That's the madness of today's politically correct Australia - the product
of a-changin' times. We've got people madly passionate about giving all
their time and energy to every conceivable cause of nature 10-toed swamp
frogs, two-headed wombats, rainforests, oceans and countless other
feel-good fads.

BUT no one is out there protesting on behalf of the Australia's most
endangered species - silly, naive, zonked-out youth like Jewell, merely
clinging to existence in the cesspools of our cities.

For Christ's sake! What's wrong with our politically correct demonstrators
that they can feel so good agitating politicians and the public about the
harm we are doing to our environment and its creatures yet turn a blind eye
to kids literally killing themselves providing profits and pleasure to drug
dealers and paedophiles, not in some distant wilderness but in our cities'
hearts?

Wake up you fuzzy-brained nincompoops. By all means protest against the
destruction of the environment but open your eyes to the endangered humans
of this country ... or is that a politically correct no-no? Would you
rather like to see - fathers jailed for trying to save their kids from
drugs and prostitution, death and disease?

Having lived through Bob Dylan's a-changin' times and seen the loony Left
politically correct philosophies working at first hand, I reckon after 34
years the times need a'changing again. Most of the changes from that era
are entrenched but they aren't working, or are you unaware that today's
drug culture is a product of that period and with it today's staggering
disregard for the law abiding, their health, their property and their taxes?

Maybe we need a catchy little number to start the new times roll-in', do ya
think?

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski