Your Opinion: What is happening to our country?

Dear Editor:

There appear times when we citizens should sit back and contemplate what in the world is happening to our country. Everywhere we turn we read and see through all forms of the news media matters that should give us time to pause and give thought to how we have reached this point in time.

Parents should know that a family is where character is formed, values are learned, ethics are created and society is preserved. This is a saying learned by this individual in her growing-up years. It still holds water today.

How can kids be considered the future of this country when they commit hideous crimes against not only their siblings but their parents, grandparents, neighbors and complete strangers as well. Helpless little animals seem to be their targets as well.

It is realized that some citizens remember the young 4-year old boy who picked up his father's gun aiming it at him and shooting him. And what about the 5-year old girl sitting on the embankment of a river and tossing four or five helpless little puppies and drowning them in the flowing waters.

Then there's the situation of an adult, probably in his 20s getting angry with his dog, tying it on the outside of his pick-up truck, dragging it down the highway, thus killing it. The list goes on and on.

It is unbelievable that some mothers pay $80 to have their youngsters taught manners in the Governor's Mansion. Should the mansion be used in this manner? This writer doesn't believe so as she learned how to eat with silverware at her parents' home. Later on trips outside this country, the manners of others were observed. You learn a great deal by observing other people. It is realized that many mothers have outside jobs to help support their family if their husbands aren't attorneys, government officials or others who live off the money of lowly taxpayers who aren't subject to huge salaries and bonuses.

Surely as a once great and civilized country we can do better than this.