A Modest Proposal

The United States is now the most violent country in the industrialized world, leading the world in homicides, rapes, and assaults. The causes and effects of violent behavior in society are complex and interrelated; much violence results from social injustice prevalent in our society. Among the significant contributors are poverty, substance abuse, unemployment, inadequate or abusive parenting practices, real-life adult models of violent problem-solving behavior, and everyday exposure to violence through modern media. By the age of 18 the average child will have seen 26,000 killings on television. All children today are affected by the violence that pervades our society. As a result, the healthy development of our nation's children is in serious jeopardy, and if we don't act as swiftly as possible the little boy down the street could be the next Eric Harris.

There have been many attempts to protect our youth from violent tendencies, yet we find a lack of resources to execute such goals. This is why I suggest we take a look at the theories from the brilliant mind who brought us Evolution, and Natural Selection. Looking deep in to the Origin of Species we find that to further our selves, and in a whole society there is but one path to take. That path allows only the fittest to survive. I propose that we eliminate violence and all of it's sociological traces by using the best our younger generations have to offer. In fact implementing such ideals into our society is little different from a practice we have done for years. The SAT tests gauge the intellectual worth of our young and assigns them a numeric value. I humbly request that if a students value were to be so low that they would negatively effect our economy, that we assign them a use that would profit our society as a whole. And what better use than to be cannon fodder for our violent subjects of higher potential.

It would be quite easy to insert this solution in our well developed nation. First we devise a standardized test to identify those who have a negative economic impact on society. Upon finding such subjects we relocate them to a holding penitentiary. Then our more gifted youth may express their yearn for violence as they see fit on those who would otherwise be useless.

With these steps we will effectively reverse the negative social and economic effects those who would otherwise contribute towards poverty and unemployment both leading causes of violence.