Did Someone Say Respect?

In today’s community there are many different problems, from road rage to child abuse, they are all there. So which one of these problems is worth focusing on? The answer to this question is, all of the above. Each problem needs individual attention in order to be taken care of. Lately the problems are all connected with one important attribute, respect. This thing we call respect has almost vanished from today’s community. A college student at Gilbert Chandler perceived,

“Respect has to be earned, the same as love. To get respect is to give respect.”

This is a commendable thought, but is it a rational one? Here the issue can be argued that, if someone disrespects you it does not give you the right to disrespect him or her back. That is what respect is all about, concern. Everyone needs to take concern for others even when the others may not have concern for them.

Road rage is just one of the many problems in the community that can be solved by respect. It is believed that road rage begins the minute a person is about to walk in the door of their car. The attitude needs to be set in driving mood. When there is failure of this attitude, road rage begins. If a person gets up late and knows they must be at work they will be in a selfish mood. This mood causes him or her to become open to feeling fury the moment someone makes a bad move on the road. For instance, this person crosses an elderly man who is on his way to get his monthly medication. He makes the mistake of cutting of the person to the side of him, the late driver. Now it can be argued that the elderly man should not even be aloud on the road, but that is where the disrespect begins. Instead of getting mad, the driving mode should be set to give respect for the mistaken driver and move on with the drive to work. This act of concern lessens the probability for dilemmas that could follow. It has not been forgotten that there are drivers who purposely cut others off in disrespect. That issue can be solved in the same way. There is no reasoning with respect. There should be respect at all times.

Vandalism is another key problem in the community. There have been 318,400 arrests made for vandalism not including the passed three years. Juveniles alone, hold 42.9 percent of the chart of arrests made in the United States. In the United States juveniles are arrested for only one-fifth of all the crime that takes place. What does this say for the parental control in today’s community? It happens everywhere, not just the home but school, work, public parks, restaurants, and everywhere else. This act of disrespect can be easily solved if people took concern for other people’s places and things. The dream that everyone has, of being able to feel secure of the things we all own and love, is showing no progress to see it come true. Everyone wonders how this sense of violation happened. That would be when people started to disrespect each other. If people learned how important it is to respect each other and their things, the word vandalism might never have to be used again.

Abuse is another threatening problem in today’s community. To hurt or injure anyone by maltreatment or to misuse the power accompanying an office position is all abuse. So it’s not only physical, mental abuse as well. Not all abuse is domestic however. Charts show that there have been 32,060 arrests for rape up to 1997. When is the number high enough to start to fix this crime of disrespect? Some have failed and will fail in the game of life from this horrible problem. This is not aimed at the victim but the abuser. Let us not forget the disrespect one might have upon them self in abuse. Drug dependence, alcoholism, and misuse of anabolic steroids are all examples of self-abuse. Drug abuse defiantly wins the prize on the crime chart, 1,583,600 arrests. Which is not including the driving under the influence arrests, adding 1,477,300 to the list or the 734,800 additional arrests made just from drunkenness. These abusers cannot possibly have care or respect for themselves if they can hurt them self or another person. If respectable was one of the abusers attributes they would never have abused or been abused.

If this challenge of respect is to hard for any person, they probably do not have respect for themselves. So, that college student could have been right when he said respect has to be earned, that is, if he was talking about respecting himself.

Bibliography

Works Cited

Anonymous student. Gilbert Chandler Community College. Personal interview. 8 June 2000.

Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia. 1st ed. CD-ROM. 2000

Word Count: 798