The Talking Points memo: About a murder that took place very near to where I grew up.
14 year old Jennifer Grimes was sitting on a curb near Westbury, New York, eating a snack with friends, when a car pulled up. Suddenly, a man began firing from the car and Jennifer was shot dead through the heart.
Nobody knows why.
But everybody knows that Jennifer should not have been sitting on that curb because it was 1:20 in the morning. She was 14 years old and on the street at that hour. No way that should have happened.
Jennifer did not live with her mother, she lived with her Godmother. So right away we know there was something wrong in the family. Newspaper accounts make no mention of the young girl's father, so we can assume he wasn't in the picture.
There are millions of kids like Jennifer all over the USA and there is nothing society can do about them. There's no amount of money that can be spent ... no amount of law enforcement that can make irresponsible adults supervise their children.
Jennifer's story tragically illustrates the situation we as Americans face. There are millions of children who are allowed to do pretty much what they want to do and most of those kids will make terrible mistakes. Some will hurt others, many will hurt themselves.
And we will pay for those mistakes because law enforcement , health facilities and insurance claims will be involved.
The only solution to the problems of unsupervised children is peer pressure in the neighborhoods. Thirty years ago a child like Jennifer Grimes, sitting on a stoop after 1 AM, might have led to some calls to her Godmother. Not today, many of us feel it is none of our business.
Our leaders in America have to start confronting people about personal behavior. It should be unacceptable for kids to be hanging around all night on the streets. It should be unacceptable for 15 year olds to be having babies, for fathers to abandon their young, for thugs to sell dope in public.
Until those things become unacceptable and until our leaders, both black and white, stop the moral relativism and excuse making that has badly damaged this nation, there will be other young girls like Jennifer.--Many others.
And that's the memo.
Most Ridiculous Item of the Day
Time now for The Most Ridiculous Item of the day .... as you may know ... your humble correspondent sang "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" at Wrigley Field in Chicago on Saturday.
If you missed it, here it is:
(VIDEOTAPE)
So far Madonna and Janet Jackson have called, asking if I am free to sing backup.
That might be ridiculous.
--You can watch Bill O'Reilly's Talking Points weeknights at 8 & 11p.m. ET. And send your comments to: oreilly@foxnews.com
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