Beyond Flock Talk: An unimaginable darkness

Tomorrow in Flock Talk, I look at the Colt Lyerla story from a different angle.

While everyone else talks about their "hope" for his future, I look at it, as usual, from a different perspective. Everyone keeps saying "this is not a football story."

Oh really? Then why are football writers covering the story? It shouldn't be a football story, but it IS a football story whether we like it or not.

I talk about the bigger picture.

Today I saw some saying that maybe a cell would solve the problems. While that person concedes the point I made that a possession charge is highly unlikely to result in any jail time, the other question that comes to mind revolves around that very jail cell.

So many people think jail is a solution; but were they willing to put their money where their mouth was in budge ballots? If so, then I applaud your integrity. Unfortunately, generally speaking most people who use the "lock 'em up and throw away the keys" mantra are also notoriously against using any public funds voting down just about every attempt to do the very things they say they favor. That kind of hypocrisy strikes me as quite comical.

But, you know what, that was just talk thinking that hearing the cell door slam every night might straighten his head out. And, you know what, I get where the thinking comes from and don't really have a problem with it as a concept.

On the other hand, I also saw a poster flat out blame Colt's parents for his continuing plight. His downfall has been seemingly precipitous. In reality, the fall has been long, slow and agonizing for everyone involved.

But if we want to keep pointing a finger at someone else to make ourselves feel better, when does it stop? If Colt's parents are to blame for his life, who is to blame for their life?

The surefire response is that "hey, he was a kid when they screwed up his life, but they were adults." Well, what about when THEIR life got screwed up.

You see, we can go on forever looking for someone to blame before we come to a harrowing conclusion. The very structure with which we think we feel secure is to blame.

Each individual has to make healthy choices. But how and when do these people learn to make healthy choices? Clearly relying on individual parents to all somehow "get it" and teach their children does not work.

And that thought scares the hell out of Americans who understand the depth and breadth of the problem because it involves more "big brother" mentality.

There are NO easy answers to this problem. It permeates our society and is a sign of a deeper structural problem.

We are so consumed with the American Dream that we live in a nightmare. We lie to ourselves to feel secure.

There are serious problems in this nation. It takes serious people to solve these problems. Seriousness scares us, so we look away and use platitudes to comfort ourselves.

Colt Lyerla has made his choices. He is an adult and responsible for those choices.

Society, on the other hand, has an dark side no one mentions. At some point, when a problem permeates a society, it is about more than individual bad choices.

We are ALL responsible for what this society has become.