Maureen Downey and the "thought police" are back!

Just finished reading Maureen Downey's column in the AJC today. I responded to her article, and her response back to me totally missed the point I tried to make. I need to get better at communications, like perhaps flat out say what I think without dressing up the issues. Maybe I'd be more successful. Now the NCAA basketball tournament is something I (and many others) live for all year. It's our sports time like some people have the Super Bowl, the Masters, the Kentucky Derby, the World Series, etc. Why are we able to view these three weeks of revered basketball? The sponsors, thank you. Well, it seems that Maureen isn't satisfied that hard liquor commericals have been banned from advertising for this event. Now she's on the beer bandwagon. I suppose college kids have never tasted the stuff. I also suppose that advertising during this event will be the sole reason people start drinking beer. If we didn't have those sponsors, we may not be able to have the luxury of viewing so many games, along with all the real time updates.

Here's the real point I'd like to make. More kids are drinking and smoking at a younger age than ever, and the advertising is quite limited. When I was a kid, advertising was rampant for alcohol and smoking. My father worked for a tobacco company until he retired. The odds of everyone smoking when they became of age was great. This was a time when parents knew how to be a parent and influence their childrens' lives. We were threatened within an inch of our lives if we were caught smoking or drinking, as parents knew these were hazardous to children. We didn't have a society that wanted to act as the "protector" of children; we had parents for that.

As long as alcohol and cigarettes are legal, then companies have every right to advertise and compete with one another. It's the American way for God's sake. It's the responsibility of the parents to teach their children the hazards of smoking and drinking. If you deny exposure to things, then by the time kids reach adulthood, they certainly don't know boundaries or how to handle them, thus an injustice has been done.