{"id":684,"date":"2008-03-14T17:47:30","date_gmt":"2008-03-14T23:47:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamingwithchildren.com\/2008-03-14\/choices-and-consequences\/"},"modified":"2008-03-14T17:47:30","modified_gmt":"2008-03-14T23:47:30","slug":"choices-and-consequences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2008\/03\/14\/choices-and-consequences\/","title":{"rendered":"Choices and Consequences"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"star.jpg\"When my kids were in karate<\/a>, the sensei used the STAR program from the Jefferson Center for Character Education,<\/a> which stood for ‘Stop, Think, Act, and Review’. The program focused on take control over your destiny by taking responsibility for your actions. At this point my kids remember more about that program than they remember the karate moves they learned! We have integrated the same philosophy in our parenting, so they certainly understand that there are definite consequences to the actions they take. So based on the news of the past week, I bet you can already guess what story I am talking about. But you’d be wrong.<\/p>\n

It is easy to grab on to the whole Gov Spitzer story (easier still now that I’m a New York state resident), but what else is there to say?<\/p>\n

No – this is about the attempts to ‘re-vote’ Florida and Michigan. In case you haven’t heard the basic story, in late 2006 the Democratic Party came up with rules for the 2008 Primary Elections and all of the state party officials had to agree to them and to abide by them. There was loads of stuff there, but the pertinent info is this: with the exception of four states that were ‘grandfathered in’ and allowed January primaries by historical precedent, all states had to have their primary elections between February 4th and June 4th or they would not be allowed to seat delegates at the Democratic National Convention to select the party nominee for president.<\/p>\n

Seems pretty simple, eh? It is – in fact, it is simple enough that 48 other states were able to follow those rules without issue. But two states couldn’t stick by the rules – you’ll never guess which two – and decided to have their primaries in January despite being told what the consequences would be for that action. So they had the primaries, were told that the results wouldn’t count towards delegate totals.<\/p>\n

Choices and consequences.<\/p>\n

Have you ever had a serious rule that you set down for your kids and that you told them the consequences for breaking? Something like bringing their GBA on the school bus or lying or stealing or whatever? What do you do when they break it? A couple of years ago my older son brought his GBA on the bus to trade Pokemon with a friend, despite that being against school rules and against our rules. Of course, he got caught, and the consequences for that action – losing his GBA for a month – were enacted. He wasn’t thrilled – especially since a couple of hot games launched during that month. His brother got to play the game he wanted, but he didn’t get to play or buy his choice. He wanted us to make an exception, to bend the rules, to free him from the consequences of his actions. But that wasn’t going to happen – indeed, the fact that it got him so bothered simply strengthened our resolve.<\/p>\n

Choices and consequences.<\/p>\n

I have long said that I believe that one of the biggest issues in our country is the crumbling of personal integrity and accountability. There was a joke that said that ‘so long as the ATM gives money and your credit card gets approved you don’t have any financial problems’. That is the way that many folks live their entire lives – and our government and companies everywhere foster and encourage this sort of lifestyle. Take the current ‘sub-prime’ crisis: some would blame the banks for handing out loans like candy to preschoolers; others blame the people accepting loans they couldn’t repay on houses they couldn’t afford. But it is simply yet another moment in a country that constantly seeks to blame others for our own mistakes. Spill coffee on yourself? Sue the store. Get drunk and crash up your car? Sue the bar, and possibly the liquor company. In other words – make all the bad choices you want, then look for others to blame. Everyone could use a bit of time with the sensei – STOP. THINK. Only *then* take ACTION, and then REVIEW to see how what you have done lines up with your personal moral compass.<\/p>\n

Choices and consequences.<\/p>\n

So now that it appears that neither Barack Obama (Barack HUSSEIN Obama for talk radio listeners) or Hilary Clinton will get enough votes to win the nomination decidedly, Florida and Michigan want to get their GBA back, to get their debt erased, to ease their conscience at having been the drunk driver who caused so much damage.<\/p>\n

They don’t want to have to deal with the CONSEQUENCES of their CHOICES.<\/p>\n

And they are doing whatever it takes to get their own way – much like a toddler throwing a tantrum, saying ‘I don’t love you’ and ‘it is so unfair’ to exact leverage through guilt, these states are tossing around the word ‘disenfranchisement’ in hopes that it will evoke sympathy based on past offenses in elections. But it is completely backwards – they are claiming that someone else did this to them, but it was they who willingly and knowingly disenfranchised their own voters by having the primary outside of the rules.<\/p>\n

To me, the path is clear – they must be held accountable for their actions; their delegates must not count. For if they do count, then it will be the biggest travesty in recent election history – far worse than any perceived wrong-doing in the last two presidential elections. For if this is allowed to be re-done, then the message is clear – any state may do what it wants and fully expect to get the chance for a re-vote if things don’t turn out the way they like.<\/p>\n

In a time of so much uncertainty and of such sad lack of responsibility on the part of our leaders in government and throughout all other sectors of the world, we could really use a message to be delivered: that rules matter, that choices matter, and that if you fail to accept responsibility for your actions, you will still be held accountable for those choices. Our kids deserve no less.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When my kids were in karate, the sensei used the STAR program from the Jefferson Center for Character Education, which stood for ‘Stop, Think, Act, and Review’. The program focused on take control over your destiny by taking responsibility for your actions. At this point my kids remember more about that program than they remember […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}