As Adequacy's resident liberal leftist, I would be the first to come to the defense of the much maligned teenager. After all, isn't it true that these rare and isolated acts are excessively spotlighted by the media, and isn't it a fact that the ordinary teen is an unsung upright citizen, who works hard in school and through quiet diligence is a credit to the nation, if not flashy enough to make the front page? Sadly, however, the "ordinary" teen fails to live up to this hoped-for ideal. The horrorific body count of those murdered on the highways of the nation by teen drunk drivers is enough to explode that illusion of the adequate "average" teen. Combine that with the leading role played by teens in making the Drug War a failure, and the contribution average teens make to the rolls of new cigarette addicts, or the average teen's shameful record of music piracy and software theft, and a sad, sorry portrait emerges. Teenagers are, in the most kind and sympathetic view, disgraceful, dangerous, and incorrigible.

Given that, the question follows: what is to be done?

The "teenager" is an invention of 20th century America. Prior to then, there was no special, awkward stage of life at the end of childhood and before adulthood began. In what we today would call the mid- to late-teens, childhood ended abruptly and adulthood began, marked by marriage, a job, or military service. But after a century of otherwise positive social liberalization, the teenage years have taken what was an infinitely short dividing line between child and adult and stretched the two phases apart, but with nothing to fill the gap, it has become a vacuum.

This vacuum, this waste land, has gone from idleness to mischief to wanton criminality and destruction. So, since it is not realistic to turn back the clock to a time of marriage at age 14, or enlistment in the Army at 15, we must instead fill this waste land with constructive activity, and expunge the garbage pile of filth and decadence that has been sucked into this open sore of a breach between the ages of 12 and 20.

What sort of filth? Drugs and computer crime are the most obvious items on the menu of this foul feast, along with murder and illicit sex, leading to pregnancy, and infanticide. But there are more basic causes behind these results of the depraved teenage life. So rather than debate the nebulous question of whether marijuana causes hacking or hacking leads to marijuana use, it is more pertinent to ask what are teenagers doing using computers at all? And what are they doing running around town unsupervised and free to "score" drugs?

Where do they get the money for drugs anyway? Steal it of course, or sometimes earn it at their job at the fast food restaurant. But why do they even have a job? It serves no educational purpose, and so besides buying drugs, what do teens need money for anyway? What?

To buy cars? Ah, now we are making progress. What social or educational good is served by putting a teenager of all people, behind the wheel of an automobile? So they can drive to the marijuana dealer? So they can engage in unsafe sex and become pregnant? Oh, I know! So they can drive to their job!!! Now the circle closes, and we see that driving is a self-justifying "need" with nothing but ill consequences.

Teenagers need to be learning how to diagram sentences, memorize important dates in history and math formulae, and drill in military skills for their mandatory Armed Forces enlistment, and where do they therefore have time to be driving around, or slouching through a shift at KFC, or surfing the web? Where is there time to allow teens to search the net for tips on computer hacking, or for contraband MP3 files?

Look at the typical teen you know, perhaps that surly boy across the street, and ask yourself: Does that kid deserve to be listening to pop music at all? Obviously, he deserves no free pop music, and with no job, he cannot buy compact discs, nor a hi-fi set to play them on. Think about what happens when these minors, who can be as strong and fast as adults, listen to rock music. Their blood boils and they enter into a kind of frenzy. Violent dance such as at a "rave" or "mosh" is usually the best you can hope for when a group of these animals gets the heat of their music into their veins. They begin to claw at their own eyes, and tear the clothes off those around them, and proceed with the infamous teenage sexual orgies that has made the United States the world's #1 abortion nation, and unwed teen mom nation. It doesn't stop there, of course. Often random attacks on the innocent, as in one of our many school massacres or terrorist attacks is the grisly end of a session of teen music listening.

Some have argued that teens should be allowed to hear certain kinds of music, like classical and opera. I agree, to a point, because I think allowing individuals a maximum amount of freedom (where practical) is good both for society and for the future non-terrorist teen. Obviously, no jazz. But can kids safely hear instrumental, non-sexual music? I say yes provided it is not performed by the subversives that teens crave to worship in their baccanal rock and pop shows, nor played from a pre-recorded medium. Let them play their own music on a recorder or cello (NO drums, no guitars!), under supervision, and perhaps their savage nature will be tamed.

It goes without saying that we must have uniforms. Any questions? I didn't think so.