Sick Society.

       When a sports hero, admired by children and adults alike, strikes his wife, as Ray Rice did, he deserves the most severe punishment   He is a  criminal and deserves to be treated like a criminal.  When the punishment meted out to him is trivial and inconsequential it is  sending a message to  the society in general and to the youth in particular that this sort of behaviour is in some way acceptable.  When a significant segment of the public speak out in acceptance of  this and sometimes even protectively, it leaves no doubt that we have a major  decline in social standards.  Violence in America has become an accepted way of life that will prevail until society takes the responsibility to make the consequences fit the crime.
        Another criminal Adrian Peterson was indicted on September 11, 2014, by a Montgomery County, Texas, grand jury on charges of reckless or negligent injury to a child^.  He is accused of beating his four-year-old son repeatedly with a tree branch, causing severe welts and bleeding on the child's back, legs, buttocks, genitals and ankles. In their initial response, the Vikings deactivated Peterson for a single game.    Until these criminals are addressed by the American  justice system and the punishment is made to fit the crime, violence will continue to thrive and youngsters will regard them as role models, instead of what they really are.
           The decline continues.