Bouncy Castle Terror: Another Sign Of America’s Culture In Decline

“Go back to D-Day. Do you think a nation raised to be scared of bouncy castles would ever be able to storm those beaches? What kind of adults are going to emerge from this cocoon? What kind of adults result from this overprotective environment?” – Mark Steyn

The great Mark Steyn filled in for Rush Limbaugh yesterday and he did a bit on how alarmed some people have become over bouncy castles.

First it was playgrounds. Then it was tag. Next came dodgeball. Then there were trampolines, lawn darts, letting kids play outside without supervision and now we’re on to bouncy castles.

Really?

“Oh, but John, I know a story about a kid who got hit in the throat with a dodgeball and died and bouncy castles? My nephew’s friend broke his finger on one of those 5 years ago!”

When, I was 7, I broke my leg playing football. The leg turned ALL THE WAY AROUND IN A CIRCLE and snapped. I was in the hospital for 5 weeks.

When I was about 10, I climbed a fence to get a basketball, slipped and the fence ripped my leg wide open. I actually hung there, with my leg impaled on the fence,

When I was roughly 13, I was outside playing “golf” with another kid. I stood directly behind him while he did his backswing with a club. It split my forehead wide open and sent a gusher of blood that coated my entire face.

I also did a couple of years of Day Care at the YMCA during my college years.

One kid who was about 6 was pushing a fold up chair across the gym floor, somehow slipped, closed the chair in a strange way on his finger and broke it.

Another time, a kid was walking by a door and stuck her finger in the crack between the backside of the door and the wall. Meanwhile, one of the other kids who had no idea it was going on closed the door and broke her finger.

Accidents happen. Kids do dumb things and get hurt. That’s part of being a kid. What’s the fix for all of those things supposed to be? Living in a plastic bubble?

If only it were just kids.

Even adults act as if someone getting hurt means something must have gone wrong. This is why we have labels that say, “Do not hold the wrong side of the chainsaw” and “Do not drive with sunshield in place.”

Some things are just dangerous and some people are just stupid — and that’s before you get to bad luck and accidents.

Life is an inherently dangerous business. Just because something goes wrong doesn’t mean we have to do something. It doesn’t mean we need the government to get involved. It doesn’t necessarily even mean there’s a problem.

We recognize this in some areas. More than 40,000 people die in car crashes every year and, yes, we do try to improve auto safety, but you don’t hear cries that we have to ban automobiles because of those deaths. In too many other areas, we freak out, go ballistic and refuse to accept that very few worthwhile things in life are achievable without a little bit of risk.

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