4 way speech contest

Thursday morning we had the pleasure of meeting Benjamin Brown and Max Hafner our two Interact club members that chose to present their take on the 4 way test in a speech format.  Each of these young men were winners with respect to the way they presented themselves and their take on how the 4 way test and how it can interact with their lives and the lives of others.  Max was first with his take on the new racism in our country.  The school districts are dealing with a new hate, Emmaus found swastikas in the school, Southern Lehigh Heil Hilter salutes, but this does not stop at our schools it affects our whole country on the county, State and Federal level.  Over 100 Jewish schools were defiled with anti-semantic hate remarks, within the past several months. 

   Max has a solution and it begins with third graders and ends with seventh graders.  Start educating our children that hate, racism, anti-semanticism are not acceptable and start with small programs in the third grade, finishing with seventh grade teaching and showing what happened during WWII, the holocaust.  He believes if people see and understand what took place they will learn that acceptance is better for humanity than building hate and a racist society.  Is it fair to all concerned yes because it builds good will for everyone, is it the truth, yes it is, is it beneficial to all concerned since it builds a society that will be more understanding.  Will it build better friendships.... yes it will.

    Ben took another direction and asked the question why does cash exist?  His proposition is to eliminate cash.  Transfer everything to a cashless society and use bitcoins instead.  An online currency that is almost completely anonymous.  Why do you ask.....it makes it a lot harder for criminals to laundry bitcoins than it is for them to laundry money.  Is cash the truth Ben believes it is not since originally cash was an IOU something you traded for something else.  It is fair to all concerned it depends on where you are in life and basically Ben believes it is not fair to all concerned.  It gives criminals the ability to transfer cash everywhere.  It is not fair to all concerned.  Thirdly will it bring goodwill and better friendships.  It may stop crime on most levels.  Since no one would be carrying cash there would be nothing to steal from anyone.  Is it beneficial to all concerned, in a Swedish study where cash has been almost totally extinct the number of bank robberies from one period of study to the next decreased over 900%.  When cash was available in the banks there were 110 robberies.  When cash was eliminated the robberies went down to 11 because there was nothing of importance to take from the banks. 

   Ben and Max did an excellent job of positioning themselves and their ideas to coincide with the 4 way test.  It may not be anything we have thought about but it certainly will make us think a little different about hate, racism and our cash.  We are building character into our youth through the 4-way test and our Interact club at Emmaus High School.