From: johnt@meaddata.com (John Townsend)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh.tv-show
Subject: A Stolen Life, A Dying Soul
Followup-To: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh.tv-show
Date: 21 Dec 1992 18:42:38 GMT
Organization: Mead Data Central, Dayton OH
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: skibum.meaddata.com

This is the article which Rush was commenting about on the 12/15 radio show
and the 12/17 TV show.  I've also attached the relevant portion of John
Switzer's summary of the radio show for reference:


                    Copyright 1992 Chicago Tribune Company
                                Chicago Tribune

                   December 13, 1992, Sunday, FINAL EDITION

SECTION: TEMPO; Pg. 1; ZONE: C

LENGTH: 764 words

HEADLINE: A stolen life, a dying soul

BYLINE: Bob Greene.

BODY:
   In San Jose, Calif., last month, burglars who intended to steal items from a
house found that a resident of the house was unexpectedly at home that day.

   Instead of fleeing from the house, or leaving the resident unharmed, the
burglars, according to police, beat the resident, hacked at him with a butcher
knife and a meat cleaver, marched him from room to room, stuffed a sock into his
mouth, wrapped tape around his face, and left him in the house to die slowly.

   The resident of the house did, indeed, die.

   It is hard to make a case that he presented much of a danger to the burglars.

   For the resident of the house was an 8-year-old boy, a 3rd grader who was
staying home from elementary school that day because he had a cold and a fever.

   And the killers, according to police, were neighbors, friends of the family.
The killers, according to police, were three teenagers who butchered Melvin
Ancheta, an 8-year-old who knew them and who let them into the house because he
trusted them. The items they stole while Melvin Ancheta lay dying had a market
value of less than $100.

   Our nation grows increasingly violent, and children are being killed in
heartbreaking numbers by teenagers who seem to have no concept of the value of
life. We can try to fix the economy, we can strive for a strong military, we can
endeavor to help people in need around the world. But if we cannot solve the
terrifying soullessness that we are seeing among murderous young criminals from
one coast to the other, nothing else will matter. We will be finished.

   What happened to Melvin Ancheta defies understanding. He had stayed home from
school that day to try to rest and recover from his cold. There was no one
with him because both of his parents worked.

   According to the San Jose police, the three neighborhood teenagers - one of
them was the best friend of Melvin's older brother - had decided to steal items
from the Ancheta house that day.

   "Our understanding is that they had made the decision that they would kill
whoever happened to be home," said Sgt. Dennis Luca. "They expected the mother
might be home, but she had left for work."

   When the teenagers - 18, 16 and 15 - knocked on the door, Melvin told them
they could not come in.

   "He was an 8-year-old boy who had been taught not to let anyone into the
house if his parents weren't home," Sgt. Luca said.

   But the teenagers returned. Through the door, they reportedly told Melvin
that one of his brothers had run away from home, and that they had been sent to
pick up some clothes to take to him. Because Melvin knew the teenagers,
apparently he decided he should let them in.

   Police say that the teenagers took Melvin upstairs to a bedroom and
apparently beat him, then stabbed him repeatedly with a butcher knife. He did
not die.

   "They walked him downstairs," Sgt. Luca said. "At some point they stuffed a
sock into his mouth and then wrapped tape around his head. They put him on a
couch while they looked for items. They turned on a television set to a cartoon
show."

   Then, according to the police, one of the teenagers took a meat cleaver and
hacked at Melvin's throat. They left the house with a hand-held video game and a
portable telephone.

   Melvin lay face down on the carpet all that day. There were slashes on his
neck and head, and his chest and back were covered with puncture wounds. His
right arm was twisted behind his back, his palm up. His brother Ryan, 14, came
home from school around 3:30 p.m., let himself into the house, and found Melvin.
According to police, Melvin's eyes were wide open, the brown plastic tape
wrapped over his mouth, a cord twisted around his neck.

   "The officers who made the arrests talked to all three of the teenagers who
are charged with doing this, and 'remorse' was not a word that came up," Sgt.
Luca said.

   Melvin's 3rd-grade classmates struggled to understand what had happened. They
knew he'd had a cold the day before. The San Jose Mercury News reported that
some of his schoolmates talked about the movie "Home Alone." That's what they
could relate it to. A friend of Melvin's, the newspaper reported, agonized that
perhaps he could have saved Melvin by trapping the intruders, like the boy in
the movie.

   "You grope for words to explain it," Sgt. Luca said. "But there's no
explaining." And meanwhile our society veers ever out of control. Balance the
budget, repair the highways, feed the hungry. But unless we can figure out a way
to cure the dying national soul, we might as well just turn out the lights and
say a prayer on our way out, because it's over.

GRAPHIC: PHOTO: Melvin Ancheta thought he could trust his attackers.

-----------------------------------

Phone   Diane from Ocala, FL

Diane refers to Rush's comment about the 8-year-old who was
killed, and is interested in Rush's views on this. Rush says that
today's column by Bob Green is a real "gut wrencher" about
burglars who broke into a San Jose house and beat a boy, hacked
at him with a meat cleaver, marched him around the house, stuffed
a sock in his mouth, wrapped his face in tape, and then left him
to die slowly. The 8-year-old third-grader, who stayed home from
school because of illness, died.

The killers were three teenagers who were neighbors and friends
of the family. The 8-year-old knew the teenagers, which is why he
let them in the house; the value of the objects stolen from the
house was less than $100. Green writes that children are being
killed more often by teenagers who have no concept of the value
of life. He wonders how this murderous soulness can be solved
since what happened to this boy defies understanding.

"Unless we can figure out a way to cure the dying national soul,"
writes Green, "it's over." Rush rereads Green's paragraph about
how so many teenagers have no concept about the value of life,
and points out that although his own show has discussed this
topic, but it's rarely discussed elsewhere.

Since Green has brought the subject of the nation's soul up, Rush
asks if there is any scientific evidence for any sort of soul.
Science can't provide this, of course, because the soul is not
just the animating aspect of a human being which defines that
human being, but it is a religious, not a scientific, concept.

Rush is glad that others are finally realizing that America is
heading down a course where the value of life is being slighted
and denigrated more and more. He doesn't think it is possible in
a civilized society to kill 1.5 million babies every year and to
have Jack Kevorkian running around praising the "dying process,"
without life being cheapened in the process. These things can't
be done without guilt unless life is cheapened.

Youngsters are highly impressionable, and they realize that
abortion is going on and what it means. Plus, the dominant media
culture, from the movies to MTV to records and books, is
increasingly encouraging children to lessen their respect for the
value of life. When in 20 years, girls' sexual activity is
doubling, there must be some cause.

Of course, every generation's music is criticized by previous
generations, but there is a great difference between what the
Beatles sang and what people like Ice T, 2 Live Crew, and others
are doing. There is also an underlying attitude of permissiveness
which hides behind the First Amendment, and this does affect
kids.

It is not too hard to realize what's wrong when kids are taking
guns to school and the school's response is to simply use metal
detectors. And then some groups such as the ACLU even oppose
these metal detectors. Values can't be taught in school anymore,
unless of course they are the homosexual values of the "Children
of the Rainbow" curriculum.

The Ten Commandments can't be mentioned in public schools, even
though there is no better guide to living together with others.
People have to start looking at the real problems in this, or
there will be no end to kids hacking each other to death. Rush
praises Bob Green for daring to talk about the concept of the
value of life, since so many people who don't want any
consequences attached to their actions are attacking anyone who
dares to talk about limits or values.

-- 
// John Townsend             "I thought I was      Legal Conversion Engineering
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