The question is: do we want to feel safeor do we want to be safe?
It’s an important question. A simple 10 minute speech with catchy phrases and cliches by a smooth talking authority or a growling activist seems to be very effective if the answer is “to feel safe”.
To “be” safe requires critical thinking. It demands a thoughtful and a logical approach to the objective and a realistic conclusion to a solution.
The catagories of acts of crime today would make a book, in fact, it does; Indiana’s Criminal Code.
Since I’ve been a Senator for the past 13 years every edition each year is larger than the last one.
One would think that with that many new laws the books would get smaller each year. We have many more laws today than, let’s say 1955. What change would demand more laws now than back then?
What changed? Not the rising and setting of the sun, moon and stars. Not the animals or the creatures of the waters. It kind of seems like it might be the human element of God’s nature.
Wait a minute….could it be that? Is it remotely possible that it could be human behavior and moral conduct that changed? Two traits not found in the animal kingdom or mother nature.
Can it be that we’ve overshot the runway in trying to reduce crime by overlooking or refusing to recognize the two most obvious erosions in society; human behavior and moral conduct?
It’s said that government cannot regulate morality, how true, but the people can.
Decency, virtue, respect, courtesy, dignity, politeness these attributes can only be found in the human elimate.
The challenge is a tall order, but the answer won’t be found in laws about “things” that people use or consume, it’s what they should practice; good human behavior and moral conduct.
Maybe the answer lies back where we walked away from it, God.
Senator Jim Tomes