The Real Cause of and Cure for Crime

Crime is in the news a lot lately, particularly violent crime.  There is just too much of it. 

Of course, nobody knows why any of this is happening, so we have to call in the experts, so they can tell us.

I think life is a lot less complicated than that, and I think the experts are getting it wrong for the most part. 

A recent letter to a newspaper captured this clearly.  The writer says, and I’m sure the experts will agree, that “the unacceptable level of crime in our city is due to many factors: poverty and equity, low employment opportunities in under-resourced neighborhoods, high dropout rates and tension between law enforcement and those communities.”

Apart from the high dropout rates, everything is somebody else’s fault.  Maybe the high dropout rates are somebody else’s fault too.

If only our government had spent billions of more dollars in certain communities, if only we had given poor people more money so they wouldn’t be poor anymore, if only selfish employers, or the government, had made more jobs in certain neighborhoods, if only the police were nicer people, then people wouldn’t resort to crime.  They would be happy and content and wouldn’t want to shoot anybody anymore.

No, people resort to crime and violence, because they have no sense of right and wrong.  Usually that requires a belief in God, Somebody who sees and knows everything and who holds people accountable for their actions.  But even prior to that, it’s a value system that says that certain things are just wrong. 

Many times in my life I have had to figure out what to do about something, and there were always a number of options that were never considered.  Because they were wrong. 

When you have no sense of right and wrong, then wrong things become options, and when things are options, we can find reasons to do them.  Even random, spontaneous violence or crime happens, because a person previously had permitted violence or crime as a viable option for certain situations.

As long as crime and violence are somebody else’s fault, we will never solve them.  We will never feel like society, or somebody else, is doing enough as long as there is high crime.

But nobody can say that I am not responsible for what I did, and society needs to affirm that.  Prosecutors must hold them accountable.  There are no acceptable mitigating circumstances for a crime of violence.

The cure for crime and violence is parenting.  That means a husband and wife in a loving relationship and raising their own children.

 

Of course, there are exceptions.  Of course, there are bad parents.  Of course, there are parents that fail.  But having a child’s natural parents in a loving home is still the best program we have with the highest success rate.

This is not a slight to gay couples.  It’s just that only one member of a gay couple can be a child’s natural parent.  I am talking ideally here.  As much as possible, we should want children to be raised by both of their natural parents.  They are most likely to be the most loving, committed parents to that child. 

What are parents, but fulltime mentors, caregivers, supporters, educators, tutors, individualized support systems for each child?  And most parents find that that child creates a love for them they didn’t expect and didn’t know before.

Whether you believe in God or evolution, they both ended up at the same place.  Children are the result of a mutual biological act that creates new life.  Children prosper best when they have the benefit of both parents together in their lives. 

And all this is at no cost to the public treasury. 

It used to be a shame in our society for an unwed woman to become pregnant and have a child.  Now it is often celebrated.   We don’t want anybody to feel shame for their actions, like they might have made a bad choice.

Our schools encourage children to become sexually active at very young ages.  They don’t teach that sex is something that is meant for marriage yet alone families, or even that marriage is something they might want for their lives.  Sex, yes, marriage, who knows? 

As a society, we should encourage families.  They are the foundation of a society.  The smallest building blocks.  Every new member has two fulltime adult mentors to show them how to live.  There is no better solution. 

The problem, of course, is that encouraging marriage, families, and parenting won’t solve today’s crime problems.  It’s the best answer to solve the future problems but not today’s.

Whatever else you want to do to make society a better place, you need to enforce the rules.  There must be consequences for those who commit crime.  Without that, all those other answers won’t change anything.

an armed society

I read William French’s opinion piece  “An armed society is nothing more than a fearful society,” May 26, and laughed.    

Not at French.  I did my grad work at Loyola.  I might have had him for an ethics class.  I have a lot of respect for him.

His article was excellent. 

Just one thing.

A free society is a rare thing in the world and human history.  And basically, humanity has a choice.  You can have a free society, or you can have a safe society.  You can’t have both. 

They are two opposites on a spectrum.  Move the marker toward safer, and freedom is diminished.  Move it toward freedom, and society becomes riskier.

The Founders, in this case, James Madison in Federalist no. 46, were happy that America was armed and attributed the nation’s freedom to that fact, where Europe was unarmed and ruled by kings.

Another Founder, James Adams, said that our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.  A society with an abundance of guns but without morals and religion is indeed a dangerous place, but our Founders never intended that we would be in that place.

 

Thoughts on Mental Health in our Society

Mental health is on everyone’s minds now, after an 18-year-old killed a class of 5^th graders this week.  What the bleep was he thinking? 

Seems there is a great need for mental health professionals throughout our society – our schools, our businesses and even our families.

A recent newspaper editorial noted the rise of increasing serious mental health issues among college students and the lack of adequate resources to help them.  The article made no attempt to explain why serious mental health issues are a problem or on the rise.

I will try.  I offer my analysis and solution here.

College students are on the brink of adulthood.  As children, they were under the care of their parents, but now they will be facing the world on their own. 

Our society has discouraged marriage and families for decades.  It’s relatively unimportant, as women need to pursue professional careers.  Something like 80% of incarcerated individuals grew up without a father in the home.

Whether you believe in God or evolution, both ended up with a man and a woman creating new life, and by extension, these two people are essential for the well-being of this child as it grows up.

A loving home instills a sense of safety and security into a child.  They always have a place to go.

Children are discouraged themselves from getting married and having a family, or at least for a long time.  More important things to do first.  So they are avoiding some of the richest experiences of their lives – living with someone who is committed to share their life til death and the joy of having their own family.  Maybe they are too young to start a family of their own, but the whole idea of a committed relationship seems out of the question for now, so they must do this alone. 

Their sex education so far has taught them that there is no such thing as normative sex, and sex has nothing to do with marriage and family.  Sex is essentially a form of recreation, and one that can play havoc with a person’s emotions, though they aren’t told that.  It’s not seen as an act of love but of pleasure.  It is not meant for a special committed someone, but something to do for enjoyment, like going bowling only more intense.  So their sex lives don’t enrich their emotional health; it may even leave them feeling empty.

So all of human history had gotten this wrong.  Pretty much everything.  But even more importantly, most likely everything they heard at home was wrong. 

Science teaches them that life is an accident of nature.  Human beings are nothing more than animals that talk and wear clothes.  There is no intrinsic value to human life.  We are mere specks in a vast, cold universe that is oblivious to their presence.  Your parents could have killed you before you were born.  You were lucky they didn’t.    

Science also tells them that our whole world is on the brink of destruction, caused by human activity, and it’s essentially too late to fix it.  We, human beings, have destroyed our planet.

History tells them that they were born into an evil, irredeemably flawed nation built on the backs of slavery and oppression.  It is thoroughly corrupt and the system is broken beyond repair.  It needs to be entirely reinvented.

Economics tells them we have a system run by the rich for the rich, and you are easily exploited.  The whole thing needs to be torn down and replaced with a more equitable and inclusive economy.  And that won’t be easy to do.

Sociology tells them that if you are white, you are inherently racist and an oppressor.  If you are not white, you are a victim.  The cards are stacked against you.  You must be vigilant against racism in all its forms, because it is everywhere and you are the target.

Religion is irrelevant.  It is merely the attempt of unenlightened primitive people in the past to try to explain things that science now does for us.  There is no ultimate meaning in life.  There is no purpose to any of it.  You live, you die, and that’s it.  And the universe doesn’t care.  About anything, including you.

Religion used to provide a basic moral framework for life, giving us the rules by which we can live our lives.  But there are no rules, only what you make yourself and the society you live in. 

There is no Higher Power to direct your life.  Life is like standing before an open field where you can go in any direction you want.  There is no right or wrong per se.  Just be who you are, whatever that means.  There is no Higher Power to whom they can seek help, and no Higher Power to whom they are accountable for their actions.

It’s only the last some generations now in all of human history that tells its children that we don’t need God, there is no such thing, we are on our own.  This has never been done before in human history.  We think we are smarter than everybody else who has gone before us. 

And mental illness is now on the rise among those people who have to sort through all this. 

We have failed, are failing our children, by giving them a life without structure, meaning, or support.  They are alone in a world that doesn’t care whether they live or die.

Obviously, many people have been able to navigate through all this successfully.  But they’re not the ones we read about in the news because of the unspeakable horrors they have committed. 

Our society has lost its way.  The worst part about this is that it thinks it is so smart, smarter than all the generations that have gone before them, not just on religion, but everything. 

Our children don’t feel connected to life, to anything bigger than they are. 

There is far more to be said on this, but it will have to be for another time. 

 

 

 

 

The Great Replacement Theory and racism

I am amazed by how much space the Tribune is giving to articles denouncing the Great Replacement Theory, as though this were a sinister plot to take over the government, rather than what is, a complaint about it.  (Great replacement theory is a grand delusion, May 23)

But it is today’s letter that demands a response.  (Publicly condemn racist theories, May 24)

Ultimately, I can only speak for myself, but I would wager I speak for the vast majority of those affected by this. 

I have no problem with any immigrant or any person of any race or religion.  They are all human beings, created in the image of God and worthy of our love and respect.  I have known, worked with, managed, and am friends with a lot of people who are not just like me.  And I have never asked anyone of them their immigration status nor do I care. 

I do have a problem with a government, whether state or federal, that ignores and even defies the laws of our country.  If they don’t like the laws, then change them.  If they can’t change them, then maybe most people in our country don’t want them changed. 

I suspect the problem is due in much part with lawmakers who make laws that are too big and that include things too controversial and so they never pass the parts that aren’t.

The United States is a unique country in human history.  We should make sure that all immigrants understand what it is that makes us unique and makes us what we are.   This is one of the reasons we should not just have open borders, like we do now.  This has nothing to do with hatred or discrimination.  This is just good government policy.

This Great Replacement Theory has no animosity toward minorities or immigrants.  It is only concerned that a particular political party is trying to use them to gain a permanent political advantage.

 

how to prevent violence, according to some religious leaders

I was happy to see a lot of religious leaders join together “to get serious about violence prevention.”  (May 18)  Being a religious person myself, I was curious to hear their suggestions.  I almost said ‘answers,’ but I don’t think they have any.  And I’m not sure they think so either.

They seem resigned to the fact that kids will be kids, and that means random or targeted violence and shootings.  So we shouldn’t be too hard on them.  The kids are in “the life,” where violence is just a part of life.  We should try to understand them.

A big part of their strategy seems to be to keep the kids busy and too distracted from shooting people.  Why shoot people when there are “alternative activities” for them to do?

Frankly, I think these religious leaders should take the summer off and refresh themselves on some of the basic tenets of their faiths: 

1)      Human beings are created in the image of God and are of infinite worth.  Maybe infinite is too strong of a word, but their religions teach that humans have an eternal existence. 

2)      There is a God who has rules for life, and we will be held accountable for keeping those rules.  The rules include not killing people and actually loving other people, even ones we don’t know.

3)      For the Christian ministers, God wants to empower people with His Spirit so that they can live lives of joy and peace with both people and God.

I think if our clergy could get this message out to the public, and if our political leaders didn’t try so hard to keep this message from the public, a lot of people will start to think that they don’t want to kill people after all.  That we can live in peace with each other.  And it didn’t require a big, expensive government program to do it.

 

stopping the killing in Illinois

The Times had two articles today of ground breaking significance that should bring relief to millions of Illinois residents.  (‘Ghost’ busters, Registering assault weapons would be a good first step to ending the scourge of mass shootings, May 18)

The first article noted that Illinois is the first Midwest state to ban ghost guns.  A lot of people intent on shooting and killing people in Illinois will be frustrated now, knowing that it will be illegal to buy ghost guns, and they will have to scurry around to find other means.

The second article encourages the registration of semi-automatic rifles as a good first step to reduce mass shootings in our country.  After the enormous success in reducing murder rates with handguns by requiring them to all to be registered, knowing that their rifle is registered will stop countless cold-blooded killers in their tracks.  They will think twice now before mowing down crowds of people on street corners and grocery stores. 

I have a better idea though.

Why don’t we just make a law against shooting and killing people?  Rather than focus on specific means of killing people, if we just ban the whole practice of shooting and killing people, we can solve the whole bigger problem of violence all at once.

what to do about air pollution

A long time ago, I was in school on the near north side of Chicago, and they sent me to a doctor on Central Street in Evanston.  As soon as I got off the el, the first thing I noticed was how fresh the air was.  No, I was not in an industrial area with a lot of diesel trucks, but there were hundreds of trees forming a canopy over the streets.

The Times reported today on Pollution Pockets (May16) in Chicago. 

It showed a wide variance in air quality, which is a good thing.  That means that the problem is local and not general.  If the whole city was engulfed in massive air pollution, any solution would be significantly harder.

Everybody hates pollution.  I get that.  But often the proposed solutions eliminate thousands of jobs in the area, add to the cost of many businesses providing goods and services to the community, and move many of those jobs, goods. and services out of the communities who will then complain later that they don’t have them.

I would like to suggest that somebody does a study of tree coverage in the city and then superimpose that map on the pollution map.  Trees use carbon dioxide and give off oxygen.  They also remove particular pollution out of the air.

There is so much talk about the environment, and all the solutions proposed cost billions and billions of dollars, require a major reinvention of our economy, and end up making so many things we use everyday far more expensive. 

We need to explore other options that are cheaper and that don’t have a million unintended, unforeseen, and undesirable consequences.

abortion and the filibuster

Both Chicago newspapers today reported on the new abortion law that was proposed, removing all restrictions on the procedure, and they both blamed it on the filibuster. 

Like the filibuster is some underhanded loophole that conniving politicians use to deprive the American people of something worthwhile, all for either personal gain or simply to sabotage the work of the other party.

What the filibuster is is a guarantee that controversial bills have more than simply the barest majority of votes to pass.  When the Republicans had the majority in the Senate, Democrats were thankful for the filibuster, and they used it all the time. 

Be thankful for the filibuster.  The Republicans will have control of the Senate again, and you will be glad it still has it.

 

 

 

 

Balancing the Supreme Court

A Sun-Times reader thinks that it is only right to expand the Supreme Court to “rebalance” it.  (May 11)

I wonder if the writer would feel the same if the Court was strongly leaning the other way. 

I don’t think the issue is balance as much as getting the results we want. 

We are asking the Court today to answer questions that the Founders never imagined that we would be asking.  In the case of abortion, the Court had to twist the 14^th Amendment to apply it to something that just isn’t there.  The 14^th Amendment was not written to address abortion, and we shouldn’t think that we would know what they would have thought about it.

I am sorry, but there just isn’t a Constitutional right to kill your unborn children.  I think we are asking the Court too much to overrule laws that we don’t like. 

If you want a Constitutional right to an abortion, you’re going to have to make your own.  Write up a Constitutional Amendment, and get it passed.  You will see then that the support for abortion is not as strong as you might think. 

When something is this controversial, and still this controversial after 50 years, then we need to sit down and talk about it more.  Yelling what you want in the streets won’t do it.  We need to have this conversation in all our schools, the newspaper columns, and over backyard fences.  That and about 20 other things as well.

the abortion debate

The Sun-Times printed a long letter denouncing anti-abortionists that demands a response.  (May 11)

I am anti-abortion.  I have only one concern, and that is linked to the big question about abortion.

What is this thing that everybody wants to kill and that they think the Constitution gives them this right to do it?

Are babies like puppies or kittens that we feel free to flush down a toilet, because they’re too much of a bother, or are they human beings created in the image of God and of enormous worth? 

We may quibble that they are they are so small and not even fully formed, but we then begin playing God, exercising authority over whether this thing is worth saving or whether we have the right and authority to end its life.

The writer complains that anti-abortionists are all against sex education.

I am all for sex education.  Take a half hour, and explain to the class that their bodies have complementary reproductive organs, and when conjoined in certain ways, this can result in pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases.  Yes, kids need to know all that.

But I have read the federal government’s new sex education standards, and it goes far beyond basic sex education, essentially encouraging young children to explore their sexuality and consider what gender they might want to be, long before they even have given any thought to whether they want to marry and have children. 

And, yes, I am against that.

As for rape and incest, there is a Senate candidate in Pennsylvania who was conceived in rape when her mother was 11.  Killing the baby won’t remove the pain of being raped, and many mothers have realized that the baby is as much a victim here as the mother.  An innocent victim too.  That baby deserves a chance at life as much as anybody. 

Ask Kathy Barnette what she thinks about children conceived in rape and whether she thinks her life was worth saving.  Yes, pregnancy and children complicate things.  Life is complicated. 

Those of us who oppose abortion think there are better answers than just killing the baby.

what is gender equality, and do we need a Constitutional Amendment?

A Sun-Times reader says that we need a Constitutional Amendment guaranteeing gender equality.  (May 9, 2022)

That sounds good on paper, but there are two kinds of questions that need to be answered:

1)      What exactly do you expect to see changed with this Amendment?  What inequalities exist now that must be changed?  How is this Amendment really needed?

2)      Then we must try to imagine what kind of things this Amendment will do beyond those things.  We have to imagine what kind of legal cases will come before the Supreme Court and how they will be ruled.

Will gender equality nullify separate gender sports?  Will having separate but equal sports be ruled unconstitutional just like separate but equal education was ruled unconstitutional?

Will maintaining separate locker room and toilet facilities be regarded as discriminatory?

I am always leery of broad, general pronouncements where we don’t know the full implications of that statement. 

I think in most cases it is best to deal with these matters separately so that we know specifically the changes that we are intending. 

 

Thoughts on Abortion

The big news story of the day is abortion.  When big stories break that consume all the news programs, you need to watch the news more closely.  Politicians see big news stories as distractions, so they do things they might not do otherwise and hope nobody notices.

Abortion is a complex issue that I wanted to think about more before I wrote anything.  A newspaper columnist today says that we need to talk about abortion.  We have pickets and protests on both sides of the issue, but we are not talking about the issue.  And this is what we need to do.

People are concerned today that the ‘right’ to an abortion may be lost.  I put the word ‘right’ in single quotes, because this is one of the points that the debate about abortion falls on.

Is it actually a right?

People often conflate the legality of something with a right.  It’s legal to turn right on a red light in most cases, but it is not a right.  If you believe that abortion should be legal, because it is a right, then we need to talk about that.

Rights often imply too that the government, meaning taxpayers, is required to either pay for or subsidize that thing.  When tens of millions of people believe that abortion is murder, no, they should not be required to pay for them.  Now THAT is imposing your beliefs on society.

But what is a right?

There are three kinds of rights, but only two that concern us here.

The Declaration of Independence says that our nation is founded on the fact, not the belief but the fact, that God gave unalienable rights to human beings.  Unalienable rights precede and supersede government such that government did not give them and government cannot take them away. 

The Constitution does not explicitly discuss abortion, so the Court decided that the Fourth Amendment, which protects people against unreasonable searches and seizures. gave people a right to privacy which would encompass a right to abortion. 

But does that mean I have a right to kill small animals or watch kiddie porn in the privacy of my own home?  This ‘right to privacy’ is not a solid foundation for a ‘right’ to abortion.

It is often touted that a woman has a right to autonomy over her own body.  Her body, her choice.  And I would agree.  Yet these same people will insist that everybody get vaccinated with drugs that many people believe to have more and serious problems than what they are meant to solve.  Here society, read government, feels empowered to override your personal beliefs and autonomy to impose their will for the sake of the greater good. 

At least be consistent. 

The problem here too is whether this thing growing inside the woman is actually part of HER body or somebody else.

The question that needs to be discussed is what exactly is this thing that we want so hard to kill.

We insist so hard that we are a secular society, that religion has no place in a secular society, at least in the public square and in public policy.

Except that there are questions that secularism cannot answer

Like what is the value of a human life.  True secular societies, like communist ones, have no value of human life.  It is easily expendable for the greater, the common good.  It is religion, specifically Christianity with its teaching that human beings are created in the image of God, where human life is deemed valuable, even precious. 

In the creation account in the Bible, God creates animals and fills the world with them.  But when ir comes to human beings, He creates only one.  And from that one, He forms a mate for it, and then from those two, all future human beings created in the image of God come from human choices and actions and not from God.  We share God’s creative activity. 

Now society, and including government, may not be permitted to take such things into consideration, but when half the country believes in this, you can’t just tell them to shove it.

We need to have the discussion about what this thing we want to kill is, and, yes, that discussion will have to talk about God.  But our society, including government, doesn’t want to have that discussion.  Then this division, this contentious division in our country, is not going to go away. 

Let’s ask this again.

Is abortion a Constitutional right?

What is a Constitutional right in the first place?  Our country was founded on the idea of rights, and it is the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution, that defines these rights. 

One of those basic human rights is the right to life.

So when does this child get this right to life?

When we say so?  When the government says so?  When the mother says so?

Then how is this an unalienable right, when other people can confer it or deny it?  If we cannot agree on when this child receives this right to life, then we have no business taking that child’s life.

Kathy Barnette is running for Senate in Pennsylvania.  Her mother conceived her when she was 11.  She had been raped by a 21 year old man.  Her mother’s mother just took her into their family.

Ask her about the value of human life.  She is happy to tell you.

No, life is not easy.  And pregnancy can complicate things very quickly.  But children are not puppies or kittens in a litter that we can just flush down a toilet.  We can find other solutions than just killing the child, and we need to. 

 

 

a new way to do college

A Sun-Times writer suggested that we should treat college education as we do our earlier public education.  He called it free education, free to the user, but it would be taxpayer-funded education.  (Society should move away from student loans and consider free college, May 6)  But, yes, there is no reason to treat college education any differently than grade school and high school.

I agree wholeheartedly with this, but I would add certain addenda to this suggestion.

First is that we have to get away from funding public education through property taxes.  This limits school funding in poorer areas, and that shouldn’t be.  But property taxes are the one tax that takes no consideration of a person’s ability to pay that tax.  Remove public education from property taxes, and housing will immediately become more affordable for everybody.  Heck, you won’t even need affordable housing.  But property taxes are an unnecessary burden on countless property owners.  Income taxes spread the costs according to a person’s ability to pay them.  And it will relieve living costs for everybody.

Pay for public education through the income tax.  You will need to keep this fund separate from the general fund, otherwise lawmakers will use it for other things.  Call it the public education tax, or the PET.

And, in both K-12 education and college, parents and students who choose to use other schools than public schools should receive a tax deduction up to the amount they would pay for public schools the amount they will pay for the other school.

Nobody should have to pay twice for their education.

So students who choose to go to private schools may still need to take out loans.  You can’t expect taxpayers to pay for Harvard when students can go to U of I. 

a new way to do college

A Sun-Times writer suggested that we should treat college education as we do our earlier public education.  He called it free education, free to the user, but it would be taxpayer-funded education.  (Society should move away from student loans and consider free college, May 6)  But, yes, there is no reason to treat college education any differently than grade school and high school.

I agree wholeheartedly with this, but I would add certain addenda to this suggestion.

First is that we have to get away from funding public education through property taxes.  This limits school funding in poorer areas, and that shouldn’t be.  But property taxes are the one tax that takes no consideration of a person’s ability to pay that tax.  Remove public education from property taxes, and housing will immediately become more affordable for everybody.  Heck, you won’t even need affordable housing.  But property taxes are an unnecessary burden on countless property owners.  Income taxes spread the costs according to a person’s ability to pay them.  And it will relieve living costs for everybody.

Pay for public education through the income tax.  You will need to keep this fund separate from the general fund, otherwise lawmakers will use it for other things.  Call it the public education tax, or the PET.

And, in both K-12 education and college, parents and students who choose to use other schools than public schools should receive a tax deduction up to the amount they would pay for public schools the amount they will pay for the other school.

Nobody should have to pay twice for their education.

So students who choose to go to private schools may still need to take out loans.  You can’t expect taxpayers to pay for Harvard when students can go to U of I.