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Gaffer Variety:
By Willie Gaffer:
Mr. Lawrence Moon, a mortician in
For sure, all of the politicians and media people are
getting into the act. Their favorite game is to ask the question, how do we
turn it around? Of course, these fools and charlatans all want a short-term
fix. There is no short-term fix. The fix is long-term, slow, and difficult,
like all real solutions to chronic problems. The constant search for quick
fixes is why we are in this mess. They want a quick fix so they can take
credit, not because they care about the kids or about
The real problem is not easy to solve. The solutions I offer here are long-term solutions. There are two things that must be done. First, we must begin to educate our children. Our current educational system stinks. At least half of the kids fall through the cracks and remain ignorant. Ignorance is the basic cause of this insane behavior. This is a long-term solution. We will not get smart kids overnight. We will not get kids who see violence as a bad solution next year or the year after. To get real lasting solutions, we must think in terms of decades, not days.
We ought to be asking ourselves why kids hate school. I
believe it is because we make school a chore rather than an adventure. We do
not draw the kids into the system. We don’t excite them. We don’t
nurture their sense of wonder. Here is a recent example of how not to teach
kids from our local media. This happened in a
A local school has a problem because they have kids who cannot speak English. That is more than a handicap to education. It is an insurmountable barrier. The approach now is to teach these kids English as a second language. I don’t like the implication of that. Actually, to be American, English should be your first language and you native language, whatever it is, should be kept as a culturally treasured second language. Perhaps that is nitpicking, but that is how I feel.
There is a bigger problem in teaching English to kids who don’t know it. That is the attempt to teach them other subjects at the same time. The method they described for that borders on insanity. A special language teacher is supposed to sit beside this kid while he is supposedly learning math and explaining the ongoing class process to him in his language. Huh? The cost of that unworkable solution must be staggering. Now, here is the final kicker. The special language teacher may or may not know the kids native language.
This whole crap pile is a blazing example of the general
failure of education in
The second thing we need to do is to get tough with criminals. Currently, we are not doing this. Too often, we let criminals walk and they do it again. Why not? There is often no penalty even when they are caught. This is not all the fault of society. Regardless of the tough streets and the tough life, becoming a criminal is a personal moral choice. It is not necessary. Not everyone does it.
Some people decide they can be criminals. The can just take what they want and do what they want. Once you make that decision, anything you do beyond that is not a matter of morality. It’s a matter of risk analysis. There are only two relevant questions in risk analysis. What is the likelihood of an event happening and what are the consequences if it happens? For a criminal those become; what is the change of being caught and what will happen if I am caught? In our current law enforcement environment, too often, nothing happens and that knowledge is not lost on the criminal.
We are not enforcing the law. For example, I don’t even bother to call the cops anymore. They just can’t be bothered with small crimes. I would only call them if there was an attempt to murder or rob me. Even then, I would not count on them. So, in the face of our failure to enforce the law in all matters, large and small, we have more and more people choosing to be criminals. The chances of being caught are smaller with each passing year and, even when they are caught, the penalty is often trivial. When we don’t punish so called small crimes, we encourage larger crimes. The criminal, like any child, will test for limits. Knowing that, we must realize there is no such thing as a small crime. All crime must be punished if we are to stop this downward spiral.
Another reason convictions are difficult is witnesses are afraid to testify. Of course! They know, even if the cops make a case against the criminal, he will be back out on the street in less than a week while the courts and attorneys diddle around. The bleeding heart do-gooders will let him out the next day. The witnesses know he will remember who testified against him. They know he will come looking and they know the cops will not be there.
In all this criminal activity, a favorite catchall phrase is teen violence and gang related activities. What bullcrap nonsense doubletalk. If a man commits a crime, he is an individual criminal who committed a crime. If he is a member of a gang, that is not relevant. We must punish criminals not babble about the details of their life. A criminal is not a gang related activity, he is not teen violence, he is a criminal. That is all we need to know. The lady with the scales is blindfolded for a reason. Personal details and relationships are not relevant.
In crime, we are dealing with people who believed they are separate. People who believe they are separate, that the self and soul end at the skin, are just as likely to act against the community as they are to act in support of the community. When they act against community that is the definition of crime. It matters not if it results in an act of teen violence or in a gang related activity. A criminal is not a part of the community. He sees the community as a personal resource to be exploited. He will masquerade as a member of the community to do that. That situation must be dealt with directly. Criminals must be restrained regardless of the cost. It is not about justice, but survival. The survival of the community depends on crime control. It requires conscientious law enforcement including thoughtful investigation and prosecution.
While all this shouting and posturing about crime was going
on in
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