A response to a comment

Back on Tuesday night, I detailed the latest Wicomico Neighborhood Congress meeting where the subject was crime. In a lengthy response, commenter "Outraged Richard" stated his case:

Fact is, the parents and law enforcement are the problem, along with the criminal youth.

Fact is, poor quality parents - those defined as unmarried, obese, criminal, and unable to afford children, for starters - should be ridiculed by the community first, next fined, and then imprisoned.

Law enforcement supervisors should be fired - the whole department if necessary - for not actively fining parents and not aggressively breaking up and punishing the criminal youth.

Then there is the problem of racism in the Transchoptankia Realm - an extremely important issue which no one will touch. I will.

Prevent newspapers from printing the typical “first black to do so and so” crap.

Pass a resolution to ban Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton from the Transchoptankia Realm.

Furthermore, and most importantly, town planning should be based on TND which promotes a dense urban core that allows people of all races to intermingle.

Get rid of the “White Side, Black Side” of town mentality! Bulldoze the dead ended urban sprawl developments and bulldoze the “hood”!

Problem people should not be allowed to live in the town. Many current citizens should be banned. How about that? To live in a proper town community you have to show responsibility and good will.

Bam! That’s how we do it!

Michael, what do you think? Are these not the proper answers?

Perhaps. But the whole subject placed me deep in thought because there is a reality out there that brings with it its own questions, one of them being whether one person can even make a difference in this debate.

Rare are the moments where the actions of one man change the course of history unalterably. While there are cases like Gavrilo Princip firing the shot which began a world war or Thomas Edison striking on the right combination of materials to produce artificial light, most of us live our day-to-day lives making a number of decisions that affect a thousand other events - but simultaneously the remainder of humankind places into motion their own event chains that generally have the effect of working anywhere from completely opposite to practically parallel to our intentions. The end result then is that more often than not society changes at a glacial, almost imperceptible rate.

So it is with all of these proposals. Certainly they all can be argued on whatever merits they have, but maybe a better way to look at the issue is to ask how we got to the point of even asking the questions in the first place. Where was it that the actions Outraged Richard decries in his rant gained acceptability or at least a tacit admission that it wasn't an issue worth bothering with in the first place? Somewhere the myriad actions of our society pushed the ball over the goal line.

In this case, it's unclear where that moment was but it could be that there were (and still are) some in American society who thought it best to act in a manner that may have been contrary to the common good. Edmund Burke was absolutely correct in saying, "those who don't know history are destined to repeat it."

Unfortunately, this particular case of looking at things beyond the obvious won't reach a vast number of people, and to many it does reach it'll be forgotten by the time the next article is read since we all have MTV-induced short attention spans now. But those dreamers like I am from time to time will keep trying for that moment of clarity when the answers do come.