Culture of Distrusting Government

New York City, like too many places in our country, has seen division created by racial tension. This division has erupted in violence that has destroyed trust, common sense and in the worst cases entire neighborhoods. All this destruction has a real cost on society, but especially on the people and neighborhoods affected.

The destruction stems from people making decisions about events they have no first-hand knowledge of. They assume a suspect was treated a certain way because of racism. Second-hand or third-hand reports of the situation are mixed with basic assumptions about the shape of society to make an explosive mix.

Many of the protestors, bloggers and commentators have painted the police as the villains. I believe the majority of law enforcement officers are honest, fair people attempting to do an extremely difficult job well. I don’t doubt that some will make horrible mistakes. Painting an entire group by the actions of a few is exactly what we are all against. Failing to see the police as people worthy of respect and assuming them to be villains has resulted in many needless confrontations and at least two deaths.

In a sense it all comes down to which group a person chooses to make negative assumptions about. And if you look at it that way, the central point becomes why do we make the assumptions we do about any group? I believe the way news is presented is a part of it. I believe history is a part of it, too. Unfortunately, I also believe, in recent times, presidential politics is a part of it. The president has waded into a number of situations in such a way as to exasperate the situation. It is sad when the highest elected official in the land contributes to the cultural distrust of government.

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Potty Retraining

One of the more awkward trends in America right now is towards, non-discriminatory bathrooms. A number of places are setting laws, under pressure from the LGBTQPXYZ community, to allow a person to use either the men’s room or the women’s room at any time and at any place. The goal of this law is to protect individuals who feel they are a different gender in mind than they are in body.

This is another example of the amazing amount of power our society has given to this specialized community. If this relatively small group wants a law or a community standard changed they will probably get it. In this case, they will get it even if it is beyond all common sense and contrary to the safety of the average citizen. Did anyone who worked to create and pass these laws consider the ways in which they could be misused?

Anyone who wishes to do harm will simply have to claim they felt like the other gender at that moment. This claimed feeling will give them permission to hang around in a restroom which in reality is not for people they associate themselves with, but people they intend to victimize.

I think the point of greatest concern should be schools. This law allows a curious boy to claim identity issues in order to get access to the girl’s locker room. For most boys they will go through a stage in their development when they would do anything for that opportunity. Is this really what lawmakers think is wisdom?

I noticed as my kids were going through middle and high school that gym classes had gotten very lax about the shower requirement. In today’s world children are so fearful that it has become impossible to enforce. Simply stated they believed some of the other kids were certain to be homosexuals, who would be looking at them in predatory ways. Now I wonder if they will begin to fear to even use the restroom at school, for similar reasons.

Immigration

One of the great challenges for our country is what to do about immigration. From my perspective the entire debate is missing the mark.

There is immigration law defining who can come into our country, who is allowed to work, and who is allowed to seek citizenship. We spent remarkably little energy discussing these laws, and we are gutting our ability to enforce these laws, even though they are at the heart of the issue.

Instead we spend a lot of time discussing peripheral issues. For example, here in Arizona there has been a major discussion about who is allowed to enforce the law. Many would like to convince us that immigration law can only be enforced by immigration officers.

I wonder what it would be like if we used this kind of rule for other categories of crime.  Only the DEA could enforce drug laws.  Only the ATF could enforce gun laws. Only the Commerce Department is allowed to ‘notice’ if a person is smuggling.

That idea is ludicrous. If a local law enforcement officer finds a meth house, a grenade launcher, or a secret pocket full of diamonds we would all expect them to respond, make arrests, report and pass the criminals on to the correct department. So why do we claim immigration laws have to be handled differently?

Another example is we spend a lot of time discussing the plight of long term illegal families. Returning family members to country of origination splits up families, ruins careers, and derails education.

But again, what would it look like if we used similar logic on other forms of law breaking. The meth house would argue it cannot be shut down because there are too many dealers on the street who would be put out of work. The illegal arms dealer would point to his children who would be harmed if he went to jail. The diamond smuggler would claim law enforcement was racially profiling him.

We would be better off if our primary focus was on the immigration laws. Making excuses for those who break the laws is counterproductive, and harassing those who enforce the laws is silly.

As a Christian I would like to see more people able to come to America and make a new life for themselves. But also as a Christian, I would like to see them do it the right and legal way.