Brookfield Basics

Two years ago this Saturday I drove to Pine, Louisiana with a group of fifteen people from our Church.  Located about ninety miles north of the Gulf Coast, it was just three weeks after Katrina.  We also spent one day in Biloxi, Mississippi located right on the Gulf, and toured the unimaginable devastation there.  I reflected on the trip and the people I came to know in an April 4 article.  The title of that piece was Katrina and Miss Molly, derived from the names of two “women” that I will never forget.

I won’t repeat the things I first wrote of; those were personal reflections.  This article is about pubic policy, and in particular, the nature of government relief efforts related to large-scale natural disasters.

In the two years since Katrina, the Federal Government has poured nearly thirty billion dollars into the Gulf Region, with most of that going to the environs of New Orleans.  In the immediate aftermath of Katrina clear thinking took a holiday, and the Federal Government went on a check-writing binge.  To his credit, Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner was one of a very few who challenged this.  Sadly but predictably, the subsequent stories of corruption, racketeering, waste, and exploitation are legion.

Now I have no illusions that our little Band of Brookfielders made a measurable impact on the region’s suffering.  But I can tell you that the lives of about two-dozen families were tremendously impacted.  And the small Church in Pine where we stayed and which had become the epicenter of that county’s relief efforts, was replenished and encouraged in its vital role of spreading food, materials, and hope into that ravaged community.

When it comes to catastrophes such as Katrina, or the recent flooding in S.W. Wisconsin, government should focus primarily on restoring utilities and logistics, with the National Guard and law enforcement focusing on the maintenance of order.  But when it comes to helping people, government should get out of the way and let private groups do their work.

After talking with the people in Pine and witnessing what I did, I can tell you that the people who suffered through that horror quickly stopped looking for FEMA.  Instead, they tried to hook up with a local Church or the YMCA or the Kiwanis or the Boy Scouts or the Knights of Columbus or ANY entity that was small and local.    

When huge sums of cash are focused in the hands of a few, in a region that is physically obliterated and emotionally shattered, it is a recipe for corruption and a virtual guarantee that most of the money won’t get to where it is needed.  Private groups didn’t ask what they could or couldn’t do and they were not burdened by truckloads of regulations.  They just fanned out over the countryside spreading assistance, and they did it faster and more effectively than any government agency did.  

I learned that big government agencies such as FEMA got so focused on trying to “restore the region” that it didn’t have time to help PEOPLE.

Our group settled on more modest goals.

The recent discussion on the topic of oral sex, in curriculum intended for eleven year-old students, is representative of this. 

I absolutely believe that any potentially recommended curriculum would be tempered, and presented under the umbrella of abstinence.  There would be no lurid or detailed depictions of certain acts, and certainly no advocacy.  And given this, I can recite all of the arguments as to why this might be a sensible step.  I just don’t agree with those arguments.  I believe there is a larger point to be made when considering this topic.  It is a point of our culture and our individual responsibilities, more so than one of education.

Are we to get so caught up in the more mechanical aspects of this debate that we can’t take a step back for a moment, and see how far we have come?  Twenty years ago, if someone had told you that this topic would be considered for the 6^th Grade, what might your reaction have been?  And given that, where might we be twenty years from now?

By all means - let’s calmly debate the relative merits of such programming, and let’s consider our community’s list of pros and cons.  But as part of that discourse, let’s include the question of how effective America’s educational system has been in this particular area.  And lets consider where our own responsibilities as parents and citizens lie.

As for me, I do not see the merit of such content.  I do not suggest that we can, or even should shelter our kids from such matters.  On the contrary - my wife and I talk about them with our kids whenever we deem necessary, or whenever they ask.  But to use a sports analogy, such critical discussions are like “crunch time” in a basketball game.  And when it comes to crunch time on matters of our children’s social and emotional welfare; I want the ball in the hands of only two people.  

This is not because Barb and I doubt the competence or intentions of our school staffs.  Rather, it is because no one knows our kids like we do, and no one else is as committed to their welfare and their development.
 

It is also because we want to present such information in an overall context of human sexuality and relationships that is not permitted in our schools.

Is this really so unreasonable? 

If not, then maybe it’s time to take the frog out of the water.

In 1866 Fyodor Dostoevsky published his immortal work Crime and Punishment.

Today one wishes for a novelist of equal caliber to rebut the chorus-line of State politicians and social activists who are steamed up over the issue of hate-motivated crime.  Now even the National Education Association is getting on board that train.

Every summer at its annual convention, the NEA publishes a list of resolutions.  Just last month from its convention in Philadelphia came the following:

“The Association believes that Federal, State, and local governments and community groups must oppose and eliminate hate motivated violence”.

Why are they all so concerned about hate-motivated violence as opposed to any other kind?  And what makes them think that government at ANY level can “eliminate” the darker recesses of the human soul?  

The answer is simple - there are political objectives to be pursued that go beyond the matter of crime and punishment.  Getting tougher punishments for certain “motives” means having to determine what “thoughts” are driving those motives.  And if proposed hate crime legislation passes, it means that government can punish certain kinds of “thoughts” more harshly than others.  

That is a very slippery slope indeed. 

The result of crime is personal damage such as physical injury, financial loss, emotional trauma, etc.  The level of a victim’s suffering is in no way related to or apportioned by the MOTIVATION of the perpetrator.

Does a man’s family suffer more because its husband and father is killed over greed as opposed to some discernable reason of  “hate”?  Is an assault victim more seriously injured or disabled because the assailant’s motivation may have been one this as opposed to that?   

Crime is crime and violence is violence.  In this equation are perps, victims and the criminal justice system.  That system has a more than full time job punishing BEHAVIOR and ACTIONS.  Expecting it to assume the task of somehow divining and demonstrating people’s “motivations” is as impossible as it is dangerous. 

Let’s let cops be cops, prosecutors be prosecutors, and judges be judges.  Let’s let them deal with BEHAVIOR and enforce the laws that are already in place.  Let’s not make them try and discern and prove the motivations of criminals.

Public safety and an orderly society are the objectives.

Not thought control.