What follows is my column from today's Orlando Sentinel
By
now the entire world is well aware of the story of the three teenagers who
gunned down Christopher Lane, a 22-year old Australian attending college in
Oklahoma.
That
such a cold-blooded, senseless killing could take place is numbing to the mind
of any rational, decent human being.
The
problem is, rational, decent human beings are becoming increasingly scarce in
the United States – and I am afraid our modern definition of human liberty is
partly to blame.
I
often ask my students to define the word “liberty” in short essay form.
Predictably, most of the answers dovetail towards the idea that we all have the
right to do whatever we want to do in a free country. When I ask them where the
phrase “personal responsibility” and the rights of others enters into their
definition of liberty I most often get blank stares.
A
few students will manage to eventually say that liberty means our right to do
anything peaceful as long as we do not harm another human being. Even fewer get
the connection between liberty and bearing responsibility for all of our
choices.
In
essence, many Americans today believe that we should be allowed to do anything
we want – and someone else should take responsibility for the poor decisions we
make. Moreover, it means that in today’s America, we believe we should be able
to pursue whatever makes us happy without consequences, commentary or
criticism.
How
else, for example, do you explain how many of today’s young male Americans
dress and entertain themselves? They walk around with the tops of their pants
around their thighs, their skin covered with tattoos, ill-fitting baseball caps
on their heads and various body piercings. They drive cars that incessantly
blast all sorts of vile music at ear-splitting decibel levels.
Meanwhile,
as economists have increasingly observed, more of those young “men” are failing
to finish school, are often only marginally attached to the labor force while
being significantly attached to their parents homes, the criminal justice
system and/or the welfare state.
Unfortunately,
the story is not much better for young women. How often have you heard girls of
today using language that would make a sailor blush? When was the last time you
saw a younger female dressed with anything approaching modesty? You get the
point.
It
is not just the young folks who seem to have abandoned any sense of honor or
integrity.
How
often do we read about the failings of our business leaders, politicians,
public servants and parents in carrying out their duties in an honorable
fashion?
While
I am the first to defend businesses and the profit motive, I must admit that
these are not good times for liberty-loving supporters of capitalism.
Today,
our economy has been high-jacked by the Crony-Capitalists – those corporations
who have learned how to rig the formerly free enterprise system into one where
lobbyists line the halls of Washington, D.C. to steal the taxpayers money or
rig the economic system to keep other competitors out of the market.
This
is accomplished, of course, with the assistance of politicians from both
parties who actively create laws, regulations and taxes that punish the
virtuous and rewards those who have learned how to effectively engage in
legalized plunder.
Today,
over 47 million Americans live on food stamps. Almost half no longer pay any
income taxes. Fully two-thirds of all federal tax dollars received by the
Treasury end up as a transfer to another person in our growing welfare state.
While
we have only 5 percent of the world’s population, we have 25 percent of its
prisoners.
Our
public schools continue to rank at, or near the bottom, in scholastic
achievement. And on and on…
Theodore Roosevelt once said, "Alike for the nation, and the individual, the one indispensable requisite is character - character that does and dares as well as endures, character that is active in the performance of virtue no less than firm in the refusal to do aught that is vicious or degraded."
The teens who murdered an innocent man for doing nothing more than jogging are simply symptomatic of a nation that has stood by and tolerated the erosion of virtue in our homes and in our institutions in favor of a definition of freedom that is devoid of personal integrity.
Until
that changes, expect more senseless crimes in our “free” country.
