Famed police novel author Joseph Wambaugh included a scene in his book The
New Centurions that centers on a conversation between a grizzled veteran
training officer and a new rookie. The cynical veteran officer tells the
rookie: "But today the 'dont's' are dying or being murdered in the name of
freedom and we policemen can't save them. Once the people become accustomed to
the death of a 'don't', well then, the other 'dont's' die much easier. Usually
all the vice laws die first because people are generally vice-ridden anyway.
Then the ordinary misdemeanors and some felonies become unenforceable until
freedom prevails."*
While that story
was written in the late 1960s, it could very well apply to today’s 21st-century
America. (Or should I say, Amerika?)
The Old Testament book of Isaiah says, "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil."**
It wasn’t that
long ago that we treated trans-gender-minded people - or gender-neutral or
gender-confused or whatever the hell it’s being known by today – for mental
illness. But what do we do now? We take Bruce Jenner who transgendered himself
female and ESPN awards him/her/whatever and ESPN gives him its “Courage Award”
for having the guts to consider himself and alter himself female. WTF? A courage award? From a national sports
network? This is what is admirable in
our society? Not someone who dives into raging floodwaters to save some kid
from drowning? Not someone who goes into a burning house to haul out an invalid
and save them from burning to death?
No, not in today’s Amerika.
In today’s Amerika
people who don’t even know what sex they are (despite the anatomy pictures in
school in the 1960s , being a world-famous Olympic track star in the 1970s and
a successful race car driver in the International
Motor Sports Association (IMSA) Camel GT
series in the 1980s) are celebrated as brilliantly progressive and
inspiringly courageous – such that it “transcends sports.”*** Really? This is
what we hold up as admirable in our country and culture anymore?
Usually all the vice laws die first.
I don’t know why I should continue
to be surprised or shocked by this. I mean, here in Amerika, we glamorize the
twenty-somethings who won’t hold jobs &/or haven’t ever moved out of their
parent(s)’ home, abortion, unwed mothers
and gay marriage.
Once the people become accustomed to the
death of a 'don't', well then, the other 'dont's' die much easier.
And what makes it all the worse, the
rule of law means nothing. We have a president who runs the Constitution, its
Separation of Powers Clause and its Bill of Rights thru the shredder on almost
a daily basis anymore. Executive Orders and puppet courts carry out his
community activist, politically-correct agenda the will of the people and state
legislatures and their votes which became black letter law be damned. And
without so much more than warming the chair of the Oval Orifice and declaring a
Beer Summit to ridicule the actions of the Cambridge MA police department,
Obama gets the Nobel Peace Prize.
…then the ordinary misdemeanors and some
felonies become unenforceable….
God help our once-great nation. We are so morally confused.....
*Wambaugh, J. The
New Centurions, Little, Brown and Company, 30 January 1971, New York.
** Isaiah 5:20, King James Version.
***Wikipedia (21
June, 2015) Arthur Ashe Courage Award. Retrieved 29 June, 2015 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Ashe_Courage_Award
