Letter to the Editor

As I watched the News last week, I decided it is now official.  Americans are becoming extinct!  As a boy born in 1949 I grew up in a country which didn’t tolerate lawlessness.  Criminals were placed into prisons when they broke our laws.  Law Enforcement was respected because the average citizen respected our laws.  Sure, we had criminals, all societies have had them since the dawn of history, and bad Police existed too.

 

 

So what has changed since I was a boy?  Well one thing I’ve noticed is that when the time proven remedy of “spare the rod and spoil the child” began to be accepted as wrong, our society began to become more coarse, less civil, and much more lawless.  I believe that the most important job in our Nation is to raise good law abiding, God fearing, and respectful children.  That job has been turned over to the State, and as with many things we allow the State to do for us, they do it poorly.  Where are most children raised today?  By your local Schools, not just here in Willow Springs, but in every town, in every State in America.  Teachers are, by and large, wonderful people who love what they do, and they try to do their jobs well, BUT they are not the parents of the children in their classes, and no matter what, no matter how much they care, they cannot take the place of a child’s parents.  In far too many instances, we are raising a group of hoodlums.  When I was a boy, I got into fights at School, but I also got spanked/paddled at school, and then got much worse when I got home.  Limits were set, and I grew up knowing that there were consequences to bad behavior.  I’m sure those who are my age remember the feeling of dread knowing that Mom & Dad were going to pin their ears back when they got home.  You see, in those days, teachers called parents, and reported poor behavior, and parents for the most part took appropriate action, often involving some sort of physical punishment.  I’d bet most folks my age had similar experiences. 

 

 

So where am I going with this?  I watched a man die in Minneapolis while in Police custody.  Then I watched as people in large cities across the Nation rioted, beat, burned, and destroyed the property of others, calling it a protest.  I watched a retired St. Louis Police Officer murdered while he tried to protect a local business from these anarchists.  This is what anarchy looks like.  Every violent criminal participating in these riots is someone’s child.  A child which wasn’t raised to respect the law, nor the rights of their fellow citizens.  Peaceful protests and gatherings are one of our Constitutional Rights, riots and violence are not.

 

 

Where this is happening the mob rules and laws are ignored.  We have laws which address over reaction by Police.  No one wants overbearing Police in their city, we have laws to address that problem where it exists.  The foundation of our law is that an individual is innocent till proven guilty in a court of law, even the Police.  A Jury decides if these people are guilty, not me, not you, and certainly not a mob of lawless fools or the Media.  The same is true for the punishment.  I remember Ferguson, and similar things happened after that incident because the situation was tried in the Media without waiting for the facts to come out.  The Police are entitled to Due Process as is any person charged with a crime in our Nation.

 

 

Frankly, I’m happy I live in Willow Springs, and while we have a few criminals in the surrounding communities, and our own, we have laws which the Police are duty bound to enforce.  We live in relative peace and safety because of the Law, and the Men and Women who enforce that Law.  The Police in many places today do not receive the support they deserve.  What sickens me is that the criminal today has MORE rights than the law abiding citizen.  The Police risk their lives daily to enforce our laws, and keep the law abiding safe.  Unless people in this Nation begin to demand that our laws are enforced, and criminals taken off the streets, things will only worsen.  If you want to live in a secure and peaceful society, you must insist that the law breakers are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.  All law breakers, no matter the color of their skin.

 

 

Don’t forget that my ramblings began with “What’s changed since I was a boy?”.  Like it or not, we as a society need to do a better job instilling American Values into our children.  Today’s child is tomorrow’s law abiding citizen, or not.  The outcome is for the most part entirely dependent upon how they are raised.  God, family, country, and respect for our laws need to be emphasized every day, not just by a child’s parents, but by each of we citizens, not just by our words, but also by our actions.

 

 

Troy Galebach

Willow Springs