I didn’t actually insist on anything. I’m trying to figure out how to reduce evil. If you use the law to repress some kinds of evil, you get another evil. If you use even more law to repress the second evil, you get a larger government, which results in even more evil.
Perhaps this is a “render unto Caesar” issue, where we should try to deal with the problems of morality by changing people’s hearts rather than by putting them in jail. With the latter solution we just seem to be ending up with bigger jails — not less immoral behavior — until the whole country becomes a prison.
When the judiciary removed God from public places they went against the Constitution. Collapse will follow:
“A society’s first line of defense is not the law but customs, traditions and moral values. These behavioral norms, mostly transmitted by example, word-of-mouth and religious teachings, represent a body of wisdom distilled over the ages through experience and trial and error. They include important thou-shalt-nots such as shalt not murder, shalt not steal, shalt not lie and cheat, but they also include all those courtesies one might call ladylike and gentlemanly conduct.”
“Policemen and laws can never replace these restraints on personal conduct. At best, the police and criminal justice system are the last desperate line of defense for a civilized society. This failure to fully transmit value norms to subsequent generations represents another failing of the greatest generation.”
- Walter E. Williams, Nov. 21, 2007