Legislating Common Sense

With the verdict and sentencing now in for Casey Anthony, Florida is now considering a law that makes it a felony to knowingly lie to police. While on the face it sounds like a good idea, how do you prove it. Liars by their very nature try to be as convincing as possible. Look at Susan Smith who killed her two sons and had the nation believing that a black man had carjacked her and drove her SUV into the lake. When in fact she did it herself.

You cannot legislate for common sense. You cannot legislative against being stupid. People will try to lie their way out of any situation to protect themselves from the consequences of that situation. Our politicans do it every day. Corporate raiders do it every time they buy a company with the intent of breaking it up and selling the pieces for a profit.

Also putting a another law on the books is no guarantee that it wouldn't happen again and again. Oh but this time there would be a penalty, you say. Well there are penalties for driving drunk and driving without a license. But people do it on a regular basis and are being caught on a regular basis.

The problem is that our children and young people are not being taught that actions have consequences. Until that happens other children will continue to be killed by the very people that should be protecting them.

House Divided

There is an old saying, A house divided cannot stand". Well with modern technology it may be able to stand but can it support the people inside it? Probably not. We are becoming a nation divided. Each day I read news reports where people are complaining about "those people" should not have this, that or something else.

We are becoming the very type of nation that our ancestors left Europe, the Middle East and Asia to escape. The Revolutionary War and the Declaration of Independence came about because they wanted to be free. Free from religious persecution. Free from the class struggles. Free to prove that they were equal. Free to speak their minds without fear of imprisonment.

Have we forgotten this? Surely our ancestors are rolling in their graves at the things we are so upset about today. We don't have to agree with everything we hear. We don't have to try to convert everyone we meet to our way of thinking. Our way of thinking changes based on our life experiences. Our life experiences are different from someone else. How we are raised is different from everyone else because how our parents were raised is different.

If we don't put aside our petty differences and start pulling together on those things that affect us all, our enemies will not need another 9/11 to defeat us. We will have become so divided and disjointed that they will be able to carve us up like a Thanksgiving turkey. There will no longer be a United States of America.