Rome is Burning

It is refreshing--and increasingly unexpected--to see a politician take the bull by the horns:

"We pick up stray animals and spay them," Larry Shirley said in a story published Saturday by The Post and Courier of Charleston. "These mothers need to be spayed if they can't take care of theirs. Once they have a child and it's running the street, to let them continue to have children is totally unacceptable."

Shirley's comments come after police say a video store was held up by a group of children, including a 14-year-old girl suspected of wielding a BB gun that looked like a pistol.

"What we've got is a failure in society, whether it's in Mount Pleasant with yuppie parents or whether it's on the East Side with poor crackhead parents..."

While the "spaying" idea would never fly, there is an argument to be made that minors are legally classified as such because their parents are considered responsible for their actions. If you want to make a serious dent in juvenile crime, you must hold their parents' feet to the fire. This function was previously accomplished by social stigma, but the welfare state culture has effectively eradicated that mechanism in many parts of the social structure. Other methods must now be substituted, however harsh they may seem at first glance.

State Sen. Robert Ford, a Charleston Democrat, agreed that the crime highlights a societal problem but dismissed Shirley's suggestion to sterilize people as "crazy."

"What Larry Shirley needs to talk about is getting City Council to provide some recreational facilities and activities for these kids and creating an atmosphere conducive to a normal society..."

No, Senator. What needs to happen is for you to wake up and smell the crack pipe. We aren't dealing with mischievous little kiddies who shoplift a Hot Wheel from the corner drugstore. These offspring are the social consequence of the willful blindness first encouraged by the likes of William Wayne Justice, propped up by an out-of-control street thug mentality and sensation-driven media, then encouraged at every turn by the most hedonistic and materialistic system since Nero sat on a throne. Our culture is flying apart at the seams, while business-as-usual, self-serving politicos whistle in the dark.

These proto-criminals don't need new parks or an atmosphere of acceptance and understanding; they're bad seed. They need a stern hand, wielding a hard rod. Failing that, locking them away for the safety of society should certainly be a serious option. If the parents show a propensity for producing bad seed, there must be consequences on that front, as well. While I don't really endorse forced sterilization--emotionally attractive though the idea may seem at times--there absolutely must be real consequences, or the anti-social pattern is reinforced in an endless cycle. We can no longer afford (literally) to further reinforce that system, else it will consume us all.

Make no mistake, Senator; our society is in decline, and it has been picking up speed since the late 1960s--with a slight leveling-off during the Reagan era. Some would say it's now in the process of nosing over into a steep dive. The hard question for professional politicians such as yourself is this: Are you and other elected officials willing to be the men who point out the naked emperor, even at risk to your "career," or are all of you simply in it for your own personal gain, and thus content to watch while Rome burns?