YOU & THE LAW
Misplaced Priorities Or Stupidity?
When our Constitution is finally buried,
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Last March 24, two Jonesboro, Arkansas, middle school youths
ambushed and murdered four classmates and a teacher. A day
later, a 13-year-old Daly City, California, boy, angered by
a suspension, fired a shot at the school principal, who was
fortunately not injured.
On the same date in Princeton, Texas, a male student slashed
three teachers with a razor. In early April, a 15-year-old
Yonkers, N.Y., girl, upset over her teacher calling her
parents about poor grades, attacked the teacher with a
hammer, hospitalizing her with multiple skull fractures.
The National Center for Education Statistics reported 11,000
violent school incidents in 1997 where weapons were used.
Those numbers don't include the untold thousands of school
assaults where weapons were not used. And there's the
nearly routine foul language spoken to or in the presence of
teachers, not to mention the rampant drug use among our
youth.
Being 62 years old, I can tell you that, even in the
roughest of neighborhoods, what's routine today was
unthinkable - possibly undreamable - yesteryear. During
those days, teachers' complaints were note-passing and
chewing gum in class, talking in line, and going up the down
stairs.
But away from school, a number of kids smoked. Cigarettes
were readily available. I used to purchase them "loose,"
three for five cents. We didn't smoke in front of adults;
that was deemed disriaspectful. If an adult happened along
while we were smoking, we'd conceal the cigarette by palming
it; we believed all adults were undercover agents for our
parents.
In the wake of what's no less than a national moral meltdown
among our youngsters, what do we expend our energies on? If
you said, "Trying to stop kids from smoking cigarettes," go
to the head of the class.
What we're doing reminds me of the story about a Paris
police chief whose squad was summoned to stop a robbery in
progress at a downtown department store. Upon arrival, the
chief discovered that he didn't have enough men to cover all
of the department store's entrances. What do you think he
did? He assigned his men to cover the entrances of the
building next door because it didn't have so many entrances.
Our teen age smoking agenda, like the Paris police chief's
strategy, is stupid. Our big problems with our youngsters
are drugs, murder, rape, teen age pregnancy, gross
disrespect for authority and scoring dead last, or nearly
so, on international comparisons of academic achievement.
Those problems threaten the nation's future, and what do we
do? Like that Paris police chief, we cover the "entrances
next door" and go after teen smoking.
What's worse is that, while trying to keep kids from
smoking, we are destroying our Constitution. At a recent
meeting I had with leading members of Congress, I asked one
of the congressmen to cite the article in the U.S.
Constitution that granted Congress the authority to do
what's no less than extortion of the tobacco industry and
its customers. I got no answer. There wasn't even an
attempt to fabricate an answer using the "commerce clause"
or the "general welfare clause."
Here's my prediction: The war on teen smoking is going to be
just as successful as the war on drugs. Just as the war on
drugs has weakened our Bill of Rights protections against
unreasonable search and seizure (Article IV) and taking of
property without due process of law (Article V), the war on
tobacco promises to continue the process. When our
Constitution is finally buried, a fitting inscription for
its tombstone might be, "We Did It For The Children."
Dr. Walter E Williams, a strong supporter of the right to
keep and bear arms, holds a doctorate in economics and is
the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics and
department chairman at George Mason University, Fairfax,
Virginia. He writes a weekly column, "A Minority View,"
that is distributed worldwide by Creators Syndicate. Dr.
Williams has written several books and is a noted scholar,
and sits on many advisory boards including that of the
Reason Foundation, the Taxpayer's Foundation, and the Hoover
Institution. To find out more about Dr. Williams, you can
visit the Creators Syndicate web page, wwwcreators.com.
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by Walter E. Williams
*******
a fitting inscription for it's tombstone might be,
"We Did It For The Children"