>Our laws only work because (or rather, when!) most of us agree with them
>and don't disobey them. (That was the basis of my original "let's stomp
>the shit out of violence" posting--that enforcement is way too far down the
>line to make any changes...it's only cleanup action.) Laws can only deter
>the fringe; they can't go after any significant fraction of the populace.

I agree with this, and I thought I'd suggest the LA riots as an illustration. If a large percentage of the people anywhere decide to abandon civilization and start breaking laws, there isn't going to be anyway for the police to stop them. The reason civilization works is that most people voluntarily choose to behave in a reasonable fashion, usually because of conditioning they received when they were growing up as well as a rational understanding of why these rules make sense.

Someone commented in one of these threads that they didn't believe in education. Yet that seems to be what's missing, if you consider education to include the societal conditioning that most people received growing up. If most people weren't educated to behave within a workable set of rules, society wouldn't be functioning. The problem seems to be that many people aren't truly learning even the minimal set of behavior required of them for society to operate. Too many people are only behaving peacefully because of the threat of punishment, they aren't willing to risk being caught. It was disturbing to see how many people were willing to cross the line during the riots and abandon civilization.

Unfortunately if you wish punishment to be a deterrent, potential criminals need to see it as a credible threat. More and more people are apparently deciding that they either won't get caught, or that they probably won't receive much punishment. Despite their intentions, the people pushing gun control and drug laws make this problem worse. There are too many creative ways for people to conduct black market trade for these things for it to be shut down. Without resorting to an Orwellian Big Brother type society where everyone is watched all the time, and everyone spies on everyone else, there is no way to completely monitor people's behavior during activities where there aren't victims alerting police to the "crime".

Potential criminals see so many laws that the government can't enforce that its natural for them to consider getting caught less of a threat. In fact all the publicity and fear of the crime problem unfortunately contributes to making it worse by giving more people the idea that they will be just one in a crowd. If the government concentrated on crimes with victims it might be able to do a better job of gaining credibility. Society depends on only a very small number of people breaking the rules which allow it to function, rules which too many people are breaking can't be enforced and destroy the credibility of pretending to have rules.

A quote we use in a Libertarian flyer is from Albert Einstein, from "My First Impression of the USA": "Prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the Prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this."

If anything the attention being given to gangs is reinforcing the fact that they are being noticed because of their violence. Being shown the respect to be considered a credible threat and problem, even if the respect is negative, seems to be giving some of these gang members part of what they are seeking. They desire to feel important and to have power over people who fear them, and this is providing them evidence that the approach is succeeding in some senses.

I'm not quite sure how it can be handled, but it seems that although we need better enforcement and longer punishments for crimes with victims, we do need to beware of the "stomp the shit out of violence" attitude that was commented on in the previous thread. Effectively the position Romer is taking is that our gang is bigger than their gangs and so we can force them to capitulate. This attitude seems to be ingrained in our society. Although most reasonable adults see a difference between the cops and the bad guys in films and TV, in many ways its still playing up the idea of one gang of people attacking another gang of people. It may be that the subtle differences in how the two sides behave get lost on alot of kids, that they only pick up the message that if you are the stronger, winning gang, the one who then happens to be the "authority", that you get to be in control of the losers. The ends justify the means, you can do whatever you want as long as you are on the winning, or bigger side. (Sort of like Perot's idea of doing house to house searches in the drug war. If he were the one in charge he would violate people's rights at will if he felt the ends justified the means).

If anything, it seems we need more films that portray criminals as being pathetic and weak, needing to resort to force to get their own way because of inability to do so any other way, motivated by fear and ignorance, etc. We evolved past the law of the jungle, to use our minds instead of brute force, yet the media is glorifying brawn over brains.. Most school kids are taught to look up to football players much more than they look up to people involved in intellectual tasks. And in most schools the peer group teaches them to respect the kids that win fights rather than those that disdain them. The message in films needs to be not to admire the ability of people to use violent methods, but to detest the necessity and to look down on those people who are violent as being dysfunctional, and to see that they do get punished. I'm not quite sure how this would happen though, especially given the desire for exciting action films.

In many school systems, apparently more so than in the past, kids manage to get their own way through the use of force. So in many ways it is rational for the kids to have learned to use force, since it works for them. The question is what is wrong with some school environments that allows force to work, whereas in other communities it doesn't.

Part of the problem may be in the way the kids are dealt with. If force, rather than rational persuasion and education, are used, then that's the model of interaction kids will pick up. Threats and coercion are used rather than peaceful interaction because adults don't know what else to do. It takes a lot of patience to get kids to understand the reasons for behaving in a certain way rather than just telling them to do so because you have the authority to force them to. Kids directly see people who get attention and power using violence, and don't as often relate to people who succeeded within the system. The best way of changing people is through education, legislating people to change people often isn't going to do anything but attack symptoms and leave the underlying causes there. Often when things are repressed, they will either surface in some other way, or eventually blow up (like the LA riots).

One of the problems with the attitude many are expressing for dealing with violence is that it is in some sense coming across as authoritarian. In some ways this is necessary, since you need a very credible authoritative threat that criminals will be caught and punished. However, there is a subtle trap that needs to be avoided in that people need to be somehow taught to rationally behave in a civilized manner. When people are taught not to "Question Authority" (as a libertarian t-shirt reads), then authority will get its own way. This applies to the authority of a religious teacher, a politician trying to take away people's rights, or a gang leader teaching the way of violence. When people are taught not to question or debate (whether because of fear or other societal conditioning), it seems authoritarian social structures, including gangs, will arise.

Our culture seems to be more and more implicitly trying to teach people not to "Question Authority", whether it is the authority of Political Correctness or of the religious right.

People wish to have an influence on others and the world, to control their own destiny as much as possible. There are only a limited number of ways to go about that. One way is to let people freely make their own choices, and simply present them with your rational arguments and facts which you hope will convince them to act the way you wish them to. The only other option seems to be to either use force or coercion to get people to do things they wouldn't otherwise do, to lie so they base their choices on a false model of the world, or to emotionally manipulate them (for example fear, of gangs or of God's wrath).

The points I'm about to make may be stretching things a bit, but I see some subtle trends/patterns within our society that seem to be interrelated. My thoughts are still a little vague and not well organized on this yet but I decided to mention them anyway. It seems that what society values, even if it is implicit and a fairly subtle trend which isn't strongly visible in most individuals, will eventually surface in subgroups that take that trend to an extreme. A small off course tendency, such as aiming a boat a degree off the mark, will eventually add up to a large drift if it isn't corrected. What may appear to be minor inconsistencies or subtle attitudes within a typical member of society can be expressed noticeably in society as a whole. (A 1% tendency in an individual may not be noticeable, but 1% of the population with that tendency explicitly expressed may be very noticeable).

The amount of television viewing, and the lowering of the quality of education seem to be contributing to a population that doesn't wish to think about things or rationally debate them. People are taught to decide who to vote for based on sound bites and appearances rather than rational examination. Rather than learning to think and to decide for themselves to rationally follow societies rules, many people are only obeying them because of the fear of the consequences and the ingrained authoritarian idea of obeying authorities simply because they have power.

Rational debate and persuasion seems to be becoming a negative thing in this society. The political correctness phenomena asks people to not think for themselves or rationally debate but to just accept the PC view. There is even a PC version of the notion of tolerance spreading which seems to say that you shouldn't question others beliefs or ideas at all, that to openly disagree is intolerant. There is a difference between agreement and tolerance. If differences aren't discussed, if groups keep to themselves then there will be more segregation within society and animosity arising between the groups and less negotiation, less real understanding and less of the openness to differences that arises from understanding them (even while not agreeing).

People won't magically understand another groups point of view without views being aired, even if that involves conflicting views. Its not possible for groups to know enough about each other to find common ground to help them relate and co-exist if they fear discovering or talking about disagreements. People fear what they don't understand, and fear can inspire violence, hate, etc. In addition, if the rational persuasion route is closed off, then the route of using force or coercion is naturally going to surface.

Fundamentalism and the religious right wish to force their morality on the country since they can't rationally persuade people (and they certainly don't wish people thinking for themselves or questioning). New age fads are becoming more popular which avoid rational argument and are based on wishful thinking and emotional manipulation more than evidence. If TV, and the rest of the culture isn't teaching kids to value ideas and to look up to people who achieve their goals through rational, peaceful means (which may require more work), they are instead going to look up to the people they see achieving their goals in the way that's left, through force or emotional manipulation (which often seem easier).

Society continually evolves, and to understand where it is going we need to look at what the survival criteria are that allow phenomena to take hold and spread. If people question and challenge the views of others, society is more likely to evolve in a rational direction where the better ideas spread. However currently people are taught to be "tolerant" in the current multi-culturalism complete relativism sense where everyone's ideas are as valid as any others and should never be questioned. So ideas spread based on their emotional appeal, or marketing tactics, or coercion, etc., rather than their merit. Everyone has as much right to their own opinion's as anyone else, but some ideas match the real world better than others and can be subject to rational examination. If decisions aren't based on rational criteria, if everyone's view is equally valid, then some other criteria will be used, which may be force. In a rational group, decisions are based on the best ideas from the most knowledgeable people, whereas in a gang decisions are based on who can use strength and fear to control the others.

Abraham Lincoln said: "Prohibition goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation and makes crimes out of things that are not crimes. A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded."