Exactly right Ricky.The solution has never been,to make people do right.Love,joy,peace,goodness,meekness,gentleness,and self control,cannot be reached by forced compliance.
Like it or not, anyone in authority over you, whether a parent or a govt, makes choices about what they discourage, encourage, condone, punish. My position is that the govt should dis-incentivize drug abuse and hold people accountable for the choices they make. Also part of the program might be to reward chronic offenders for making good choices and staying clean for a period of time.
If govt under Barrack Obama was responsible for so many ills in society, like the nonsense from BLM et all, then why can't it be said equally that the govt can be an agent for positive change? Why can't the govt put in place policies that reward right choices and discourage poor ones?
The obvious answer is they can.
Using your parent analogy,the government is an extremely bad parent. A good parent does punish but also teaches and provides a good example. A good parent doesn't just make punishment worse for uncorrected behavior.
What kind of parent would I be if I had no positive contact with my children but only proclaimed the law and dealt out capital punishment for any infringement against that law,even to the extent of tying my kids to a post and beating them with a stick? That seems to be your answer.
Do you just beat a kid worse that won't obey? Isn't it a better solution to try to help that kid correct his behavior by showing him how it hurts him and giving him a way to refocus his efforts in a more positive direction?
I'm not saying that punishment isn't part of a solution, but it isn't all of the solution.Stricter laws and worse punishment isn't the solution. Punishment alone won't work with a misbehaving child,and it won't work with a misbehaving society.
