Terrorists In Our Midst
Monday, December 10th, 2007
The massacre in Omaha followed a familiar pattern: troubled kid decides to go out in twisted blaze of glory, gets an automatic weapon and kills several innocent people before taking his own life. And what have our leaders done to stop these terrorists among us? Our government expects the threat of the death penalty to deter them from acting on their evil impulses.
The threat of capital punishment didn’t deter the murderous kid from Omaha, or the psychopathic student from Virginia Tech, or the teen killers from Columbine. Why? Each of these young murderers administered the death penalty on themselves after finishing their killing spree.
Capital punishment never deters suicidal killers. With violent crime rates still on the rise in America, it apparently isn’t deterring many other would be killers either. A more effective crime prevention policy would include aggressive intervention in the lives of at risk kids before they resort to violent crime.
Like the others, the young killer from Omaha was known to the local law enforcement authorities. And like the others, the authorities didn’t do enough to put this kid on the right path. There’s no magic bullet when it comes to helping emotionally disturbed youngsters. Some need long term mental health counseling. Some need job skills training. Some just need a stable home environment where they can feel welcome.
Assisting wayward kids and giving them an opportunity to live a normal life isn’t glamorous. However if we hope to stop the carnage in our schools and shopping malls anytime soon, it’s worth the investment.

Apparently the nomination of
The current nominee for Attorney General
When Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected governor of California in the 2003 recall of Gray Davis, he advertised himself as a different kind of politician. He has been anything but. Instead he has proven himself to be very much like his irresponsible Republican counterparts in Washington. He loves to propose expensive new public programs, but doesn’t want to pay for them. He expects future generations of Californians to pick up the tab for his spending sprees. Leaders are honest about the cost of new roads, bridges, schools and water projects. Arnold Schwarzenegger is no leader.
In the past 20 years or so it has become fashionable for states to send their juvenile delinquents to “boot camps” on the other side of the country. The idiocy of this policy is only now becoming apparent. These faux boot camps treat incarcerated children preparing for life as though they were young adults volunteering for war. When the kids fail to do as their told, they get yelled at, roughed up and occasionally,
Dr. Phil gets it. He deals with dysfunctional families often on his show, and is especially critical of bullying men. Let’s face it. Men are usually the perpetrators of
Our political system in America encourages superficial solutions to complex problems. Politicians looking to get re-elected every two to four years need catchy slogans that have an immediate visceral appeal to easily distracted voters. When it comes to violent crime,
For more than two decades, small minded politicians have touted “get tough” policies to deal with the problem of violent crime in America. These policies have been a dismal failure. Not only has getting tough not made our communities safer, according to the FBI, violent crime actually