Our politicians, an often ill-respected lot, diminish themselves further when they serve up nonsensical nostrums such as caning.
State Del. Clarence Davis, an East Baltimore Democrat, has submitted legislation that would permit the state to whack adolescents older than 14 with a rattan stick when they are convicted of vandalism. The idea was hatched in the controversy of a year ago when an American teen, Michael Fay, was caned in Singapore after being convicted of property destruction there. Lawmakers in Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi are considering similar punishments, too -- not the political company we're used to mimicking.
It is a sign of how far we have fallen when it's not just some talk-show host mulling such cruel and unusual punishment, but also the Rhodes scholar-mayor of Baltimore, who heretofore was considered a softie by some for wanting to treat drug abuse as a medical problem.
That black politicians would proffer this solution is mind-boggling, given the historical perspective of African-Americans in this country and the presumption that minorities would likely receive the preponderence of such punishments, just as they do the death penalty.
Erosion of personal security and rising levels of indifference and disrespect from young people are disturbing. But correcting this over the long term is a two-step process -- and discipline, in its various forms, is the easy half of the equation.
Instilling respect for others and oneself, setting and achieving goals -- those are the lessons that require time and love and energy between parents and their offspring. Attitudes such as that of the mother quoted on The Evening Sun's front page recently -- who said this "isn't the '60s," so you can't expect parents to ensure that their children attend school -- are where the ill incubates.
It is likely that every tale you've heard about a life rehabilitated, young or old, was achieved through a positive human contact, not with a four-foot stick. Society's sickness is just another disease of the heart: You can prescribe all the medicine you want, but without a change in behavior, this patient will not get better.