"Tookie Williams should not have had to Die"
Today in America there is a disease that spreads like an epidemic among people. We stand by and watch as it slowly kills, maims and destroys lives. All too often, once it appears it has already taken its toll and tragedy is just ahead. Like many debates that go on endlessly in our world of medicine and politics with no real conclusions or answers, the root cause of this disease too is debated.
The disease that I see feeding on our young people and infecting our nation is that of not being held accountable.
There is overwhelming evidence of this in our public school systems, in our families and on our jobs. It is all around us and has probably infected our on household if not our on selves. We have created and now are residing in a culture of unaccountability. We don't hold children responsible for their actions in order to correct them, (we make excuses for them); criminals in large part, especially those in pedophilia and sex crimes are not held responsible, (we make excuses for them). We have created excuses like racism, child abuse, alcohol, drugs, insanity, obesity, poor, rich, born with it, religion, my style, my daddy, my mommy, my brother, my sister, my dog ate my homework all have been used to desensitizing our thinking on the simple fact of accountability. We have lobbyist, organizations, government entities all that spend millions each year in pointless research and campaigns to explain how or why it was not someone's fault.
When I was young, my mother said in so many words, "if you do this or don't do what I tell you then this will happen". Guess what? "this" happened more than I care to mention. I am well aware that part of the problem I am trying to describe is caused by the very fact many do not have moms and dads like the one I described and lived with for years, but that can not become another excuse.
If you break it, you must pay for it. If you disobey, you must be corrected.
Our problem with this was not created overnight and the solution will certainly not come any faster, but it will never come if we do not see the error of our own ways and allow ourselves to be held accountable to those that are coming up by giving them an opportunity to be better, stronger, smarter and of a good character because of instruction tempered with discipline and administered in love.
Children should not have to touch the stove to know its hot, or walk into the path of an on coming car to realize the road is dangerous. If this analogy seems a little elementary and absurd to you, then where does your opinion lie with the way we allow men like Tookie Williams to realize all to late that judgment cometh.
Mankind has proven through the years that left to their own, morality will vanish and culture will be overtaken with lawlessness. This has been evident in the aftermath and study of many great cultures and peoples that have vanished.
People and their culture cannot live with out order and law. It will become depraved.
I wonder if Tookie had someone to smack his hand when he reached for the stove? I wonder if he perhaps had a teacher to look the other way when he did something wrong just to keep the peace? I wonder early in his criminal career if their was a lesser crime that he committed that went unpunished or was simply dismissed? What if any of this were true, could we draw on the assumption that any one of these scenarios could have created a turning point in his thinking and ultimately in his life. Nah! Its much easier to blame his color, or the state, or that he was poor or the governor or anybody but him. Truth is, we may all have a part in it.
This world is a scary and dangerous place. Children cannot be treated like wind-up dolls; just pull the string and let them go.
Tookie is the one who is responsible for his actions, but if all of the Hollywood stars, with their fame and fortune and lust to place blame anywhere except where it should go, could look back over his life with an objective eye they just might find a time and place that certain actions might have helped Tookie spare his own life.
Jamey Green