In the mountains of Bogota, Colombia, there’s an understanding among drivers. There’s the left lane, the right lane, and then the newly created space in the middle of those two lanes to allow an impatient driver to pass without creating a head-on collision. Everyone knows what to do. The left lane driver and right lane driver squeeze to the outside boundaries of their lanes. The impatient driver fully believes the other two will do that and drives through the middle.
Colombia has an emerging economy but falls short of being highly regulated like more developed nations. If you’re going to drive through the mountains, do so defensively. Or die.
A hallmark of an industrialized nation, like the United States, is that a strong rule of law will protect you. But sometimes there can be a whole bunch of laws, and its citizens are still not protected.
Let’s start with our roads. Rural Americans drive many two-lane roads. Traveling 55 miles per hour and meeting another car doing the same thing always had its risks. But it’s different now. More and more vehicles are crowding and crossing the center line before jerking back to its own lane. Many times when meeting these vehicles, the driver’s head is down—most likely looking at a cell phone.
There are laws against that. Lots of them. The Governors Highway Safety Association reports that 34 states ban handheld cellphone use to make and receive calls and 49 states ban texting while driving.
Many pay very little attention to these laws. Anyone who regularly drives on two-lane roads sees an increase in distracted driving and is frequently making the judgement call to take the shoulder to avoid a head-on collision.
We’re not so different from Bogota.
The law of the land is also failing to protect Americans from the societal costs of illegal immigration. There are nearly 1,200 pages of immigration regulations in Title 8 of the U.S. Code.
It doesn’t stop 10,000 individuals from illegally crossing the U.S. border in a single day. Millions can cross annually.
It seems as though there are no consequences for entering the country unlawfully. We have 435 elected officials who write reams and reams of rules that get ignored.
Many still developing and emerging nations have stronger border enforcement than this country.
The U.S. is not the highly developed nation it thinks it is.
At least we still have the Second Amendment. The right for Americans to possess weapons for the protection of themselves, their rights, and their property was ratified in 1791. Since then, 20,000 gun laws have been adopted at the local, state and federal level.
Tens of thousands of regulations should accomplish at least one thing—the ability to make the average American feel safe.
But it doesn’t. The Pew Research Center reports that 72% of gun owners cite protection as the major reason for owning a gun.
It’s not that difficult to connect the dots. Our general population is increasing. There are more of us to deal with. Arrests have fallen from 14.1 million in the 1990s to 4.53 million in 2021. Bad people aren’t decreasing. They’re just not being arrested. And the number of full-time law enforcement officers has dropped from 697,000 in 2019 to 660,000 in 2021. There are fewer protectors on the streets.
More people capable of mayhem plus fewer cops making fewer arrests.
It’s understandable why citizens desire to keep a gun in the home for protection, despite 20,000 laws designed to keep them safe.
We really cannot count on others to help us. We must protect ourselves.
The people of less developed and lawless nations know this all too well. They must depend upon themselves for their own security. We’re not so different from those other countries.
It’s election season. There’s a lot of rhetoric about whether or not we’re a nation in decline. It’s a good question to ask because a nation’s strength is a fluid matter. It can increase or decrease.
A strong rule of law, or lack of one, is a primary indicator of a nation’s rise or fall.
We do a great job of writing legal code—of putting laws on the books. Every politician’s favorite word is, “comprehensive.” It’s a signal that massive new regulations will be written.
But these laws are meaningless congressional paperwork if they’re not enforced.
Ask a defensive driver, a defiant texter behind the wheel, a border patrol officer, an illegal immigrant, a police officer, a criminal, a gun owner. Ask anyone.
Yes, our nation—once a shining city on a hill—is in decline because of increased lawlessness. Politicians must deal with this reality.
Citizens already are.
Moving the Conversation Along 