CRIME IS MORAL FAILURE

Re: "Taxpayers are the victims," Letters, Sept 10.

Brian Kershen advises us that if our society should decriminalize drugs (and ostensibly other offenses) we will have fewer crimes. In responding to Louis Polito's letter Mr. Kershen tells us that offenses like killing of police officers, corruption of public officials, and wars between drug gangs will disappear if we simply take away the sanctions against drugs, etc.

Mr. Kershen demonstrates that he is thoroughly post-modern in his thinking. He does not believe in an objective standard of right and wrong. He affirms that we can sanitize crime by legislating it into acceptability. He has been duped into believing that most of society's ills are just that, some disease that can be cured by counseling.

Why is Mr. Kershen afraid to see crime and wrongdoing as "moral failure"? He eschews this term. Is he also afraid of the word "sin"? Decriminalization will not make these offenses disappear; it will simply be caving in to weakening of our country's moral fiber.

Our moral compass is askew because of such acceptance of the weak concepts of post-modernism. We must call these offenses what they are: moral failings. Then we must raise our citizenry's consciousness of an unfailing moral standard and challenge all to live by it.

Randy Mashburn, Irving