Scofflaws in the Community

   Can we turn environmental responsibility over to the 
individual?  Do we have to rely on laws?  Can we trust 
people not to dump oil on the ground or burn scrap, or 
do anything that infringes on their neighbor's clean 
environment.  No of course not.  We know we must engage 
people to take responsibility and we also need laws to 
enforce compliance. There will always be scofflaws.  
In fact we may all be scofflaws to one degree or 
another at one time or another (harmlessly of course).
    In the long run, a more powerful tool to dissuade 
the scofflaw is community.  Scofflaws will resent the 
law but answer to community.  Ultimately community is a 
more powerful deterrent than the law and provides 
social fabric that encourages growth.
     Unfortunately community is dead.  Its demise began 
with the industrial age when people moved to the cities 
from rural communities.  We lost not only community but 
the multigenerational fostering where children learned 
life's lessons not only from grandparents and family 
but with interaction from their village or community.  
Now we have media, television and the internet.  Mom 
might be watching TV in one room, Dad in another and 
the kids in still another room.  Not only has community 
been fragmented but the family as well.
	 Without this community bond to dissuade 
scofflaws we rely on the legal system.  Paranoia and 
suspicion replace the bonds and trust of society.  The 
unhealthy alternative provides for a divide in our 
society that may lead to further degradation of 
environmental values.  More regulation and the cycle 
leads to the police state we're entering into where 
life has less value with no end to the decaying spiral 
in sight.


kbushnel.sdf-us.org/contact.html



What I've seen is if a community is already divided it 
responds to a tragedy in the worst possible way; 
usually blaming the victims.  Laurie Garrett, Senior 
Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author 
of the "I Heard The Sirens Scream"