Today’s Topic

If the government of Singapore proceeds as planned, a jailer trained in martial arts will presumably soon flog American student Michael Fay six times with a moistened rattan cane as punishment for vandalism.

It is a harsh penalty that often leaves permanent scars and sends those being punished into shock. Yet, many Americans support the sentence and agree that Fay should take personal responsibility for his actions.

With the institution of California’s new “three strikes and you’re out” law, it has become clear that Americans are fed up with rising crime rates and favor tougher punishment for criminals.

Still, if those commenting in today’s Platform are any indication, many Americans are not yet ready to advocate Singapore’s method of corporal punishment as a way to deter crime in the United States.

There’s yet another way to look at responsibility and punishment says Robert McLaren, professor of human development at Cal State Fullerton. He argues that the only way to hold people accountable for their crimes is to eliminate jail terms altogether and force criminals to pay direct restitution to victims.

“Mere revenge doesn’t solve the problem and it only costs the taxpayers. You put a person in jail, it costs $25,000 to $30,000 a year to keep him there and his victims have not been helped,” McLaren says. “The whole issue of responsibility is what society needs to enforce.”

The issue of responsibility is also the topic of Youth Opinion. A number of unwed fathers tell how they came to have kids at an early age and how they are handling what for most of them was an unexpected--and in most cases--an unwanted responsibility.

Not surprisingly, most of the young men did not expect the consequences of their actions to be a child. Experts believe this self-absorption and lack of awareness is eroding the nation’s moral structure.

“We’ve lost sight of the common good,” says Russ Gough, professor of philosophy and ethics at Pepperdine University. “Because we have so many opportunities, liberties and guaranteed freedoms, some of those freedoms have actually evolved into vices.”

The experts also see the increasing lack of commitment to religion as another reason for the erosion of moral and ethical values.

“Apart from a belief in God, there is no foundation for morality,” says David Wilkinson, pastor of Moorpark Presbyterian Church.

Both Gough and Wilkinson agree that increased involvement in religious activities would do much to improve American moral values.

“With the increasing erosion of individual responsibility, the breakdown of the home and the dwindling numbers of people attending religious services, youngsters are getting their moral values on the street and at the playground,” Gough says.

Because moral education in many cases is not being taught at home, Gough argues that public schools should help fill the vacuum.

“We must talk about, embrace, affirm and teach universally accepted moral values such as honesty, respect, self-restraint and truthfulness,” he says.