Is the Government doing the right thing?

Is the Government doing the right thing?

The statement made by Honorable Jess A. Helms seems to be pretty clear when he says that the government, instead of giving sources to save the country, is actually providing freedom for crime rates to increase. “You can stand on the Capitol steps and almost throw a rock into neighborhoods where you cannot walk at night because of the violence that takes place nightly” (Helms 1). From this statement it is possible to understand why Helms is criticizing the government politics that are only spending money to combat violence, instead of spending money to prevent it. So as a possible solution for the violence problem, Helms defends the reinstitution of the prayer in public schools. He finds support for it on three main arguments: first is the fact that the government is spending huge amounts of money and it is not solving the violence problem; second because people agree with it and actually want it back to schools, and finally because the freedom of religion is guaranteed by the Constitution. Throughout his arguments becomes to see that instead of spending that amount of money to combat the crime, it is cheaper and better effective to use God and religion as a weapon against violence.

Honorable Helms criticize the fact that since he got into US Senate a lot of money have been spent on violence combat, specially on motions described by the term “crime bills after crime bills” (Helms 1). He criticizes this attitude because it is not been efficient, since The United States has right now a higher crime rate than ever. “… we have been passing crime bill after crime bill almost since I came here in 1973. And what has been the result?” (Helms 1). Helms also believes that the senators are feeling that their job is done. They think that they “…really took care of it…” (Helms 1), but the real fact is that crime rates are still going up, what proves that their job is not even close to be done. It is time to start looking for different alternatives to solve the problem.

Seeing that all the money spent on the direct combat of crime is not working as well as expected, Helms starts to analyze a different approach to solve the problem. Seeking for the right move Helms find a possible solution on the article published by Reader’s Digest called “Let Us Pray” that defends the reinstitution of prayer classes to public schools.