More police is not the solution | Letter

Two recent letter writers have pointed out the fact that Kirkland is not a completely safe place to live and they are right. But the crimes they are concerned about are not the problem. Crime is only a symptom of the problem and spending more money to hire more police is not going to solve it.

Police can’t do very much about the moral decay and cultural rot that is eating away at the structure of our society. They can’t prevent crime because they can’t see into the future, read minds or change hearts. (Actually there is one person who can do all of these things, but most people today don’t seem to want to hear about Him). Police can’t force all of us to behave ourselves. All they can do is try — not always successfully — to find and pick up all of the broken little pieces. It’s not a fun job and in my opinion, the fewer people who have to do this awful job the better. We need to pray for our police that God would protect their spirits as well as their bodies from the horrible things they have to see and deal with every day.

Edmund Burke put it rather well I think: “Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”

No, Kirkland is not a safe place to live because there are people living here and more coming every day. As this city grows denser and more urban and as more of its inhabitants choose to live by their own rules rather than God’s rules things will continue to get worse.

Jane E. Peterson,

Kirkland