Leadership and Crisis (29 page)

The American public is ready for a crushing crack-down on these criminals. During my campaign for governor I had an idea that was widely cheered by Democrats and Republicans, people of all races, men and women, young and old. Let me set it up for you. Every state has a tough prison that is famous in that state. In Louisiana, that prison is Angola. After outlining my plans for tougher laws against sexual
predators and for dedicating more resources to combating them, I would declare, “It’s great that we can now go online and find out the addresses of all the sexual predators that live in our neighborhoods. But I’m not going to be happy until we can go online and find that they all live at the same address—in the penitentiary in Angola, far away from our children.”

Data suggest far more children are being preyed upon and are vulnerable than we even know. The University of Michigan reports nearly two-thirds of parents with children online are concerned about sexual predators. As they should be: studies show 1 in 7 children between the ages of 10 and 17 have received sexual solicitation over the Internet and about 1 in 3 children have been exposed to sexually explicit material.
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I remember when I first started working with computers as a young kid there was a popular phrase, “Garbage in, garbage out.” Put in bad data or bad code, and you are going to get bad results on the computer. In other words, the system works only as well as what you feed into it. It’s the same with our own souls. We have a society today that is saturated with excessive violence and sensuality. Once kept in the dark corners of our society, pornography is being mainstreamed. As people repeatedly expose themselves to this garbage, which is now often called “entertainment,” it results in predictably harmful consequences to society. Put garbage in, and you get garbage out.

Plenty of research supports this obvious point. Studies show that rapists and child molesters are heavy consumers of pornography, and that they frequently consume this material while preparing to commit crimes. Studies also show kids who watch porn are more likely to engage in aggressive behaviors. This is a positive development for child abusers, who want kids desensitized to sex and violence because it makes it easier to abuse them.
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People may not want to admit it,
but the rise of sexual predators is not just a criminal problem, it’s a cultural one.

Shortly after I became governor, I met a little boy whose parents brought him to spend a day at the Capitol because he really wanted to see the governor’s office. I don’t think I had ever seen a kid that young so dressed up. He was wearing a blue blazer, khaki pants, and a tie—clearly his Sunday best.

It turns out his parents wanted me to tell him he had done nothing wrong. A monster at his school had sexually abused him, and he had the courage to speak up and tell his parents. Even though the boy had shown incredible bravery far beyond his years in stepping forward, he was still haunted by the abuse, and he frequently woke up in the middle of the night afraid he had done something wrong.

When the boy and his mom left my office, his father stayed behind and took me aside. You could tell he was the kind of man that didn’t usually get emotional, but he was about to speak from the bottom of his heart. He told me that not only was his son haunted by what had happened, but that he and his wife were, too. They spent many sleepless nights wondering if they could have done something to protect their child. They assumed that when they sent him off to school he would be safe—but he had been badly hurt and they were left grasping for answers.

I made a promise to that boy’s father from which I will never waiver. I told him that I would work to make Louisiana the toughest place in the country for sex offenders in order to help ensure that no other family has to go through the pain his family was enduring.

I also support the use of the death penalty in instances of violent child rape. What? The death penalty for a crime other than first degree murder? Yep, you heard me right. In Louisiana we had a law
stipulating that if you violently rape a child under the age of twelve, you might face the death penalty. It was applied in a case in Harvey, Louisiana, a few years ago involving an eight-year-old girl who was violently raped by her stepfather. The case is too awful to describe here, but the girl suffered serious internal injuries and immense psychological trauma. As the prosecutor in the case rightfully put it, child rape is in some ways worse than homicide. For its victims, “It takes away their innocence, it takes away their childhood, it mutilates their spirit. It kills their soul. They’re never the same after these things happen.”

Patrick Kennedy, the defendant, was found guilty by a jury of his peers and sentenced to death. The decision was upheld in the appeals process, but in June 2008 the U.S. Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional in a 5-4 decision. The hearing sounded like a meeting of legislators. It was the justices’ “independent judgment” that there was a “national consensus” that the death penalty should apply in instances of first degree murder, but not brutal crimes such as child rape.
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Funny, I wasn’t aware the Supreme Court had begun basing decisions on public opinion polls. One justice declared that child rape was not as heinous as first degree murder. (Tell that to the victim.) What an outrageous example of judicial overreach—the judges were assuming the role of legislators. Instead of making independent ethical judgments, they should have simply evaluated whether the law was consistent with the Constitution. When you violently rape a child you have indisputably devalued them and scarred them for life. You should face death.

At this point, you may be wondering why I’m arguing for the death penalty in a chapter about life. Well, my point is this: we need to value
our children by protecting them, nurturing them, and by devising harsh penalties for those who abuse them. It’s part of a culture of life. That may sound ironic, but it’s true. We value life so much that we’ll exact the ultimate penalty upon those who want only to destroy it.

I realize that many people who want to crack down on these predators disagree with me on the death penalty; they’d prefer that we “lock ’em up and throw away the key.” I’m fine with that—let your conscience be your guide. But if you believe we should try to rehabilitate these people, that locking them up or executing them will make matters worse, then I don’t think we’re going to find any common ground. Sexual predators have a high rate of recidivism, and I’m just not going to take any chances with our children.

We need to apply the same standard when it comes to the elderly. This is a particularly vulnerable group, especially because some old folks may deny their own usefulness to society.

Euthanasia is a sure sign of a culture in steep decline. No thinking American is for euthanasia in its starkest and most obvious forms. However, Princeton Professor Peter Singer has argued for infanticide and euthanasia for the severely handicapped or disabled, claiming, “The notion that human life is sacred just because it’s human is medieval.” He also asserts people with Alzheimer’s cease to be people and should have their lives ended prematurely. His argument is so outrageous one is tempted to think he’s just trying to attract attention. For those who take him seriously, it should be noted that when it comes to his own mother, who struggles with Alzheimer’s, Mr. Singer rejected his ethic and hired a group of healthcare workers to look after her.
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But the stark views that Singer and other academic types espouse are not the real threat, since the majority of Americans would never approve of killing Alzheimer’s patients. The bigger problem is presented by the more subtle forms of euthanasia, when the issue becomes cost control at the end of life. For example, are there any limits on the interventions we should take to prolong life? Maybe so, but one thing is clear: these decisions are difficult and must
not
be made by the government or some group of experts, but by the immediate family, the people who genuinely care for the patients.

In the debate over nationalized healthcare, the challenge of euthanasia is a real one. It’s presented as a cost problem, and in a nationalized system healthcare cost will be the principal driver of decisions. When you think about it, all life is a cost problem. A patient-centered healthcare system is far more fair and compassionate in arbitrating these questions. When you are ninety-four years old with a long list of ailments and a prescription drug list to match, God help you if you are at the mercy of a faceless, heartless bureaucracy of a centralized government healthcare plan.

But the main question here is not cost but control: who has the right to control end of life decisions? I have a simple answer: individuals should have the final say, as long as they are of age and of sound mind—period! If they are not of age or sound mind, then their immediate family members should make the decision. With the input and guidance of their doctors, who are bound by the Hippocratic Oath and are directly involved with their treatment, this is the best way to make these decisions.

Who should never be involved in these decisions? The government. It’s that simple. Not in America. Ever.

So how does our culture currently measure up on the “defense of the defenseless” barometer? Right now the gauge is in the red zone. Some people believe
Roe v. Wade
caused our current situation where we have turned our backs on the defenseless. But that’s not really true. That is merely a symptom, a result of a society where some people, particularly the elites, no longer believe in the innate value of human life.

But I’m no pessimist. While some Americans no longer believe in the sanctity of human life, I think deep down most still do. Call it the shadow of our Judeo-Christian heritage or call it the ember of a divine spark in all of us, but most Americans still want to believe that human beings are of eternal value.

In fact, there is strong evidence that shows Americans are gradually becoming more pro-life in their point of view. Polling by Gallup shows a ten-point increase in the number of Americans who consider themselves to be pro-life over the past decade. Fifty-one percent of Americans now consider themselves pro-life, the first time Gallup has ever reported a pro-life majority.
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Scientific advancements and logic are at least partially the cause of this shift. Twenty years ago, when a young couple saw an ultrasound picture of their first child, it was a blurry scan that was almost impossible to decipher. With today’s technology, however, you know exactly what you are looking at. You see the form of your child, you see the wonder that has been created. In fact, I signed a bill as governor that requires providers to give an ultrasound to mothers before any decisions are made. It’s just common sense. It’s hard to see anything other than a precious little baby,
your
precious little baby. Suddenly it doesn’t
matter whether you once were persuaded by the poll tested slogans of “reproductive freedom” or “freedom of choice”—that’s all a distant memory. You know what you are looking at, and you wonder at the marvel of this new creation, and you begin to think of the boundless opportunities that lie in the near future.

We cheer and our hearts are warmed when people are pulled from the wreckage of a building. We don’t care how old they are or whether they are “useful to society.” It’s the rescuing of human life that matters. We have to fight to nurture that spark back to a flame and struggle against the devaluation of human life and the cultural coarsening it inevitably causes.

CHAPTER 14

SAVING MEDICARE

Let’s face it: railing against big government without proposing specific ways to reduce costs can make for pretty good politics. But of course, it accomplishes very little. So let’s discuss a simple reform that could save a program that is now one of our biggest looming budgetary disasters.

The growth in entitlements is the most serious fiscal challenge we face today. People might denounce foreign aid or defense spending, but the promises the federal government has made to the poor, retired, and elderly in the form of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid dwarf other spending. In 2009, entitlements and other mandatory government spending comprised more than half the federal budget. If we are going to close the budget deficit instead of just talking about it, we’ll need to reign in entitlements. And by far the biggest and most challenging of these is Medicare, where spending is expected to triple by 2050.
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