Politics

Decent People

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Folks frequently refer to the decent people. I am guilty of this as well. But much like common sense not being as common as one would think, decent is not defined. One man’s decency is another man’s trash.

Back in my undergraduate days, I read Capra’s The Turning Point. One of the theses of the book is that when one is presented new information, he has to file it within his paradigm. This filing is making sense of the new information. If one cannot file it he either has to discard it or have a paradigm shift in order to classify the information.

I was reminded of that when I read this article. In an apartment building in Trenton, a teenage girl prostituted herself. That’s bad, but I must have already shifted my paradigm, as that bit of information hasn’t affected me terribly much. But this girl did so much more. She also prostituted her seven-year old sister. She told her, “Let the boys do what they want.” Those boys included men. Yes, seven males raped a seven-year old girl. And the sister facilitated it.

Doug Palmer, Trenton’s mayor, stated:

We’re not going to rest until that area is cleaned up so that decent people can live without the threat of fear and violence.

Indeed, those folks aren’t decent at all. Vile.

The thing is, even if Trenton were successful in cleaning up the area, those who apparently have nothing inside that stops them from raping a child will still exist. Where do they go? Just moving/pushing them around to other communities does not solve the problem.

I have no folder in my paradigm that can accommodate this information. None at all. Discard those beasts.

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