Has America lost its sense of outrage?

COMMENTARY:

BOB EDWARDS

(Editor's note: Former Payson mayor and Michigan state legislator Bob Edwards has agreed to weigh in periodically on the Gazette Blog.  We welcome his insights and political perspective.  Note that we are featuring the colors of the University of Michigan Wolverines.) 

By Bob Edwards

Gazette Contributor

The late Senator Moynihan stated in a speech in 1993 that we have lost our sense of outrage.

This past Sunday morning we were greeted with headlines that the Kentucky fans celebrated their March Madness win by rioting, and the police chief’s offhand comment was, “It’s a fairly difficult situation, but not anything we didn’t plan for,”… we truly have lost our sense of outrage.

When I went to Flint Michigan in 1958, there was not an area of town where I was afraid to walk; yes, there were some poorer neighborhoods, but no dangerous ones. I recently visited the neighborhood in Flint where my kids grew up and what was once a beautiful inner city neighborhood of grand old houses is now a war zone of windowless houses and trash in the street, and that is now accepted as today’s standard.

In cities all across the nation, the once comforting pattern of neighborhood living, where you bought a house in a nice city neighborhood and raised a family while working to pay the house off so you could live debt free and in comfort during retirement, has become a pattern where the final step is now a prison that has no value and old people fearing for their lives… yes, we have lost our sense of outrage.

In the past month we have seen outrage in the Trayvon Martin tragedy, but I sense it is false racial outrage used only for media attention and/or political advancement. Real outrage should be the basis for mature actions that identify and address problems. Real leaders don’t bring matches to a tinderbox. Real leaders quiet the fires while seeking truth and real answers to real problems.

A few years back when Michigan State University won a championship the fans patterned the Kentucky mob action, but the leadership of the town and the university did not fan the flames nor justify it; they simply went into the crowd with video cameras and then proceeded to identity the bad actors and punished them according to the depth of their crimes. As a result, Michigan State athletes can now win a championship with pride and not disgrace… that is a proper approach to outrage, and America needs to find it soon before the recent tinderbox of mob actions explodes into a raging fire.