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.

Helms believes that with the prayers schools the relationship among students would be better therefore a lower crime rate would exist. According to the article, Helms is not the only one that thinks that God is a solution: “75 percent of the American people strongly favor prayer in the public schools and want it restored” (Helms 1). With the prayer classes restored to public schools a higher commitment from the students would occur, so they would achieve better results on other classes also. Ironic the United States spends “…more money per pupil than any other industrialized country in the world […] [and however has] the lowest math scores, the lowest English scores, and the highest crime rate...” (Helms 1). It becomes really clear that the way the government is spending money is not being very effective; a lot of money for education and worst scores, huge amount of money to combat crime and highest rates, something is wrong. Helms seeing that propose that maybe God is the solution. If students have religion classes and follow what they learn for example the crime level would decrease for sure. The Bible says “Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law" (Romans 13:10), and that is what would for sure happen if the prayers schools were once again restored: the law would be followed.

Although the idea of restituing the prayer classes back into public schools seems to be very good, Helms faces another problem before that becomes possible: The Constitution of The United States of America.

Helms states the fact that “…liberals in Congress and in the media claim that Constitution somehow forbids governmental establishment