Letter to the Editor

I wrote a letter to the Loganville Tribune, it will be in Friday's paper:

After reading the “Letter to the Editor” from Friday's paper, I think it is important that we consider a claims that has been made against Judge Brownlow. Vicki House wrote a complaint into the newspaper because her daughter had been penalized for breaking the law. Her qualm seemed to be with the Judge and the severity of the punishment he handed down. Mrs. House said, “he may think he is saving lives, but he is teaching kids and parents to disrespect the court system.” I have a problem with this statement. It incorrectly places the responsibility and blame in the wrong place.
The statement assumes that it is Judge Brownlow's responsibility to teach people to respect the court system, and then blames him for not delivering. Mrs. House, how much time have you given Judge Brownlow to work with your family on respecting the court system? If the answer is anything like “well, he had that day I was sitting in the court room refuting a traffic citation,” then you cannot blame him for the results. To clear things up, it is the judges responsibility to make sure that people are justly punished for breaking the law, which I believe he is doing.
It is, has always been, and should always be a parents responsibility to teach respect to their children. The fact that 'passing the buck' is commonly practiced does not allow us to excuse it as a problem. It's like speeding; just because everyone else is doing it doesn't mean you won't get in trouble for it. I think it is very dangerous to teach children that it is okay to completely disrespect authority. Whether or not you agree with what the authority is doing is largely irrelevant. I assure you that there are many times in life when people think they are being punished too severely for doing something wrong. That does not mean it is okay for us to rebel and disrespect the authority that is doing the correcting. Just obey the law.

yeah, free press!