Why Doesn’t Somebody Do Something?
by Neil Hoffman
There are a lot of very strange laws out there.
Maybe you’ve heard a few of them before – things like ‘ It’s illegal to put coins in your ear in Hawaii” or “In Lousiana, it’s illegal to send a pizza to someone who doesn’t want it.” Some of these are true, but some are urban legends, so today, I want to offer you something rare: A few bizarre laws with sources, so you can look them up if you don’t believe me:
In Alaska, a drunk person may not enter or hang out in a bar. (according to the Alaska State Legislature Title IV sec. 04.16.030)
In Minnesota, it is illegal to get a few friends together, grease a pig, and see who catches it first. (Minnesota State Legislature sec. 343.36)
In New Hampshire, it is illegal to collect seaweed at night. (New Hampshire State Legislature Title XVIII sec. 207:48)
In West Virginia, it is illegal to use a ferret to help you hunt. (West Virginia State Legislature sec. 20-2-5)
Who’s Responsible?
When we read about these strange ordinances that are still on the books, we think, “Why are they there? Whose bright idea was this?” Yet, in a representative democracy such as the USA, we really are the ones responsible. After all, we elect the people who go and pass legislation, and in some cases we dictate policy directly by voting for or against propositions and bonds. So who’s responsible? We are.
Here’s a severely more sobering example:
I heard a story once about a man who took his twelve-year-old daughter to a Holocaust museum. He wanted her to see the evidence of the great tragedy, but he wasn’t sure how she would handle it. As they walked through solemn halls of pictures and they read the inscriptions of the horrific events, his daughter was expressionless. She was quiet the whole time, and hard to read, but she expressed her thoughts perfectly when she signed the guest book on the way out, through tears. Her father leaned down to read it – and it simply said, “Why didn’t somebody do something?”
Today we have a lot of issues that somebody needs to do something about as well. The legalization and promotion of abortion in this country dwarfs the number of lives lost in the Jewish Holocaust. Think about that for a second – one of the most horrible human rights travesties, one of the most shocking tragedies in history, but Roe v. Wade outstrips its deaths by a factor of ten.
Why doesn’t somebody do something?
Or let’s talk about another landmark Supreme Court case. In 1963, prayer was thrown out of the schools, and since then education has been increasingly secularized and sexualized, as test scores and actual knowledge continues to plummet, leaving kids with bleak prospects.
Why doesn’t somebody do something?
I could go on and on, but it’s important that as we have passion, we also inform ourselves and learn about the issues. Someone elected the men who appointed the Supreme Court justices who made the decisions we spoke about before; measures have passed in this state because they were worded deceptively and people were too busy to learn about them.
The Implications
We need to be involved in the democratic process, church, and we need to vote.
If learning about the issues seems daunting, there is a great resource to help you called the Family Voter Guide. It’s an unbiased assessment of the positions and endorsements of various candidates, as well as explanations of other issues. Get your sample ballot that the State sends you in the mail, take an hour out of your evening to go online and do some research here, and do your part in being the solution to society’s slide to lawlessness.
It's time to talk politics and religion. We’ve been given a responsibility, and if we don’t take action, who will?
March 3rd is Election Day in California, and every one of us has to make a decision between three choices: you will either vote for sin, you will vote against sin, or you will sin by doing nothing.
Check out the voter guide. Pray for wisdom. Then vote your values.
God bless you guys, and may we be the ones that future twelve-year-olds look back on and say, “Thank goodness that somebody did something.”
