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worse each day, because we look to government to solve problems for which individual citizens should be taking personal responsibility.

As I write, news is reported of yet another pointless, meaningless, gratuitous act of violence and murder. Three civilians killed and two police officers in New Mexico shot by a berserk individual with a gun. The report includes the now all-too-familiar words: “a motive is also unknown at this time.”

The Hill, which reported the story, conveys that “According to the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive, the country has logged more than 200 mass shootings since the start of the year.” A just and peaceful society must have an outside and an inside. On the outside, we have government, laws and peace officers, patrolling out streets, whom we choose to recognize and honor during National Police Week.

Those incidents, which are really the exception to the rule, when policemen act wrongly, get disproportionate attention. Because we have become a society with no inside, just an outside, we’re always looking for whom to blame. The last place we want to look is inside ourselves.

But a society must have an inside as well as an outside.

As The Wall Street Journal recently reported in its new poll with NORC at the University of Chicago, only 39% today say religion is “very important” to them, compared to 62% in 1998 who said religion is “very important.”

Only 31% of those under 30 say religion is “very important.”

Unfortunately, these polls do not ask individuals who say religion is not important how they discern right and wrong, or even if there is such a thing.

The “inside” rules, which shine the light for self-governance, are flickering or gone altogether.

The result is the chaos we are now experiencing.

Fortunately, we still have brave and principled men and women who are willing to put on a uniform, patrol our cities at personal risk, and help maintain the law, order and peace without which no society can function. But as part of honoring them, let’s step up and let them know that we’re in the game with them.

Restoring an “inside,” recognition of right and wrong and personal responsibility, in a society in which these are becoming lost, is not easy.

One way to start is, when we hear politicians saying our answers are in more government, more spending, more politics, know it’s time to change the channel.

Star Parker is president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education and host of the weekly television show “Cure America with Star Parker.” To find out more about Star Parker and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www. creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2023 CREATORS. COM