John Walsh, America's Most Wanted, and the Personal Vendetta as Public Policy

We cannot change the past, but we do not have to live in it, nor be dominated by it.

However, the wrongs perpetrated against us cannot be made right by squeezing society free of all perpetrators and predators.

John Walsh has not forgiven the killer who murdered his little boy. The shameful crime should never have been perpetrated. It is a grievous sorrow to the world that one more young person, taken away before entering the prime of life, can never live out the potential which could have blessed so many.

Yet is John Walsh's heavy-handed crusade against child predators, murders, and serial criminals paying off in the way that he intended? Does he as a bereaved father feel any more peace in his life? Do we as a society feel any safer?

And to what extent should personal vendetta then be purloined into public policy. Emotional outcomes in jury trials, like the Casey Anthony case, have sparked such populist outrage, that state legislators, taking advantage to score sparse political points, are pushing horrendous legislation, which will not protect anyone but themselves and their short-term political future.

There is also the atrocious case of Jaycee Lee Dugard, kidnapped by a schizophrenic sex offender, who because of the rampant failure in two state penal systems and the federal government was able to escape detection as he repeatedly raped the young girl, who blossomed into a resilient young lady notwithstanding the heinous torture she endured.

More laws, more oversight, more overheated public policy will not close the loop-holes which permitted these egregious failures in domestic security.

The federal government, and the state government for that matter, cannot prevent the woeful tragedies wreaked on individual families, nor should it. From the failure of law enforcement to bring to justice the murder of John Walsh's son, to its blatant lack of oversight over Phillip Garrido and his backyard brothel, the state is not an effective guardian in every instance.

Which brings to light an ever darker concern: how many other victims are out there, not being protected, not being sought? How many criminals are perpetrating their immoral crimes without recrimination from the state?

Whatever the answers to these questions may be, personal vendettas turned public policy will not enhance the effectiveness of law enforcement, nor remedy their clearly conscious incompetence.