I walked to work today, like thousands of days before. Sidewalks guided my path to my office at Illinois College. There was life in the air among the giant trees scattered throughout my neighborhood.
I didn’t see any riot police, or even any police at all. Yet I have never felt physically threatened on these daily walks, or at any time in Jacksonville, day and night. I never see crime here. There is crime, every event of policing reported dutifully by the local paper. But most of the crimes featured in local papers come from other places, sometimes faraway. Jacksonville is as peaceful and safe a human community as anywhere on earth.
There are thousands of communities like Jacksonville across our country. The general sense of danger in public that grips communities around the world, about which we see as much video as the networks can fit in, is rare in America, confined to certain neighborhoods of certain places, often cities. I do not mean to minimize the actual dangers and justified worries about danger that exist in the US, shared by males and females as victims of violent crime. The ubiquity of guns carried by private citizens makes the US a more dangerous place with a higher homicide rate than anywhere in the European Union. But the only guns I see on a daily basis are on TV.
The relative safety of our streets in world terms is a gift to be grateful for. I did nothing to deserve the security I was born into. Some people made a conscious choice to come here, mostly from places where there is much less security and social peace. Most of us can thank the luck of our birth.
In the midst of our national problems, we should see our national tranquillity as a priceless gift. We cannot take much credit for what was invented 250 years ago, fought over 160 years ago, and survived to bring us what we enjoy. The living can take important credit for breaking down the barriers that had been set up to prevent less favored, darker-skinned groups from enjoying that tranquillity, barriers we are still talking about in this election.
Our tranquillity is a privilege to be enjoyed and a treasure to protect. The words “national security” were not seen so much when I was younger. We hid under our desks to avoid the destruction of hypothetical atomic bombs, but the significance of “national security” was not blared into our living rooms every day, as we have gotten used to.
Protection of our tranquillity is an expensive and important national task. That task must be shouldered by government and must be shared by us all. We need an armed government to prevent terrorism, but only we on the ground in our communities can insure social peace. Elections stimulate public and private violence in countries across the world. We should not dismiss that possibility here; we eliminate the possibility by our determination to preserve social peace, despite political differences.
I like to walk to work so much that we sought houses within walking distance of our work. There is nothing more surprising on my walk than flowers that have just bloomed or a flock of birds overhead. I like it that way. I want to keep my neighborhood tranquil. I want all American neighborhoods to be tranquil. We won’t preserve this most precious gift by assuming we simply deserve it, chosen by God for a better fate than most other humans.
We must acknowledge our good fortune, examine its role in our society, recognize the dangers, and work collectively to preserve the tranquillity that surrounds our lives.
Peace be with you.
Steve Hochstadt
Jacksonville IL
March 3, 2020
I didn’t see any riot police, or even any police at all. Yet I have never felt physically threatened on these daily walks, or at any time in Jacksonville, day and night. I never see crime here. There is crime, every event of policing reported dutifully by the local paper. But most of the crimes featured in local papers come from other places, sometimes faraway. Jacksonville is as peaceful and safe a human community as anywhere on earth.
There are thousands of communities like Jacksonville across our country. The general sense of danger in public that grips communities around the world, about which we see as much video as the networks can fit in, is rare in America, confined to certain neighborhoods of certain places, often cities. I do not mean to minimize the actual dangers and justified worries about danger that exist in the US, shared by males and females as victims of violent crime. The ubiquity of guns carried by private citizens makes the US a more dangerous place with a higher homicide rate than anywhere in the European Union. But the only guns I see on a daily basis are on TV.
The relative safety of our streets in world terms is a gift to be grateful for. I did nothing to deserve the security I was born into. Some people made a conscious choice to come here, mostly from places where there is much less security and social peace. Most of us can thank the luck of our birth.
In the midst of our national problems, we should see our national tranquillity as a priceless gift. We cannot take much credit for what was invented 250 years ago, fought over 160 years ago, and survived to bring us what we enjoy. The living can take important credit for breaking down the barriers that had been set up to prevent less favored, darker-skinned groups from enjoying that tranquillity, barriers we are still talking about in this election.
Our tranquillity is a privilege to be enjoyed and a treasure to protect. The words “national security” were not seen so much when I was younger. We hid under our desks to avoid the destruction of hypothetical atomic bombs, but the significance of “national security” was not blared into our living rooms every day, as we have gotten used to.
Protection of our tranquillity is an expensive and important national task. That task must be shouldered by government and must be shared by us all. We need an armed government to prevent terrorism, but only we on the ground in our communities can insure social peace. Elections stimulate public and private violence in countries across the world. We should not dismiss that possibility here; we eliminate the possibility by our determination to preserve social peace, despite political differences.
I like to walk to work so much that we sought houses within walking distance of our work. There is nothing more surprising on my walk than flowers that have just bloomed or a flock of birds overhead. I like it that way. I want to keep my neighborhood tranquil. I want all American neighborhoods to be tranquil. We won’t preserve this most precious gift by assuming we simply deserve it, chosen by God for a better fate than most other humans.
We must acknowledge our good fortune, examine its role in our society, recognize the dangers, and work collectively to preserve the tranquillity that surrounds our lives.
Peace be with you.
Steve Hochstadt
Jacksonville IL
March 3, 2020
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