Laws too gentle are seldom obeyed; too severe, seldom executed.- Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (1706-1790)Most of us who are Baby Boomers or older grew up in a time when laws were to beobeyed. We knew what the laws were and it was our social (and family)responsibility to uphold them.We didn't know much about those who freely and frequently broke laws because wedidn't come in contact with them much. Recent studies in the US have shown that 90percent of people today break laws frequently and without twinges of conscience.Most violations are minor, but they make laws in general seem like a social evil.What changed? Why do we have so little respect for laws today compared to a coupleof generations ago?There are no simple answers to these questions, but I will try to simplify thecomplex answers and give you the opportunmity to think them through yourself.Prior to the 1960s children were drilled formally and taught incidentally therange and scope of laws they were expected to obey, by parents, teachers andleaders of their respective church groups. In the interim, regular attendance atreligious services dropped off dramatically, school curricula have been loaded tooverflowing with "basic learning" information and skills and two parents workingin most families have left little time for parental role modelling and directteaching of the laws of their community and their nation.As more children grew to be young adults who lacked knowledge about laws thataffected them, more also became adults who were not clear about the moralobligations each person has to the social structure of their family and theircommunity. In other words, they broke laws because they weren't certain the lawswere all that important anyway or because they didn't know what the laws were.Governments, reacting with shock to the increase in law breaking, passed more lawsand bylaws. These became filled with details of specific examples of lawbreakingso that judges, magistrates and justices of the peace were left with fewer doubtsas to what behaviours were illegal and what penalties should apply to each.The plethora of laws to which each citizen must subscribe today is so complex thatalmost nobody knows what they all are. In their rush to create more laws and putmore power into the hands of more police officers to catch more lawbreakers, thelaw makers neglected to provide clear and pervasive methods by which each child oradolescent would be able to learn the many laws he should abide by.A teenager today may be able to do physics his parents don't understand, speaklanguages his parents have seldom heard and know a huge amount of information hisparents were never exposed to, but he may not know the laws of his community andhis country because most of them never made it onto the curriculum of his school.Moreover, he may read the pages of any newspaper to find many examples of wherepeople have broken laws. He will know many schoolmates and acquaintances in hiscommunity who break laws freely without being caught. Even television programsdeal mostly with the most violent laws, seldom with those that affect most peopleon a daily basis.A young person may even see a police officer speeding down a city street orhighway on their way to a coffee break or to signout for their shift. He knowsthat the same police officer may catch and charge him the following day forspeeding on the same street.