Americans fought a civil war to settle the slavery debate. Once again our country is being torn asunder, thereby inviting foreign adversaries like Russia, China, and Iran to challenge America’s global leadership.

Abortion is currently the most important and emotionally charged issue dividing us; the Right stands for an outright ban, and the Left stands for the mother’s right to choose throughout her term.

Gender and its definition is another divisive issue. The question is whether gender is established at birth, as the Right claims, or a personal choice and a state of mind, as the Left claims. Should boys be entitled to use the girl’s bathrooms and compete with them in sports?

While I can relate to both sides of the above issues, the issue that baffles me is the way we are divided between the rights of criminals, drug addicts, and the mentally ill on the one hand, versus the rights of victims and society at large.

Last week in New York, Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old homeless black man struggling with mental health issues, including schizophrenia, PTSD, and depression, boarded a subway train and commenced to threaten the other passengers verbally. Neely, arrested 42 times, including four times for assault, had an active warrant for his arrest for assaulting a 67-year-old woman in 2021.

Daniel Penny, a 24-year-old Marine veteran, was a passenger on the same subway train. Neely entered the train shouting he was hungry, did not care about returning to jail, and was ready to die. Penny placed Neely in a chokehold, similar to what he must have been trained in basic training, tragically killing him in the process.

Our divided nation can not determine whether Daniel Penny is a hero, or should be prosecuted for murder. Was Jordan Neely mentally ill and a threat to society, or a victim of the system? Should a mentally ill person who pushes an innocent bystander in front of an approaching train be prosecuted or protected?

When the moral pendulum of society turns too far to the right, we end up with Joseph McCarthy as a leader; when it swings too far to the left, we decriminalization theft under $1000, forcing WholeFood to close its new flagship store in San Francisco, followed by Nordstrom’s, WallMart, Walgreens, and Target, leaving one to wonder, who is John Galt?

When law and order break down; when mass shootings become the norm, chaos reigns. Let us not allow the tragedy of the commons to spread throughout the land. We can and should do better. I trust that this too shall pass and that once again America will find its way.

— Sina.