Props to the Nebraska Legislature and State Sens. Tom Brewer and Justin Wayne for recognizing that sometimes the crime needs less punishment and more solutions … with a dose of compassion and simple kindness thrown in.

Brewer’s smart Legislative Bill 253 would allow Nebraska judges an option to connect veterans facing criminal charges with services to help them address any contributing circumstances, from post-traumatic stress disorder to ongoing service-related physical injuries. The bill passed a first-round vote 38-0.

Brewer calls the bill “no free ride,” but rather an opportunity to give a veteran who may be dealing with a lingering service-related trauma a second chance. The program would provide a case plan for qualifying veterans — judges would decide, with victim input, whom they would be. Those who fail or do not complete the plan would be sentenced for their crimes.

If LB 253 is enacted, Nebraska lawmakers will have woven a thread tinged with compassion into their thanks and gratitude to veterans for their service. The law would also be a practical solution to the ongoing woes far too many veterans encounter after returning to civilian life.

Compare what Nebraska lawmakers are doing with a recent discussion on Fox News about homeless Americans. Jesse Watters said, “You have to stigmatize (homeless people). You can’t make them out to be some sort of cutting-edge heroes. You have to call them what they are. These are people that have failed in life and are on death’s door.”

According to the Veterans Administration, over 40,000 American veterans are homeless, unhoused, living on society’s margins, in shelters, on the streets or wherever they can find a place to survive. More importantly, for many, services for which they may qualify go unused and, unlike the proposal in Nebraska, the problems that have brought them to this circumstance go unsolved,

No one knows for sure if all homeless veterans would take advantage of services if accessible. We do know that while the scourge of homelessness in America continues, compassion and kindness won’t exacerbate the problem.

Stigmatizing it — and thousands of homeless who served their country in the military — surely will, however.

Homelessness was something this Nebraskan could never wrap his head around, even after living in Los Angeles for a decade. We lived in a fairly nice neighborhood where trendy shops shared space with trendy restaurants and middle- class Angelenos went about their business. Homeless men and women were part of our lives there.

My first reaction to someone sleeping in a doorway or lying on the street was to stop and help, which is how I believe most Nebraskans would react. While I always tried to be friendly, the overwhelming presence of homeless people, living an invisible existence in the eyes of those who walked around or sometimes over them, made it difficult not to become inured to their plight.

Solutions in West Hollywood or Omaha or Grand Island or maybe even on your street remain elusive. Whatever distempers have crushed a person’s life and hopes, we must never forget that a homeless person remains a human being … somebody’s son or daughter or mother or father. Somebody who loves and is loved. Somebody, perhaps, who once wore a U.S. military uniform.

Living in a cardboard box or from shelter to shelter carries enough stigma. Perhaps Jesse Watters truly feels the cruelty of his opinion or perhaps he’s simply trying to generate ratings and clicks.

His simplistic, sophomoric scorn to a complex problem is no solution. True, Nebraska’s LB 253, however smart and simple in its scope, will not solve homelessness or even our inability to fully address veterans’ problems. But, unlike Watters’ remarks, it moves us in the right direction.

Among some, the modern interpretation of kindness and compassion is just so much weak sauce, which elevates cruelty and callousness as a means to an end. Where, however, is it written that how we treat our fellow citizens, including writing laws and making policies that affect them, must be void of humanity, understanding and decency?

The proposed legislation in Nebraska reminds me of the words of Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker when he delivered the commencement address at Northwestern University in 2023. After telling the gathered assembly of graduates and their families and friends the importance of developing a competent “idiot detection system,” Pritzker said: “Over my many years in politics and business, I have found one thing to be universally true. The kindest person in the room is often the smartest.”

This story was published by Nebraska Examiner, an editorially independent newsroom providing a hard-hitting, daily flow of news. Read the original article: https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2024/04/01/smart-with-a-healthy-dose-of-com...