The State of Oklahoma currently has an ad campaign to attract applicants for the Highway Patrol. I also notice more and more big-city police departments advertising for officers, even spending money out-of-state. And, as almost everyone knows, we have trouble attracting and keeping people in teaching.

When I was growing up the Highway Patrol did not need to advertise. They turned people away. They had stringent physical requirements including height. And, of course, only men need apply. Teaching openings also attracted lots of applications.

What's going on? In my view, a root cause of the present hiring difficulty is that positions of authority in America are difficult positions.

On the formal level, we hold teachers and especially law enforcement personel to standards of perfection. If your child does not learn it's the teacher's fault. If every last detail of procedure is not followed in enforcing the law, then woe to the officer from the political bureacracy and the courts. Meanwhile, the rights of students and criminals have been so expanded that little leverage remains.

On the informal level social attitudes work against the idea of authority. As a society we do not raise our children to submit to proper authority because it is the right thing to do.

Partly this situation results from the loss of metaphysics/religion from the public square. If we do not understand the universe to have hierarchy, then authority over others seems purely arbitrary. If we accept the notion, and our society does, that the individual is the supreme good, then authority is a concept without real meaning.

The cure? Parents, teach your children well.