Schools that graduate thieves

* The schools' dominant liberal-left attitudes toward big business and the poor have deeply affected young people. The Cleveland students' favorite rationalization for shoplifting was that they were stealing from a large department store. Most said they would not steal from a family-owned shop. Big business is so routinely demonized in schools that many young people feel no moral obligation toward it. This moral indifference continues into adulthood. Hence, the number of adults who exaggerate their insurance claims. A moral obligation to the insurance industry? Hah!

* The left-leaning education system similarly rejects property as sacrosanct. "All property is theft" declared the early French socialists, an idea that lingers to this day on the left. This helps explain last year's Supreme Court ruling that private property may be forcefully taken from citizens not only for the public good (to build a needed highway) but also to enable private companies to develop an area to create a larger tax base for government.

* Many people define an action as right or wrong based solely on whether or not it hurts someone. Although that is largely appropriate, it is easily misused. People who steal from a department store, file a false insurance claim, download music without paying, repay no debts after recovering from bankruptcy, etc., engage in such thievery because they convince themselves that no one is hurt.

* For too many people, what's legal is defined as moral, what's illegal as immoral. But it's often legal -- but not moral -- to steal. For instance, taking half an hour of a camera salesman's time so he can show and explain the pros and cons of various cameras to you, then asking him where on the Internet you can get your favorite camera cheaper, is no different from pickpocketing his wallet -- you're stealing his time and money. It's legal, but it's thievery. As is "buying" a dress to wear for a weekend knowing that you intend to return it Monday for a refund.

"Do not steal" is the mother of the other commandments. Murder is stealing a life. Adultery easily leads to stealing a spouse. Coveting is planning to steal what belongs to another. False testimony steals justice. Not honoring parents steals the status of fatherhood and motherhood.

If people lived by "Do not steal" alone, the world would be a near-utopia.