How are the themes of to kill a mocking bird still relevant today?

Moral education, racism, inequality, loss of innocence(goodness), are all themes that continue to be relevant today. All we have to do is look around us and we can see that these things still exist. Think about your neighborhood, your school. Do you know a Boo Radley? Someone who is isolated because he/ she is different? Have you seen racism, ever been a part of it, or maybe been a victim? Have you seen someone accused of something...... maybe just because they're always the one who gets into trouble, and it's so easy to blame them...... and just as easy to get an authority figure to believe it.

All the themes in this story are alive and well in today's world..... it's sad, but there still a whole lot of changing to do!

Words are and will always be powerful. They should be used carefully and with integrity. Violence is usually not an easy or inexpensive way to solve problems. It usually creates more complex and different problems.

In a Republic, freedoms of speech are often abused to ignorance, poor education and greed. Atticus is an excellent example of a fine man who says what he means and means simply what he says. Atticus is not a politician full of rhetoric, but simply defends what he knows to be truth and justice. If all citizens were as educated and well bred as Atticus, the world would be a better place for it.

The axis of evil is ignorance. Greed, deceit, abuse and poverty are fueled by ignorance. They only way to change a violent society is to teach its citizens prudence in action, words and deeds. This does not require making weapons illegal or allowing each man to take the law into his or her own hands.

It requires respecting a legal system that more often than not works justly to defend all fairly. It requires a legal system that is consistently and fairly enforced in a nation, that favors those who abide and disfavors those who do not.

Lynching is a crime. No man should be left only to the justice of the ignorant perhaps in a frenzy of rage. Government serves a fine purpose and ours has very solid checks and balances that need to be left intact.

By not keeping these checks in balances intact, we lose sight of real justice and become mechanisms of rhetoric, favoritism or deceit. Just as no man is an island, no man is omnipotent either. That is what our Founding Fathers wanted protected in the US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

Whether we are considering a "rabid man" or a "rabid dog", we all have to realize that public safety is a significant priority and conditions vary from state to state as well as environment. A gun is not bad. Only a bad person who abuses it or others is bad.

Atticus is good. Calpurnia is good. We see truth in action as well as words. We see bravery , citizenship and education at its finest and at is lowest levels in this novel. It is as if it were a legal plea by Harper to inform the public of the need for PEACFEUL demonstration against the many social injustices imposed on the uneducated or disabled.

God bless America and may this book be like a torch to enlighten the hungry minds of students all across the world. It beacons our minds to the Pre - Civil Rights era and reminds us to be so very grateful to those who fought and shed blood to secure our freedoms in nationally declared wars. But it also shows how quickly violence escalates and can be used as a tool of manipulation , vengeance and personal interest.

The truth simply put, a Trevan Martin was not a Boo Radley. George Zimmerman was not a Ewell. But racial disagreements still abound. Common law must be respected by all people of all races. If we put ourselves above the law, we indirectly put others beneath it.