Politics & Power Quote by Gary Bauer

Bauer’s line is less a theory of juvenile delinquency than a political map: it collapses “crime” into “morality,” and “morality” into a specific religious text, then frames that package as common-sense prevention. The key word is “predictably.” It pretends to be empirical - almost actuarial - while offering no mechanism beyond faith in moral instruction. That rhetorical move matters because it shifts the debate from messy social causes (poverty, guns, schooling, family instability, policing) to a simpler culprit: insufficient religion.

The intent is double. First, it’s a call for public legitimacy - and possibly public space - for Judeo-Christian norms, smuggled in under the banner of protecting children. Second, it’s a cultural rebuke: if kids are committing crimes, adults have failed to enforce traditional values. The Ten Commandments functions here as an icon, not a curriculum. Invoking it signals an entire worldview (authority, order, restraint, sexual and familial norms) without having to litigate each policy implication.

The subtext is that secular education is morally thin and that pluralism is a risk factor. “More American children” implies a national project, but the prescription is not civic education; it’s a particular moral foundation presented as neutral and universally applicable. Contextually, Bauer’s career as a conservative Christian political figure makes the quote legible as part of the late-20th-century culture-war strategy: elevate religious symbols in public life, tie them to social stability, and cast dissent as permissiveness. It works because it offers anxious parents a clean cause-and-effect story - and a clear side to be on.