Dr Wess Stafford, president of Compassion International, the child advocacy organisation, hit the nail on the head with his observation about the ineffectiveness of laws that are passed by law-breakers within the context of a careless society.

According to Dr Stafford, in addition to passing laws for the protection of children and, we suppose, for any other objective that is relevant to a healthy democracy, it is necessary for the Government to uphold same and for civil society to hold them accountable when they don’t.

“…hold your leaders accountable, if they will not be held accountable, replace them,” yesterday’s edition of this newspaper quotes him.

We’re tempted to say it’s as simple as that.

However, if it were, we doubt we’d be in the mess we are in right now.

Because successive administrations that have been elected to govern this country would never have been allowed to stay in office long enough to run this country down to the state it is in.

The truth is, however, that the responsibility for maintaining a healthy society does not rest with any one interest or grouping. It rests, as Dr Stafford also pointed out, with every last one of us.

Indeed, if we are too lackadaisical to speak up and insist on the accountability that is part and parcel of good governance, we must be prepared to live with the unpleasant consequences.

And the truth is that we have, by our inactivity, literally forfeited our right to good governance and become, as it were, collective aiders and abettors of the chaos that is undermining our progress.

Let’s face it.

Like their predecessor, this administration will go just as far as they are willing to wager that the most vociferous of the electorate will let them.

That, in large part, is why we are being kept, to date, in the dark concerning the United States’ extradition request for Mr Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke to answer allegations of drug and arms trafficking.

If the Government honours the request, there’ll be hell to pay from the residents of Mr Coke’s republic.

And if we were doing our job as a society, they’d be paying hell right now for the dithering that has taken place and still is on the issue so far.

The fact that they are able to maintain the facade of carrying on as if it’s business as usual is testimony to our own weakness.

And for that, history will hold us as culpable as they for the inevitable collapse of this society.