Felon Forever
Well, let's examine some "everybody knows" items.
Everybody knows . . .
- people don't change their personalities.
- people never learn from their mistakes.
- real rehabilitation is not possible.
- that "correction" as in "Department Of Corrections" is not possible, and that it really ought to be called "Department Of Arbitrary Punishments."
- once you've done something bad, you are ALL bad, forever.
So I have to wonder, why isn't the death penalty the standard for all felonies?
I mean, think.
Really.
It is possible to own something in one state, and be completely okay. The ownership
of that same item in another state is a
criminal act -- a felony -- and you are now a
bad person and beyond any redemption.
It's pretty simple, really: it's control through criminalization. If you are always guilty of
something then you're a lot easier to control. If you step out of line, it's only an afternoon's work to determine which of your many crimes shall be charged to you. And so you behave yourself, to whatever degree you are able.
When a person can be a felon, simply
"because I said so," and when we can cherry-pick which rights he's
"allowed to have" (following me here?) after he's been labeled "felon" (because we can, that's why), then we can pretty much control his life.
We let him back out on the streets, precisely because we know we can trust him to behave, and then pretend we can't trust him (hey, he's a felon), so we can deny him a select subset of rights.
Or, we really don't care whether we expose society to the dangers attendant upon letting a violent felon out; we let him out so we have a plausible excuse for regulating
everyone's behavior (hey, it's hard to distinguish felons from citizens).
Pretty sick, huh?
We can't keep really really bad people incarcerated, because that would be cruel. We have to let them out into the general population. Because they've "paid their debt" to society. The fact that we are pretty sure they'll do something violent again (see "correction is not possible") and we let them wander unrestricted among the general population is
not cruel to the members of society who will now be
required to prove they're not felons (hey, it's hard to distinguish felons from citizens) while the actual felons are allowed to commit their next violent crime unrestrained, is irrelevant, because excessive imprisonment is cruel.
And we can't fix them anyway.
And a felony is whatever we say it is.
Hey, I can keep writing this brain-breaking stuff as long as you can stand to read it.
Or . . . we could look back 150 years or so.
Man commits crime. Man stands trial. Crime too heinous? Yes: hang him. No: start egg timer for sentence. Once the man has served his time, give him back his personal stuff and let him out.
Completely out.
He gets work, borrows money, whatever. He goes shopping, gets horse, saddle, sidearm, rifle, ammo, bedroll, groceries, and so on. He moves on with his life. If he's smart enough, he stays out of jail, becomes productive member of society.
Worth noting that in the society where this man lives, everybody else is also armed. Being armed is normal. An unarmed man is . . . a little weird. Maybe he's the pastor or something.
Our ex-felon makes his choices and either stays clean or gets in trouble. If he keeps screwing up he gets shot or hanged. If he adapts to society, observes the moral codes, he lives longer.
And crime? Way lower than what we see today.
Today?
Right & wrong no longer taught. It's all about the
feeeeeelings and whatever feels good is okay. Self esteem is king. Achievement is over-rated. MTV is art. Parents must defer to school authorities or risk accusations of child abuse, child neglect, etc., and schools encourage kids to report on parents.
Result: more violence per capita in youth than ever in U.S. history.
Must make
laws to protect the children.
Law mills crank out new and improved felonies to keep up with the mysterious increase in social violence.
Frightened people willingly surrender rights to be safer.
New and better felonies create highest prison population on Earth.
Overcrowding means felons are released. Not rehabilitated. Just released.
But this is okay, because we screen
everybody before letting them exercise their rights.
Thank God felons don't get to have guns.
Think how dangerous the world would be.
Just in case it's not clear where I stand on this:
If you trust him enough to let him out among the general population, give him back his rights. All of them. If you can't trust him enough to let him own a gun, don't let him out.
