• Re: madeleine, We are the enemy

    From sgdunn@sgdunn@cox.net to talk.politics.libertarian,talk.politics.guns,alt.society.civil-liberty on Friday, November 28, 2003 14:11:38
    From Newsgroup: alt.society.civil-liberty


    "Bruce Reilly (a.k.a Bruha)" <bruha@yrogli.edu.ua> wrote in message news:93992ef9.3c809c53@news.yrogli.edu.ua...
    Dear Judges, Lawyers, Policemen, Guards, Counselors, Taxpayers, et. al.,

    We are here. Like it or not, for good or bad, we are here. Who are we?
    We are the
    downtrodden and dispossesed, the self-torturing, the disenfranchised
    convicts,
    drug and alcohol addicts, the unemployed and unemployable. We are the
    children of
    poverty, financial and spiritual. We have and will have children of our
    own,
    grandchildren too. We are ex-cons, uninsured, homeless, of many colors
    and speaking
    many tongues. We are the enemy in what has become a domestic war against
    ourselves.

    And who are you? You who like the tough talk of Tough on Crime? You who
    watch as
    budgets are cut in education and health care
    Reducing spending on socialized education and government-sponsored
    health care isn't the same as reducing education and health care.
    while you militarize a police force?
    Bullet-proof vests, automatic weapons, helicopters, tanks, robots ...
    God help any civilian who tried to protect himself with a bullet proof vest. Private ownership of bullet proof vests and similar armor is illegal
    in many states.
    It's one thing for a government to disarm its subjects. It's quite
    another for a government to deny its subjects the right to buy the armor
    they need to protect themselves against violence. Unlike use of a gun in
    self defense, use of a bullet proof vest can never result in the death of
    the assailant.
    the
    testosterone is oozing through the streets, more prisons,
    More prisons means more crime. It's just that the crime takes place
    inside steel cages, out of view, in a more politically convenient place.
    longer sentences,
    If a criminal already expects that conviction would put him away for several years, the criminal's expected marginal cost of a couple years on
    top of that is pretty low. Many if not most felons who receive prison
    sentences don't survive until the end of the sentence, and a felony
    conviction makes a person pretty close to unemployable even if he does get
    out.
    tighten
    the belt, spartan conditions, task forces, gang units, gun courts.

    And what is there
    to show for it? Unemployent stays low because half the population
    oversees those
    "out of the workforce", the dregs, the rabble, the enemy?
    Unemployment would plummet if the minimum wage, government-mandated
    racial discrimination, Social Security and Medicare taxes, nitty gritty regulations and paperwork, and other anti-employment government policies
    were repealed. Of course, this would come to close to actually solving the problem. If unemployment were low, politicians wouldn't be able to make hay
    out of inflationary short term stimulus packages and jobs programs that take jobs from some and give them to others.
    Please tell me there is a
    deeper reason. Do you feel safer? More humane? More like a cohesive
    society with a
    shared sense of purpose, who can identify Us and Them? Do you live in a
    gated
    community or gentrified neighborhood? By the way, have you read the
    Declaration of
    Independence and US Constitution - or do you only know the first phrases?

    It's about time we got together. Please know that I have yet to meet a
    convict who
    wants their child to be a thief, an addict, a dealer, a prostitute, or a
    violent
    individual. Most of us still have hope for ourselves even when stuck in
    the darkest
    dilemmas, ruts and catch-22s. Most of us believe in crafting laws and
    instilling
    order. Many of us have burrowed beneath the surface to find a spiritual
    sense of
    being, an understanding force at least as powerful as those we succumbed
    to, and many
    of use wouldn't escape if you opened the front door. Did you know that
    approximately
    10 million Americans are either incarcerated, on probation, on parole or
    once were in
    those categories? Each of those 10 million have families, friends,
    neighbors ... and
    so closer and closer does the We interface with the You. Don't you think
    it's time we
    talked?

    Are you ready? Can you accept that the road we are travelling points
    toward a grim
    and painful future? Do you have the heart to face monumental failures
    while bravely
    struggling beyond where we are now? I know that some of you are, and that
    some of us
    are, and this is what gives me hope. You need our insights just as we
    need your
    structure. It is never over, especially when a real solution, a real
    treatment for
    our sickness, is yet to begin.
    In Solidarity,

    Bruce Reilly (a.k.a
    Bruha)
    P.O.Box 8274
    Cranston, RI 02920 USA

    P.S. - I am trying to conceptualize an effective guerilla media campaign
    to promote
    this cause. Ideas are welcome. Collaboration is prayed.


    --- Synchronet 3.18b-Win32 NewsLink 1.113