Let's Throw Away the Key

     It's recently been reported that the USA has the highest incarceration rate in the world.  That may not be true -- who can attest for the rates in some of the more miserable nations?  But it is certainly true that far too many of our countrymen are in prison.  I'm rushing to class now in a few minutes, but may I ask a few questions to start discussion?

1. Might we cease pummeling the family already?  Hasn't it had enough reinvention?

2. Might we return the words "unwed mother" and "illegitimate child" to popular use, as an act of clarity and charitable prudence?

3. It's said that boys are difficult to teach.  Well, a lot of things in this world are difficult to do.  If you can't do them, you don't take jobs that require it of you.  If you're a teacher and you can't reach the boys, don't you think, in fairness, you ought to go to a girls' school or look for other employment?

4. Do you think we've had enough sapping of the boys' programs that once upon a time aimed to take the most troubled kids off the street?

5. What has happened to vocational-technical schools?

6. How can you pretend to "lead" people who, rather than follow you, turn to lives of crime?

That's for starters ....

Comments

[Bob]

" What has happened to vocational-technical schools?"

We call them universities, unfortunately. I thoroughly agree, however. Why do we trouble people by forcing them to try for that which they are not able to do and would hate doing? Why not let them do the sort of work they would get at voc/tech schools, the sort of work that they would find rewarding? Egalitarianism not only pulls down those who don't want to be pulled down (and oughtn't), it also pushes up those who don't want to be pushed up (and oughtn't), and all so a few useless people can feel good about themselves.

[Kirk]

"5. What has happened to vocational-technical schools?"

I wonder how much of this has to do with the fact that no longer are there jobs available when people graduate from these schools. Many manufacturing jobs have moved overseas, and many of the remaining jobs involving physical labor are filled with low-wage immigrant laborers.

[Joe Long]

Let's hope we haven't already thrown away the keys...or that we can find them again. I suspect we have about the right number of our fellow citizens incarcerated, and they are primarily the ones who should be...that in fact it would be easier to find lots of unincarcerated men who OUGHT to be locked up, than lots of wrongfully-imprisoned Americans. Nevertheless:

1. Hear, hear. Insisting to children that whatever odd arrangement they happen to be in, IS a "family", does precious little to fill the void (but apparently satisfies most left-wing consciences entirely).
2. And "bastard." Good enough for St. Paul, good enough for me.
3. But just as American politicians seem happy to "elect a new population" through immigration, modern teachers would rather (with medication or brainwashing) try to turn boys into something ELSE and THEN teach them.
4. Boys' programs still acknowledge the continuing existence of BOYS, and we'd rather attack that root cause than its symptoms. (See #3)
5. Why go to Vo-Tech when a watered-down university can eventually teach you the same skills almost as well, for far more money, while continuing the indoctrination process you got along with your Ritalin for the first thirteen years of your "education"?
6. Quite often, a life of crime IS the logical course of action after the "leadership" young people have received. Drugs solve problems, you need to keep up social pretenses (like a college education without any academic aptitude), your ethnic history bequeaths eternal grievances for which you can seek redress...sounds like a recipe for fraud, at the very least.

[Nick Milne]

1. Might we cease pummeling the family already? Hasn't it had enough reinvention?

The reinvention must cease, but the pummeling, unfortunately, must continue if we are to beat it back into shape. The trouble with trying to make slow, gradual changes to profound institutions is that, when those changes begin to approach their logical ends and the need for a full and immediate reversal becomes apparent, the swift, skidding turn could do more harm than good. Whiplash causes injury, and large objects need time to slow down.

Basically, we need to somehow trick the wider world into thinking that the traditional and holy family is actually the hip, liberal, progressive thing towards which they've secretly always been striving. Naturally it would be preferable if they simply believed in the truth of that ideal and strove towards it on its own merits, but there's no sense in giving more credit than is due to a race that seems bent on shocking even pessimists with every passing year.

The popularity of such films as Juno and Knocked Up is encouraging, in this regard, both because they are legitimately well-wrought comedies and because they have come, like thieves in the night, to discretely implant the idea that responsibility and maturity are "cool" into the heads of an entire generation. The good this might do is incalculable, but it's only the beginning.

2. Might we return the words "unwed mother" and "illegitimate child" to popular use, as an act of clarity and charitable prudence?

Speaking as the illegitimate child of an unwed (though perpetually cohabiting) mother, no, I don't think we might. The phrases serve no purpose that is not demeaning, and I should like to assure you that the first instance of someone trying to hold my own blood against me will be met with a fist to the jaw.

I have no confidence whatever that those phrases would be used either charitably or prudently if returned to popular use. Not a shred.

5. What has happened to vocational-technical schools?

They have become a sort of mark of personal failure, and are subsequently despised. This is certainly not how they ought to be viewed, of course, but it's how they are.

The College as an entity is currently trapped between the competing and exclusive perceptions of being something that everyone has to do and something that is a superior and uncommon mark of distinction. High schools haven't been able to decide which way to treat it, and have, as such, tried to account for both through the creation of different "streams" for students of different abilities. This might seem like a fine idea on the surface, and certainly has many merits, but one of the (intended?) consequences is to produce another social class system in the high school, as though there weren't too many to begin with. Here in Ontario this takes the form of the difference between those in classes at the "Academic" level (read: smartasses) and those in classes at the "Applied" level (read: dullards). There is no middle ground, and each stream views the other with suspicion and contempt. It also only serves to encourage the asinine idea that, on the one hand, the academic life has no application to the real world, and, on the other, that the real world of everyday work is something separate from and inferior to academia.

It is to the vocational and technical schools that those in the "Applied" stream tend to go, and all of the misery of their peers' perceived superiority goes with them. There is a kind of loser status attached to those who are trying to learn a trade, as though it were a mark of failure that they haven't been able to go off to some college somewhere to jerk around for three or four years without really deciding to do anything. So many view college as an excuse for an extended, multi-year debauch that the idea of going to a vocational school seems to be an abnegation of the freedom and independence (for so they see it) that is apparently the hallmark of the newly-minted Adult. There is so much that is wrong with this that it would take ages to express it all clearly, but until a sense of responsibility and maturity becomes "cool" again, as I said before, it's the conception that is likely to prevail.

And since we're talking about colleges and making broad statements: if you haven't decided on a major by the end of your first year of college, you are not really trying and should go home.

[Nick Milne]

2. And "bastard." Good enough for St. Paul, good enough for me.

What utter crap, Joe, if you'll pardon the words of one who has always held you in high esteem (and still does, to be sure). "Good enough for St. Paul" is about as good a justification for a position as "That Old Time Religion" is a good hymn. That I'm even making the comparison should tell you what I think of it.

But by all means, go right ahead. Take someone's parentage and hurl it in his face. Do this in the name of Christ. No doubt He shall be well-pleased.

[Bill R]

Nick's intelligent comments got me thinking. The academic/vocational division doesn't work well in egalatarian countries such as the US or Canada. Perhaps then we need seriously to think of how to integrate the two; it could be beneficial to both. The "tracks" will need to be somewhat flexible, not rigid, so as to avoid the simplistic "smartasses"/"dullards" division that Nick mentions, and therefore we need to find the "middle ground" that grants degrees not only in academic subjects, but also in technical proficiencies--why not? Indeed, it may be a good idea for all students to have requirements for proficiencies on "both sides," i.e., some modest technical training for those pursuing academic subjects and some basic academic overviews for those on the technical/vocational side. The intent here would be to raise the profile of vocational training, but think of the possible benefit to those on the academic side as well: heck, I wish I'd learned some basic proficiencies in plumbing, electrical work, and automotive care while I was off at college. It just might end the whole idea of college as a four-year vacation from "real life."

[Ryan]

2. I am a "illegitimate child" of an "unwed mother". What does "illegitimate" mean in this context? I feel I have a perfectly legitimate right to life and would prefer to be judged on other criteria than the circumstances of my birth. Family should be encouraged, but there is not some golden age in the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s or what have you. To be a "bastard" or "unwed mother" was to be ostracized on many levels, much of which I would not like our society to return to.

3. So the problems of the classroom are fully placed upon the educator's shoulders?

5. I heartily agree, but the schools are there... I find that it is the High Schools that don't encourage the technical tract, not everyone needs to go to college and there is NO shame in that. Bakers, Butchers, Auto-Mechanics, et al. serve God by serving their neighbor as much as the degreed citizen, sometimes more.

[Judy K. Warner]

The only reason high schools have to have vocational tracks is that the school-leaving age has been raised so high, and that so many people are convinced that people have to go to college. If kids could leave school at age 16 or even 14, the private sector or community colleges would provide training opportunities, and the kids (mostly boys) wouldn't waste so many years of their lives and end up with low self-esteem. What happens now in my blue-collar county is that teens go through high school, most of them pushed into an academic track. When and if they graduate many go to the local community college which has an awe-inspiring selection of courses of study, many of them non-liberal arts things like medical technician areas, correctional and police services, IT technical services and web design. A woman I know is studying to become an electrician at the community college in the next county, after discovering she is not cut out to be a regular college student. And as a bonus, I'll bet the number of high school shootings would go way down if kids had a way out. There is a real difference between putting kids on a vocational track in high school, which is school, where people control your life, and letting them leave school to make their way. College is not high school, even community college -- kids have much more sense of mastery of their own lives.

[GL]

Well, I have said this to others off line, so I might as well open the can of worms here. There are many reasons why we have such a large percentage of our population behind bars. Four of them are (1) the destruction of the family by decapitation (i.e., the liberal war against fathers) is probably the biggest cause of all (blame the liberals for that one), (2)the asinine war on drugs, which suffers from the same fatal flaws as did prohibition -- using the criminal code to cure social ills and creating more crime and social ills than existed before (the fault for this lies primarily with conservatives), (3) treating the mentally ill as criminals -- that is, not treating their disease and, yes, institutionalizing them if necessary, leaving them homeless or ill-cared for by relatives who are not up to the task until they commit a crime for which they can be imprisoned because being homeless or in a prison cell is a much better place for them than is a well-regulated facility designed to care for them (the fault for this lies primarily with the liberals), and (4) draconian sentencing guidelines passed by Congress largely to advance the futile war on drugs and to pander to the baser instincts in people (three felony convictions for possession of marijuana and you get a life sentence: that's insane)(the fault for this lies primarily with conservatives, though the late Chief Justice Rehnquist spoke out and wrote against the sentencing guidelines on more than one occasion).

So see, there is plenty of blame to go around.

[Josiah A. Roelfsema]

GL,

Without knowing very much about law, Prohibition, and legal proceedings, I have recently considered the parallels between Prohibition and the current war on drugs. Is there a good way, legally and morally, to rid the system of "high wages" for drug dealers and smugglers, while still keeping the message that drugs are usually not the answer (outside medicine, safe enjoyment, e.g. caffeine, etc.)?

That is, do you think today's smugglers would be discouraged the same way bootleggers were, by eliminating the black market? And would this make a large dent in the high incarceration rates?

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>But by all means, go right ahead. Take someone's parentage and hurl it in his face. <<<

Didn't seem to slow down William of Normandy.

[Joe Long]

My apologies to at least two commentors - sometimes I yield to the easy smart remark. It is a cheap temptation and the devil can score disproportionately off it - I am embarassed.

No man ought ever to be insulted or held in disdain for his parentage - something over which he has no control. I would never use that term to a person, to mock him for his own familial misfortune; mea maxima culpa.

The old pressure, to "make an honest woman of her", to keep children from "being bastards", drove many a man to minimal standards of honor - men who sometimes grew into much higher levels. I would like to see that pressure return - not any persecution of any individual. Certainly not any old-fashioned stigma -

Are they separable? I would hope so. The "bastard" was always the victim of the situation - but the term also came to mean "mean, tough, ruthless guy" - not, I'm convinced, by coincidence. It is both heartless and reckless to raise large numbers of young men in that condition - but how exactly do we drive that home socially, without stigmatizing? Or at least, stigmatizing the "right" person - the irresponsible father?

[GL]

>>>That is, do you think today's smugglers would be discouraged the same way bootleggers were, by eliminating the black market? And would this make a large dent in the high incarceration rates?<<<

Yes and yes.

Criminalizing the use of narcotics is largely the product of the same time and attitudes that gave us prohibition. Prior to that time, if a man or woman became a drug addict, that, by itself, was not a criminal offense. Now, just as today with alcohol, they might commit another crime while under the influence which would warrant prosecution, but the use of the drug per se was not a crime. It certain led to criminal behavior, of course, just as excessive use of alcohol often does. Decriminalizing "soft" drugs will not make the drug problem and all the social ills which follow go away. It will mitigate those which flow from criminalizing them. The drug addiction can be treated for what it is, a social ill and a disease.

[GL]

By the way, some commentaries claim that it was industrialization and the operation of heavy equipment which contributed to the criminalization of narcotics. An agricultural economy, the reasoning goes, could better tolerate drunkenness and drug addiction.

I am inclined to believe it was Victorianism gone to seed, with its attitude that government could solve all social ills by criminalizing them. The Victorians did many good things, supporting a strong nuclear family with the husband and father at its head being chief among them, but they also were just as prepared as modern day liberals to use the heavy hand of government to promote their vision of a perfect world. Our war on drugs is one of the remaining vestiges of that mindset.

[Joe Long]

Abuse of laudanum and other legal drugs legal in the nineteenth century did not lead to things like the "crack wars" of the 1990's in the inner cities - and for those who insisted on "self-medicating", at least prices were reasonable.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>An agricultural economy, the reasoning goes, could better tolerate drunkenness and drug addiction.<<<

Really? Because farming is one of the most dangerous occupations in America, and certainly today involves the operation of heavy machinery (there are other hazards, too--I read recently of a man who tripped and fell on the nozzle of a high-powered air line used to inflate carcasses for flaying; he blew up like a balloon). That might not have been true in the past, but playing around with large, sharp objects attached to big, powerful draft animals while under the influence is not conducive to long life.

[Stuart Koehl]

I doubt it would be enough merely to bring back the appellation of bastard. To put teeth into the stigma, you would have to change the estate laws so that only legitimate children could inherit, thereby requiring a man either to marry the mother of his child, or at some later point in life, formally acknowledge and legitimize his child, which might prove socially embarrassing.

[GL]

Of course, Stuart, but modern agriculture is now a heavy industry. Before industrialization, when farming was done by horse, mule and oxen, at most the alcohol or narcotic intoxicated man would, at worst, likely only kill or maim himself, and probably not even that. With the operation of heavy equipment, the reasoning goes, he might kill or maim others and is far more likely to kill or maim himself.

Mind you, I don't buy the explanation, but that is what those commentators claim. As I said, I believe the explanation is post-bellum Victorianism gone to seed.

[Bill R]

"Or at least, stigmatizing the "right" person - the irresponsible father?" - Joe Long

I propose calling 'em "malverts," from the Law French: "malversation," which my Black's Law Dictionary defines as "a grave and punishable fault committed in the exercise of a charge or commission." That charge or commission here, of course, being fatherhood.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>> Before industrialization, when farming was done by horse, mule and oxen, at most the alcohol or narcotic intoxicated man would, at worst, likely only kill or maim himself, and probably not even that. <<<

Well, the scale of the carnage might have been smaller, but there was carnage nonetheless. You have to take into consideration the state of medicine back then. Slip with an axe, lose a foot. Careless with a flensing knife, get blood poisoning and die. Gored by a bull? Peritonitis, and you're dead.

Muscle power had its own hazards--witness the large number of deaths due to strangulated hernias, as well as the prevalence of trusses in the Sears Roebuck Catalogue. Farming was hard work and dangerous work, which is why so many sodbusters picked up and moved to the big city, where there was much safer and better paying work to be had in the mills and factories.

[JRM]

I post to draw attention to GL's four points above:

Summarized:

(1) the destruction of the family by decapitation

(2)the asinine war on drugs,

(3) treating the mentally ill as criminals

(4) draconian sentencing guidelines

These four reasons account for probably 95% of our incarcerated population.

The other 5% are career criminals whose career choice should be respected.

[Stuart Koehl]

You left out the corollary of (3): the treatment of criminals as mentally ill.

Actually, I believe the National Institutes of Justice figures show that about 75% of all major crimes are committed by about 15% of all criminals, but your general idea is sound.

Draconian sentencing guidelines were instituted because judges were not exercising proper discretion; i.e., sentencing rapists to probation, burglars to community service, murderers for less time than one would get for tax evasion (well, in that last example, at least the government is showing where its priorities really lie). Of course, for every action there is an unequal and excessive reaction, so the entire sentencing policy, combined with inane "zero tolerance' policies, results in a different kind of injustice. Eventually, the system will reach some sort of equilibrium, but in point of fact, the country is considerably safer today than it was thirty years ago, for one very simple reason: the people committing the crimes are behind bars, and not on the streets. And above all, we are keeping precisely the kind of repeat offenders who commit the bulk of crimes behind bars long enough that their criminal days are over. Crime, it turns out, is a young man's profession. Keep someone in prison until he reaches his middle forties, and the odds of recidivism decline dramatically. Three strikes laws and similar sentencing policies, if nothing else, make sure of that.

[Tony Esolen]

Nick, I understand your point.

Prudence, however, is a virtue that, literally, sees far; and if we exercise it in charity we can sometimes prevent a lot of harm, without willing that anyone suffer unjustly because of our actions. This is a tricky point. Let's agree that a certain manner of coming into the world is in fact illegitimate, that is, outside the moral law, and therefore outside the norms recognized by the positive law (in matters such as patrimony, legal and financial responsibility of the father, and so forth). If we call the child illegitimate -- or, if born of fornication, "natural" -- we are doing several things at once:

1. We're justly recognizing an important distinction between what one couple have done and what another couple have done. The married couple -- without that distinction -- are effectively demoted to the level of the fornicators or adulterers. Consider the chic and silly phrase "single mom," now used to describe divorced and widowed mothers too -- who have now been demoted to the level of the never-married.

2. We provide a powerful deterrent against behavior we don't want to encourage. That works in many ways: the woman doesn't want to be saddled with the shame; the man doesn't want to be embroiled in financial scandal; the parents suddenly have a great incentive to watch their children more carefully, etc.

I do understand your point. I don't advocate making any innocent person's life miserable. On the other hand -- the status quo results in many millions of miserable lives. I'm not using a utilitarian calculus here. I am saying that vice ought to be called vice, and ought to be condemned, for the assistance that the condemnation gives us in resisting the vice.

[Judy K. Warner]

Nick,

I too was born in what used to be a shameful circumstance, since my parents were Communists: i.e., they conspired against the United States of America in the service of a foreign power. Because things have changed in our society, there is today nothing shameful about being the child of communists. "Red diaper baby" has a jaunty ring, doesn't it? Yet I would rather be known as the daughter of traitors than to have our society be so lax about recognizing its enemies.

Perhaps not exactly analagous to your situation, but there's a certain similarity.

[Kirk]

Joe Long wrote: "Let's hope we haven't already thrown away the keys...or that we can find them again. I suspect we have about the right number of our fellow citizens incarcerated, and they are primarily the ones who should be...that in fact it would be easier to find lots of unincarcerated men who OUGHT to be locked up, than lots of wrongfully-imprisoned Americans."

Joe, I don't mean to pick on you, but your post exemplifies a certain attitude that I perceive from several posters in this thread, and which bothers me greatly.

The original question, I believe, has to do with this statement: "It's recently been reported that the USA has the highest incarceration rate in the world."

Now you and I, Joe, might visit any of hundreds of prisons, one chosen at random, and we might be quite unable to locate any prisoner who ought not be incarcerated. So we might then conclude that, although the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, our percentage is the right percentage simply because our imprisoned masses deserve to be there. This, however, misses the point and begs the question.

The appropriate inquiry, it seems to me, is this: what is it about the United States--whether it be culture or economics or education--that requires so many souls to be removed from society?

How can we call our culture "good" when so many men (created in the image of God, by the way) cannot function in accordance with the rules?

Anyone?

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>The appropriate inquiry, it seems to me, is this: what is it about the United States--whether it be culture or economics or education--that requires so many souls to be removed from society?<<<

Perhaps, Kirk, the issue isn't that we are arresting so many, but that others are arresting so few?

[Seth R.]

Change the penalty for marijuana possession from jail to a fine and I'd imagine you'd take care of a good chunk of that incarceration statistic.

But since legislators don't like being branded "sissies" by the other playground bullies, I don't see it happening anytime soon.

[Bobby Winters]

>>>How can we call our culture "good" when so many men (created in the image of God, by the way) cannot function in accordance with the rules?

Anyone?
<<<

"...now the serpent was the most subtile of the beasts..."

[Kirk]

Anthony, you've suggested in your original post that the problem may lie with the decline of the family and our education system. Others have posited the war on drugs, treatment of the mentally ill, and draconian sentencing guidelines. I would like to put forth a new theory--

America is no longer a nation of liberty or freedom; it is a nation of laws, rules, and regulations. Surely, we have the right to speak our minds, vote our consciences and pray to our own gods, but we have to get a permit from City Hall if we want to screen-in our back porch.

We have freedom to travel throughout our fair land unimpeded, and we never have to explain to officials where we're going, where we've been, or with whom we have associated; but yet we have to have a license to drive, carry auto insurance, wear a seatbelt, drive a car that has passed safety and emissions inspections, pay for registration of the vehicle, pay gasoline taxes, tolls, etc. etc. etc.

Our tax code is so complicated that no two CPA's will agree on interpretation.

And, irony of ironies, the group that has been in the news the last week--the FLDS--who wanted nothing more than to be left alone to exercise their right to religious freedom and (emanating as it does from the penumbras) their right to privacy--this group had their first run-in with The Law in Texas in 2005 not for their polygamy or their lecherous proclivities, but for building a cement plant without first obtaining a clean-air permit from the Texas Commission for Environmental Quality. For heaven's sake, you need the government's permission to mix concrete in the middle of nowhere!

And so, I don't find it surprising that a certain segment of the underclass throws up their hands and refuses to submit! All of our laws and regulations make good King George look like a libertarian!

[Bobby Neal Winters]

>>>Keep someone in prison until he reaches his middle forties, and the odds of recidivism decline dramatically.<<<

I know the mid-forties have helped mine.

[Kirk]

Stuart wrote, "Perhaps, Kirk, the issue isn't that we are arresting so many, but that others are arresting so few?"

Could be.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Could be.<<<

Indeed, it is. Unlike the United States, most other countries do not practice prosecutorial discretion; if a policeman arrests someone for a crime, the state must initiate a prosecution and play the game out to the end. For that reason, and in order to avoid politically embarrassing and potentially destabilizing encounters, the police in many countries are under orders (explicit or implicit) to look the other way or avoid certain areas to avoid inflaming the passions of certain groups.

If you thought I was speaking about young Muslim men, well, you are right. In cities all across Europe, there are places where the police simply do not go, which are in effect left to police themselves. Nobody really knows the crimes rates in these areas, because crimes are not reported. It is estimated that, on an ordinary night, as a matter of course, about eighty cars will be torched within the city of Paris--and police do nothing. There are robberies, assaults, rapes and murders within the faubourgs and other Muslim ghettos of Europe which are simply ignored--unless the victim is someone from a more "respectable" part of town. The policy seems to be, what happens in the ghetto stays in the ghetto.

But it is worse than that, since the problem also extends down to European teens and young men, who, being chronically underemployed because of systemic labor market distortions, and provided with a comfortable living by the social welfare system, have time on their hands to turn to feral and predatory behavior. One of the more bizarre forms involves gangs of punks walking up to people at random, often on the bus or subway, and hitting them in the head while other members of the gang video record the incident, which is later posted on U-Tube.

As I said, crime rates in Europe are skyrocketing, and many European capitals are much less safe than New York, LA, Chicago, or even DC.

But it's OK, because Europeans have a much lower incarceration rate than we in the U.S., which shows how humane and enlightened they are compared to us. The Euro-elites, living in their guarded enclaves, are way above all this stuff, which is why they can afford to be mired in the era when midnight basketball and summer job programs were going to end crime in the big city.

In fact, the Bratton-Giuliani model works very well, if you have the cojones to implement it and the moral courage to resist the squeals of the chattering class when you do. But not even Nicholas Sarkozy seems to have what it takes to do that.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>All of our laws and regulations make good King George look like a libertarian!<<<

Actually, he was. And Georgian England had a very low incarceration rate (if you exclude the debtors, that is). One reason is there were two hundred offenses on the books punishable by death (including stealing a lace handkerchief), and this penalty could be applied to children as young as ten. That tended to keep the prison population neatly pruned.

On the other hand, the law was seldom applied in its full ferocity, because even the English recognized its irrationality, and because there were other, more useful purposes the condemned could serve. Only about a third of all death penalties were actually executed, the remainder being given alternative punishments which included: transportation to America or Australia (which explains why we are what we are); pressing into the Navy (as Johnson said, all the attractions of prison with the added possibility of drowning); and recruitment into the army (Wellington knew whereof he spoke when he called them "the scum of the earth"--but then added, "it is really remarkable what splendid fellows we have made of them").

Perhaps one should consider a reversion to the Georgian system, which had the benefits of being cheap, unintrusive (the state left you alone unless you violated one of the laws), and inefficient (which encouraged people to police themselves)--three of the things libertarians ought to seek in any form of government.

[Joe Long]

"How can we call our culture 'good' when so many men (created in the image of God, by the way) cannot function in accordance with the rules?

Anyone?"

Nick, you're not picking me; right charitable of you to address me at all. Nevertheless I don't have a great problem with this aspect of our society at all.

"Cannot function" or simply "do not function" in accordance with its rules? I find it difficult to believe that armed robbery (for instance) can be an irresistible urge, predestination fan though I am.

Likely it's my Presbyterianism that puts me entirely in sympathy with the Founders' view of human nature. "Total Depravity of Man" plays out in society; naturally a percentage of men will not play in accordance with the rules. Our system allows better than most for human nature, and is more in line than many with "natural consequences" (like crime and punishment)- in fact, MY criticisms of our system usually focus on the modern, "compassionate" ways we stand BETWEEN mankind and his "natural consequences".

Imprisonment is actually a rather recent punishment; prisons used to be places one waited for sentencing and punishment, not formal punishments in themselves, and the story of their transformation into "penitentiaries" (places one was supposed to become "penitent", in near-monastic conditions - hence the word "cell") is an interesting bit of history.

[Sandra Miesel]

Ah, those fabled Good Old Days before industrialization. Studies of court, sheriff, and coroner's records reveal that medieval England was about as violent as the modern urban American ghetto. Although distilled spirits were not yet available, drunkeness was a factor in many homicides and accidental deaths (including drunken cart driving). There were also violent gangs, but on a different model from ours--they were run by nobles and gentry. With such patrons pulling strings plus jurymen's reluctance to doom their neighbors, the conviction rate for felonies was low (in the single digits).

For the record, I grew up on a tiny subsistence farm in the rural South. The simple agrarian life is far too thickly swathed with romance by those who haven't lived there.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Ah, those fabled Good Old Days before industrialization. Studies of court, sheriff, and coroner's records reveal that medieval England was about as violent as the modern urban American ghetto. <<<

Moreso, actually. Violence was endemic, law enforcement sporadic and generally ad hoc.

>>>For the record, I grew up on a tiny subsistence farm in the rural South. The simple agrarian life is far too thickly swathed with romance by those who haven't lived there.<<<

I've tried to tell them, but they don't listen.

[GL]

>>>For the record, I grew up on a tiny subsistence farm in the rural South. The simple agrarian life is far too thickly swathed with romance by those who haven't lived there.<<<

I grew up on a small family farm aw well, a real farm, not a hobby farm. It wasn't easy, but it wasn't extremely hard either. I wouldn't want to exaggerate the circumstances either way. I was never interested in living the rest of my life that way, but even had I wanted to, the economics of it made that practically impossible. My father, who died in 1980, was the last full-time farmer in our little farming community. For awhile, there were a few weekend farmers and renters. Now, the area is largely a place inhabited by people who earn their living in town, which is about five miles away, or are retired. I would say that I know as much as you about late 20th century farm live in America and more than those who never actually lived the life.

Again, the issue we were discussing was why in the late 19th and early 20th century we suddenly decided we needed to criminalize narcotics. As I said, I believe it was Victorianism gone to seed, not industrialism, but others have a different view. Frankly, there are still a lot of conservatives who hanker to a return to Victorianism. I'm not one of them. I would prefer ending one of its remaining vestiges: the war on drugs.

[GL]

>>>How can we call our culture "good" when so many men (created in the image of God, by the way) cannot function in accordance with the rules?

Anyone?<<<

I think your assessment has some merit. Indeed, the war on drugs, which I have already mentioned, is another example of a fairly recent increase in the intrusiveness of government. Until the late 19th and early 20th century America, it wasn't a crime to smoke hemp or use laudanum (which contained heroin) or, like the fictional Sherlock Holmes, give yourself an injection of a 7% solution of cocaine or, for that matter, to drink a Coca-Cola when it still had all of its original ingredients (though the actual amount of cocaine in Coca-Cola was probably very small, it remained in the beverage until 1929).

Many of our greatest Americans would be in prison if they acted as they did in their day and were subject to today's laws. Washington grew hemp and took laudanum. Edgar Allen Poe and Mary Todd Lincoln also used laudanum (Of course, let's face it, their examples probably are good advertisements for why it was and is a bad idea.) If you want to go across the Pond, you'll find that Dickens, Percy Shelley, and Lewis Carroll used laudanum (that probably explains Jabberwocky.) In my current home of Memphis, cocaine could be bought legally on Beale Street 100 years ago. (I am sure you can still buy it there, but if you're caught, they'll send you to prison today.)

As I have mentioned before on this blog site, Thomas Aquinas addresses your concern (an mine) in this regard:

Human law . . . does not lay upon the multitude of imperfect men the burdens of those who are already virtuous, viz., that they should abstain from all evil. Otherwise, those imperfect ones, being unable to bear such precepts, would break out into yet greater evils: thus it is written . . . (Matth. ix. 17) that if new wine, i.e., precepts of a perfect life, is put into old bottles, i.e., into imperfect men, the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, i.e., the precepts are despised, and those men, from contempt, break out into evils worse still.

Summa Theologica, I, II, Q. 96, art. 2. (quoted in Charles Rice, 50 Questions on the Natural Law: What It Is and Why We Need It, p. 93). Quoting St. Augustine, On Free Will, i, 5, Aquinas adds: The human law "'allows and leaves unpunished many things punished by Divine Providence.'" Ibid.

I do believe that another thing which would help here is to abandon industrial-sized schools and return to small neighborhood schools, especially in the inner city. Advocates of economies of scale and liberal attempts at social engineering helped destroy neighborhood schools. Quality education is more of a craft than an assembly line. The former is more expensive, but the added cost is made up in the quality of the end product. I believe it would help a lot for children to have close personal relationships with teachers and principles and to be in a small enough environment and corrected as needed. Corporal punishment (without fear of being sued) would likely also be helpful. I think this is especially true for children without fathers in their lives. The teacher cannot replace the father, but it is better to have some influence than none at all. Unless we can get the public schools out of liberal indoctrination, however, it might do more harm than good. Vouchers to send the children to private schools would also help.

[jason]

Well I stopped reading after about a dozen comments. I just want to echo everything said above in favor of returning honor to technical vocations and disparaging the the idea that everyone must go to University. However, public school would then need to really prepare people for life and try to instill not only a love for learning but instill in students the understanding that they can continue a life of learning with or without the University.

[Bob]

"the understanding that they can continue a life of learning with or without the University."

Indeed. Sometimes (often? always?) more successfully without than with.

[Sandra Miesel]

No, I don't know about late 20th C farming from personal experience. My farm years were pre 1952, but might as well have been in 1922.

Why this enthusiasm among the presumably temperate readers of this board for "drugs"? Laudanum was a tinture of opium, not heroin. It had a legitimate use as a painkiller besides being the vehicle of addiction. Who imagines that Washington grew that hemp to smoke and not for rope? Which specific drugs would commenters like to legalize? Pot? Ecstacy? Opium, morphine, heroin, cocaine? Hallucinogens? PCP? Amphetamines? Why not sell oxycontin and the like over-the-counter? Why not agitate for absinthe while you're at it? Why have Pure Food & Drug Laws at all?

If opposition to addictive drugs is "Victorian" what of the draconian measures (ie shooting them) adopted in China against opium addicts? Or current practice in Singapore?

I suspect at least some of the comments above were made without personal acquaintance with addicts or addiction.

[labrialumn]

1) yes
2) the second term in English (though with apparent Norman French provenance) is 'bastard'.
3) It is difficult to teach boys *as though they were girls*. To get boys to behave like girls requires far too much of the teacher's time, and isn't a very effective way to get a boy's undivided attention. But it is very Prussian and Progressivist.
4) Yes, let us retake the Boy Scouts from the Mormons and the Leftists who want to destroy it.
5) Those jobs have been exported.
6) Hey, if they can vote. . . .

How about we:
1) Execute those whom the Bible says to execute - where the Biblical standards of evidence are met (that isn't very often)
2) Where the Bible teaches reparations, let us garnish paychecks, not imprison.
3) Let us cast off these multiplications of laws and officers sent to enforce them that eat out our substance (to paraphrase the Declaration of Independence)

Of course, as Mr. Esolen says, I'm always wrong.

[Seth R.]

"4) Yes, let us retake the Boy Scouts from the Mormons and the Leftists who want to destroy it."

I beg your pardon?

[GL]

Sandra,

I have never used any narcotics in my life. I never even smoked pot. I do, however, have personal acquaintances with several drug addicts, including a cousin who ruined his life by becoming a drug addict and several homeless men who I have met in my volunteer work at a homeless shelter. I have a friend from my school days who was a promising scholar and athlete who has spent most of his adult life in prison because of drug addition and the life of crime into which it led him.

I do not believe any of them benefited one little bit from being sent to jail for their use and possession of drugs. All it did was add to their misery. If you know a drug addict, you know that they are miserable enough without being in prison. (By the way, have you ever visited a prison? I have. They are not nice places. No one in his right mind would want to live there.) If they were sent to prison for other crimes, that's appropriate.

St. Thomas' admonition about putting new wine in old wine skins has been proved to be wise both by the prohibition of alcohol and the war on drugs. Both did more harm than good, both treated social ills and personal diseases as crimes, and both fueled more violence and death than alcoholics and drug addicts ever did on their own. And the war on drugs has filled our prison to levels unknown in any other "free" nation in the world. (According to the Justice Department, 1 out of four persons in prison are there for a drug offense.) Indeed, as I have said in the past, one must call into question whether a nation is truly "free" when so many of its citizens are in prison, especially if they are there for a "crime" which largely involves harming themselves. Finally, the effort has been an absolute failure. Repeatedly doing the same thing and expecting a different result is not a sign of sanity.

I am in favor of our government doing a number of things to discourage drug use, especially among the young, just as it acts to discourage tobacco use and excessive drinking. It certainly needs to send a strong signal that using drugs is a social ill and extremely harmful to the individual and society. The idea, however, that all moral wrongs and social ills must be treated as crimes, however, has caused much more harm than good. (See again St. Thomas.) Government has many options to address such problems. It need not address all of them with the blunt instrument of the criminal code.

[GL]

By the way, I notice that no one other than Stuart has addressed the issue of using prisons to care for the mentally ill. According to the Justice Department, more than one million of our prisoners are mentally ill. Now some of them undoubtedly become that way while incarcerated. Having visited prisons, I can certainly see how that could happen. Those folks are there because of committing crimes while sane. But some of them were mentally ill before committing the crime that sent them there. They should have been in an institution where they could be treated with care for their illness and where they do not pose a threat to society.

I recall a couple of years ago reading that 50 years ago our nation had 600,000 beds in institutional settings for the mentally ill; today the number is 40,000. Many of those who should have been institutionalized are either homeless or in prison. In this regard, our nation's policies are not only flawed, they are cruel.

Just treating drug addiction and mental illness for what they are, diseases, would do a lot to lower the incarceration rate.

[labrialumn]

Bob, true, university education has moved away from being higher education to being concrete-operational level votech, hasn't it?

Joe,
If they have ADHD, they -should- take Ritalin, or preferably something newer and better. That doesn't make them act like something other than boys. Not letting them point fingers and say 'bang' or require them to sit still for hours, or not letting them play cowboys and indians -that- is making them act like girls. ADD and ADHD are real organic brain conditions that are repeatably viewable on brain scans. There appear to be at least six different conditions that get put under that label.

It would perhaps be better if the terms of shame could be applied to the mother and father who refused to wed, than the child. I suppose the real English term is 'by-blow'.

Some of those illegal drugs are so addicting that it is not responsible to expect responsible behavior from those who have taken them even once. How do you propose dealing with that situation? Many recreational pharmaceuticals today are far more refined and potent than what was available in the past.

Bill, now there is a use of "ultra vires" I hadn't thought of. Clearly the sire in those cases acted beyond the competencies including honor, of his manhood. . .

After WWII, when most Americans were still farmers, the GIs returning from the war only remembered the Depression. They hadn't experienced the mechanized family farm that came into its own during the war, so they often went ot the cities, especially thanks to the GI bill (others didn't, took their GI bill classes in agriculture, taught by such people as my grandfather). They didn't know how much farming had changed.

Kirk, I would hazard a guess (and it is only that) that is the combination of our Progressivist government education system, the welfare state, and the cultural promotion of fractional sub-Saharan-roots-Americans as a permanent underclass in their -own- subculture, and that being reinforced in the schools by 'multiculturalism' so that they never assimilate, and the family is at the same time destroyed by the triple forces of illegitimate mothers getting more welfare than an unemployed family, the sub-cultural scene (rap, hip-hop as examples) and the promotion of fornication as the expected norm by the government schools.

Another possible factor might be overcrowding. We see very similar behaviors in rats when they are made to undergo overcrowding.

An additional possible factor may once again lie in our Prussian-model Progressivist education system, which strongly encourages the dissolution of family and community bonds (and was enacted for that purpose) in favor of age-group bonds. Thus young men instead of protecting and providing for their extended families (without a job, you can still do chores), roam together like wild dogs on the streets. Where you still have intact families in rural areas, you don't see that so much.

Stuart, under the law which God gave Israel, how many would be imprisoned? Are we wiser than God?

Kirk, we do *not* have the right to speak our minds. Try that as a student or teacher in school or a university. Try that in a business. Try that in New Mexico or California.

Sandra,
I grew up on a (by today's standards) small farm in the upper Midwest. Maybe the region is the reason that it really is the best, most early American, and Biblical-dream lifestyle this side of heaven (although fig trees and domestic grapes don't grow this far north ;-). Of course this was long after the corn harvest was done by machine, rather than by hand, before the combination reaper-harvester, each ear had to be picked and shucked by hand, one of the toughest jobs there has ever been.

Wendell Berry lives on the land, in a more southerly environment. He doesn't have the negative view that you did. Perhaps there were other factors.

Possibly one of the greatest mistakes during reconstruction (other than readmitting those States into the Union a couple generations too soon) was not forcibly removing the former slaves to the unsettled frontier and giving them their quarter section and mule -there-, far away from Jim Crow laws and the KKK.

Sorry Stuart, I know better, from personal experience, and that of my parents and grandparents. I'd be farming myself if the economics didn't forbid it.

[labrialumn]

Seth, you misread the grammar. It is the leftists who want to destroy the Boy Scouts.

[GL]

>>>Who imagines that Washington grew that hemp to smoke and not for rope?<<<

By the way, Sandra, you are correct about why Washington grew hemp. He could do so without getting a license to do so. Now, in almost all states, you have to get permission from the DEA to grow hemp. (I do believe some states are working on laws which would permit farmers to once again grow it without a permit from the DEA.)

Have you ever heard about the case of Employment Division v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990). It involved two men, one Native American, who lost their jobs in Oregon for using peyote as a sacrament as part of their Native America religion. The employees challenged the law as applied to their religious practices and the Supreme Court, in upholding the application of the law, lowered the standard for when laws may restrict religious practices. As a consequence, Congress enacted The Religious Freedom Restoration Act (42 U.S.C. § 2000bb, also known as RFRA), which, among other things, sought to restore the old standard which was more protective of religious freedom. The Supreme Court struck down that provision of RFRA in City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507 (1997). So among the many victims of our asinine war on drugs is the greater degree of protection afforded religious practices before Employment Division v. Smith.

By the way, all sorts of banking regulations require reporting of banking transactions to the federal government so that they can use that information to detect drug crimes. So if you make an unusually large deposit or withdraw, your personally banking transaction becomes part of a government database. I could go on and on and on. Most Americans have no idea how much law-abiding, non-drug using citizens have had their freedoms and privacy jeopardized in any effort to fight a futile war by means of the criminal code. That is yet another reason to end this nonsense.

[Joe Long]

"If opposition to addictive drugs is 'Victorian' what of the draconian measures (ie shooting them) adopted in China against opium addicts? Or current practice in Singapore?"

Actually drug "policy" is one area in which the Victorians simply indulged different contradictory policies than we do. After all, there was the "Opium War" - the precise opposite of a "War on Drugs": a war to keep a sovereign nation FROM impeding traffic in destructive, addictive substances. But I do think "legalized laudanum" was pretty sane and responsible compared to, say, the resources we waste fighting pot.

And of course, I don't use "Victorian" as a derogative; when I hear that a policy or idea is "Victorian" I am inclined to give it further consideration on that recommendation alone. It usually means either that it characterized a very successful, energetic period in the history of the English speaking nations, or that liberals hate it, or (best of all) both.

Perhaps the policy COULD be more sane, with societal values more intact; with no moral code or social penalties against being a pothead, we have only the "blunt instrument" of law to discourage the behavior.

On another subject: prisons are a cruel place to put the mentally ill, but the dangerous mentally ill had better be kept in prisons at present - for there are too many legal impediments to keeping them in proper asylums.

We have a "compassionate" policy that dumps many non-criminal, mentally ill folks back out into crazy homelessness, just because they were briefly stabilized in medications they will no longer take when they leave the institution. This gives me no confidence in the government's ability to protect criminally-violent patients - or protect other citizens FROM those patients - outside a prison setting. Alas, that is the best the "custodial state" can be expected to do.

[GL]

>>>Execute those whom the Bible says to execute - where the Biblical standards of evidence are met (that isn't very often)<<<

Amen. Many of those who advocate the death penalty (and I am in favor of it in some cases) and cite the Bible as their justification fail to consider the rules of evidence and procedure which the Bible MANDATED. They go together. One cannot justify the death penalty through citation to Scripture without also demanding that Scriptural rules of evidence and procedure be followed. Otherwise, it is just prooftexting out of context.

[Seth R.]

Labrialumn,

Glad to know we aren't out to destroy the Boy Scouts. So I guess your comment was just lamenting that the LDS are one of the few organizations that still even care about Boy Scouts, and were wishing more people were on-board?

[W.E.D. Godbold]

Ms. Miesel,
The active ingredient in opium is morphine. Heroin is simply an acetylated version of morphine. The addition of two acetyl groups to the free hydroxyls allow it to pass the blood-brain barrier about 100 fold more readily and thereby affect the central nervous system. (I'm currently writing a report on the BBB.)

Morphine and the synthetic derivatives bind to a variety of opioid receptors to exert their effects. We humans make a variety of endogenous peptides (like enkephalin) that are the natural ligands for these things.

[Bill R]

I have been following much of this debate without contributing since I am a fence-sitter: I have no fixed opinion on this subject. But I think that by and large GL has made the better case. I find myself somewhat reluctant to admit GL's points, however, perhaps due to a latent Victorianism. Who knew?!

[Joe Long]

"One cannot justify the death penalty through citation to Scripture without also demanding that Scriptural rules of evidence and procedure be followed. Otherwise, it is just prooftexting out of context."

A great point but I don't really follow you quite that far. It seems entirely legitimate to me to say, "As Scripture mandated the death penalty in certain cases, the death penalty is clearly a legitimate tool in the state's toolbox." Obviously the circumstances in which Scripture permits/mandates the death penalty are then highly instructive; but St. Paul in Romans 13 more-or-less signs off on Roman application of the death penalty as legitimate - certainly NOT because they were following Scriptural procedures (indeed, they had executed Christ and would eventually execute Paul himself). The Old Testament declares that Israel should execute particular sorts of evildoers with attendent proper procedure - but both the Old and New Testaments take for granted that kings, righteous and otherwise, will in their proper capacity as kings "execute wrath". So the Biblical outlook gives us "Quod Semper, Quod Ubique, Quod Ab Omnibus": what everyone's always understood, is the way things oughtta be.

[GL]

Perhaps, Joe. A good Jewish friend of mine (also a law professor) maintains that the strict penalties demanded in the Old Testament were seldom actually employed because the rules of evidence made conviction difficult.

[Seth R.]

GL,

That was the same view I read from a Christian legal scholar whose name I can't remember. He claimed that conviction for adultery (at least when the people weren't bending the rules) was really difficult due to the requirement of two witnesses. Of course, the main two witnesses were not likely to be all that talkative.

He even claimed that what Christ really did with the woman-taken-in-adultery story was demand witnesses. When none were produced, she was free to go.

[Stuart Koehl]

The deck was always stacked, since the witnesses could only be free Jewish men. The testimony of women and slaves did not count. This cuts both ways, as we see in places like Saudi Arabia today: on the one hand, it is difficult to convict an innocent man; on the other, it is difficult for a woman to get justice under any circumstances.

[Wonders for Oyarsa]

Hi Seth,

I would argue that Jesus is doing far more than that.

[Stuart Koehl]

My targum on the woman with adultery would be this:

The woman is the Lost of Israel, who have broken their covenant the Lord, chasing after foreign gods, and therefore guilty of adultery. The crowd who wish to stone her represent the those who consider themselves among the righteous of Israel (the Pharisees, the Sadducees and assorted others), who, having (in their minds) kept the Covenant, seek to purify Israel by ridding it of those they consider sinners. Jesus does not invoke the Mosaic laws of evidence (which might not have applied in any case--two people can walk in on a couple in flagrante delecto as easily as one), but instead invites an examination of conscience that reminds the mob that 'there is no man who lives and does not sin). As Paul will later amplify, the Law kills, because there is no man who can keep the Law in its totality. Those who consider themselves justified before God through the Law will be shocked to discover that they, too, are condemned by the Law. Those, on the other hand, who seek mercy through Christ will be granted mercy.

This is a recurrent theme throughout the Gospels, and most particularly in the Parables: those who think themselves within the Kingdom will find themselves on the outside; those considered on the outside can find their way in through Christ.

Johns artistry and theological insights here rise to the level of genius. He recounts in an extraordinarily matter-of-fact manner an event that obviously happened much as he recounted it (the extraneous detail of Jesus drawing figures in the dust is an example of eyewitness verisimilitude), then penetrates the superfices of the incident to uncover the profound theological meaning underlying the actions of Jesus. It is an example of divine inspiration in the composition of the Gospels, because nobody will write anything like this again for centuries to come.

[Micah C.]

As a Deputy Sheriff in Los Angeles County, I have a lot of experience dealing with the "scum of the earth", the down-and-out, the incorrigible, hard core gang members, drug addicts and dealers. A couple points to start with:

1. In California, even repeat drug offenders get what is known as "Prop 36" - they are sentenced to probation with drug testing and counseling mandated by the courts. Time in jail is often limited to waiting for trial (but most plead no contest to get sentenced within a few days). Marijuana offenders usually only get a fine, even probation is rare (jail time is unheard of). Drug dealers (as evidenced by large quantity, scales, packaging, etc.) get slapped with anywhere from a few months in jail to a year or two, with probation following. This is considered an acceptable and pretty much unavoidable risk of "doing business" by the dealers, who usually go right back out and start dealing again.

2. Drug addicts are instrumental in ruining society for two reasons: A) they are often incapable of caring for their children, thus allowing them to grow into little incorrigible trouble-makers, and B) they need money to buy their drugs, even though they can't hold a decent job. To get the money, they turn to auto burglaries, home burglaries, and occasional street robberies. We have a saying that if you arrest a druggie, you just prevented a burglary in the neighborhood. In my experience, it's true. See point 1, and you see that arresting a drug addict prowling the street, which leads to having them sentenced to give up drugs and enter counseling, is actually a pretty good solution. Note also that we aren't braking into people's houses and dragging them to prison because they smoked some meth in their house - these are the people walking around through your neighborhood at two in the morning!

Ultimately, society's ills come from rejecting moral absolutes. If you are just an evolved animal, why not follow every lust and impulse you have, whether it be to eat ice cream, rob, rape, or kill? What moral imperative do you have to look after the weak and helpless if survival of the fittest is what it's all about? If there is no such thing as morality, eating ice cream is just one way of satisfying your desires, and so is bludgeoning someone you are mad at. With this lack of moral foundation, what makes you think that society would be self-governing: that is, people would not drive unless they were competent (and then we could do away with driver's licenses), people would be good parents and not destroy their life and their neighborhood with drug use (and then we could let everyone self-medicate with any drug of their choice), etc, etc. Unfortunately, a very large segment of society isn't responsible, and a lot of them need a strong guiding hand that strikes fear into them - fear of being caught and taken to jail. Otherwise, your neighborhood would descend into chaos and disorder.

As a final note, I have spoken with many guys behind bars who say they are glad they got taken to jail, because that's what they needed to get their life back on track. If they think so... who am I to disagree?

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>As a final note, I have spoken with many guys behind bars who say they are glad they got taken to jail, because that's what they needed to get their life back on track. If they think so... who am I to disagree?<<<

As, e.g., with Robert Downey, Jr., who recently seems to have gotten his life back in order and taken a turn to the right. He said in an interview that when you go from a $20,000/night penthouse in Vegas to a prison cell, it alters the way you look at life, and you can never hold comfortable liberal beliefs about human nature again.

[Nick]

I agree with The Other Nick's answers of the questions. I have to take issue with those that see the drug war as a lost cause.

First, as Micah points out, drug users create a negative societal feed-back loop. Think about it, the current batch of drug using criminals have flaunted a legal system for a substance for which they have no cultural attachment (on the whole) to. This is an order of magnitude different from prohibition where a legal system opposed an existing culture. Modern "drug-users" _are_ hardened criminals.

As to the somewhat special case of marijuana, these are also individuals who are flaunting the legal system. In addition, as Micah points out, it is entirely common to overlook marijuana offenses. Heck, you can watch "Cops" to see instances where the drug is confiscated and the marijuana user walks off with a mild sermon as punishment. This makes the whole "our jails are filled with poor marijuana users" argument disappear into, dare I say it, a puff of smoke.

[Bill R]

Micah, please stick around. We need your perspective here. Thanks!

[Seth R.]

Nick, a couple episodes of COPS is hardly a slam-dunk argument from experience. Besides, this basically turns marijuana possession into a police-discretion issue that they can use to play favorites with the law. If they like you, you get a lecture. If they don't like you, you go to jail.

I've heard sheriffs in interviews remarking that a bone-headed legislative focus on marijuana is actually diverting resources in their departments from the really nasty stuff - like crystal meth. That stuff will really mess you over, or kill you. The labs are some of the most hazardous crime scenes police have to investigate. And it's just rampantly on the rise - especially in rural areas. But our legislatures are too hung up on controversies over silly little marijuana laws to really notice.

[Joe Long]

Yes, Micah, many thanks!

Theodore Dalrymple is the pen name of a British prison psychiatrist; his "Life at the Bottom: The Worldview that Makes the Underclass" is an absolutely tremendous book. (Google him for free samples of outstanding essays...) Dalrymple has also spoken with many prisoners in a professional capacity; his relation of those conversations is fascinating.

He relates one common conversation, in which a prisoner explains that he's only in jail (well, "gaol") because he's "easily led".

"Oh? And were you easily led to study French grammar? Could I now easily lead you to learn algebra?"

(He reports that a common response is an "okay, you caught me" sheepish grin, and an immediate change in relationship since he's no longer seen as a likely good target for scamming.)

A major theme of the book is society's encouragement of the criminal to see himself as victim, and his crimes as impersonal manifestations of his social pathologies. "It was like someone else did it; I'm not really like that." One chapter is called "The Knife Went In", from a common criminal excuse for a deliberate stabbing. Dalrymple contends that insofar as "society is to blame", society is often to blame for removing a sense of personal responsibility.

I'll take our justice system any day, over any reforms which are based on the "crime is society's fault" model - Dalrymple's British litany of horrors provides reason enough.

[Chuck]

>>As a final note, I have spoken with many guys behind bars who say they are glad they got taken to jail, because that's what they needed to get their life back on track. If they think so... who am I to disagree?<<

I hope there are some here who are familiar with the writings of Theodore Dalrymple, the British psychiatrist and prolific essayist. He made a similar point on the CBC radio program "Ideas" about a year-and-a-half ago when he said that he had met men in prison (he was also a prison doctor) who were glad to be there for two reasons: 1) the ordered life in prison was easier for them to handle. If they followed the rules they were likely to be left alone. The freedoms of life on the outside were something they couldn't manage. 2) Even though these men were not homosexuals, their relationships with women were so "chaotic" (Dalrymple's word) that it was a relief to be away from them. (No doubt the women in their lives felt much the same way about these men.) Dalrymple also points out that, judging from the inmates he has met, many (all?) incarcerated for trafficking wouldn't return to a decent, honest life if drugs were legalized. They would simply turn to other forms of crime. The kind of life that other people aspire to, that is, ordinary life with a mortgage and utility bills, is for suckers. Trafficking may decrease but the people who now do it would simply turn into some other kind of criminal.

You can read Dalrymple's "Don't Legalize Drugs" and other essays here at City Journal. Also read "All Sex, All the Time".

[Chuck]

I see Joe Long beat me to it.

[GL]

Micah,

I have nothing but respect for law enforcement and I thank you for your work doing a thankless job. I repeat Bill R.'s request that you stay around.

Having said that, I still disagree with using the criminal code to fight to war on drugs. I believe, overall, it has been a huge policy mistake. I have stated my reasons and won't repeat them. I respect your view, but I respectful disagree.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>1) the ordered life in prison was easier for them to handle. If they followed the rules they were likely to be left alone. The freedoms of life on the outside were something they couldn't manage. 2) Even though these men were not homosexuals, their relationships with women were so "chaotic" (Dalrymple's word) that it was a relief to be away from them. <<<

Enough to make one think that sending these people to the army or navy has some merit. Of course, now there are so many women in the services that it would defeat the point. Still, looking back on the bad old days, it is remarkable how many socially incorrigible types turn out to be solid soldiers or sailors, even heroes--but only so long as they were under military discipline.

[Joe Long]

"Still, looking back on the bad old days, it is remarkable how many socially incorrigible types turn out to be solid soldiers or sailors, even heroes--but only so long as they were under military discipline."

My first reaction is negative for a number of reasons - "volunteer force", "citizen soldier", Aristotle's take on military courage, but mostly the gut conviction that the warrior role is among a man's highest duties. We can't let the elites who disdain it already, have an excuse to consider it to be something for the criminal class. Are we French, that we should develop an elite corps from our criminals...?

But you're right, of course, about the men who have, historically, turned out so "corrigible" after all - better to catch them early, though, so that rather than attempting to turn a criminal into a soldier, we can maybe direct a young man towards becoming a soldier instead, from the get-go.

Which is admittedly hard when criminal values and activities are taught and practiced so young.

[Kirk]

Joe Long wrote: >>>"Cannot function" or simply "do not function" in accordance with its rules? I find it difficult to believe that armed robbery (for instance) can be an irresistible urge, predestination fan though I am.<<<

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe.
She had so many children, she didn't know what to do.
She gave them some broth without any bread,
Then whipped them all soundly and put them to bed.

Joe, have you ever witnessed a harried mother accompanied by spoiled children; say, waiting to see the doctor? Despite her chastisement, the children refuse to obey and bounce off the walls. If one child scratches his initials into table, or breaks a vase, from a personal responsibility standpoint the child is certainly deserving of punishment; say, a spanking. But if the mother had been a better parent and had raised obedient and respectful children, then the child would have been saved from the punishment.

Likewise, I agree that we should hold criminals personally responsible for their free acts of illegal behavior; but I wonder if our society might be modified somehow so that the potential criminal follows not the life of crime.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Likewise, I agree that we should hold criminals personally responsible for their free acts of illegal behavior; but I wonder if our society might be modified somehow so that the potential criminal follows not the life of crime.<<<

It has something to do with original sin.

[Judy K. Warner]

Wait, I thought you easterners didn't believe in original sin.

[Joe Long]

Southerners sure do!

[Joe Long]

"But if the mother had been a better parent and had raised obedient and respectful children, then the child would have been saved from the punishment.

Likewise, I agree that we should hold criminals personally responsible for their free acts of illegal behavior; but I wonder if our society might be modified somehow so that the potential criminal follows not the life of crime."

With this metaphor you've absolutely nailed our difference here (while pointing out what we have in common too). I would like to see more positive forces in our society, certainly; like those that direct young men to the military (see comments above). But the state is not, must not be, "Mom" - the citizens are not "her" children, but ours, and our neighbors'.

It is within the state's power and responsibility to punish wrongdoers, but the state cannot - and must not try - to raise the children to be the sorts of citizens it wants. That's done on the family level - or by the "little platoons", the churches, the Scouts, what-have-you - and the state can do precious little for them, other than get out of their way.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Wait, I thought you easterners didn't believe in original sin.<<<

We believe in the ancestral curse, through which man became prone to death and corruption, which in turn lead to disordered passions, which incline man to sin--in fact, which make sin inevitable. Hence crime, like all sin, is the result of the fallenness of creation, a consequence of the fall of Adam.

>>>Southerners sure do!<<<

Note that Alexandria, Jerusalem, Antioch and Constantinople are all in the southern part of the old Empire.

[Joe Long]

"Note that Alexandria, Jerusalem, Antioch and Constantinople are all in the southern part of the old Empire."

AND y'all sorta seceded, too.

(No, no, don't treat that as a serious historical point! Just a cheap smart remark!)

[W.E.D. Godbold]

...and Stuart lives south of the Mason-Dixon and east of the Blue Ridge.

[Wonders for Oyarsa]

you think you'll find some mountains in western Colorado
fifty weeks of snowy peaks is where you're gonna be
but babe, the Rocky Mountains are gradually eroding
the hills of Coors are nothing more than Blue Ridge wannabes...

[Seth R.]

"Enough to make one think that sending these people to the army or navy has some merit."

Stuart, NPR actually did a story on current military recruitment problems that sort of makes that point. It said that with the military looking less and less attractive, the recruiters have had to lower their entrance standards - especially waiving criminal backgrounds.

The results of more ex-criminals in uniform has been mixed. On the one hand, they seem much more likely to have desertion problems and disciplinary problems. But on the other, they tend to advance in promotions more rapidly and get cited for valor in combat more often.

We wouldn't be the first society to take care of its criminal problems with military service. Maybe those other societies were onto something...

[W.E.D. Godbold]

One of the factoids I have cluttering my cranium is that the Appalachians were once of greater than Himalayan height. I think the Rockies are still young--so perhaps Wonders is right and they aspire to be what the Blue Ridge (and associated peaks) once was.

[W.E.D. Godbold]

Sometimes what a man actually needs to *be* a man is for somebody to trust him with something he thinks is important. It can be emasculating to do something you think nobody cares about.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Stuart, NPR actually did a story on current military recruitment problems that sort of makes that point. It said that with the military looking less and less attractive, the recruiters have had to lower their entrance standards - especially waiving criminal backgrounds.<<<

Most of these--and the number relative to the total number of recruits is small--are waivers issued for minor drug and juvenile offenses. Not even the CIA gives a damn whether you inhaled in your college days. If they did, they wouldn't have any recruits (Funny aside: neither my wife nor I ever indulged that vice, but when we said so on our polys, the examiner said we were lying; so much for the accuracy of lie detectors. We got clearances, anyway).

Most of the people coming in with waivers are good people--and in many cases, precisely the types you want for combat arms. I would trust them sooner than I would trust a congressman who takes umbrage at their presence in the ranks.

Even then, disciplinary problems are a fraction of what they were under our glorious conscript army--and nothing compared to the rates of the frontier army of the 19th century.

[labrialumn]

The woman caught in adultery story is spurious and late.

I wouldn't' base any doctrine on it.

[Kirk]

Well, I guess we've settled this question. Because of original sin, it doesn't matter what society or the government says or does. A certain percentage of any populace deserves to be in prison. That percentage is somewhat higher than the percentage of people incarcerated in the United States.

[Kirk]

>>>With this metaphor you've absolutely nailed our difference here (while pointing out what we have in common too). I would like to see more positive forces in our society, certainly; like those that direct young men to the military (see comments above). But the state is not, must not be, "Mom" - the citizens are not "her" children, but ours, and our neighbors'.<<<

Ah, but the mother of the story does not symbolize the State, but Society.

[Jenny Islander]

Re marijuana: When I was a kid, it was legal in my state to possess a small amount of marijuana. My husband knew a nice Mormon lady who grew a pot plant on her balcony for her grumpy tomcat to nibble on. It was known as the lazy person's drug of choice--potheads were stinky, undependable, awfully easily amused, and never seemed to have any money for anything but pot and munchies--but also as a good way to unwind after a grueling couple of weeks out fishing. Of course, even while it was legal, if you were growing a lot of it, you would be arrested.

The number of arrests for growing-with-intent-to-sell didn't seem to increase after pot was illegalized by a narrow margin in a state referendum . . . but after a couple of months, the news reports sure seemed to mention a lot more guns. Meanwhile, of course, pot continued to grow wild in all 50 states. And people kept right on smoking it and baking it into hash brownies, which are currently sold in my old high school under the name "space cake." Haven't we done this dance before?

I think that marijuana should be legal and subject to all of the regulations surrounding both smoking and alcohol: can't buy it under a certain age, can't drive under the influence, can't smoke it in most public areas (but enjoy a nice hash brownie and take a taxi home), restrictions on how much can be produced at home, and a nice hefty tax.

[Nick]

Seth,

I'm hardly basing my assessment on a few COPS episodes. I've also read policy statements by the DEA. The fact is that marijuana is a red hearing used, largely, by a white collar class of recreational drug users to make them secure in their not so secret vice. I find these people despicable because they, like most drug users, fuel further crime.

As to whether "The Drug War" proper has worked, I'd argue that it has. While drug use is cyclical we've been in a low swing for the "serious stuff" like crystal meth, heroine, and cocaine. Having grown up going to school on a rough side of town in California's drug co-corridor in the 80's I have a low tolerance for those that think marijuana traffic doesn't cause problems. In fact, I've had an ex-drug trafficker (he served his time and dropped the practice) over at my house several times. He was a user, farmer, and a dealer and funded his habit via petty crime and perpetuating the vice.

[GL]

>>>While drug use is cyclical we've been in a low swing for the "serious stuff" like crystal meth, heroine, and cocaine.<<<

I'm not sure if I understand what you are saying here, but if you mean relative use is down, that is likely due to demographics. As a rule, all crime, including drug use, is a young persons (primarily male) business. As a society grows older, the relative crime level normally drops. America is older than it was 20 - 30 years ago.

>>Having grown up going to school on a rough side of town in California's drug co-corridor in the 80's I have a low tolerance for those that think marijuana traffic doesn't cause problems.<<<

I never denied that drugs caused problems. I have merely asserted that criminalizing it has caused more problems than it has solved and government has other tools besides criminalizing a behavior to discourage it. See Jenny Islander's remarks regarding treating pot like tobacco and alcohol.

>>In fact, I've had an ex-drug trafficker (he served his time and dropped the practice) over at my house several times. He was a user, farmer, and a dealer and funded his habit via petty crime and perpetuating the vice.<<<

Criminalizing what he did raised the costs and the risk. Since he was already a criminal, why not a little more crime to raise the funds for his habit. Just as with Prohibition and just as St. Thomas told us long ago, criminalizing activities which ought not to be criminalized leads to more crime than would be the case if those activities were not criminalized. It is possible to make a problem worse rather than better.

Somehow, our nation managed from 1776 to 1914 to do without a federal war on drugs. It was under the progressive Wilson that the war began. It was escalated in 1937 under the progressive Roosevelt. Notice a pattern here? It was big-government liberals who started this war. It is folks who think that they are being conservatives who want to continue it. The true conservative position would be to go back to the way things were before the progressives started this war. Perhaps many of the problems Micah and Nick recognize are caused more by the criminalization of the drugs than the drug use itself and would be substantially mitigated were we to return to the approach used in this nation for the first 137 years of its existence. It worked when we repealed Prohibition. I think it is worth a try here. And, back to the original point of this post, perhaps we would end up with a lot less folks in prison.

[GL]

>>>The woman caught in adultery story is spurious and late.

I wouldn't' base any doctrine on it.<<<

I must admit that I am taken aback. Labrialumn, I have always found you to be one of the more conservative posters here. Your views on creation vs. evolution are likely what gave me that understanding. I am well aware that many modern - translations note that the earliest manuscripts lack 7:53 - 8:11. You, however, are one of the last folks here whom I would expect to accept the position that these verses are not, in fact, the inspired Word of God. What gives?

[labrialumn]

GL, what gives is that I'm a Bible-believing Christian. With an education including exegesis and awareness of how to evaluate text types and understand what the footnotes in the Nestle-Aland mean, how textual criticism is done, etc.

The pericope of the woman caught in adultery shows up in Luke and in several different places in John. It would appear that people thought the tale happened, and must have thought it had been left out of the text, so they stuck it in in various places. Likewise, I also reject the long ending of Mark.

I hope you aren't thinking that education and believing the Bible are in opposition by nature. . .

[GL]

>>>I hope you aren't thinking that education and believing the Bible are in opposition by nature.<<<

Of course not.

Labrialumn,

Refresh my memory. My recollection is that you are a young-earth creationists. Am I mistaken?

[Judy K. Warner]

I am undecided about legalizing drugs. I think there are good arguments on both sides. But I must say that doing so would not put us back into the condition we were in before they were made illegal. There is a drug culture now, and more addicted people, and drug lords making huge bucks. Organized crime began in a big way during prohibition and when that was repealed organized crime did not go away, it turned to other things. There could be many consequences to legalizing drugs that we have not thought of.

[DGP]

>>My targum on the woman with adultery would be this: The woman is the Lost of Israel.... The crowd who wish to stone her represent the those who consider themselves among the righteous of Israel.... Jesus...invites an examination of conscience that reminds the mob that 'there is no man who lives and does not sin).... Johns artistry and theological insights here rise to the level of genius.

Yes, well written. I've been away, so I'm only now reviewing threads, but I'd like to add one more remark to Mr. Koehl's commentary. Jesus' circumspection in the story highlights the hypocrisy of the crowd. Had they been sincerely interested in compliance with the Law, they would not have stopped to interrogate Jesus, but would have proceeded to apply it. Their lingering encounter with Jesus exposes both their disinterest in the Law as such and their intention to exploit it in a conspiracy against Jesus. Jesus simultaneously turns the Law back against them, transcends it, and rehabilitates it -- all in one pericope. Stunning genius.

[Clifford Simon]

GL,

Yes Labrialumn is not a party to the scientific cosmology, and I've even defended him here despite my knowledge as a physics student. He has claimed that his view may be derived by a careful analysis of the Hebrew in Genesis 1. I have to agree with you though, this combination of views is baffling. I'm afraid he's made it natural to wonder whether this "braininess" is following a rule of faith, or merely picking and choosing what seems intellectually satisfying at every moment.

[Bobby Winters]

>>>The pericope of the woman caught in adultery shows up in Luke and in several different places in John. It would appear that people thought the tale happened, and must have thought it had been left out of the text, so they stuck it in in various places. Likewise, I also reject the long ending of Mark.

I hope you aren't thinking that education and believing the Bible are in opposition by nature. . .
<<<

I may be misremembering, if so I beg correction and forgiveness, but I seem to remember taking a bit of heat from Labrialumn when I put forth my opinion that Jonah was a work of fiction.

[labrialumn]

GL,
Yes, I am a young-Earth creationist for scientific, Biblical, and theological reaons (see "creation->fall->redemption)

Mr. Simon, -I- think it is coherant. Obviously you don't.

Mr. Winters, Determining if Jonah is fiction or fact (Jesus seemed to think it was fact, so this has Christological implications), is a matter of genre, not papyrii and ostraca.

[GL]

>>>GL, what gives is that I'm a Bible-believing Christian. With an education including exegesis and awareness of how to evaluate text types and understand what the footnotes in the Nestle-Aland mean, how textual criticism is done, etc.

. . .

Yes, I am a young-Earth creationist for scientific, Biblical, and theological reaons (see "creation->fall->redemption)<<<

How do you know what Bible to believe (i.e, the one with John 7:53-8:11 and the ending of Mark or the one without it or the one with the Apocrypha/Deuterocanon or the one without it) and how do you know how to understand it correctly?

If you rely on Scripture alone, don't you have to first decide what is Scripture and, to do that, don't you end up relying either on the Church or on scholars?

And even if you have the education to judge the scholarship, isn't it true that the vast majority of mankind lack that education? How are they to decide?

How can your education make you reject the Textus Receptus and accept the Nestle-Aland and, at the same time, make you reject the accepted science on the age of the earth and accept the view that the earth is young which few, if any, outside a small percentage of Christians find persuasive?

I am asking these questions in all seriousness. Your positions, taken as a whole, seem to me to raise some troubling problems for Protestants like you and me.

[Joe Long]

"Well, I guess we've settled this question. Because of original sin, it doesn't matter what society or the government says or does. A certain percentage of any populace deserves to be in prison. That percentage is somewhat higher than the percentage of people incarcerated in the United States."

Kirk, the discussion's gone in other directions, but I would like to re-summarize from the impression which, perhaps, I gave;

Because of man's nature, which governments cannot transform nor society entirely mollify, crime is a permanent part of human society. While many criminals may "deserve" better - or worse - than incarceration, I think our incarceration rate is probably about right; seems to be driving crime down, anyway. I think our system - set up to err on the side of the accused - is a good one - but that a natural result of making good and sure that our convicts ARE criminals, does keep a certain number of our criminals running free.

Wanna drive down crime? Promote marriage, cut down illegitimacy and divorce, give men a stong sense of responsibility for their own actions and for their families - and government can't really do that. If we do have "too many men in prison" it is not because the ones we have there, don't belong there; it's because too many commit crimes in the first place.

[Clifford Simon]

>Mr. Simon, -I- think it is coherant. Obviously you don't.
I am not hostile. To his own master he stands or falls, is my attitude ... I hope you've observed this in my various comments toward you.