Clarence Darrow said it best.

 

"I have never killed any one, but I have read some obituary notices with great satisfaction."

Clarence Darrow

Recently, a right wing activist was murdered. No one important on the left is justifying his murder, but many are glad that this man is dead - he spewed hatred gussied up to sound acceptable to the younger generation. Although some of his points may have been valid (I never bothered to listen to this man's arguments), the general overtone of his messages have seduced people into believing the falsehoods spewed out by the right wing media. A quick look at the statistics will show that there are 3 times as many right wing assassinations than left wing assassinations in the USA. Yet, the right wing media conveniently ignores the murders committed by their loyalists and focuses on those from the left. Media bias in action to say the least.

I will never condone murder of any kind. Yet I wonder. If I could go back in time and erase the likes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao and others from history, would it be ethical to save millions of people by removing one from the earth? It's a simple case of the "Trolley Problem" on a larger scale. Most people would do nothing and let god (if there is one) decide. It is the rare person who would terminate the one person's life to save five lives. Yet, this is what many generals are tasked to do in wartime. So we have an ethical dilemma - what would you do? Sadly, there is no one right answer to problems like this. We can be glad that someone is dead. But we must prosecute the murderer to the best of our ability and get the guilty verdict he so rightly deserves.

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Right now, we are in a battle for our freedom. We can not use violence to achieve our ends, now that an authoritarian regime is in control of the federal government. If someone were to use terrorist tactics to attack the government, it would only result in an even more forceful crackdown on our personal liberties. So, what should we do?

It is said that people who chose not to study history are doomed to make the mistakes of the past But people who know history are able to see patterns of evil and use proven strategies to combat evil used by others in the past. Now is the time to study the tactics and strategies of Martin Luther King Jr. and Mohatma Gandhi. Although both leaders were asassinated, they achieved much of what they wanted in life. For Dr. King, he helped America realize that equal rights for all must become part of America's DNA. For Gandhi, it was the liberation if India from British rule.

I can still remember this man who stood in front of a row of Chinese tanks. What would happen if more of us were to stand in front of our president's goons and capture them on video as they break the law and attack innocent people? We already have seen his goons sink a Quebecers' boat on Lake Ticonderoga (on the small Canadian part of the lake) claiming he was in American waters. We have seen his goons sink a Venezualan boat with the false claim they were smuggling drugs into America. And to make things worse, the regime has deported American citizens, all in its attempts to "Make America White Again."

What can we do to short curcuit our president's evil actions? The only answer lies in non violent actions. Blockading ICE vehicles when they are harassing people is one thing to do. Video recording their illegal actions and sending it to the media (YouTube.com, Print Media, and Broadcast media) is an essential way to expose their crimes. There are many more things that one can do non violently. Any form of non violent resistance is essential. One should read how Dr. King and Gandhi achieved their goals, and use their methods.

Hopefully, we're not too late to stop this slide to authoritarianism....

A modest proposal for repurposing prisons and the employees in them

One of the problems we have in our society is that we have incarcerated people needlessly for low level drug crimes, causing us to spend over $90,000,000,000/year in keeping 0.5% of the USA's population locked up, and preventing them from looking for well paid (legal) work due to the fact that these people now have criminal records. 

Over the past few months, I have had a correspondence with a special-ed teacher in a New Jersey school district which is having trouble with an autistic child (19 years old) who is biting others, and is a danger to the school - but who is not being removed, due to the school's principal seeing this child as a source of school funding. The situation is very bad, and the staff is helpless in getting the problems fixed. 

So, I made the following suggestion:

I wonder if there isn't another way this problem can be attacked. The kid is 19, and he assaults people. What if someone made a formal complaint to the police, for assault. That would blow up things, and the administration might be forced to keep the kid out of school for the safety of others.... Also - what about notifying the parents of the other children that the biter could be putting their kids at risk? There are so many ways to blow up this situation before serious, permanent damage is done by this kid.....

And my friend responded:

I appreciate your ideas but with an administration (superintendent, principal & supervisor) who all came from a place where a whole class of 5 boys could be this bad and most classes had at least one of these (according to the gym teacher who also is from that school) I doubt much can be done. They did temporarily "exclude" (not expel) another kid, younger, who drank from the toilet and put his feces all over the walls in the bathroom. He also threw things at other kids (one of whom could get a detached retina easily as he is going blind anyway and has other medical issues). Our consulting psychiatrist did an eval now the parents must do their own before he is allowed to come back. Our shrink, who is terrific, said the kid needs meds before interacting with others but mom is opposed. At least that kid is out. Now -- this is where I said we have little hope of anything changing for the biter kid.... this poop smearing kid was in my friend (R)'s room. She is an outstanding teacher. She never, ever raises her voice. Every teacher knows she is wonderful and non assertive. When she got poop smear kid who is classified as 'autistic' put into her class and then he acted up she asked the principal why the kid was in her class and not the class (same ages) of all autistic. Well, anorexic principal didn't like being asked that I guess so when R was "observed and evaluated" the principal wrote lies, such as R didn't greet this monster kid when he arrived, didn't talk to him at all, etc. So she went to the union rep and it turns out the principal only admitted she was in the class 15 minutes not the 20 that is required for an observation so the whole thing had to be discarded !!! The union rep is convinced the ridiculous eval was due to R asking a legit question. Most of us who have been at the school 5 years and did NOT come from the principal's old school know that the reason this monster didn't get put in the autistic class was because that class is taught by the Japanese lady (aka 'golden girl') who, of course, taught with the principal in the old school district !!!! That teacher is never short of aides, like the rest of us are at times due to absenteeism. She gets first crack at substitutes, etc.

Many of our student's parents are just glad their kids are someplace and if the admin could figure out who notified these parents our jobs would be gone or we would be treated unfairly (like my pal R). Years ago in our adjacent school for the emotionally disturbed, a teacher did call the police and he was transferred to another school. Apparently the kids can injure us, maim us, grope us, etc and we have no alternative except a CPI (crisis prevention intervention) blocking action which does not work (according to the course we had to take) IF the student is bigger (the 19 year old is taller than me and all the female staff). I think we are stuck with having to put up with it because it is "special ed" -- I am definitely going to look for another job in April when jobs are posted, although I am realistic about finding a district that will hire someone over 50 --- it was hard enough when I was over 40 and looking and now I am "more expensive" since they will believe I won't take a starting salary. (I would take less but not starting).

P.S.: When "mentally challenged" people (usually men) get away with crimes, including murder, do you think anyone is going to do anything about this kid?


And this got me thinking....  What if we repurposed the prisons, so that they can hold "children" like this 19 year old "student" and remove him from society, so that he won't do any harm to innocent people?  They can be made very humane, provide lots of employment, and do a real good for people.

If we took ALL the money we'd save on incarceration and spend it on health care for the "mentally challenged", we'd free the low level drug users to earn more money and pay more in taxes.  Wouldn't this be a net gain for society?  Of course, corporations could have their current (and in my opinion, now foolish) drug tests for new employees, but then with most drugs being legal, I'd expect to see employee retention based on performance and not on what substances they consume outside of the office.  (Do we really need to arrest people like Willie Nelson for inhaling the vapors of his "medicine"? I'm pretty sure that his productivity (as well as other artists) is enhanced and not negated by cannabis.) We'd still have our laws against driving, using heavy equipment, or other high risk tasks, while under the influence of any drugs - so that abusers could be treated appropriately under the law.

In previous versions of my thought experiments on this topic, I never figured out a way to provide jobs in the areas that would lose them has my proposals taken effect. However, the answer was staring me in the face - just put a different class of people in "prisons" who really do need to be isolated from society, and keep the same players in the game. Yes, the court system will be affected. Police will not get as much overtime as they've been accustomed to. But in the whole, we'd be all be better off - including these "children" who will never likely be able to function in society as independent adults.....