Re: OT - I may be in the minority


Sandi wrote:
"Eliyahu" <lrooff@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1146855378.346032.256470@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Haven't attended any. I just know what I've heard and read from the
Religious Right: Law and Order; Tough on Crime; build more prisons;
etc. etc.. It's increasingly clear that their idea of forgiveness
applies only to little stuff like sassing mom, not putting your clothes
away, and things like that. Major sins must be punished, and punished
as severely as possible.

Eliyahu

Come on, Eli, you're way too intelligent for that sort of stereotyping
rhetoric.

I'm talking about public Christianity, the way it's practiced; not the
theoretical version you read about in Sunday School books. It's the
same Christianity that brought us the Crusades, the Inquisition, Salem
Witch Trials, Pograms and other little "demonstrations" over the
centuries. It's the Christianity of Rush Limbaugh, Pat Robertson and
Jerry Falwell, promoting a God who really hates anyone who steps out of
line and delights in smashing him down.

And for the person who tried to argue that Judaism is the promoter of
"eye for an eye" justice, let me point out that the Rabbis have
interpreted that verse in Leviticus for millenia as meaning "the value
of an eye for the loss of an eye, and the value of a tooth for the loss
of a tooth." i.e., just compensation for losses, especially since the
verse in question deals with _accidental_ injuries and not those
inflicted intentionally. It was the writers of your New Testament who
promoted the misinterpretation of it and distorted what we actually
teach and have taught.

That said, forgiveness and social order are two different things. Only the
victim can forgive, and in our system (I don't have to tell you), it is not
the victim who maintains social order by convicting and punishing the
perpetrator.

That's changing, though. As the Victim-Industrial Complex grows in
power and influence, we're seeing the effects in our courts. We've
already had numerous cases where the court imposed far harsher
punishments and refused to exercise sentencing discretion solely
because the victim and/or victim's advocate objected to it. Had one
last week where the defendant was convicted of a sex offense against an
adult, was found amenable to treatment by the court's evaluator, asked
for the Special Sex Offender Sentencing Alternative, which would have
meant six months in prison followed by several years of intensive
outpatient treatment and community supervision. The judge was ready to
approve it until the victim's advocate objected, insisting that it was
unfair to the victim, at which point the court instead imposed a
ten-year sentence which will include no treatment at all. More and
more, the "victim impact statement" becomes the tool used to impose
sentence and decide the punishment.

In the so-called victimless crimes, forgiveness isn't even a
factor. We can't just go around patting those who commit crime on the head
and saying, "Go and sin no more," and expect not to devolve into complete
chaos.

I'm not talking about giving anyone a free ride. The point is that
it's often the most "religious" who are demanding the most draconian
punishments and conditions of confinement. Look at the members of this
forum, many of whom consider themselves to be "good Christians." What
do we see in this thread? Calls for harsher punishments, longer
sentences, work intended not to make the person more suited for life on
the outside, but intended to degrade and humiliate the person, and, in
general, showing a desire to make their lives as miserable as possible.


If, as you say, only the victim can forgive, why is it that the rest of
us will hold a grudge against the person and call for vengence in the
name of that same victim? If you can hold a grudge against someone,
you can certainly forgive that person AFA your response and
relationship to him is concerned.

Nor should the commission of crime be a ticket to free
self-improvement. There must be some punitive aspect to it. What do you
recommend?

As I pointed out, the courts and legislatures have all ruled that the
punishment is limited to the loss of liberty. Spend a few days in a
cell the size of your average bathroom with little to do, crummy food,
and someone else deciding every move you can make, and then try to
imagine living like that for years on end. In the case of the single
cells here at the local prison, most are approximately four by eight
feet. That's the size of a single *** of plywood, so lay a *** of
plywood down on the floor and imagine living in that space. (That
space includes your bed, toilet and sink, BTW.)

As far as "free self-improvement", what's wrong with improving people
while we're locking them up? We don't want them coming back again and
again, and the three things which have actually been shown to be
effective as far as rehabilitation are sincere religious conversion,
drug/alcohol treatment, and vocational and academic education. I think
you'll agree that we don't want people coming out of prison the same
way they went in, and we certainly don't want them returning to society
worse than before, so that leaves improvement as the only desirable
alternative. People who have gotten an education while in prison, who
have gone through programs to get off drugs and booze, who have learned
_real_ job skills, and those who have undergone a spiritual
transformation are far less likely to be back in the court system
again. Ironically, those are the very things that the public calls for
to be cut back or abolished in prison. ("If I can't get free education
and job training, why should they? And none of them really 'get
religion.' It's all a sham to make them look good to the staff.")

The fact is, if you want to get a feel for the real values and morality
of a society, one of the places to look is at their prisons to see how
they're run. If we treat prisoners like animals, it says a lot more
about us than about them. As an easy example, Google "North Korea
gulags" and read about their prison society. It matches perfectly what
we know about their society, government and culture. A Google search
for Canadian and British prison conditions will show a similar
correlation with their own values and the importance of rehabilitation
and reconciliation. Then do a similar search regarding US prison
conditions (be sure to include the infamous Maricopa County Jail in
Arizona) and see what it says about us.

Eliyahu

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