Friday, March 4, 2016

The embarrassment of the American political scene...

Both my parents grew up in the Great Depression, and coincidentally supported with their votes Democrat candidates for most of their lives...To this day my mother still blames Herbert Hoover and the Republican Party for all the calamities that have occurred since 1929...To my knowledge, the only non-Democrat votes they ever cast were for Ronald Reagan because his message to Americans, and to the world was loud and clear...

My younger brother voted Republican until his death because he believed they represented the best direction forward for America and the world...I've voted Republican for national and local candidates since I attained the age of majority (which in my case was 21 since the 26th Amendment was yet to be ratified, although my enlistment in the military at 18 was accepted)...

In recent years local and state Republican candidates have received my support and my votes because of personal knowledge of them, and belief in the policies they represented...The last two presidential races saw my vote go to non-Republican candidates for the first time as I checked off the names for Libertarian nominees, even though some planks in the Libertarian platform will never gain my support...

Some will certainly look on those votes as "wasted" since I knew they had no chance of winning their races, but a vote for any other candidates would have represented even more wasteful decisions as neither the Republican nor the Democrat candidates showed me any intention other than to increase their own power...Today, I look on the national political scene in dismay as no recognized party organization has shown any direction toward a unified America...

Leadership has been replaced by the greed for power and personal wealth while each party has splintered into smaller factions of voters wanting to go their own directions with no heed toward a common goal, and no regard for the inevitable result: a nation with a small dab of satisfaction atop of a steaming mound of resentment...

The anybody-but-a-Republican crowd that has become the Democrat Party is forced to swallow the aspirations of either a barely concealed communist in his last grab at national power before his twilight descends, or a candidate who, had she been born a man, might have been convicted decades ago on any number of charges...The misery that an already suffering nation will endure in the grip of either can only be imagined in one's worst nightmares...

The Republican Party, struggling to uphold its perceived identity as the political home for conservatism, loses a bit more of its grip with each utterance from the noise outlets of the current herd pushing the American nation toward the brink of ruin...Once thought of as the best hope for survival of the American way of life, it has become so splintered as to more resemble a boiling pot of ooze with each fleeting bubble vying to pop the loudest, rather than an anchor in bedrock upon which the American people can base its hopes for the future...

Spearheaded by a pompous, vociferous showman best suited for a career as an unrepentant carnival barker, this group fairly jumps off the stage in its hand-waving, screaming attempts to catch the attention of anyone with an eligible vote...As this octopus slithers toward the nomination, the remaining tentacles scramble to sponge up the remains as the weaker ones wither and fall to the wayside...

The vaunted Tea Party movement is not even a true organized political party as it has splintered into smaller uni-directional groups which champion a select few candidates running under the banner of another, larger political party...Some of these groups are so fiercely adamant in their demands that they campaign against other Tea Party-backed hopefuls who would represent the greater good for all...

Missing in all this is the statesman who puts aside personal gain, and offers leadership to bring the nation back to cohesion, moving in a direction where all can see equality on the horizon, and view it as a desirable goal for all...Leaders who can put aside cronyism, personal animosity and a lust for wealth have all but disappeared from the American scene, and been replaced by those who may believe their own rise to the top of a low mound identifies them as the chosen ones, always forgetting that scum has ever risen to the top of any stagnant pond...


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Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Insanity vs. Guilt...Clarification...


In response to concerns from some readers, it may be necessary to clear up some points of misunderstanding...Under no circumstances am I condoning the ownership, or enslavement of one human being by another...Such an idea is rightfully repugnant to any but the most depraved members of any free society...

Neither am I putting forth the revocation of rights as humans of any inmate, nor the transposition of any person currently incarcerated in the prison system from internee to property...What I propose is a newly established set of sentencing guidelines, whereby judges, empowered to punish those convicted, or those who have admitted guilt to the most onerous crimes, may impose sentence to a term of slavery as allowed by the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States...

This severe punishment must be carried out only on those whose guilt has been established beyond any reasonable doubt, whether convicted by a jury, or admitted to by the accused...Those whose guilt has been firmly established may be sentenced to a term of slavery in which the jurisdictional entity becomes the owner of the inmate for the duration of the sentence...The "owner" then becomes responsible for the secure housing, welfare and humane treatment of the inmate until such time as human rights are restored...

The "property" relinquishes all rights as human beings just as they disregarded the rights of their victims...They will be separated not only from society, but from each other and previously convicted criminals who were sentenced under guidelines prevailing in an earlier time...

Currently incarcerated prisoners who commit new crimes in their present environment could be sentenced to a new term of slavery, and transferred to a facility designed to house the property...As possessions of the sentencing entity, the right of communication among themselves, to appeal their treatment, or to schedule their own activities will be denied...

Administration of execution of these sentences must be undertaken by persons appointed by the sentencing jurisdiction who understand completely that they have the responsibility to maintain the property in the best order with the intent of restoring ownership to the property itself...Mistreatment for the sake of further punishment is not the goal, and accountability by the administration must be one of its goals...

Some might argue that The framers of the 13th Amendment intended that imprisonment for crime as it stood then was the slavery they sought to continue...My contention is that since the 13th became law, no person has been sentenced by a court to a term of slavery as punishment, and its implementation can serve as a useful tool in reforming the criminally-minded as well as a strong deterrent to those considering such a move...


More articles concerning Crime and Punishment...