Time Off For Bad Behavior

There's no way around it. The only way to end identity theft is to totally give in. Eyeball scan, DNA, at least a thumb print, something so people are positive it's you they're dealing with for all transactions in your name, or there's no stopping the rip-offs. Privacy is gone now anyway, so folks are free to use that fact to protect themselves. Unless Planet Earth does like they did on Janet E. Morris's planet Silistra and outlaw all computers and machines, I can't think of a better way to protect savings and credit ratings. It could be voluntary, but I'd sure do it. If one has a drivers license, Social Security number, credit rating, job, phone, vehicle(s), children, cable, Internet access, what the heck information is left to protect? (They can steal your password with a computer, but not your eyeball.) Just a thought.

So the Pew Report just came out with the incarceration statistics for the Land of the Free. (2,319,258 Americans behind bars as of 01/01/08.) And the where-to-house-the-registered-sex-offenders debate continues to rage. Public massacres and drive-by shootings are a hot fad. Everybody and their kids are getting fat. The planet is dying around us. But by golly, our government is out there protecting us from prostitutes and marijuana. Whew. Let's set up a few more sting operations and get those filthy pleasure-seekers off our streets. (We'll all be dead, but God will be happy.)

No, really, did you hear about that report? There's one person in jail or prison for every 99.1 Americans. (We're #1!) One out of every 36 Hispanics in this country is locked up. And one of every 15 African-American adults is behind bars. In Kentucky, the crime rate is up 3% over the last 30 years, but their prison population has increased 600%. ("What? He had a BEER after work! Violate him! He's going back in for another year!")

It's not working. And it's getting worse. There's just no way to make the entire country like downtown Disneyland. Sorry. I've long looked at society as an elk herd. The wolves that follow the herd around are like people's bad habits. So the wolves get killed off, so everything is hunky-dory with the herd, right? No, the herd suffers. Turns out the wolves, though scary, keep the herd strong and healthy. They cull the sick and old and slow. They keep the herd moving so it doesn't stay in one place and over-graze an area. Society needs some bad habits, just like the elk need the wolves. (Did we learn nothing from One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest? Trying to be normal drives ya crazy!) I remember a quote from a snooty private-school teacher on The Beverly Hillbillies. "We don't prepare our students for life. We prepare them for Princeton."

From the first week of June 1969, to the first week of November 1970, I was locked in a county jail cell. (Right across from Timothy Leary for a while, also in there for being a fun-loving hippie.) Nothing to read except the Bible. No books, newspapers, magazines. I just sat there, for seventeen months, with nothing to do but miss music and read the mad hallucinations of guys who didn't even know the world is round or what the stars are. Totally wiped out all the national pride instilled in me after having grown up in Revolutionary War country, and my years in the Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, the school band, Sunday school, the gun club, and watching John Wayne movies. But to the law's chagrin, other than despising the futility of the whole concept, I had a pretty good time. (And now I know way more about The Word than most of the people who tell me, "God loves you. He's going to send you to Hell for the way you live, but He loves you." "Yeah, okay. What's a Corinthian?" "Huh?" "You know, like First Corinthians, Second Corinthians . . . " "Wasn't that one of the disciples?") There are a few dangerous folks who need to be isolated to protect civilized people, but at the rate we're going, it might just save time and money to extend that border fence they're building right around the whole country and we can all be in custody.

I've heard a bunch of times how Americans don't get near as much time off work as folks do in most other countries. They're even often afraid to take what little vacation time is due them. And I'd add to that, that when many folks DO take some time off, they really don't know how to relax and play. I, like the proverbial grasshopper, spent most of the summers of my life out on the road traveling around, swimming in rivers, playing volleyball and softball, enjoying Bud and bud while listening to live music, meeting pretty girls on that last fling before they go back to school or head home to settle down. But I would always get the heck out of the way for the three big summer weekends: Memorial Day, 4th of July, and Labor Day. There would be all those inexperienced people out there trying to have some fun, but not having a clue how. Being loud and obnoxious at public camp grounds, fighting, throwing beer bottles at bicycle riders from their passing cars, swerving their SUVs pulling boats to make hitchhikers standing on the shoulder of the road scramble out of the way. Whoopie!! (But at least by golly they're not smoking pot, dancing, and having sex! Their mothers, God, and the President can be proud.)

If more Ants don't start finding their Inner Grasshopper and getting a bit more pleasure out of life than adding to their credit card debt and watching reality TV--take some time off for bad behavior, let a few wolves run loose--then I reckon I'll just buy some stock in a one of those for-profit, privately owned prisons, and maybe even a pepper-spray company. Business will continue to boom.

(The title of this is from the insightful song by Confederate Railroad. Thanks, guys.)