Since the terrorist attacks of September the 11th, it has become increasingly easier to screen the background of a potential terrorist. Considering that we live in one of the most dangerous eras in American history, when so many people hate us that countless individuals want to build a dirty bomb and seriously maim hundreds, perhaps even thousands of American citizens, it makes sense that every single employer have at his disposal the entire legal history of every single American. We daily face the risk of nuclear annihilation at the hands of someone like José Padilla. If anything, José Padilla is more dangerous than the Soviet Union because Padilla could be any random American.
But of course, President Obama promised us that the War on Terror would come to an end, perhaps in 20 or 30 years, at which point America can return to normality and its tradition of fairness, freedom, and belief in rehabilitation. At that point in time, when the War on Terror ends, we might also have no more need for the enhanced interrogation techniques which have allowed our brave men and women in uniform to extract the information needed to protect us from the likes of Padilla.
I'm being facetious, of course, but the truth is that the American legal system treats American citizens in a manner not too dissimilar to the way we treat foreigners suspected of being "enemy combatants." The state of California this past August received permission from an almighty judge to force-feed inmates, a process that many international humans rights groups have denounced as "torture." Chris Hedges -- who teaches in a prison -- recently relayed, via an inmate, the realities endured by some of the convicts in the world's largest prison system in the history of civilization should they wind up in solitary confinement: "If you don’t talk they gonna try and break you. They gonna open the windows and let the cold in. They gonna take ya sheets and blankets away. They gonna mess with ya food so you can’t eat it. An’ don’t eat no food that come in trays from the Vroom Building. Nuts in Vroom be spittin’, pissin’ and shittin’ in the trays. Now, the COs gonna wake you up every hour on the hour so you can’t sleep. They gonna put a bright-ass spotlight in front of ya cell and keep it on day and night. They gonna harass you wit’ all kinds of threats to get you to cooperate. They will send in the turtles in their shin guards, gloves, shank-proof vests, forearm guards and helmets with plexiglass shields on every shift to give you beat-downs."
There are currently over 80,000 prisoners in solitary confinement, convicts who could at any moment receive the treatment relayed by Hedges. Though one would presume that this treatment is reserved for the most dangerous of inmates, the truth is that it could happen to almost any American who is convicted under one of the three felonies that all of us commit on a daily basis. If you end up in prison because of one of those three felonies, even if non-violent, then your skin might be enough to land you in isolation.
In
prison, a tattoo that potentially indicates gang affiliation could land
you in solitary confinement, the purgatory of America. The Holy Bibles says we're all born sinners, and if the Bible were The Holy Book of American Jurisprudence, it would say that we're all born criminals who commit three sins a day. The Bible also says in Leviticus 19:28 that tattoos are a sin, so hope you don't get a religious corrections officer who doesn't like you. Of the 80,000 Americans that are currently in solitary, you can rest assured that many thousands are currently there because of the circumstances the horrible realities of the inner-city presented for them. One in four Americans has a criminal record, could it be that one in four took a plea bargain despite innocence because at trial they faced a staggering number of years? Yes, 97% of drug offenders -- many of them non-violent -- face such a staggering number of years in prison that their safest gamble is to take a plea bargain and serve a few years.
The Bible says in Numbers 14:18: "The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation." And indeed, it is the case that once a family member is found to be an American sinner, the legal system puts his house under a microscope. This is none more evident than in the case of the Levering family in Omaha, whose luck ran out when Lincoln Levering punched a man: "whose friend had made a racist comment. The man died the next day. Lincoln was charged with manslaughter, but he eventually was acquitted." The Levering family has been cursed for decades since, and the police and media have already doomed them to another generation of state-sponsored rehabilitation. There are many families like the Leverings all throughout America, but they don't receive as much attention because their crimes are not as violent or high-profile.
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| 633 crimes since 1979 |
It seems as if the American legal system has more in common with the angry God of the Old Testament than it does with the redeeming Christ of the New. In countries such as Germany, the police issue a certificate of good conduct to employers doing a background check. The check is, as it should be, only relevant to the job and only stretches back a certain number of years, depending on the severity of the crime. The Germans learned that society is more fair when we take a path of redemption, not of life-long damnation.
