God Bless America-Land of the Free

Excuse me a minute while I climb up on my soapbox. 

Let me start by saying that I am not bitter with everything that has happened to me but I am certainly much more aware of how our current justice system works and let me say that I am not at all happy with what I see. 

I have learned so much more about the American Justice System and how our government works in the last few years than I ever did in any American Government or Criminal Justice class I have ever taken.  Let me tell you that my eyes have been opened to how our system works and it is not a pretty picture. 

Our current system is a very polluted version of what the founding fathers originally envisioned when they were sitting down writing the documents that our country was founded on.  The original Constitution has withstood the test of time and remained the one guide that we look to for the basis of all our laws.  The Constitution has had minimal updates or changes and most of those can be attributed to advances in thinking and further advances in equality for all. 

The problems with the current system stem from a variety of directions.  Originally the founding fathers believed that to serve as an elected representative would be a short stint for someone who still had some other business or job outside of Washington DC.  They did not envision today's lifetime politicians who have lost touch with the "everyman" and what it is like to actually live and work in this country.  Many of them have served a lifetime in public service as some kind of elected official answering to party leaders, special interest groups and donors.  Where is there room for the every day citizen in their plans.  The politicians claim to be looking out for our best interest, but aren't they just doing things that they believe I will love them for and therefore re-elect them.  They latch on to a "hot" topic and talk about, making it front page news, campaign to sponsor new legislation, and tell me it is for my best interest and then when it fails to pass say it was the other guys fault.  Never mind that he never really intended to pass it since it would hurt some special interest group and therefore effect his future campaign funds.  He looks like the hero because he was trying to protect "us" and we are angry at the other guy for not passing this legislation that we were told would be good for us. 

Do we really need more laws?  Does every regulation have to be written so the average citizen can not understand it with all the loopholes and "whereas"s?  We know we should not steal, murder, drink and drive, or harm another in any way.  We should respect other people, their property, their rights and freedoms just as they should respect ours.  Why have we become a society that tolerates the government now dictating what we can do in our cars as long as we are not a danger to another, or telling us how we can spend our time while in the privacy of our own home?  The government and law enforcement has lead us to believe that we have a right to control what happens in each others homes if it does not agree with our way of thinking.  What they don't realize is that it means that the government can now enter your home and regulate what you do to.  Those rules do not apply only to those we think are bad or creepy, they apply to everyone  (unless you are rich, famous or a politician then you can change the rules for yourself).   My life is already changed in that I live everyday double thinking every little thing I see and do.  I see the actions of others and know that if just one factor had been different that could of lead someone to jail.   

The politicians love to pat themselves on the back in the name of protecting the ignorant population they were elected to protect.  What the general citizen does not realize is that they are slowing giving up all their rights that all spelled out in the Bill of Rights.  When one group of people is allowed to have their civil rights stripped away it is only a matter of time before that erodes onto another group and then another.  Before you know it, the Bill of Rights only applies to the chosen few.  Who gets to do the choosing?  Certainly not me or you. 

Our country has the largest prison population in the world.  We have come to the place where we solve every little problem by demanding punishments that satisfy our need for vengeance.  Never mind looking at the bigger picture, being the bigger person, offering forgiveness with treatment, or considering better alternatives to prison.  We are becoming a population that instead of lifting ourselves up, we feel better about ourselves by tearing down others.  Many people currently in federal prison are first time offenders who would have been better served with some other alternative punishment.  Society as a whole would also be better, since we would still have more people being productive members of society and not wards of the government.  The problem is prisons are a money making operation, so those lobbying for prison reform have to fight against the large corporations that make millions of dollars off the current prison system.  Truthfully, being locked in the stockade for a week is much more desirable than the current system of sentencing and punishment.  At least when your time was up you could walk away with your life still intact and be able to move beyond your own history. 

There are people currently in prison who are serving sentences way beyond what the normal person views as logical, and yet then there are monsters who walk amongst us everyday and because of any number of reasons never spend a day in jail.    Whether it be State vs. Federal charges, ability to hire a real slick attorney, or being or just knowing the right person so you can get out from under any scrapes with the law.  Can the measure of our system really be called fair?  Before I knew the inner workings of the justice system I would have thought it to be fair, because as Americans we are lead to believe that everything we do it the "right" thing.   

I can only hope that no other family ever has to go through the same thing, but unfortunately I am not so naive to believe that.  I hear from way too many people who are in the same boat.  The tide will not begin to change until more of the everyday people are touched by the current system and all indications are that the erosion has begun.  Some of us where just sooner than others.  There will come a day when everyone will have a criminal past and it will not mean anything anymore.

God Bless America...yes!  I still would not want to live anywhere else in the world.  Land of the Free...I am not so sure...just don't ever get caught doing something someone else considers wrong unless you are prepared to be punished in the harshest way possible.