I coulda been a contender
Ahead of my time,
alas
Lately we have learned that the junta has been
parking selected, ah, detainees in foreign facilities for, oh
goodness-gracious-dearie-me, not torture, exactly, but a salutary dose of
"pain-based interrogation protocols" (recently described by Missouri Senator
"Kit" Bond as no worse than the US military basic training regimen), and that
some of these facilities are located on the premises of our new friends in
Eastern Europe. What might these premises be, and what is their provenance? I
gnash my teeth mightily, remembering how I used to amuse my friends (or at least
myself) late in the last century (recall that in the 90s we had only the Simpson
trial and Monica's blue dress to amuse ourselves as a nation) with my plans for
attaining state office on the platform
of...
An
infrastructure is a terrible thing to
waste!
Friends
(I would address my
campaign rallies)...friends,
we're all sick and tired of the depradations of violent criminals, am I not
right? (low, menacing
rumble of assent) And we're tired
of muggers, and burglars, and murderers and rapists and child molesters and
especially of murdering child molesting rapists
(billboard-sized image of
Polly Klaas projected behind candidate; mood of crowd gets
ugly), am I right? And we're
goddamned tired of aggressive panhandlers, and of our car stereos being ripped
off (shouts of "Damn
straight" and "Fuckin'-A
Tweety!"), and that's why we
passed the Three Strikes law a few years back, so that the third time these scum
sprint out of the local video store with the last copy of a new release that
we'd intended to rent, the sorry motherfuckers can be put away for life? Isn't
that what we want, my friends? The bleeding hearts won't let us pop 'em in the
head like they deserve, but we can take them off the street
forever.
But—I
won't lie to you my friends; there's always a "but"—we don't have enough
prisons to hold the bad guys. No, if we're serious about Three Strikes, and even
if we're prepared to stack the perps six to a cell, we're going to have to
divert most of California's revenues to building new prisons to hold all the
criminals we're going to put away for life. We're going to be stuck with the
cost of construction, and with the cost of financing the construction, and with
the salaries of the guards, and with the healthcare and pensions of the
guards...I tell you straight, friends, the cost could beggar us
(cries of "awww" and
"no...no...").
Is
that our choice, then? Are we to surrender the noble dream of Three Strikes just
to remain solvent? Is the choice truly between safe streets and state
bankruptcy?
No,
I say. We can have Three Strikes
and
escape from the awful financial burden of quintupling our penal infrastructure.
In fact, under my plan we can probably cut our existing prison expenditures in
half, at least. All we need to do is
think outside the
box. Specifically we need to
think outside the
hemisphere.
My
friends, there is a place across the sea that has plenty prison cells...plenty
of trained guards...a long tradition of the severest penal protocols. The
prisons aren't fancy—it's not as though we need to coddle our criminals,
is it? (mirthless laugh
from the gathered
crowd)—but no one ever
questioned their functionality. The guards are no-nonsense types, don't have a
union to make unreasonable demands about salaries, benefits or pensions, and
will work for a few dollars a day. Best of all, these prisons are way,
way
outside our
communities.
I'm
talking: "Three strikes and you're out—in the cold." I'm talking Siberia.
I'm talking...lease
the GULAG. The acronym, for
those of you who aren't familiar with it, represents
"Glavnoye
Upravleniye
Ispravitelno-trudovykh
Lagerey
i kolonii", or "The Chief Directorate [or Administration] of Corrective Labour
Camps and Colonies."
(crowd grows slightly
restive) But who cares? The point
is, the Red Russians have come to their senses and embraced the free market, and
what have they got for their trouble? Well so far, if you'll pardon my French,
they've got
dick!
Am I not right? And they still have nukes. And they're broke. And they need a
hand. And they're feeling, you know, a little aggrieved. So why not help them
out?
For a
fraction—a tiny fraction—of what it would cost to house our new
Three Strikes inmates here, we ship 'em
off...to
Siberia. Let the Crips and
the Bloods and the Aryan Losers organize in the stir. Who gives a shit? They're
on another
continent. We're paying the
Russian guards, collectively, the equivalent of the California Prison Guards
Union annual lobbying budget, if that. And if they ever figure that out, and
resent that we're making out like bandits on the deal, well, who are they going
to take it out on? You tell me
(crowd
roars)!
In
conclusion, friends, vote me supreme power and I'll make friends abroad, cut our
budget at home and scour the criminals off the streets at minimal cost to the
taxpayer. Vote for Rand in the next election and
(remainder of stump speech
is drowned out as candidate is hoisted on the shoulders of the mob, and together
we storm the state capitol
building).
Ah, what might have
been. I never ran for office, of course, and confined this riff to the
occasional party once I'd had enough(?) bubbly beverage coursing through my
system. Who knew that within a decade we'd have a junta in power to whom my
jocular proposition made eminent sense?
Posted: Thu - November 10, 2005 at 07:41 PM