treedancer
Commander
- Joined
- Apr 10, 2005
- Messages
- 2,216
The Right Has a Jailhouse Conversion
By CHRIS SUELLENTROP
Published: December 24, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/24/magazine/24GOP.t.html?_r=2&ref=us&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
Coincidence, I think not.
It isnt only the Republicans that are facing jail time but Democrats as well ,this will sail through the next congress.
Snip
Representative Bob Inglis of South Carolina, whose district is home to Bob Jones University, declared on the floor of the House: I voted for them in the past. I will not do it again. Perhaps most remarkably, the outgoing Republican-controlled Congress came tantalizingly close to passing the Second Chance Act, a bill that focuses not on how to lock them up but on how to let them out. The bill may become law soon, if Democrats continue to welcome the new conservative interest in rehabilitation.
Snip
Not too long ago, you could tell whether an election was under way by watching prime-time television and counting the number of ominous recitatives about prisoners and ex-prisoners in the commercials. This fall, however, the seven million Americans who are in the custody of the state in prison or jail, on probation or parole did not loom large on nightly TV; in fact, as has been the case for nearly a decade, they barely received any notice at all. Prisoners are no longer the charged political symbols and campaign-season scapegoats they once were.
Snip
This decline in the exploitation of crime coincides with an odd and surprising change in the politics of crime. The G.O.P., the party of Richard Nixons 1968 law-and-order campaign and the Willie Horton commercial, is beginning to embrace the idea that prisoners have not only souls that need saving but also flesh that needs caring for in this world.
Hope everybody on Iboats had as happy a Christmas as I have had and continue to have, also have a Happy New year.
By CHRIS SUELLENTROP
Published: December 24, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/24/magazine/24GOP.t.html?_r=2&ref=us&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
Coincidence, I think not.
It isnt only the Republicans that are facing jail time but Democrats as well ,this will sail through the next congress.
Snip
Representative Bob Inglis of South Carolina, whose district is home to Bob Jones University, declared on the floor of the House: I voted for them in the past. I will not do it again. Perhaps most remarkably, the outgoing Republican-controlled Congress came tantalizingly close to passing the Second Chance Act, a bill that focuses not on how to lock them up but on how to let them out. The bill may become law soon, if Democrats continue to welcome the new conservative interest in rehabilitation.
Snip
Not too long ago, you could tell whether an election was under way by watching prime-time television and counting the number of ominous recitatives about prisoners and ex-prisoners in the commercials. This fall, however, the seven million Americans who are in the custody of the state in prison or jail, on probation or parole did not loom large on nightly TV; in fact, as has been the case for nearly a decade, they barely received any notice at all. Prisoners are no longer the charged political symbols and campaign-season scapegoats they once were.
Snip
This decline in the exploitation of crime coincides with an odd and surprising change in the politics of crime. The G.O.P., the party of Richard Nixons 1968 law-and-order campaign and the Willie Horton commercial, is beginning to embrace the idea that prisoners have not only souls that need saving but also flesh that needs caring for in this world.
Hope everybody on Iboats had as happy a Christmas as I have had and continue to have, also have a Happy New year.
