Quote:
Originally Posted by madcorgi
But Jeff, whaddabout Benghazi???
This was a thoughtful and interesting discussion until the PARFCONS showed up, as I figured they would. Why not just come out and blame everything on HILLARY!
There's little mystery why PARF is a ghost town these days.
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No kidding. While we have had some great discussions over there, it seems all too often they get derailed by the "true believers" in whatever cause or issue dejour has crawled up their asses on any particular day. It just gets old. That's why I seldom even read PARF anymore, much less post on it. Every now and then one of them seems to chew through his rope and wind up over here, though. Oh well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by madcorgi
Recidivism is a complex problem, but it is the inevitable result of our current system. It's hard to see how someone entering the maw of it could escape becoming a career criminal, since we so thoroughly strip away their abilities to do anything else with their lives. You say that after we have done our best, we should just give up on--and exterminate--incorrigibles. Where I disagree is the notion that we as a society have done anything close to "our best" at this point.
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I very much agree - we can, and must, do better. I hope that position has come across over the course of this discussion. I do, however, stand by my other stated position as well - in that there are those who clearly, no matter how much better we do, never accept the help and assimilate. They are fundamentally broken in some way that we simply cannot "fix".
I have the unfortunate pleasure of knowing a young man who is currently in our "system". He happens to be the son of one of my oldest friends, a guy who I grew up with. Same age as my oldest son. They grew up together, from the time they were in diapers.
Well, this kid (I guess I should stop calling him that, he's now 31 years old) is in the state pen for the second time. He will do a minimum of eight years this time. Armed robbery. To support a heroin habit. Geezus H. Christ, how does a kid go so far off the rails? His best friend, my son, is a successful engineer, home owner, married, and about to make me a grandpa (in October). Yet his old friend will not get out until he's at least 36.
I watched it happen. Yet I still cannot tell you how it happened. He didn't grow up on the streets, he does not come from a broken home, his parents have been married as long as my wife and I have - 33 years. The only thing I can say is that heroin found him, found him in a sleepy little high school all the way out in North Bend. Middle class, eastside, yuppie, essentially white bread North Bend. He will never be the same.
He did not go to college, but he got a great start in the fishing fleet out of Dutch Harbor. I guess everyone thought that would "get him away from" the problem out of high school. Turns out it put him right smack in the epicenter of it. Came home with too much money and too much idle time (between trips) and got worse than ever, finally pretty much wiping out his ability to go back to the kind of hard work demanded of his chosen profession.
So, without any source of income and a now raging habit, he turned to crime. Got busted a bunch for petty stuff, family tried all kinds of interventions and help programs - all of that. But it kept escalating until he wound up in Monroe for three years. He emerged from there completely unemployable - a convicted felon. Now what? He wound up working at a soup canning company in Seattle at such a low wage that he eventually went back to the same well. Getting back to his old addiction didn't help either.
What a heartbreaking situation. What will he do when he gets back out this time? It's not hard to guess. He literally has no options. I have to believe he is a fundamentally good kid. Hell, I know he is - I watched him grow up. But he has no options from here. None.
We owe him some, yes, I get that. At a very personal level. I think we can "fix" him, and others like him. I have to believe that. But I also believe there are, and he has actually described to me, those he is now spending time with whom we cannot. He recognizes them. He tells me "there are some very scary people in there...". And I believe him...