Too Much of The Old Ultra-Violence

How to address malfunctions of the human spirit such as murder, rape and SERIAL KILLING early enough to stop the violence. After someone has committed the crime, it's TOO LATE. Don't you get it? We can't sit in our homes and let the police do all of our dirty work (even though i do, but i'm not complaining about it). Roll up your sleeves and help, for God's sake. Those kids you laughed at in high school because they were too weird? Those clingy people that you don't talk to because they annoy you? THEY NEED YOU. Jeffrey Dahmer needed you. They guy that's going to go berserk and kill your co-workers? He needs you. That ugly, mean guy that eats lunch by himself and hates everyone? He NEEDS you. CARE about someone. Because if you don't...... they may kill you.

I think we would be amazed how much violence, crime and drug abuse would disappear if everyone in this society where all people are supposedly created equal were actually valued equally.
It is morally wrong to accept more money than someone else who is working just as hard as you. And it shows.

Nobody wants him, he just stares at the world. Planning his vengeance, that he will soon unfold. -Black Sabbath, Iron Man

Prison is Fucked

If punishment was enough of a deterrent, the crime rate wouldn't be rising like the dick on a rapist. If someone had a tumor, you would not put them in a room with a bunch of other people with tumors for 10 years and expect them to be better when they came out. Would you? Then why do we expect it to work with crooks? Read this Punks Song at the Stop Prisoner Rape site and tell me if this is the way we prepare criminals to live a better life when they get out. We're ASKING for more crime by treating people this way and expecting them to magically transform into some sort of model citizen by adding nothing to their lives but shit.

Prison Stinks
Here's what our prison system is like:
Hey man, you stink. Here, hold this pile of shit for awhile. Now we're going to put you in an enclosed place with a bunch of other people who stink. We gave them all big piles of shit, too. And guess what? Inside, the rules are: the person with the most shit wins. In fact, if you don't hold on to your shit, you might get killed. Then we're going to dump you out on the street without taking any shit from you. Hey, I gave you that pile of shit to hold, and you know if you keep on stinking I'm going to give you more shit, so why do you still stink? What the fuck is wrong with you?

Our Conditioning
The only way a person can really learn to act differently is to spend time with other people who are acting correctly until they get it right. To unlearn their lifetime of dysfunctional behaviours and replace them with conditioned and practiced positive behaviours. The only way prison will help is if we set it up like a mini-society which will monitor every activity and reward socially acceptable behaviors while punishing socially-unacceptable behavior. Even allowing them to earn more money, services and freedom the better they do. But if guards are assaulted or pelted by feces they should be allowed to beat the crap out of the prisoners.

From Bad To Worse
You could probably say there are two types of prisoners, the ones who really want to live right and just can't get their shit together, and the others, who just don't give a damn and will do whatever they feel like anyway. So we may need several different types of programs depending on the person. But one thing's for sure, the system we're in now, which hasn't changed really any in thousands of years, doesn't really work. The thing is, you can't give a life sentece for all crimes, so most prisoners are going to get out at one time or another. And if they haven't learned anything new, how are they going to be better?

Death Penalty

The death penalty is not a deterrent. Even if you ignore the evidence, do you really think someone is sitting around thinking, hmmm... I want to kill this person, but what if I get caught? Life in prison without parole? Sure, I can handle that, I'll go kill her now. Oh wait, you mean the penalty is death? Man, forget it! I'm not going to kill anyone, ever again!

Killer Be Killed?
That's ridiculous; criminals don't think they're going to get caught anyway. Do you have the right to kill anyone? I don't. Even if a criminal loses his right to live, that still doesn't give anyone else the right to kill him (or her). We can hide behind our collectiveness, but that doesn't give us the right. I haven't known anyone who was murdered, but I have had my car stereo stolen a couple of times and I was the victim of a physical assault, where a supposedly ex-boyfriend ( I was told he was an ex but I don't think he knew that) climbed into a window and broke my nose. So I can only imagine the pain and rage that must come when someone is brutally murdered. It does seem like if someone throws acid on a person they should get acid thrown on them. An eye for an eye seems right and fair, like I said if a prisoner throws feces on a guard, it seems like the guard should be able to beat the crap out of him/her. But the problem is that sometimes guards would beat the prisoners for no reason and then just make up a reason. Plus there's that ever-present possibility, no matter how small, that the wrong person has been convicted, and that's where some of the call for caution comes in.

The Cause of Laws

Of course wouldn't need to read prisoners their rights if cops in the past hadn't beaten, coerced confessions out of, convicted and executed innocent people. So if you think we are too soft on victims, blame the crooked cops.

Psycho-education

The most important thing of all is that we begin teaching children about psychology before they can read. Teach them to be aware of what is happening in their minds and show them how to get help. They don't even get taught the simple truth that when they put other people down or pick on them it is only because they are feeling weak and trying to build themselves up. They (and we) need to understand the "tribe' mentality that has been fucking us up throughout history. Until our ability to understand ourselves surpasses our ability to create skyscrapers and machinery, we're fucked. We've scraped together this mish-mash we try to call a society out of torn cloth, twisted metal and spare scraps; the social equivalant of duct tape and baling wire, and we didn't even read the instructions first. We've been wearing the same clothes for 2000 years and we haven't even washed them. We've been doing the same things that have never worked and we keep repeating them endlessly until we don't know how to do anything else. We're trying to build a spiritual foundation for a social superskyscraper based on instructions for building straw huts. And that's nuts.

Whornography: Only The Tip of The Iceberg

We taunt people with thousands images of sex every day in ads and publications, images of beautiful men and women they want and can't ever have or be, try to sell our trinkets by shoving pictures of breasts that have been airbrushed and scientifically enhanced to look like no breasts ever will down their throats, hawking penises disguised as cars and lipstick, tell them that if they aren't married or screwing someone that something is wrong with them, make it look like everyone is living happy carefree lives and what the fuck is wrong with you, you impotent loser, bombard ourselves with images of complete fakeness and emptiness, and then we blame pornography for causing rape and abuse. If you cut off the tip of the iceberg, the boat will still sink. You cannot create an iceberg and expect there to be no tip. The advertising blitz from TV, radio and magazines is far more permeating and has a much greater cumulative (sic) effect than pornography ever could. It's US. WE are doing it. Businessmen, consumers, employees, STOCKHOLDERS. WE (YOU and ME) are creating these problems by not only letting the advertisers and media continue to exploit us all, but actually falling for their manipulations.

Idea Lies
Do you think pornography causes men to objectify women? Let's get something straight: no amount of pornography could ever make us objectify you more than we already do. You really have no idea. Pornography is the result, not the cause. You don't think that before they had pornography, men objectified women? When we're kids, before we even know how to get those girly mags, we are already drooling over Sears catalogues, or really any catalogue, even our Mom's Ladies Home Journal, looking for any woman we can find with a low-cut neckline, or a good underwear section. You don't think that in the wild west, before printed pornography, that after the cattle drive the first place the men went when they rode into town was into the saloon, where they could get drunk and screw whores? You don't think the saloon owners just started hiring whores for no reason and then all of a sudden the tired horny cowboys just realized -- hey, they're cute, I wonder what it would be like to have sex with them? Hey let's try it! Men have always objectified women and we always will. We are designed that way to perpetuate the species, while women are designed to be more careful to ensure they have a man who will stick around long enough to protect them and their children from wild beasts. Almost all men have rape fantasies. So do many women. This is part of our past (and sadly our present) that hopefully we will eventually evolve out of. And fantasizing about some whore in Swank magazine does not make us want to go out and rape someone (I mean any more than normal). You know how we are; when we're done we just want to roll over and go to sleep.

Adickted
Now I am not saying that pornography is good; only inevitable. There is a danger of becoming addicted to pornography, mainly I think because it results from such an instinctive drive; it is just as easy to become addicted to food or work(?) or drugs or picking your nose. It can lead to more hard core stuff, just like any addiction. And us men usually don't feel all that proud of ourselves after choking the chicken, either. I don't usually give myself a high five afterwards. In that way I think pornography is demeaning to men as well as women. Plus it is just unrealistic. You look through hundreds (or thousands) of images on the internet (for example) that have already been screened to weed out most of the ugly ones (unless you like that sort of thing), then you can sort through the pick of the crop, and after you've narrowed it down then you get to sort through hundreds of specific poses, sometimes varying only by an inch or two, to pick the ones you like. And no matter how many images you save, you get tired of those and still want more. So you end up with a highly specialized and unrealistic cross section that no real woman could ever live up to. But that's what all the women's fashion magazines do too. Women are doing it to themselves at the same time we're doing it to them. Plus with pornography you don't have to deal with personalities, unpredictable emotions, commitment (except maybe your $19.99/month), plumbing, smells, petty annoyances and all the conflicting demands and interests of another person. So if you're too into pornography, it could really make it more difficult, or just more "real," to deal with a real flesh and blood woman. And anyway, blow-up dolls can be such airheads.

Yournography
But as I've noted elsewhere, you (women) are not helping yourselves, with all the time you spend putting on makeup and strapping down the cellulite and trying to hobble around on pumps just to make yourselves look more sexually attractive to us men. The only reason for a woman to wear high heels is to make her calves and ass look tighter for us. So why are you blaming us for objectifying you? If men don't need makeup, why should women? Why should women have to shave their arms? Technically they shouldn't have to shave their legs, either, although that seems like it would take some getting used to. Where did that start anyway? I mean it's really not "natural" for men to like women with shaved legs, is it? Now don't get me wrong; I'm not trying to criticize. I love you when you are shaved, made up and elevated. But I should love you just as much when you're not. You're the ones who have to spend all that time and money on it. Maybe that's just the way it is; we like you because of how you look and you want us for our money, so you spend your lives trying to look good and we spend our lives trying to make money and buy you things. But we should either accept that, or not. I honestly don't think we can have equality of the sexes until this pimping oops I mean primping stops. We try to create an enhanced fantasy world of sex rather than enjoying the real, naturalness of it. And it only leads to heartbreak and psoriasis. We want the thrill, but we have to pay the price when reality, instead of being normal, becomes substandard when compared to our fabricated fantasies. Wild dogs, elephants and grasshoppers don't get their hair done or shave their legs but they sure seem to enjoy sex just as much as we do (I mean as far as I'd know).

Hmmm... why did I spend so much space on this issue?

The War on Drugs is A Bust
See my Addiction page for more info on drugs.

Required reading: How to Say No to a Rapist and Live by Frederic Storaska, Warner Books, Inc. 1976. This may be out of print but find it if you can.