Sad

[Rob Wick]

I've consistently heard this refrain that our society is coarsening and that it's a lack of morality, etc. Has anyone ever given thought to the proposition that there is a generation of people, some young, others not so much, that have a self-loathing almost engrained in their psyche? What happened in D.C. was frustrating, but the monument was cleaned and no permanent damage was done. We will move forward.

But what Herb is talking about is far more devious then hooligans defacing a marble monument. No one starts out life vicious. They are turned that way. As a society, we would be better off trying to figure out why two people brought up in the same neighborhood takes entirely different paths and what we can do to avert one taking the wrong path. While I was touring the prison in Marion, I heard a guard tell a story about an inmate who would never get out of prison. He started his time in Leavenworth but was sent to Marion after attacking another inmate. He violated policy at Marion several times by either attacking an inmate or a guard. Once, when the guard was part of a detail taking him to court to face another charge (this was before Bureau of Prisons officials installed a federal courtroom in the prison), the guard asked the inmate why he kept attacking people. "Every time you do this, you just add more time to your sentence. You'll never get out."

"That's where you're wrong," the inmate told the guard. "I get out. Every time I attack someone, you have to take me to court. That's how I get outside."

It seems to me we would be a far better place if we could figure out what caused that guy to become that way and try to change it.

Best
Rob