Writer's Block: Running Things

[uberreiniger]

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Oh boy, a day in der Uberreinigerreich where all my adolescent power fantasies come true. Let's see...

-I'd fix the prison system and I'd fix it hard. You go to prison, you don't get to do drugs. You don't get to be in a gang. You don't get to just eat the taxpayers' food. You go to prison, you're going to be productive and you're going to face what you have done, not learn how to do it better when you get out.

-I'd secure the border by giving border police the resources and manpower that they need. Citizenship for illegals who want it, deportation for those who don't. It's just as simple as that. For unscrupulous employers who exploit illegal labor while keeping citizens unemployed, criminal prosecution. For the drug lords and human traffickers who use illegal immigrants and profit from their misery, well, I can't promise that black ops teams won't find and eliminate them in their countries of origin. But I will deny it in the event it does happen.

-Schools might be even harder to fix than borders and prisons, but I'd start where I feel it matters most: the teachers. Get them decent pay, decent benefits, budgets to meet their supply needs, and whatever incentives I need to provide to get motivated, intelligent, caring people into one of the most important fields in any society.

-I'm not enough of a strategist to know how to win in Iraq and Afghannistan, but I can at least work on getting the Veteran's medical system fixed, particularly in regards to psychiatric care. No more wars that are still claiming lives five, ten, twenty years later.

Comments

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

The prisons here are out of control. They're understaffed, the guards work long hours and are underpaid. Corruption is rampant and many prisons are ruled by gangs. Gang warfare and violence inside the prisons is not uncommon, and many organized crime leaders continue to run their operations from inside the prison. I've even heard tell that street gangs now consider prison a form of training where new members can spend several years learning the criminal trade and emerge more dangerous then when they went in. Indeed, due to lack of educational and rehabilitative programs many criminals emerge more violent and dangerous anyway. We're not a third world country in regard to our prisons by any means, but they're overcrowded, not working, and not helping the problem.

Sorry, didn't mean to go on a rant there.

[ravenbrenna.livejournal.com]

No, that's okay. It's good to know what is going on in the world. It's just a shame the sort of lack of care the world is taking in the way their institutions are run. From prisons, to hospitals, to schools. It's all horrible.

[skepoet.livejournal.com]

Corporeal punishment for minor crimes. Decriminalizing most drug use offenses. Prisoners must support themselves by labor--but that labor may not be sold to private companies (so you don't have the de fact slavery of southern chain gangs come back, because prison would be free labor for corrupt corporations).

Also, I favor no capital punishment for anything other than first degree murder--but two appeals, dna tests on all cases, and beheading, because its actually more humane, just more bloody.

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

I agree with all of this, including the beheading. However I also support the measure of coerced rehab for drug use offenses.