I had given him my copy of Reason Magazine- the newest issue which is focused on the prison industry; the abuses, the innocent victims, and the harm it is doing. He is a teacher in a prison.
He said he believes Reason looked at a few unfortunate "extreme" cases and ignored the vast majority of cases where the prisoners really are bad people.
He said 200 people out of everyone in prison isn't "too bad". I pointed out that these aren't isolated cases, but that the resources don't exist to really make certain that every prisoner really even did the "crime" [sic] he or she is imprisoned for. I said that even one imprisoned innocent person is too many, and that I'd rather 100 bad guys were set free than see one innocent person sent to jail. He disagreed. He said even if there were 10,000 innocents among all those in prison, that still isn't too bad.
So I said that considering the fact that America imprisons a higher percentage of its population that any other country, does he really think that Americans are the worst people in the world? He said that considering the past few years of his experience, he thinks they might just be.
Makes me wonder how he justifies (and supports) the US military making unending war on Muslim countries based upon the claim that they are bad and we are good if Americans really are "the worst people in the world". In that case, shouldn't we hope the US military loses every war it fights?
(In case you think I focus on "conservatives" too much and give "liberals" a pass, it is just that I know so very few "liberals" in person and so many "conservatives". And the "liberals" I do know around here are too outnumbered by the "conservatives" to make much noise.)
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