The Return of the Scarlet Letter...
While I do not like his politics, I find it appalling the way Senator
Larry Craig was destroyed over a disorderly conduct charge. Some say
that the Idaho Senator made the sin of hypocrisy; the destruction of
Larry Craig's 30 years of public service demonstrates just what is
wrong with American society in its lack of value for human dignity and
overly punitive method of dealing with problems.
The truth is that the Scarlet Letter has returned to Western
civilization. One of the things cultivated by Western, predominantly
Christian society, was the idea of collective forgiveness and second
chances. People that made a mistake and had a brush with the law were
encouraged to become law-abiding citizens. Not any more. The global
availability of computer data bases, combined with the stigma,
stereotypes and often gross misunderstandings about "people with
criminal records" have resurrected the Scarlet Letter.
As with mental illness, having a criminal record can become a person's
"master status" or how the person is defined in society. With mental
illness in America, the person's achievements are somehow nullified
and this is the same for persons with a criminal record. Also as in
mental illness, a person with a criminal record finds that his
abilities and value in society are diminished and defined by the
criminal record alone. This is true in attempting to migrate Europe or
to America, Western nations that claim to celebrate human dignity.
For the layperson, "criminal record" is the frightening vision of the
most horrible people, murders, rapists, child molesters, and other
false visions of "persons with criminal records." Now - let me remind
you that Senator Larry Craig has a criminal record. Craig has a
criminal record and he, as most rational people would agree, poses no
threat to public safety anywhere in the world. Senator Craig is not a
violent and dangerous person. Senator Craig is, and should still be
regarded as, an outstanding man that has contributed much in the
service of his nation and his state. "Disorderly conduct" criminal
record does not change any of Larry Craig's achievements and
contributions to society. "Disorderly conduct" does not change Mr.
Craig's human dignity and worthiness, just as it should not for other
people with criminal records.
This has the potential to become an international human rights issue,
as people with criminal records are treated as a permanent class of
people that are of less value and have less human dignity than those
without criminal records. At a time when the international community
is removing discrimination and attacking social norms, such as those
that hold women in second class status, it is creating another
underclass status defined by presence of criminal record. What both
the American and Canadian governments are trying to do is tamper with
a person's right to travel, the right to leave one's nation, the right
to migrate, the right to equal consideration as an innocent human
being based on criminal record. Solely because of the presence of a
criminal record the mentality on the part of nation-states is that a
person is now in a permanent, life-long, irreconcilable deficit that
is the Scarlet Letter of former days. This is a sad development for
human kind that must be resisted. The first order of tyrannical
governments is to use criminal record to abuse its own citizens.
---
The REAL Christian Democrat Blog
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