Take A Number

I wouldn’t have believed it, but I read it in the newspaper: one of every hundred Americans is in jail. That’s a lot. That’s about a third of the audience of American Idol. Many diseases aren’t even that common.

Prison. The big house. The hoosegow. The tank. The clink. The pokey. The slammer. It’s always figured large in our thinking. This is just taking it to the next level.

Prisons are big business. They are private, profit-making companies. They have lobbyists. Lobbyists saying, "The laws are too lenient. It’s scary out there, just look at CSI. Not only terrorists, but everyone. Let’s put more guys in prison."

Hey, it’s their business. And, we respect business.

Have you ever been in jail? It’s not a nice place.

Everyone, as babies, starts out okay. But then poverty, lack of education, neglect and abuse as kids, begin to take their toll and, one way or another, a lot of guys end up in prison. We may not take very good care of each other, but we are really good at putting people in jail.

What if someone like Donald Trump decided to forgo condos in favor of prisons? He really understands real estate, construction, and trends. We could see new developments springing up everywhere. It would be great for the economy. And, no sub-prime for Donald.

Why not enact more laws that will feed this development? Everyone, over a certain age and with insufficient funds, could be deemed an outlaw of society and be sent to the Lawrence Welk Memorial facility in Northern Minnesota. Or, why wait? Let’s put all the kids in jail, too.

We’ve already got the Patriot Act. Why not enforce it? Anyone who disagrees with what’s what goes straight to jail. Do away with the courts and save all that time and money. Just think of it. Tax offenders, demonstrators, dreamers, artists, surfers, those with insufficient imagination to pull off really big crimes, all of them, off to jail.

The economy will pick up. There will be more opportunity for the rest of us. And, who knows? Someday, it will just be us. The good guys. Everyone else will be safely behind bars.