JESUS: A RADICAL democrat

(The American Prison System)

Let us assume that a person called Jesus actually lived and was executed by the Roman authorities for inciting civil unrest. According to his supposed teachings he believed in the inherent worth of everyone and thought human purpose was the common good.  In today’s world, he would be called a radical socialist democrat.  He would be labeled a progressive – one who goes too far.  Look at his concept of justice as an example.

He said we should love our enemies and forgive those who trespass against us.  Once some Jewish leaders brought him a woman who was guilty of adultery.  The legal punishment for such an act was to be stoned to death.  They asked how he would respond and he suggested that if there was one of them without sin to let him cast the first stone.  Their answer was stone silence. On the other hand, he once drove money changers out of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem because they had transformed this holy place into a capitalistic enterprise – converted it into a den of robbers. Obviously, he wasn’t against justice because he took it into his own hands when what he considered to be sacred was being perverted.

How would we put all of this together in our modern world?  Here is my take.  Know what justice is and do it with redemption in mind – remembering that if it were not for the grace of existence there would go me – no one can cast the first stone  – no one is guiltless.

Like the Jewish Temple, a prison system in a democratic society should be viewed as a holy place dedicated to human redemption. Such an institution would not only require the discipline of punishment but also a comprehensive programmatic focus on returning every possible inmate to society as a person reclaimed to democratic principle.  This means its entire professional staff would have to be devoted to restorative justice.

What we have done to the prison system in America is precisely what the Jewish leadership of Jesus day had done to their temple – convert it into a capitalistic enterprise cloaked with redemptive purpose.  The present goal is to make as much money off of the entire enterprise as possible without concern for the physical or moral impact on the inmates or the social order.  At most it is an unholy enterprise.  At the least, it is a travesty to call it a justice system.

And here is the irony: We have endorsed this gross perversion into the norm – just like the Pharisees of Jesus day.  We have allowed a primary justice institution, designed for citizenry social rehabilitation, to become just another capitalistic enterprise for the sake of money-making.  But, then, that is what we have also done to our entire justice, judicial, and congressional systems.  And what do we call those who wish to restore democratic purpose to these institutions? The answer is radical social progressives who want to go too far. This all suggests an exceedingly low citizenry understanding of the true nature of democracy along with a blind focus on economic imperialism.

Here is another way of saying this: Our present justice system exists to reward the offended without redeeming the offender.  The end result is to create a prison system that makes the marginal offender into a hardened criminal and the hardened criminal morally calcified.  As Angela Davis observes:

Prisons do not disappear social problems,

they disappear human beings.

This is not to say that there should be no punishment for transgressing democratic principle.  It is only to say that once such transgression has occurred there should also be an incarceration system designed to upbuild the democratic heart and mind – to restore the transgressor to responsible citizenship.  There are programs with such a design in mind operating in our culture.  But they are offered by outside social institutions to the justice system and are few and far between. The issue here is not about following the wisdom of Jesus.  It is about following the wisdom of democracy – of which Jesus’ attitudes and behaviors seem to be a good example.

The first major step in creating a restorative prison system in America is to take it out of the hands of greedy economic imperialists and put it in the hands of democratic social servants. And to make this happen there must be a progressive educational system which hands out studied degrees in Democratic Prison Rehabilitation  –  a required degree for anyone holding any major position in the system so that the people running our prisons are socially informed, devoted to a democratic outcome, and knowledgeable about doing so.  Our prisons must actually become a part of a social redemption justice system instead of a suppressive, immoral,  counterproductive, economic enterprise.

To put this in the larger national context: So far, the corporate and political economic imperialists and Republican despots are winning – not only in reference to our justice system but our congressional and judicial systems as well.  The only way we can reverse this is to actually enthrone the extreme democratic principles of the inherent worth of every citizen, the goal of the common good, and the right of all citizens to vote.  We must elect more social democratic progressive radicals that go too far.  Without them, we will lose everything for which democracy stands!  We better vote and we better vote for the so-called democratic zealots.

Robert

mythinglink.com