Most of us recognize that the tired old extremists of the Ridge Reich have taken a giant leap backwards in time. The legal "ideas" of the Republican 1990's are like things out of another century. Irrational legislators have failed to evolve. Like fanatic Neanderthals they try to reincarnate failed, outdated manias.
The most bizarre and antiquated of the throwbacks deal with the bogeyman of "crime!" The ghoulish fanatics have enacted one piece of hysterical nonsense after another. It's like witch hunters after heretics for the inquisition.
One recent example is a monstrously irrational scheme to pretend to "hospitalize" certain classes of citizens.
Pennsylvania Senator Greenleaf has devised a grotesque scheme worthy of Boris Karloff. If Greenleaf doesn't suffer from Alzheimer's, at least his schemes do. This poor guy and his legal notions have spiraled through a time-warp. He thinks it's the 1690's instead of the 1990's.
Still, he's got a radical, if a long discredited, "idea." First, he wants to lie. He wants to have a prison, but to dishonestly pretend it's a "hospital." Politicians are very fond of pretense, especially the hypocritical right wing politicians.
The most macabre aspect of Boris' unnatural "idea" is to use the fake "hospital" to imprison people that he's afraid of; perverts, to start with, but who know where he'll go from there. My guess is that he'll "hospitalize" everyone he personally feels is a political or social heretic.
Apparently Greenleaf got his "idea" from an old Boris Karloff film about Bedlam. Greenleaf doesn't trouble himself with trivialities like facts, science or honesty. He seems to prefer the vindictive cruelty of blind revenge. Certainly, there is nothing scientifically sound in Greenleaf's hysterical plan. A textbook on psychology says:
"In the seventeenth century, many people with psychological disorders fell victim to a process known as the Great Confinement. This was an attempt by European governments to rid their countries of social deviants such as beggars and petty criminals by placing them in prisonlike institutions known as royal hospitals. Because psychologically disturbed people were also considered social deviants, they too were often confined in such institutions. Conditions were appalling. The inmates were locked and chained, deprived of adequate fresh air, food, and exercise, and often brutalized by their keepers. Our word bedlam, which conveys a sense of chaos and noisy uproar, is derived from the name of one such institution in London - Bethlehem Royal Hospital. Fashionable Londoners would visit Bethlehem Royal Hospital during their Sunday outings to be amused by the antics of the inmates." Psychology, 3rd edition, pg 577.
Why not imprison old politicians who suffer from Alzheimer's? Why pick on old, ex-sex-offenders? Greenleaf fails to realize that the guys he wants to "hospitalize," or at least the ones he wants to start with, are all already old men. The average age of the exoffender who will be eligible for the Greenleaf punishment is about 55 years of age. Prison has already made them into zombies.
The ridiculous, but dangerous legislation that Greenleaf has reincarnated is a zombie and appealing only to those misfits who are unable to cope with the stresses of a modern world.
The extremists of the Republican right wing prefer zombies; zombies in law and zombies in people. Zombies don't think or themselves. They just obey. Pennsylvania voters are proving themselves to be obedient zombies. Boris likes that! When you're trapped in a mental time-warp, you don't want any of the voters thinking for themselves!
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