I'm Blinded by Flashes of the Obvious

You know it's a slow news day when you have the following headlines:

• Prison System a Costly and Harmful Failure: Report (Reuters)


• Motor City Named Nation's Most Dangerous (AP)


• China Not Fighting off E-waste Nightmare (AP)

The headlines herald from the news as though they should come as a surprise; as though by reading the articles, we will be blessed with a trifeca of epiphanies. So, let's dissect these morsels of wisdom.

America's prison population has increased eight times since 1970 yet has had little impact on crime. Over 2.2 million Americans occupy a prison or jail cell compared to 196,429 in 1970. It will cost another $27.5 billion to build additional facilities to deal with the influx of another increase of 192,000 in five years. On the one hand, this study was funded partly by George Soros, so I have to believe that it carries his standard bias. On the other, numbers don't lie, so perhaps we can conclude that prisons are not necessarily the best or only answer to our obviously growing crime problem.

Speaking of criminals, Detroit is now the most dangerous city in our nation followed by St. Louis, Flint, Oakland, Camden, Birmingham, North Charleston, Memphis, Richmond, and Cleveland. As though Detroit doesn't have enough problems as evidenced by their renewed effort to draw new business and tourism, now they are saddled with being the nation's most dangerous city. Their next marketing campaign might include "See COPS live - right here in Detroit!" Or, "Detroit, where you can freeze your dead ass off." All of these cities have something in common and, interestingly enough, Detroit is also home to one of the nation's largest populations of those peaceful Muslim folk. Hmmm, I'm thinkin' their peacefulness hasn't rubbed off too much.

You would think that Soros would be interested in ridding the world of much more than guns and would turn his attention to Guiyu, China where the world's electronics are "recycled" without so much as the first environmental or OSHA-like control in place. TV picture tubes are smashed by hand to recover glass and electronic parts while at the same time releasing as much as 6.5 pounds of lead dust. Wire is melted to recover the copper and computer circuit boards are broiled to release the gold. Even the West has found that it's 10 times cheaper to dump our junk on unsuspecting third world hell-holes than it is to properly dispose of it here. I am not even allowed to discard my used fluorescent light tubes in the dumpster because of mercury contained somewhere in the glass confines, but China can destroy human life and the environment without so much as an awkward glance from the enlightened parts of the world.

Some 35 million tons of toxic waste is dumped on China each year without the first control in place for its safe disposal. The report tells us that the ground water has been unsafe for human consumption for a long time yet fish for human consumption are still raised in local ponds and piles of waste adjoin rice paddies.

At some point, China will need to be seen for the human rights, environmental rights, and common sense violator that it is. This nation has gone unchecked for far too long and now we are reaping the results. How many pets and children have to die from Chinese product poisoning? How many Chinese workers have to die from their working conditions before the world takes notice? The US and Europe are all up in arms about the man-made global warming myth, yet no one ever looks to the Pacific Rim to see that if anyone is a major contributor to pollution, it's them!

Look back at these three headlines and see what's missing. Common Sense. Nearly 40 years have proven that prisons as we know them do little to deter crime. I find it ironic that this coincides well with the atheists mandating that God be banished from the classroom and the courthouse. Detroit is a dangerous place. Ya think? Obviously prison isn't a deterrent to crime and the root cause for the crime has been misdiagnosed. In part, I think that non-existent fathers and crack-whore mothers are a major factor. Failed liberal policies are another. Finally, China. You cannot go a day without hearing of some major flaw in that communist crap-can country. Given their lack of controls, why would we even consider buying anything from there? The Wal*Mart nation mentality has reigned supreme: bigger, faster, more, cheaper. At some point, that low price point means a sacrifice somewhere else. I think we have found it.