Cowboy Confessional

It is good to know that humor has a place in everyday life, and in this case it is the Day by Day comic strip by Chris Muir.

For the sake of full disclosure, Chris and I were childhood friends, and in recent years stumbled upon one another. Seems there is something about growing up in Florida that tends to breed free thinkers and folks with a libertarian bent. Though Chris demurs (which is not to be confused with de-muir, the act of removing Chris himself) and avoids promoting his name (he thinks it detracts from his characters) and since he includes many political voices in his strips, he has quite a following among politically aware people on the right, up the center, and those like me who are exploring regions entirely off the map.

It also doesn’t hurt that Chris’ characters have pithy personalities and that all his women are good looking.

For me though it is the humanity of his characters that is enchanting. The strip above is a sample. I had stepdaughters , and they were “coming of age” while I was in their lives. This strip reveals what every father goes through at some point — the stark realization that he knows exactly what teenage boys are capable of, and that violence against them (or at least the appearance of potential violence) is a viable tactic.

With a presidential election year in full swing, I suspect Chris will have more material for his strips than he can use. I kinda hope Hillary wins the Democrat primary … the Day by Day strips will be too good to ignore.

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I went to Oakland’s airport last Sunday to welcome home Ricky Glass.

I don’t know Ricky. Never met him. Before Sunday I could not have picked him out of a crowd. Yet I and a few dozen other people took a couple of minutes from our day to welcome Ricky home with joyful shouts that startled bystanders near the baggage claim carousels.

See, Ricky just got back from Iraq, having done a two-year stint as a Staff Sergeant in the Air Force. Like many young men and women who were starting their adult lives, Ricky was called to duty and went where his fellow countrymen asked him to go. Many of us showed up to greet him once word of his arrival came down A Hero’s Welcome (www.aheros-welcome.org).

Aside from pride and heart felt appreciation, there was no common thread in the mob that formed at the base of the escalators in the Southwest terminal. Black folk, white folk, Hispanic folk were out in force. Some wore Bloomingdale fashion, others wore Wal Mart clearance. Idle conversations while waiting on Ricky’s plane to land exposed liberals, conservatives, and libertarians. I chatted with acquaintances who I know carried membership cards from groups as diverse as the ACLU and the NRA.

While we gathered on the sidewalk outside, two men who served in Viet Nam chatted and held American flags at the ready. Television cameramen had to part a path for another fellow — middle-aged, thin, with posture a flagpole would envy. Somehow he knew to gravitate toward the vets. Sure enough he had been in Nam as well. When the reporter jabbed a microphone in his face, he said with a resolute and slightly teary tone “Didn’t get much of a welcome when I got back. I’m making sure Ricky gets one.” The other Nammies nodded a silent “amen.”

Ricky may have seen some unexpected things in Iraq, but they may well pale to the mob scene at OAK. With a surprised smile that the airport could have used as a search light, he came to the arrival mezzanine and nearly froze. He couldn’t step off of the escalator before being surrounded by three layers of humanity, with elbow-savvy reporters in the innermost ring. Alas, they were no match for Ricky’s family who handily outnumbered the media and wrapped around Ricky like a winter’s blanket. Those of us who were meeting Ricky for the first time held back despite wanting to slap his back, offer to buy him a beer, or see just see a man that average Joes know to be a hero.

I didn’t detain Ricky any longer than a handshake takes, knowing that family, home, and getting out of his desert boots were high on his agenda. His handshake was what you would expect from a military man — strong, certain, with purpose. He looked me squarely in the eye, but might have been confused when a strange man more than double his age gripped back and said “Thank you, sir.”

The reporters and cameramen had vanished into their trucks, and Ricky was quickly swept away in a tidal pool of kin. The crowd thinned as the party ended, except for a few older men. The Viet Nam vets who had congregated before now stiffly stood at attention, watching Ricky’s parade exit the airport. Their mission had been accomplished.

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Conventional wisdom fails in unconventional times.

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An urban fellow once said “You scare me.”

I felt kinda flattered.

We had been discussing my days on the ranch, and the kind of people I grew up around. We also talked about the fact that all rural folks own guns (plural per person applies). As I recall the point where he admitted his fear came as I was relating a tale about a soldier I once met who broke his leg in a Nam rice paddy, splitted it, and hobbled many miles solo back to camp.

This fellows fear puzzled me for a long time, and only today did I come to a conclusion.

People tend to fear being noncompetitive. It is instinctual that if someone is stronger, faster, and better armed, they have a chance of surviving what you won’t. Thus we all have some minor fear or latent resentment when we meet someone else who, if circumstances demanded, would take our food, our wife, or our life. It is a good thing I am not married — my cooking is questionable and my life is valuable, so I’d jettison a wife in a pinch.

Urban dwellers have a fear or resentment of rural folks that they mask with inaccurate assessments of rural life, culture, and intra-family genetics. What makes the average urbanite cringe is when someone talks to them in blunt terms, refuses to take excuses for bad behavior, and shows the backbone required to do whatever it takes to stand on their own two feet. This goes against the growing interdependency of city citizens who will be the first to perish when the oil runs out.

Were unlimited wealth mine, I’d be tempted to force every Gucci wearing city supplicant to spend a year on a Kansas farm or Oklahoma cattle ranch. A year might just be enough for them to quit being scared.

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I wish to pitch a possibly novel notion in the realm of criminal justice. And by “criminal justice” I do not mean incarcerating congress.

The concept is pretty simple. For a certain set of despicable crimes, require convicted felons to earn their way out of prison. In other words, life behind bars until they can prove they are acceptable in society. Let’s call this doctrine “Secured Until Civilized” for sake of a catchy moniker.

First, let’s not confuse the plan with the quaint and ineffective policy of “time off for good behavior.” This sorry substitute for instilling self-discipline simply states that you can get out jail earlier than scheduled if you act in a minimally acceptable fashion. This merely encourages short-term pacification while instilling no form of rehabilitation. Ex-cons say that they survive confinement by doing their stretch “one day at a time.”  This proposal disables their gambit by turning every day into forever.

Nor is this proposal is another form of parole. In modern times, the word “parole” has become synonymous with “dysfunctional.” Parole guidelines are lose to the point that any two parole boards would retain and release the same prisoner. And the guidelines for parole rarely have anything to do with actual rehabilitation, instead providing an escape and clean getaway for those who manage to sound apologetic and avoid shanking other inmates for a few years.

But what if eventual release depended on demonstrating the internal discipline necessary to no longer be a burden and danger to decent folk? What if you knew that your only way out of the slammer was to manifest and document that you had rehabilitated yourself? Would the average convict — one who is mentally prepared to endure 5-10 years before returning to criminal endeavors — change their ways if bootstrapping virtue was the only way out?

This may be the most important question we can ask. Statistically we know that most violent crimes are committed by repeat offenders, and the recidivism rate for lesser crimes is high — around 60%. Keeping thugs in jail reduces overall crime rates, and keep bad influences away from impressionable kids (or as politically correct curs prefer, “at risk children”). High re-incarceration rates indicate that current sentences are lackluster deterrents, and nothing in the modern penal system seemingly instills the necessary rectitude for cons to live harmoniously with the rest of us.

Without doubt pantywaist politicians and criminal defenders (if I may be redundant) will claim this is cruel and/or unusual punishment. A more false argument would be difficult to devise without the aid medication. We already commit people to life in prison without any chance of commutation whatsoever. A similar sentence with the possibility for release is certainly less cruel. The only thing unusual about this scheme is that it puts the onus of rehabilitation on the convict. It would require him to develop the fundamental social and work skills required to be a functional adult, which is all we demand of our own children.

Two open-ended questions remain — what crimes would justify this sentence, and what are the criteria for demonstrating rehabilitation? On the former, certainly non-fatal violence (rape, armed robbery, etc.) would make the list, and given the flagging public acceptance of street crime, many more will be added.  It would also be an alternative to current “three strike” legislation that occationaly ensnares habitual criminals who commit less offensive crimes.  It could even be applied to my congressman given his voting record.

On the latter question, I doubt we could identify a one-size-fits-all solution (any woman who has tried such pantyhose will attest that this is a failed approach). But certain baseline demonstrations might include a minimal level of education in a marketable skill (G.E.D.s don’t count), reparations to victims and taxpayers, and community service on day-passes from jail (escaping while on leave would result in permanent lifer status).

In this world, everything you get is either a gift, earned, or stolen. Parole is a gift that soon breeds resentment. Stealing your way out of prison is not an option. That leaves earning outage, a plan that deserves at least a trial run.

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