Sunday, June 7, 2009

Those Who Forget History Are Doomed to Repeat It

History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived,
but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.
~ Maya Angelou

On what may be the eve before the passing of Bill C-15, I implore all party members to realize just what is lying in store for our nation if we duplicate the mistakes of our neighbours to the South.

Sen. James Webb, (D-Va.) is trying to change things, before they can possibly get any worse and has launched an ambitious new effort to reform U.S. prisons nationwide.

From Slate.com:

"Webb has no problem locking up the serious baddies. In fact, he wants to reform the justice system in part so that we can incapacitate the worst of the worst. But Webb wants us to recognize that warehousing the nation's mentally ill and drug addicts in crowded correctional facilities tends to create a mass of meaner, more violent, less employable people at the exits. And unlike Guantanamo, there are always going to be exits.

The Justice Department estimates that 16 percent of the adult inmates in American prisons—more than 350,000 of those incarcerated—suffer from mental illness; the percentage among juveniles is even higher. And 2007 Justice statistics showed that nearly 60 percent of the state prisoners serving time for a drug offense had no history of violence and four out of five drug arrests were for drug possession, not sales. Webb also reminds us that while drug use varies little by ethnic group in the United States, African-Americans—estimated at 14 percent of regular drug users—make up 56 percent of those in state prison for drug crimes. We know all of this. The question is how long we want to avoid dealing with it."


Should we not be learning from the failed policies of the Americans? Why is the Canadian government attempting to follow down this road of failure and misery?

One thing is for sure, those Members of Parliament who support the draconian bill will be publicized, and summarily voted out of office by Canadians when our country falls further down the rabbit hole.

The future consequences of Bill C-15...... welcome to The United States of Canada!

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