On January 26, almost 250 years ago, British Admiral Arthur Phillip sailed a boat filled with convicts into Sydney Cove, in the land that became Australia. This effort won the admiral a governorship of New South Wales, Australia, much to the distaste of the ignored Aboriginal peoples. Such are the lengths societies will go to “get rid” of those citizens that committed a crime. Those people that have severed the cardinal, two-pronged societal rule that if you break the law and do not have the means to defend yourself, you are forfeit.
Surely, a quarter of a century later, there has been some progress in the way we rehabilitate, reeducate and reincorporate the convicted population. Nope. It has remained the same plan. We, as a society, stow all those we deem void to the social contract and ship them off somewhere. Here in New York, we have an actual Island (Rikers) that houses those awaiting trial, no matter their mental health status, gang affiliation or general degree of criminality. There are many institutions like this around the country, hidden away, to avoid waking the everyday citizen’s sympathy or empathy. Any ember of sentiment for this lost population is quickly stifled by the brutal and lazy logic that these people “knew what the consequences were” or that they “shouldn’t have done the crime to begin with”. How profound that branch of empiricism must seem to the complicit?
In the real world, those that truly understand the vast and uncontrollable variables of life know that we are all one or two bad decisions away from a unique and terrible descent. Society will march on from any of its failed or lost members without a misstep. I would suggest that we, as a society, should never allow extant life be so prematurely obfuscated and forgotten. No matter, for as long as our civilization finds the value in storing people in the dark places and the will to overlook them, we will never truly be civilized.
Strip Clubs are Sad Discos 