On Friday, October 26, 2001, at 10:36 AM, Duncan Frissell wrote:
On Fri, 26 Oct 2001, Steve Thompson wrote:
That would be my view. After all, mistakes do happen and so we should all be understanding of our and their all-too-human failings which occasionaly lead to minor inconveniences.
Besides, "Prison is not punishment to the literate."
I've seen you quote this several times. Since it's a generality ("the literate") and not just a statement about your own personal view of prison, I dispute it. I'm literate, but prison would indeed be punishment for me. For all of the usual reasons. Being thrown in a jail cell and having reading material is no substitute for liberty. "How we burned in the prison camps later thinking: What would things have been like if every security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive?" --Alexander Solzhenitzyn, Gulag Archipelago