Re: island 4

Posted by parhad on July 01, 2001 at 12:59:38:

In Reply to: Re: island 4 posted by Jeff on July 01, 2001 at 12:00:43:

They were all successful in their own ways. I had a chance to see those kids like few people get a chance. I lived with them, fought with them, even had ocassion to

embrace one or two of them when things got really bad. I'm convinced that there are far better ways of dealing with them...for everyone's benefit. Except for the

need to punish people to keep the rest of us in line.

This world we call normal isn't for everyone...especially for those who weren't "broken" to it or sold on it early on. Why keep insisting they become "normal" when

they've told you in every way they can that they don't want it...except to rob and kill and maim in?

Why NOT an island? But not a "Devils Island" where you grind their faces even harder. Why not a place where they have to build shelters and hunt and fish and

plant food, where they have to form working relationships instead of being fed in idleness and allowed to develop rot and hatred they hone to fine edge among others

trapped as they are.

If a day comes when one of them WANTS to rejoin sciety...have a series of tests...not book learning, but other kinds to determine if there is anything worthwhile the

person can gain or give. There are many details to such a thing and it COULD be done if there wasn't this Puritanical need to punish a transgression even to the point

where it backfires and punishes the punisher even more. Look around the culture and see who isn't in prison, fearful to walk out at night...afraid of a shot in the night

claiming another innocent. It is madness!

The Islands taught me a lot...but they also showed me I had an obligation to my own young son, or I might find him one day, sent to my Group Home with a record

and the rest of it...and THEN I would find the time..and THEN everyone would get out of the way and let us be together...as he'd been asking since the divorce...but

that's another story.