Eden: A Parable

Once upon a time, John and Richard were strolling through a garden planted by God. They saw hummingbirds sipping from flowers. Bees and butterflies zipped to and fro. They marveled at shrubs, mushrooms, amphibians, and the rich loam of the soil itself. They contemplated the many ways all the growing beings around them interacted with human life.

“Which of these growing things,” asked John, “should we make illegal?”

“The ones used for healing,” Richard replied.

Takiwasi, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Report: Aide says Nixon’s war on drugs targeted blacks, hippies (CNN, March 24, 2016):

Upper Millstones and the Debt Trap

Deuteronomy 24:6 forbids taking “an upper millstone” in pledge for a debt. The idea is that taking away someone’s ability to make money, to trap them in a deepening cycle of poverty, is immoral. Both states and private businesses (especially payday lenders) collude to make money off the most powerless: the poor. This court victory in Tennessee, which restores driver’s licenses to those who have had them revoked for being too poor to pay fines, is a huge win, and it illustrates the importance of the federal judiciary, from top to bottom.

On “Zero Tolerance”

“Zero tolerance.” Let’s talk about that concept a minute. What does that actually mean?

Does it mean denying due process? Setting bail so high for a misdemeanor that you can’t pay, so that you’d plead guilty in order to get out and keep your job? Because that’s what has happened to countless poor people.

Instead of cash bail, this administration has decided to use family separation in the same way: coercing folks to plead guilty rather than being separated from their kids.

Also: recognize this is what the cash bail system does to poor people all the time: it holds families hostage. If someone is not dangerous, and flight is not a serious risk, they should not be kept in jail. People plead guilty on a regular basis in order to avoid losing their jobs, homes, and kids.

“Zero tolerance” is a myth. We all want due process. That’s why we have courts in the first place: because circumstances matter.