Amendment 28: The Prison Shank Amendment

      The other night I had a dream where I was a member of Congress, but it was a slightly different vision of congress. I must have been on a committee. We were discussing my own idea for a Constitutional amendment that grants prisoners the right to a safe prison environment. Everyone seemed to love this idea except for 3 people. The first person who objected was oddly enough a guy I knew from High School named Shadi, and the reason he ultimately didn't care for the idea was because in my dream he was some kind of cliched rival who just wanted to stop this bill because it was my idea. He had corny cliched dialogue and everything. In fact, after we passed the Bill, he even stood up, clapped condescendingly, and mockingly congratulated me on my victory and then he promised me that I won't be so lucky next time. The other two people who didn't like the Bill were arrested and escorted out for being evil – more or less. Basically, they didn't like the bill because they were evil, and this was so apparent in their arguments of the bill that they were charged by authorities with being amoral congressmen. I laughed out loud at my dream.

      But anyway, the idea that prisoners should have the right to a safe prison environment is something I came up with a little while ago. If you are incarcerated, then whoever incarcerates you is responsible for your humane treatment and if humane treatment cannot be provided, than you should not be incarcerated. I'm sure most believe that every human, except for an extreme few, deserve to be treated humanely, not with cruelty. Why should a person's humanity be disregarded just because they've made a mistake?

      I like the idea that you can get in trouble for doing your job as a congressman wrong. Not by taking bribes or other forms of illegal, unethical activity, but rather by simply doing your job in such a way that can be construed as non-constructive. A filibuster for instance is a strategy to kill a bill by wasting time talking. Does that sound ethical to you? Many politicians are lawyers who know how to talk and argue creatively. They can avoid areas of discussion that are not beneficial to them. They can make arguments that can mislead. They can be really tricky bastards and I think there's good reason to prohibit people with law degrees from becoming politicians.