Cybrpnk's Rantings

Despite all of his tough-guy image and macho rhetoric, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is a wimp. He makes a big show about his tough stance in taking on the state's problems, yet at the same time he continues the California gubernatorial tradition of genuflecting before the prison guard's union. I have long felt that if Arnold really wanted to fix California's budget, the prison system would be the place to begin. There is a massive hole blown in the budget by the cost of the state's extensive penal system. There is also a tremendous societal cost due to the large numbers of people in jail who shouldn't be there. Rather than making his first action a rollback of the vehicle license fee, he should have freed everyone currently in jail for possession of all drugs, or at the very least marijuana, for personal use. That would have been a true blow for personal liberty. He had a golden opportunity to restore some semblance of justice to the California penal system last year, but chose instead to campaign against the proposition to amend the three strikes law. When you hear Arnold whine that his political enemies are telling lies, remind him that he has extended the incarceration of thousands of people by telling lies of his own. A complete squandering of personal integrity to help out the prison guards.

There was a time, back before the Republican Pete Wilson became governor, when California had the finest public university system in the country, and the state budget included significantly more money for education than for prisons. Now we spend far more on prisons than education, and our educational system is crumbling. Even Berkeley is no longer the shining beacon that it once was. We have built more and more prisons, and written off a larger and larger segment of our population. And what is the societal benefit we reap? We have created excellent graduate schools to convert petty thieves into hardened violent criminals. And when someone does manage to get their lives turned around we penalize them harshly and disproportionately for minor back-sliding. Imagine a state that claims to be a civilized beacon of individual liberty giving someone 25 years to life for cheating on a DMV license test? Or the same penalty for stealing a slice of pizza? This is not humane and modern, this is the modern version of the twenty years hard labor Victor Hugo's Jean Valjean receives for stealing a loaf of bread in Les Miserables.

If Arnold were a real man he would stop pushing his cowardly agenda of dismantling programs for the poor and slicing education. Instead he would lean on the prison guards and push for reform of our mean-spirited unjust criminal punishment system. He wouldn't be fighting a group like Families to Amend California's Three Strikes, he would be embracing them as allies in an important political fight. It's time for Arnold to stop talking tough and start acting tough. Come on Ahnuld, what are you afraid of? Take on the prison guards. I double dog dare you.