Why Can't We Be Friends? 7-6-2010

 When I was 10 years old, I asked my mother how to make friends. I felt rather friendless. She had a hard time answering that question.

When I was 49, I again felt friendless. Then, too, the problem was caused by myself. I pushed away those that were my friends. Since my arrest, I have been surprised by how many of my friends remain. I wish they could all know how sorry I am I embarrassed them.

I do not expect them to stay friends. Twelve years is jut too long a time.

... But if the absence is long, it also seems to cause the friendship to be forgotten; hence the saying 'Lack of conversation has dissolved many a friendship.'

Nicomachean Ethics. Book VIII, Chapter 5, §1. 

I find Book VIII of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics has a damned good explanation of what is and what makes friendship. I cannot blame my friends for giving up on me. That was my intention, if my suicide plan had worked.

This is clear if freinds come to be separated by soe wide gap in virtue, vice, wealth or something else; for them there are friends no more, and do not even expect to be so....

That comes from Nicomachean Ethics. Book VIII, Chapter 7, §4, and I expect it to be true. I cannot blame my friends for seeing me as the moral leper that I am.

I see no way to avoid losing my friends. I only want them to understand that I hold nothing against them. I might as well complain about snow in winter.

What I do see worth questioning is how the government plans my re-entry into civil society after a 12-year absence. I will have no family to help me find a place in society, and no greater likelihood of friends. Aristotle actually makes a point applicable here:

...For virtuous people are enduringly [virtuous] in their own right, and enduring [friends] to each other. They neighter reequest nor provide assistance that require those actions, but, you might even say, prevent this. For it is proper to good people to avoid error themselves and not to prevent it in their friends.

Nicomachean Ethics. Book VIII, Chapter 8, §4.

Do the federal Sentencing Guidelines even consider how the person is to re-enter civil society, or the means to do so? I hope Indiana does as it reforms its criminal code. Friends – those true friends, not friends for pleasure or for utility (to borrow phrases from Aristotle) – will help one keep to the straight and narrow.

That I pushed everyone away was but part of my plan for self-destruction. Many could have, would have, stopped me if they had known my intentions. Several of my friends would like to get their hands on me to impress upon me their opinion of my ideas. That support will be gone in 12 years.

Looking around me, I can see that some people probably do need separating from their friends and their communities. Many here belong to communities where doing extended time in prison is an expected thing and doing it well is a virtue. The thing is not in removing them from all friends, but from particular sorts of friends. I know parole shall require from staying away from other felons – but not all I have in mind are felons. Yes, this might take more work on the part of a parole officer, but for what are the people spending their money?

I can understand that the government wants to send me away for 151 months because my moral transgressions sicken them or frighten them. All I can say is that I see my sentence as rational.

What we should be frightened of is a million people (a number I saw a few years ago of all people incarcerated in the United States) who will be released who have no friends to help them stay on the straight and narrow. A million of the kind of people who understand the order of an institution more than the freedom of civil society. Here is one more frightening thought: any percentage of our convicts who have no love for the civil society to which you think they belong.

True, we can keep incarcerating these people. I say you will turn lumps of coal into diamonds. Consider if you like your tax dollars spent on a government chasing its tail. However much this guarantees government employment and economic support to the communities located around prisons. Yes, Pendleton, I think of you.

I can see many returning to civil society with brains turned to mush by their incarceration. Do we really want a society of the frightened and the robotic? Maybe you do. Do you really see anything beneficial where such a large segment of Americans run scared of their government?

Of course, you get even tougher on crime. Let us make every felony punishable by death. That will take a lot of lethal injections. Skip that and go for gas. What did they use in the Forties? Just send us all to the showers.

Do not like the last idea? Then prepare for extra work or for even more warehousing of convicts. The latter may look like the cheaper alternative, but remember, you get what you pay for. Creating sentences which promote rehabilitation as well as punishment, and then a system for convicts to re-enter the world, will cost more; the benefits will also be larger. 

As for myself, I see two things happening over the next twelve years: 1) my lungs give out and I die in prison; or 2) I survive and come home in poor health. I see neither friends nor friends around when I leave prison. I will have no profession or property or income (but I would have none if released tomorrow). Who would want to involve themselves with me?

I can see some choices and none are appealing to me. That I cannot imagine being able to do any good when I leave prison motivated me to do all this writing. Whether creating a useless human being was a question only you can answer. It is up to me to live out my sentence and the punishment coming afterward. The sentence will end, but the punishment endures.

sch

[More proof I do not have prophetic powers. Some friends and family stuck with me – why I have not always understood. They did, and I have promised not to again embarrass them. I do think what I foresaw as governmental support in returning me to the world has proven true. I suggest you read my experiences in the halfway house, the same in which I spent my time between arrest and prison, I filed under halfway house life. As for the governmental support given while I am on supervised release, please read my posts under Supervised release. Frankly, I am a little shocked having read these old notes of mine that here has been so little change – even though what I saw of the government's talents while I was incarcerated kept the shock to a minimum. I noticed an omission on my when I wrote about my sentence as being irrational, which needs to be corrected. That statement was premised on my having read the opinion in United States v. Dorvee. This probably shows how little I expected to be publishing this entry. As for the Dorvee case, I have written before about it prior to prison:

1. What is a Criminal Sentence Supposed to Be? 6-20-2010
2. Adequate Deterrence, 6-20-2010 
3. Protecting the Public From Further Crimes of the Criminal 
4. Providing Effective Correctional Treatment, 6-21-2010 
5. Two More Thoughts on Deterrence, 6-21-2010 

 I wrote What the Government Won't Like #2 after prison, but before I published the pretrial detention notes. When a physical attack gets less time than the downloading of illegal images, I do not think the law is rational. sch 2/11/23.]