Probably not Ok

Someone on facebook suggested a page to me called "why test on animals when we have pedophiles in prison?" Now, I have, in the past, suggested that pedophiles be sent to a gorilla infested island twenty miles off of the mainland and their only way off was through shark infested waters. Also, lasers were involved somehow. But that wasn't a real suggestion. More like a pitch for a reality show, a reality show I would probably watch.

I know that sexual molestation of children is possibly the worst crime that could be committed. It fucks people up for life. Even if they grow into successful adults, they are still going to have a lot of horrible things happen to them as teenagers as a result of how their world view got all screwed up from the sexual assault. I'm not defending it. But at the same time, pedophiles are people, too. And although most people would probably rather share a relaxing meal with Osama Bin Laden than with any pedophile, they still have rights.

The criminal justice system, I think, can be used as a way to bring people back into society in a positive way. I think that people really can be redeemed in prison. The problem is that we aren't making any real effort to do that. Changing a person is a process that can take many years. Prisoners, though, have a lot of free time. But the whole system needs to be revamped.

I believe that criminals could be taught to come out of prison and re-join society in a positive way. We can give them job training, counselling, and just some general guidance. And that is what we should be doing. There is no sense in locking someone up if all it is going to do is put them in a situation where the only way they can make money is through more crime.

So long as I am going to be paying taxes I would rather have it going towards a positive outcome for the criminal, in the end, than a bad one. Testing products on people that seem like the scum of the earth might seem like a good alternative to testing them on innocent bunnies, but you are sacrificing everything that makes us human if you do that. The only thing that separates us from the rabbits is that we care about what happens to our fellow human beings. A rabbit doesn't care if some other rabbit gets turned into stew or has perfume sprayed in its eyes. We have to be better than the rabbits. We have to understand that it isn't okay to treat any other human like an animal.

This has to, and does, apply to terrorists as well. Right now terrorists are our enemies. American has had her share of enemies over the years. And you know what happens after every war? We say that we should have treated our enemy with more respect. Sure, kill them if that is what you got to do, but treat the prisoners with respect. We don't need to torture them to get information out of them. We don't need to do things to them that we would never do to another person. We need to treat them like humans. Humans that are on the wrong side of a fight, maybe, but humans none the less.

Testing products on inmates is tantamount to torture. Testing it on animals is tantamount to torture as well. I'm not saying that it is right to test on animals, but I am saying that it is wrong to test on humans.

End Rant.