From cartoonist Clay Jones about ‘Blazing Paranoia,’ prison and judicial reform, and Bill O’Reilly scaring old white people
Earlier this week, a fan on social media shared one of my cartoons and said it was “Monty Pythonesque.” That’s high praise. Today I decided to steal from Mel Brooks’ movie “Blazing Saddles.” A true classic.
Obama wants to reform the judicial system. He’s not the only one. A lot of Republicans want to also, though they might want to go about it differently.
The president has ordered the release of 6,000 non-violent prisoners convicted of drug charges. Releasing 6,000 will not make much of a dent in our prison population. And despite the fears of a lot of conservatives like Bill O’Reilly, it’s not a threat to society.
The United States has the largest prison population in the world. Many of those are non-violent drug users. This is insane. Rehabilitation for many of these prisoners would be a lot more cost effective and better suited for prisoners and society than sitting in a cell.
We do need to reform our judicial system. There are three parts I believe in.
- We need to legalize marijuana. It’s no more of a threat than alcohol, and it’s not a gateway drug or something that kills people or ruin lives.
- We need to end mandatory sentencing. Judging should be left to judges, not legislators.
- We need to end private prisons. No one should be making a profit in punishing people. What’s next? For-profit executions?
Back to this prisoner release: Some of them will end up back in prison. You can’t have a group of 6,000 ex-convicts without someone getting in trouble. It’s going to happen, and then look for the likes of Bill O’Reilly to paint it as a Willie Horton situation.
O’Reilly played the race card. He says there’s a racial component for Obama to release these prisoners. On a recent show of his, he said this is driven by race with Barack Obama. I know it is. I know it’s race: The cops are huntin’ down inner-city black dealers. They don’t care about the white collar dealers. That’s what’s motivating this.
This is why everyone who watches Fox News is angry. They need to stop scaring old white people like that.
http://claytoonz.com/2015/11/04/blazing-paranoia/
