Quotes about Prison

"He had drawn many a thousand of these rations in prisons and camps, and though he'd never had an opportunity to weight them on scales, and although, being a man of timid nature, he knew no way of standing up for his rights, he, like every other prisoner, had discovered long ago that honest weight was never to be found in the bread-cutting. There was short weight in every ration. The only point was how short. So every day you took a look to soothe your soul - today, maybe, they haven't snitched any."

Fear can be like a prison. It is, however, a self made prison. Many are imprisoned by fear. No one else can liberate them from this prison. Others may inspire them but they must liberate themselves.

"Two men were in prison. One looked down to the mud in despair, the other looked up to the stars in hope."

The world is a philosophical prison and Man is the philosophical prisoner.

From The Week March 28, 2008

America, Land of the Unfree  Derrick Z. Jackson The Boston Globe

What is the “world’s leading prison sate”?  asked Derrick Z. Jackson.  You might think it is repressive China or Putin’s Russia.  But as a recent Pew Center study recently revealed, it’s the U.S., where 2.3 million people – one out of every 100 adult Americans – now languish behind bars.  Per Capita, our rate of imprisonment easily exceeds that of Russia, is six times that of China, and seven times that of Germany and France.  The primary crime behind this swelling population is not robbery or murder but the sale and possession of drugs.  Under draconian laws adopted during the crack epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, most of those sentenced to long prison terms are black:  One in 15 black men is in jail, compared to one in 106 white males.  Yet, in an amazing act of hypocrisy, the State Department last week issued an annual human-rights report that condemned Russia, Burma, and China for arbitrarily imprisoning too many of their citizens.  Nations that live in glass prisons shouldn’t throw stones.

            The fact that people are being prosecuted and imprisoned for using marijuana, while alcohol remains a staple commodity, is surely the reductio ad absurdum of any notion that our drug laws are designed to keep people from harming themselves or others. (24 footnote below)  Alcohol is by any measure the more dangerous substance, It has no approved medical use, and its lethal dose is rather easily achieved.  Its role in causing automobile accidents is beyond dispute.  The manner in which alcohol; relieved people of their inhibitions contributes to human violence, personal injury, unplanned pregnancy, and the spread of sexual disease.  Alcohol is also well known to be addictive.  When consumed in large quantities over many years, it can lead to devastating neurological impairments, to cirrhosis of the liver, and to death.  In the United States alone, more than 100,000 people annually die from its use.  It is also more toxic to developing fetus than any other drug of abuse.  (Indeed, “crack babies” appear to have been really suffering from fetal-alcohol syndrome.) (reference)  None of these charges can be leveled at marijuana.  As a drug, marijuana is nearly unique in having several medical applications and no known lethal dosage.  While adverse reactions to drugs like aspirin and ibuprofen account for an estimated 7,600 deaths (and 76,000 hospitalizations) each year in the United States alone, marijuana kills no one. (drug war facts)  Its role as a “gateway drug” now seems less plausible than ever (and it was never plausible).  In fact, nearly everything human beings do – driving cars, flying planes, hitting golf balls – is more dangerous than smoking marijuana in the privacy of one’s own home.  Anyone who would seriously attempt to argue that marijuana is worthy of prohibition because of the risk it poses to human beings will find that the powers of the human brain are simply insufficient for the job.

The only real prison is fear, and the only real
freedom is freedom from fear.

They took away my money, my family, and my security. Why couldn't they destroy my ideas? We will question them in court tomorrow as we trigger The Revolution of all revolutions!