That is beautiful! Thanks for posting that. It is a great philosophical leap from the idea of punishing our criminals and degenerates...to curing them of disease and giving them medical care and protection and counselling toward the goal of moral and useful lives. Right on!
She did not say so, but hopefully the paupers and illiterates would not be given farms alongside of criminals and dope-fiends? [Correction: she does acknowledge the need for special departments of separation! My bad] There would need to be separation and some overall armed supervision. And what about the costs of this health care as compared to the current costs of incarceration in prisons? The idea of society working together toward universal physical and mental health seems far more humane than simply tossing the dregs of society into prisons or letting them sleep under bridges and in the alleys, but is it doable?
In Canada we use prisons, halfway houses, psychiatric wards, and welfare assisted living to deal with some of these problems. The idea of segregating them in open spaces and giving them medical and moral counselling and such is very idealistic, but it is hard for me to consider putting certain classes of criminal fiends into the equivalent of the Betty Ford Center when they have committed such atrocious acts? One would need to be a nurse, I suppose, to be able to consider such behaviour as a health issue.
I had a similar idea which I proposed years ago, excepting that the criminal elements would be segregated on fertile land that was walled in with armed guards and that no assistance would be given past an initial supply of food and seeding and such. Our only costs would be the wages of the guards. And having chosen the life they value, they could live with the society they have chosen--or choose to civilise one another.
"The second step would be to take an inventory of the secondary group such as illiterates, paupers, unemployables, criminals, prostitutes, dope-fiends; classify them in special departments under government medical protection and segregate on farms and open spaces as long as necessary for the strengthening and development of moral conduct.
Having corralled this enormous part of our population and placed it on a basis of health not punishment, it is safe to say that about fifteen or twenty millions of our population would then be organized into soldiers of defense–defending the unborn against their own disabilities.
The third step would be to give special attention to the mothers' health, to see that women who are suffering from tuberculosis, heart or kidney disease, toxis goitre, gonorrhea, or any disease where the condition of pregnancy disturbs her health; place these mothers under public health nurses to instruct them in practical scientific methods of contraception in order to safeguard their lives–thus reducing maternal mortality.
There would be a careful follow-up in the homes where infants have died, to ascertain the causes and to prevent when possible the further increase of children until the causes have been removed–reducing infant mortality.
While the above steps seem to be emphasis on a health program instead of on tariffs, moratoriums and debts, I believe that national health is the first essential factor in any program for universal peace." |
