If you are educated, even self-taught, and you inevitably come under the scrutiny of the abusive legal system in modern flaw (false law) and disorder America, you'd best not let on that the judge is a pompous, probably senile, nincompoop or even an arrogant sociopathic retard.
And if despite your evident honesty and innocence you should discover yourself in a prison run by grade school drop outs, try not to argue with them about the evident and only possible meaning of their rules and regulations.
No matter what they say, or intend, a hostile employed "security" goon -- especially one that has a bit of rank (Or is that reek?) about him -- is liable to have your head examined because he or she flunked basic English language 101, and couldn't understand their way out of a first grade reader.
Don't laugh; it happened to me once!
Unrelenting Cruelty
Oh the cognitive dissonance that must have ensued in the pea-brained no-nonsense, obey all orders regardless how wrong, misdirected or outright evil, even if your life depended on doing otherwise, mafioso-like "lieutenant" that day in solitary confinement.
My "crime" for which solitary imprisonment was determined to be the sole justifiable punishment?
Trying to avoid pneumonia while being ordered to stand in a long line outside at three a.m. in the middle of the night, during cold winter weather, with little to wear, no adequate coat other than a thread-bare blanket sloppily sewn together by haphazard prisoners, no hat and thin canvas shoes, while sick and feverish but denied all medical care.
Well, let's ignore that last one, since it presumes those involved in prison medicine actually care for their unwillingly charges, subjected to their usually clownish, hurtful and harmful interventions, or entirely ignored and abandoned despite the most pressing or urgent medical needs.
Unwilling to sacrifice my life on behalf of my demanding, shrewish jailers, I had fashioned a head covering from a spare pillowcase (the kind handed out not for holding non-existent pillows, but for use to place soiled clothing in for laundering after a "fresh, clean" tattered, threadbare uniform (either with or without underwear) was issued.
Along with bedding (a couple of sheets), this was the urgent and pressing requirement for being marched outside when most sane people are asleep, snugly cozy in bed at home.
Another early morning necessity for being similarly hauled unceremoniously out into the cold cruel weather to wait in line, around an hour later, was the (ahem) pleasure of standing around waiting to dine in the decidedly non-facetiously termed "mess hall" (whatever was served there was a big mess long before it ended up on a prisoner's feeding tray).
When ordered to remove my head covering despite my apparent ill health and the bracingly frigid north wind, my refusal was a sure-fire ticket to attend the next few months in the solitary cell where my meals could be bypassed without notice (of what was loosely called "food"), not that this was much of a loss other than for the extreme pangs of near starvation this often caused me during my brief year of unnecessary detention.
It Could (And Does) Happen Here!
Losing more than 1/4th of my barely adequate weight (at nearly 6 foot) from 177 down to 132 lb., more than once that misbegotten year, very nearly did what encroaching pneumonia toyed around threatening me with; nearly being dispatched to that vast prison cell in the ground, to await the world warden's ultimate return.
Called in to the "lieutenant's" office for a mock hearing (where evidence is a dirty word and never allowed, at least on behalf of the accused) following my solitary incarceration, to "justify" it on paper for possible outside prying eyes in future, I was armed with the "Offender's Handbook" rules and regulations for prisoner conduct.
The regulation in question plainly, or so my poor college educated non-addlepated brain "mistakenly assumed" in my hilarious belief that anybody in prison misadministration actually cared one whit about anything it said, was that prisoners had to obey all orders by prison personal -- no matter how inane, insane or idiotic -- except when it might possibly threaten the life or safety of the prisoner or someone else.
Little did I suspect the words on paper were not defined by a common, ordinary English language dictionary.
Rather they must first be put into the mixing bowl of low or no education administrative obfuscation, obtuseness and deliberate confusion (because nobody could be that confused by accident).
Once those words came out the other end, from the mouth and face of such a stalwart champion of freedom for none, they were accompanied by the ominous threat: "You need to have your head examined, since you can't understand plain English!"
Next thing I knew -- once the "officer" confiscated my only copy of the "Offender" handbook he found so offensive -- after being unceremoniously dumped back into my solitary cell for the duration, the next day I was handcuffed behind my back (the only way prisoners are permitted to leave such cells, even to bathe), and marched into another holding cell immediately next door to it, there to await a pending visit from the prison psychiatrist.
At least, as it turned out, he and I were on about the same educational level, and he soon suspected what I already knew: the referring "lieutenant" was more in need of his services than was I.
During his brief visit, we even had an amiable discussion about the horrid content of the prison slop called "food" by administrators, to pass cursory muster with outside regulators, those easily duped and fooled all-too brief and utterly gullible visitors whose "job" is hurriedly ignoring all evidence to the decrepit, harmful and tortuous nature of life behind bars for many similarly abused prisoners.
He assured me that the administrative side of the "commissary" was nearly as bad, so rotten in fact that he felt the need to bring his own lunch from outside, rather than risk eating better than any prisoner could ever hope to have served to them any meal of any day, without exception.
Corporate Prisons For Profit
Did I neglect to say this was one of those prisons-for-profit corporate-run joints, where every needed but regretted corner of expense (particularly in the dietary area) is cut, often to the point of starving prisoners daily?
Perhaps I likewise failed to relate that this was also true of nearly every other of the many different facilities (almost a dozen) I was regularly shipped to and held within throughout my brief year, in the Texas state jail system.
In several of them men literally keeled over and dropped dead of heart attacks, either in front of other prisoners or while attempting to sleep amidst all the nearly non-stop mayhem, noise, frequent interruptions, and general bedlam that robbed many a night and day of sleep, or even sound restful repose.
Above all, should you ever find yourself incarcerated as an inoffensive "Offender," as this minister was, please do yourself a favor and fein low to no intelligence.
Because if your education shows (particularly should you ever attempt to make use of the minimalist tomes in what are doubtless laughingly called prison "law library" facilities, should you even see the likes), you might be considered a dire threat to those daily administering their own personal brand of injustice.
There, you've been warned.
The way jurisimprudence is going these days, being daily discarded into the constitutional trash dumpster, you're very likely to find yourself on the wrong end of a tyrannical, crazed, utterly unjust judge sometime soon.
These warning words could well save your life, if you think it actually needs it, once you taste the way the other growing "half" of Americans are spending their indolent days in a daze of confusion, on both sides of these iron barred, concrete cages of insane injustice incarnate.
That's the threat you may well face, should you actually find yourself judged by a jury of poorly educated supposed "peers" some day.