Got a life, thanks.
Shut up? Nah, I don't enjoy that, so I don't think I will. In fact, a lot of my life involves *not* shutting up and people actually pay money to read some of my not shutting up. Go figure.
Not real big on whining. Criticism? You betcha, especially where it's deserved.
If a particular group of juvenile delinquents are so bad and worthless that we just need to throw them away, then we might as well stand them up against a wall and shoot them.
Failing that, they're going to rejoin society some day.
If they're going to be rejoining society, then no matter what we do with them, even if they *do* deserve incarceration or need residential care, then it's totally against our interests as a society to *further* damage these damaged goods kids.
Which means we need to not do anything to them that is going to cause PTSD on top of the stuff they've already got wrong with them, and that we need them not to be further damaged with poor nutrition or various permanent injuries.
And if a particular kid is *not* damaged goods, then we especially don't need to make them that way by subjecting them to incarceration, which is a big stressor in and of itself.
So we need safeguards before admission, and we need guarantees of a certain level of quality of care while the kid is either in residential care or incarcerated.
That's not whining.
That's me as a taxpayer looking out for my best interests by ensuring these kids don't get *further* damaged and become either a lifelong drain on my tax dollars or an *increased* lifelong drain on my tax dollars.
Now, in reality, out of fundamental human empathy I want these kids treated humanely because they're *people*. But just on a cold, hard, practical financial analysis, it's in my best interests to get this situation reformed so that these kids grow up to be taxpayers and a net *gain* to the system instead of perpetual aid recipients and a net *drain* to the system.
I guess one woman's whining is another woman's rational self-interest.
Timoclea
