It is commonly understood that the intellectual berth of our Constitution was the Enlightenment period of Western Europe. The lofty concepts of liberty, individualism, and humanism were woven throughout the document, most notably, perhaps, in the Preamble. The prescript reads "
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America". It is for these limited reasons that we establish our government, yet since these words were written, America's statesmen have engaged in a constant battle over their meaning and implementation. What is shared multilaterally, however, is the understanding that we, as citizens, give deference to the state for these purposes alone, whatever they may mean.
(Not My Image)
I am of the opinion that we have, as a nation, followed a continuing arc of progress towards achieving these ends in an equitable and realistic fashion. We have erred tragically, and torn our nation to pieces correcting for these mistakes. And finally, now, after a civil war and generations of civic rights struggles, I believe we are at an impasse. Technically speaking, all Americans are equal in the eyes of the law. Our government aims to serve justice blind, and in many cases is able to do so. But it is not dissent or misinterpretation within our government that now inhibits these ends, but rather the enigmatic, distanced, and unaccountable creature of privatization. Corporations are not evil- they generally serve a common good, provide jobs, products, and wealth. But just as government is resigned to the limited roles written in the preamble, the private sector is meant for these purposes, and these purposes alone. While we are a nation of free enterprise, we are not to be a government of free enterprise. Government is constant; it cannot be subject to any market force beyond the fluctuating opinion of the populace that elects it- yet today corporations have begun to assume some of the most basic duties we have assigned to our government.
Our government has pawned off some of our security and justice systems to the highest corporate bidder, and we have had no say in the matter. While we expect the military to be the sole provider for the common defense, an organization mobilized by Congress and congress alone, we now have private military contractors that have absolved these responsibilities. We pay multimillion dollar defense contractors such as Xe (formerly known as Blackwater), United Defense, and Lockheed Martin to provide for our security, and simultaneously take a blind eye to how they carry out their enlistment. Unlike our military, private contractors operate outside the Uniform Code of Conduct. This means that these soldiers are little more than mercenaries, operating under a United States banner but without the nations direct consent or oversight.
(Not My Image)
But the problem sinks further. Not only has our government privatized our vessel of international security, but it has hijacked our domestic systems as well. Charles Blow writes a great article for the NYTimes documenting the situation with private prisons in Louisiana, wherein 1 in every 86 residents is incarcerated, 2/3 of which are non violent offenders. Many of these inmates are incarcerated in private prisons pioneered by rural entrepreneurial sheriffs that caught the market niche early- if that wasn't enough of a conflict of interest, one can looker deeper to the profit structure of private prisons. Such prisons must remain full to make a profit, thus the Sheriff's association has bolstered a continuous lobby for stiff sentencing for non-violent offenders. In the short-term the local contract prisons offer a lower pricetag for the state's incarceration efforts than if the state were to imprison the offenders itself, but the hook is that the private prisons provide a less rehabilitative experience than the state prisons, so half of the offenders end up back behind bars within five years. This keeps the market for human commodities hot, perpetuating full private prisons and increased profits for their investors, yet the state still pays the same or more because it amasses more and more inmates. If this weren't bad enough, let me tell you about my experience with immigrant detention centers in Illinois.
(Not My Image)
This spring break I went with a group to do volunteer work in Chicago. We met with different immigrant rights groups, attended an immigrant court, and helped in whatever ways we could. The centerpiece political item for the groups we met with was a new immigrant detention center just outside the city in the suburb of Crete. In the discussion about the detention center, I learned about the injustices that riddle the judicial pipeline of detained immigrants- it begins like this. First off, anyone can be pulled over and detained by a police officer for an indefinite amount of time if their citizenship is suspect- once detained, they can be shipped to a detention center anywhere in tri-state area to await a "trial". The waiting period can be up to eight months, at which point they enter a trial without any state-appointed representation. Generally, suspects never see an actual courtroom; they're video-streamed into one on a big monitor and stand trial before a state adjudicator, a translator, and a lawyer acting for the state. At this point, their citizenship status is determined- they are either deported on the state's dime, with no opportunity to see their in-state relatives and a federal injection barring them from entering the country for ten years, or they can opt-for self-deporation, pay their own way back to their home country, and may return after a number of years set by the adjudicator. Either way, it sucks.
I took these outside a detention center just outside Chicago
The Front of the Detention Center
What's worse? The detention centers are... you guessed it.... privatized. Masked from public accountability, private companies like Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) detain human beings for indefinite periods of time, and they never even receive proper due process. I don't have to explain why this jeopardizes the freedom of any American citizen, let alone one who's citizenship might be "suspect" (AKA anyone Brown-skinned). But even if someone is residing in the country illegally, while they may not retain the rights of an actual citizen, cannot we, as a nation, serve those who wish to join us as countrymen with more dignity than a shoddy trial and the accommodations of a shady corporate entity?
I question privatization of public functions wherever it exists. Be it the military, or be it our prison system. I question the actual benefits of a "reduced price tag" for the state, which seems to generally be a short-term rationalization for crony capitalism. I want our state bodies to be effective, transparent, and accountable. It seems that after analysis, privatization perverts all of these qualities, while simultaneously undermining basic constitutional precepts. Whether one is a Democrat or a Republican, a free-market conservative or a socialist-leaning Keynesian, it takes nothing more than a commitment to the basic tenets of our Constitution to recognize and understand threats to our liberty, which must always trump all other considerations. Expect more on this topic. Frankly, honestly, and freely, The Polemic.
Some of my photos from volunteering in Chicago:
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