American Dig(g)nity

Is it just me, or is the U.S. American lifestyle giving me a tough time again? First, there are the political decisions: A 15 year old murderer was sentenced to 22 years in prison. Thieves are condemned to wear signs of their criminal act outside of the shops they stole from. Sexual offenders must make door-to-door visits to inform people of their criminal past.

Now, I know, that unlike Germany, the U.S. constitution has no clause on the right to human dignity. But isn't that something a democracy should include inherently? How far is such a jurisdication from the ones found in totalitarian states, where public humiliation are common means of punishment? Not far, in my opinion.

But I seem to be alone. When stories like this come up on my favorite website digg people have little understanding for my view, and I am usually dugg down quickly. A culture of retaliation seems to have surfaced in the U.S.A., which I find astounding, given that the country boasts to be so Christian. No turn-the-other-cheek politics here though, everything is an-eye-for-an-eye. Not only are many of the commentators on such websites quick to condemn criminals to the harshest punishments, they even seem to happy about it. "Let the sucker fry!" is hardly a comment, that reflects the sadness of the situation in which a child brutally kills a homeless man, and will spend his life in jail because of it. Something is wrong with a country when things like that happen. Something is even more wrong when people fight violence with even more violence, and are happy about it.

Today, a new controversial bill caught the attention of the diggers: Sexual offenders should now register their internet contact information with the government, so that they can be monitored online. Atleast here, the bill was faced with serious opposition. Not only, because registering a screen-name is easy to circumvent (i.e. choose another unregistered screen-name), but also because in some U.S. States you can become a sexual offender when (get this) you urinate in public. I wonder how far in the name of security will the U.S. turn into a police state, when implementing such questionable laws.

Would love to hear your comments on this!