10 May 2011 | Learning from Television

What I've learned about humanity from watching shows like ”Lockup" or "Jail”? That the majority of human beings really are just plain bad. Scum, really, without any real sense of responsibility or anything that could ever contribute to society.

"Lockup" especially is difficult to digest. All you need to watch is a few shows and you'll understand firsthand that almost all of these people can't be saved. They can't be redeemed. They are just plain, rotten people who have no business being out in society with the rest of us. They pretty much don't have any conscience to speak of, and certainly no real future. And just about all of them have multiple kids, who are invoked regularly as the one thing the inmate wants to live for, but that's pretty much a lie. It may sound good for the camera (which one of these guys doesn't use the camera as a dry run for a parole board hearing?) but in the course of a profile, you see them pretty much as they are: scum. A nightmare on two legs. The very people you don't want living next to you.

I honestly don't know how law enforcement personnel aren't the most jaundiced people in the world, or themselves just don't snap when they have to process these scumbags and put up with the verbal abuse and physical attacks. I've always been amazed at that; there's just no way I could do it at all. And to think that I have the luxury of changing the channel.