UNITED STATES
Failed Messiah
Shmarya Rosenberg
I had a much longer post I was moments away from publishing when my computer crashed and I lost it, so I’ll make this do-over post more concise.
I’ve been working on a deal that would allow me to work on anti-poverty issues and today, after about a year of trying, that deal came to fruition. That means I’ll be leaving FailedMessiah.com, the website I founded almost 12 years ago.
So let me thank all of you who read, commented and debated here, those of you who agreed with me and even those of you who did not, and those of you who sent me stories, tips and pashkvils.
I’d like to encourage all of you to work to stop child sex abuse and to work to stop those who enable it or cover it up. I’d also like to encourage you to do what you can to bring some light to the haredi world which is, sadly, still shrouded in some intense darkness. No kid should go to 13 years of school and leave without a valid high school diploma, proficiency in the language of the country, and extensive knowledge of math, science, history and civics, even if their religious community’s elders claim it is their religious right to deprive them of this much-needed education. Please continue to fight for those kids.
I’d also like to ask you work to equalize and humanize the US Sentencing Guidelines. With very few exceptions, nonviolent criminals should not be incarcerated for decades. Prison should not primarily be a place of punishment. Instead, it should be a place where combined with loss of freedom, inmates also get good regular mental health care and are trained in skills (or given education) that can earn them gainful employment on release. In the long run, it is far cheaper for society to work help inmates than it is to punish them. It is also far better for society because the recidivism rate for inmates who are well treated rather than abandoned and abused is lower. That means fewer victims and fewer losses for all of us.
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