Respect my Authority

Any given day, I'm subjected to dozens of arbitrary rules: tuck in your shirt, wear your mask(often from guards NOT wearing theirs),make your bed, nothing on top of the locker, take down the curtain, your sweater goes UNDER your shirt not over... it becomes more chaotic when you factor in that some guards make you do all of them, some only make you so some of them, and some make you do some of them some of the time. In essence, you never know what to expect from one moment to the next.

If you ask some of the guards or even wardens, it becomes clear after they vamp for a little that not only do they not know why, the thought has never occurred to them.

Someone out there must know that they're applying a very old idea of whipping someone into shape, similar to military tactics of following these rules to get them in the habit of following orders. You can see how that would make a good soldier, "ours is not to question why, etc..." But a rehabilitated human being coming back to society? We've seen examples of societies who are full of people "just following orders": *ahem* Nazi Germany*ahem* For now though, let's just focus on the myriad transparently arbitrary rules and the people who set themselves up as enemies (the guards) against us who enjoy flexing their authority on us.

How many BS rules would you have to reason out (which in here wouldn't really tax the mental capacities of most 10-year-old kids) and for how many years before you're just suspicious of everything these people tell you or tell you to do? Wondering "Does this make sense? Is it just nonsense, or nonsense that lets some power-hungry guard get his satisfaction at my expense?" How long until it becomes instinct to distrust everything from them?

I have a friend; we'll call him Coors. He's spent his entire adult life in some of the worst prisons in the country which essentially means some of the worst prisons in the world. He's in his late 40's or early 50's (There's a strange preservation that happens to prisoners that spend a lot of time in here that makes it hard to guess someone's age with any type of accuracy). He talks about decades in solitary isolation like you'd talk to your friends about the new movie you saw last weekend. He describes the processes the guards go through to make sure you can't get a hand on them like my mom describes the process for renovating a bathroom. For over 30 years, the system has done its best to break him and twist him, turning him into Nietzsche's example of the fighter who just looks for something to fight. After so many years of being attacked, he's been conditioned by them to fight back against anything, to maintain his stance, to find some resistance and find a grip so he can get a hold. He's learned to read between every line to anticipate what and how they are going to hurt him.

I don't mean he's violent, though I don't know his whole history. He fights the system with the pen and law. He's spent his time learning the ins and outs of the legal system and if you ask him the simplest question about what the prison is required to do for us, the inevitable sigh reminds you of the same resignation of a gladiator strapping on his shield. He fights for his and our rights when no one else will. He fights against everything this system tries to do against us because he knows it's all fundamentally wrong.

He's getting out soon. After more than 3 decades, the prison psychology department wants to see him. For the first time ever, they're offering to help him or so they say. Can you blame him for being a little suspicious? This is help from the same body of bullies that has beaten and starved him for most of his life. Would you trust that helping hand?

This is what prison creates. Fighters have scars and long memories that they carry with them wherever they go. Thousands of people get out any given day with deeply ingrained suspicion of any authority, taught that any "help" is going to come from the same people who smile when they lock them in a cage or tell them to tuck in their shirt... or pepper spray them. This comes with all of us, out of here and into "normal" society. There is no switch to flip. Prisoners are released in whatever riled up and maladapted state they happen to be into a world that really does have lots of people who want to help. But what do those helping hands look like?

Maybe... some logic could be applied to how we are treated. Some respect for thinking beings perhaps, less "do as I say, not as I do" from EVERY staff member. Maybe people could get out of here with some chance, with some understanding instead of the demeanor of a beaten dog or worse: an antagonized dog let out of its cage.