AMERICA’S 21^ST CENTURY SCARLET LETTER

The Millions of Disenfranchised Americans Among Us

A Condition For Reform

Written by J. J. Crook

A world renown spiritual leader who Christians identify as God established the following standard thousands of years ago for people to live by, treat their fellow man, and judge each other. “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” The message this spiritual leader was delivering was “People are human, not perfect, and shouldn’t be held to a standard of perfection i.e. 100% intolerance. Perfect and spotless is a standard for robots and machines, and even machines break down occasionally. This essay addresses a national tragedy that has gone unnoticed for centuries by the American population and which has destroyed and is destroying the lives of ten to thirty million Americans. It is an injustice unparalleled by any other unjust event in American history and probably in the world.This evil being referred to must be completely appreciated and comprehensively understood before things will change. for the lives of 30 million living Americans. Most of the American population have never been in trouble to the extent of being convicted of an offense and, hence, have no clue regarding the insidious social injustice or, to put it accurately, social persecution that continues and will continue to destroy the lives of approximately thirty million Americans all the way to their graves, long after they have paid their debt to society. Sociologists have not figured it out or come up with a solution to this mass disenfranchisement of a certain class of Americans. Invididuals among us with felony records.

To build up to a perception regarding the issue at hand, it is only appropriate to start with early American history and the age of Massachusetts’ Puritans and advance to the present. The operative adage is “To err is human.” However, at one point in early American history, the Puritans set up harsh and rigorous religious standards of behavior for their parishioners which were cruel, unjust, and represented a form of absolute intolerance of any human imperfection. If a follower transgressed, a life time sentence, at times, was imposed on an individual for a single mistake. Such was the case of the historical event that inspired the novel, The Scarlet Letter . In this novel, a young woman, 15 years old, had a sexual encounter before she became married which event, at the time, was termed adultery regardless of the modern day penal code definition in some states. As a result of the young girl’s normal sexual response, the Puritans made her wear a sweater, with the letter “A” sewed onto it standing for adulteress, for her entire life time to the grave. As decades went by, the Puritan community forgot what the “A” stood for and assumed that it meant angel due to the grace and compassion of the marked woman.

Everyone makes mistakes. Again, “To err is human.” We all learn from our mistakes, become stronger from them, and go on to live a productive life – if we are allowed to. To disenfranchise an individual and destroy his or her life completely until that person reaches the grave because they made a mistake represents the most brutal form of human intolerance, societal imposed misery, and inhumane behavior to a fellow human being not to mention the incredible injustice such a mandate represents. An abject evil which existed in the age of the Puritans which absolute intolerance bordered upon the sadistic. Such cruel intolerance to an imperfect fellow human being represented anything but thevirtues of love, understanding, charity, compassion, forgiveness, and rehabilitation which tenets are found in most attractive major world religions especially Christianity. Such Puritanical intolerance was anything but spiritual and actually evil. This incredibly harsh standard of the Puritans represented the complete destruction of a human life converting the once errant imperfecthuman being into a social pariah for life. Such a standard of social persecution represented the social and economic destruction of a human being for making one mistake. Even though the Puritans espoused to be a Christian religion, such a brutal standard of intolerance was alien to the Christian tenets of tolerance, forgiveness, understanding, charity, compassion, and love. The Puritans exacted a harsh punishment that delivered a transgression-to-the-grave torture of another human being for making one mistake. A Christian religious code that existed in the complete absence of justice or spirituality.

It may amaze many Americans that those same tyrannical standards of intolerance characteristic of the Puritans exist in America today, are alive and well, and account for the United States having more Americans in prison today than any other country in the world. Close to two million. And, the American prison population is doubling every ten years while the prison population of the rest of the world countries is going down. By the year 2007, the United States is expected to have two million Americans in prison. It is clear that American society is doing something wrong. The cost to maintain one inmate is approximately $50,000.00 per year. 2,000,000 x $50,000 is one hundred billion dollars per year that will come out of American taxpayers’ pockets every year. American sociologists have not figured out what is causing this great rise in America’s prison population. It is a socio-economic problem. Here is what is happening.

American industry and employers, throughout the United States, are heavily into background checks before they hire a job applicant. In terms of a job applicant having a criminal record, he or she is automatically excluded from being hired, as a universal standard among businesses. If anyone at any time in their lives, whether it be wayward teenagers or older adults ever received a misdemeanor or felony conviction, regardless of what it was for - public drunkenness, an altercation, petty theft, false arrest, arrest for not paying a traffic ticket, or a more serious offense - the criminal offense is picked up by the employer investigating the job applicant and the applicant is not hired especially if the offense is a felony. And since, the criminal record stays on file for the life of the job applicant, the latter is denied employment for the remainder of his or her natural life due to the one time he or she got cross-wise with the law. This once errant individual is then prevented from supporting himself or herself or feeding their children - for life. This social tradition i.e. persecution is tantamount to an "economic death sentence", without authority of law, outside of any jury verdict, penal code, or court of law. An incredible, brutal social injustice tradition un-addressed by American society for centuries, a plight ignored to this very day.

Some times, our leaders, be it school teachers or politicians, create models for America’s youth that espouse perfection as a standard of human behavior. To be perfect in sports. To be spotless as a citizen. In teaching such standards, these leaders are obliviously creating standards of high intolerance for these youths towards their fellow man. The standards that our nation’s leaders should be teaching our young people should not be perfection but imperfection which is the true human state. To err is human. The standard taught to our young people should not be the standard of absolute intolerance i.e. perfection but a humane standard which addresses the human make up. Human beings are not perfect robots but make mistakes and learn from those mistakes. Imperfect is a much more powerful standard than the cosmetic perfect as it allows adaptation and adjustment to survive whereas the rigidity of perfection allows no adjustment to survive if conditions are changed wherein such perfect cosmetic standard fails  and proves less viable than imperfect as a standard. Hence, the human standard is the correct standard to teach our young people rather than a standard of perfection i.e. absolute intolerance. We should be teaching our young people instead the virtues of humaneness, human decency, forgiveness, compassion, understanding, charity, and helping their fallen fellow man. We are all human. We all err. When a human being falls for one reason or another, economic or criminal offense, our children shouldn’t be taught to crush the fallen human being while they are down to make sure they never get up. This not only lacks virtue, such a standard is immoral, unjust, and inhumane. Young people should not be taught injustice by models that espouse perfection i.e. absolute intolerance of their fellow man’s imperfections. Rather, fellow human beings should be lifted up and rehabilitated once they have erred outside the law. Not permanently crushed and permanently perceived by society and theologies as evil.The sacredness of all human existence is the very cornerstone of civilization.

Once an individual with a criminal record has paid his or her debt to society, the debt is paid and that should be the end of it. There should not be an unwritten second debt or any other debt to pay. A double payment would incorporate the legal doctrine of double jeopardy. When an employer runs a background check on a job applicant and uncovers a criminal offense and follows a societal tradition, centuries old, of not hiring that job applicant, the employer imposes a life time sentence of economic disenfranchisement, abject poverty due to no income, and literally an economic death sentence absent any court order or jury verdict. An unwritten, unauthorized life time sentence of no employment so critical to sustain life. Denying one the opportunity to earn a living. One needs to earn money to eat. This societal tradition of employers equals the same brutal, if not sadistic and cruel, standard of perfection i.e. absolute intolerance displayed by the Puritans, This ethic of absolute intolerance of any errant human behavior, it appears, has never left American society and its perception of anyone with a criminal record as permanently evil.This standard of no forgiveness or rehabilitation has resulted in the complete economic destruction of millions of human beings in America. Thirty million who presently live and, more accurately stated, suffer among us.

Society, not the courts, has imposed this economic death sentence for a mistake, any human mistake that runs afoul of the law, whether it is a misdemeanor or felony regardless of the severity of the offense. Such an abuse of a fellow human being by the nation’s employers is unauthorized by law and, incidentally, runs afoul of existing law. The 14th Amendment's "equal protection of the law" clause. It is no different an illegal assault upon a job applicant than an aggravated assault and battery upon a person (the latter being a lesser punishment), and, hence, such conduct by an employer should be a crime and included in the penal codes of each state. Brutality in any form is unacceptable. Unless for the most infamous crimes such as murder, rape, child predation, armed robbery, and the like, no criminal record check should be allowed to any employer and these records should be sealed by state law for the protection of these disenfranchised job applicants with records to end this incredible injustice to this class of American citizen. Even regarding infamous crimes, the legal standard set in Hilliard v. Ferguson states it is illegal to deny employment based upon a conviction alone but denial must be based upon the conduct that resulted in the conviction indicating the job applicant is disqualified from the specific job being offered, and that these criminal records are to be considered on a case-by-case basis. Hence, to deny employment across the board based upon a criminal record and nothing else is illegal. However, 99% of American employers do not follow the law in disenfranchising everyone with a criminal record, regardless, and the courts agree with them, siding with the employers.

America has about 15 to 20 million individuals who have run afoul of the law at some time during their lives. The minorities, especially the unemployed individuals who break the law to obtain money to feed their families, are especially vulnerable for something that may have happened in their late teens. Employers now do Draconian background checks on every job applicant even to the extent of checking how many traffic tickets the job applicant has when the job being offered which does not involve driving. Criminal background checks are now a great source of revenue for many municipalities and has become a major industry. Anything on the job applicant’s criminal record will result in the applicant being rejected continuously for life. This is morally wrong and unjust. A debt is being exacted for a higher price than the state i.e. a judge or jury declared the applicant had to pay for violating the law. It is akin to a societal "economic life sentence", absent the authority of law, being informally imposed after the job applicant has fully paid his or her debt to society. In essence, a double jeopardy. It is a societal life sentence being based upon no new crime as the job applicant has already paid his debt. Hence, the societal economic death sentence is without any basis in law. Such employment discrimination against this targeted class of American citizen, as stated, violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14^th Amendment. Receiving an economic death sentence from conviction to the grave, after the job applicant has already paid for the offense. Unless for the most infamous crimes as stated, it should be declared an Unconstitutional violation of the 14^th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause for any governmental authority to release any sealed criminal record to anyone, employer or citizen alike, and even for employers to ask for the records to end such employment discrimination. Beyond the case of Hilliard v. Ferguson, it should further be Unconstitutional for any employer to deny employment to a job applicant based upon a criminal record without more.

Philosophically, everyone makes mistakes. It is a normal part of the human condition. It is human. We are not robots. Society should not economically kill a person for one mistake. An economic death sentence by employers for a criminal record is, in essence, destroying a fellow human being because the employers’ background checks deprives the once errant job applicant from securing gainful employment. Hence, the applicant cannot sustain himself or his family i.e. he cannot survive. He or she cannot feed or take care of their family. Such a condition forces these inopportuned individuals into a life of crime just to eat. This phenomenon is why this incredible social evil, presently destroying 15 million plus American lives needs to be remedially corrected. Not only to avoid the enormous cost attendant to the destruction of 15 million people but the incredible backlash cost to society. By not being able to feed his or her family for life due to a life time of rejection of job applicants by employers uncovering a criminal record, the job applicant is forced into crime to feed his children. It is survival and one’s children are first. The government is second. A mother will break the law to get food for her kids. Any animal would do the same. It is the law of Nature to protect one’s young. Even in a New Mexico city during the Great Depression, the armed towns people had not eaten for three days and marched on the government’s food storage facility. The police were set to shoot the residents down until the governor interceded and ordered the food storage bins to be opened to the hungry people. The lesson is people will break the law to eat.

In allowing employers to informally impose an economic death sentence on a job applicant who made a mistake once and, hence, has a criminal record is a hideous and extremely cruel life time punishment unauthorized by any law not to mention the stripping of the job applicant’s dignity by being relegated to a penniless dependency relying upon the kindness and chaarity of others for his or her very survival. A terrible evil. The cost to society, unarticulated as of yet by inept sociologists, is the unemployed individual or parent is forced into a life of crime to feed his or her family because they made one human mistake probably also economically related due to class disenfranchisement. Such issues span the continuous debate between the relative merits of  capitalism and socialism around the world. Such a consequence for 15 million plus Americans results in an endangerment of society on a continuing basis for decades as the now criminalized job applicant will never get a job to earn the needed money to feed his kids. Clearly from this dynamic, it is society that is manufacturing life-time criminals by the tens of millions to the physical and economic endangerment of its citizens. Many job applicants do not willing engage in a life time of crime but are left with no alternative. Society, by not correcting employment discrimination to this large class of citizens, is what molded such individuals into a life time of crime in order to physically survive. The job applicant would have probably desisted in breaking the law if he or she had been given must a chance at a job, to make an honest living.

The criminal background checks continue and these pathetic, completely disenfranchised Americans - not even able to buy two gallons of gasoline, or a $7.00 pair of Wal-Mart reading glasses, or even a bus token - enter into a long and gruesome journey of absolute deprivation, due to unemployment during life, all the way to their graves. The other cost to society is the economic one – the 100 billion dollars the American taxpayer will soon be paying to maintain America’s soon-to-be two million prison inmates. The criminal justice system, American sociologists, and employers haven’t figured it out yet what’s causing the increase in prison populations as they continue to impose the standard of a perfect record free of a criminal conviction before American industry will give these applicants a job. The term “perfect” which the American churches are so enamored with also equals 100% intolerance – of anything not perfect i.e. one blemish on one’s employment application. 100% intolerance (perfection i.e. perfect conduct) is also absolute tyranny. Symptoms and thinking of a fascist state. There is nothing spiritual about this centuries old societal tradition i.e. social persecution. Far from spiritual, it is barbarous and cruel if not evil in itself due to the suffering it inflicts.

As stated, the standard to apply to human beings is a human standard. Not a perfect standard. Perfect is for robots who obey 100%. To the contrary, “to err is human.” The human state is imperfect and not perfect. Hence, imperfect should be the human standard to apply to the conduct of fellow human beings and job applicants. We learn from our mistakes. The concept should not be to crush or destroy a human being for making a mistake. The standard should be rehabilitation. To treat the wound (breakdown in morality), cure it, and restore the wayward individual back to full economic health and mainstream America, completely rehabilitated rathering than the complete wasting of the resources of a fellow human being. Bad economics. We treat wounded animals. Human beings deserve as much. To be wounded economically is just as crippling as a physical wound, if not more. One will starve and die if one has no income for food.

Philosophically, a respect for the sacred of all human existence is the cornerstone of civilization. Human beings are not to be destroyed but enhanced. This is the spiritual path that society should be following. Rehabilitation, a societal path already in place, is the correct path for once wayward individuals who are job applicants. Rather than the courts and legislatures allowing employers to economically gravely wound a job applicant tantamount to an economic death sentence because he or she once made a mistake resulting in a criminal record, the goal of society should be to heal its errant citizens and get them back on their feet and into the economic mainstream of America. The payoff for this intelligent society would be the ending of a continuous life of crime all the way to the grave of job applicants to the physical and economic endangerment of society not to mention the 100 billion dollar annual tax burden on the American taxpayer. Think of what good 100+ billion dollars a year would do if it were directed into social programs to help these disenfranchised and unemployed tens of millions of individuals to get jobs, and put money into their pockets to feed their children, instead of relegating once errant individuals to rot in a prison. An unintelligent misuse of a valuable human life and an immoral one by an equally unintelligent society. Even President Franklin Delanor Roosevelt, seeing the widespread devastation caused by unemployment, created the CCC and other civil workers groups and job corps to put unemployed Americans back to work by the millions, thereby ending the Great Depression which Roosevelt’s predecessors, inactively, could not fix. The benefit to American society during the 1930s was enormous as the entire country was about to enter a life of crime and breaking the law to feed themselves and their children. It’s called revolution.

American society, with its retarded enamoredness with the term "perfect", even affecting whether they buy white bread over wheat, and perfection is creating a Frankenstein problem for 15 million plus Americans, society’s safety, and that of an enormous tax burden on the American taxpayer. The way to empty America’s crowded prisons is to put Americans to work. About 95% of all crimes are economic crimes committed to sustain an individual’s survival. These people’s need for food, shelter, and health. America can do better. Instead of continuing to be inept by setting up a standard of perfect – a perfect, spotless record – before it will employ its citizens - it should replace this retarded, brutal, highly intolerance standard of a perfect record before employment with a human standard. A more humane standard of imperfect – imperfection – for human acceptance in the job market. Allow a job applicant to get past a mistake he or she made, get rehabilitated, and into a prosperous, joyful life of making an honest living, with the added bonus to society of then paying taxes on  income to sustain the nation, transforming such individuals from a burden to a contributor.

American society is stuffing America’s prisons by refusing employment to its citizens who have made a mistake and were at one time outside the law. Unhypocritically, these are the caught American citizens. If the truth were known, every American citizen has broken the law at one time or another – from running a red light, denting another's car and leaving, taking firewood from a neighbor's cabin, sneaking into a theatre, a teenager taking a toy, not returning a wallet to its owner, taking lumber at night from a construction site, to not including cash items on one’s tax returns – but just were not caught. Unless American society wishes to declare itself perfect and enter the large segment of our country called hypocrites, our society should treat once errant, imperfect fellow human beings as we would wish to be treated ourselves. Again, the Christian Leader's tenet - "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Once errant human beings who have strayed outside of the law should be treated not with economic brutality and cruel intolerance but with human compassion. The same compassion that lifts back up a bleeding, starving fellow human being face down in the gutter, and get him or her fed, employed, and back up on their feet, restoring them back to physical and economic health and re-instilling their dignity as a human being and making them whole. The honest standard for America's millions of Christians is "What would God have them do regarding their fallen fellow man." It would be to reach down and pick them up. The term for this type of social behavior is human decency, a concept lost on America’s “perfect people,” who, like the Puritanical intolerance that inspired the novel, The Scarlet Letter, would prefer to impose sadistic human suffering and punishment rather than human compassion, as Americans, in their sleeping perception, continue to build prison after prison after prison.

Europe is much further ahead than Puritanical United States of America in terms sociological advances. In Germany, if one does not have a job, the government gets him one and even sends a car to transport the unemployed individual to the job site to work so that the government can get money into his pocket to avoid a world of evils that would result without that income. Societal USA does the opposite doing its best to see that once errant individuals do not get a job and remain unemployed, penniless, and miserable for life because they were not perfect enough – resulting in the incredible backlash of forced crime to survive which then descends upon America’s citizens. There is something very hateful, sick, intolerant, and inept about a country’s employers who share this employment discrimination mentality regarding any individual with a record.

The life time economic disenfranchisement of individuals who have a criminal record per se, regardless of the offenses committed, must stop for America to get well. Again, we have had the correct standard for thousands of years if Americans would decide to quite being an intolerant people and just use the standard of rehabilitation set by one of the world’s most renown spiritual leaders which, to repeat, is “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”

The economic killing of Americans by employers not hiring any job applicant with a criminal record must stop and this societal cancer must be excised for American society to get well and reduce its problem with crime that is draining the U. S. Treasury because American society is down the wrong rabbit trail. Remediallyh, to protect the severely unemployable, civil codes should allow these people to change their names and social security numbers and prohibit employers from asking whether or not a person has been convicted of a crime.
Criminal records should be permanently sealed except for the most infamous of offenses. Civil codes should also make it a civil tort for employers to refuse employment to a job applicant based upon a criminal record per se, without more, and a refusal to employ based upon an infamous crime unless the conduct that produced the offense shows the individual is not qualified for the position being offered. This civil tort action should provide for stiff monetary penalties, treble and exemplary damages depending upon the severity of the employer’s record of abuse and discrimination against this class of American citizens. Such legislative measures would put an end to this grave injustice and incredible human suffering. In addition, penal codes should include criminal sanctions for any employer refusing employment to a job applicant based upon a criminal record per se, without more. Legislation such as these would start reversing much of the damage caused by a present day, over-judgmental American society. The complete solution to employment discrimination of America's individuals with felony records would be for the United States Congress to include felons as a protected class regarding employment discrimination,  within the Civil Rights Act. Continuing abuse after such an amendment to the Civil Rights Act would then fall into the hands of eager attorneys anticipating fees from an expanded catefory of Civil Rights Actions. Hitting one in the pocketbook has always cured most of America's evils and social discriminations.

The only way America is going to reduce its crime rate, now at astronomical levels compared to the rest of the world, is to get money into the pockets of the unemployed individuals with records so they can feed themselves and enable their families to survive by making it possible for once errant individuals to get a job. Protecting job applicants with criminal records by legislating laws that insure them opportunities to get jobs, and by enforcing the Equal Protection Clause of the 14^th Amendment to assist this class of people by declaring it Unconstitutional for employment to be withheld due to a criminal record without more, would represent a remedial giant step forward for America and equate the salvaging the lives of approximately 15 plus million unemployed, imperfect Americans. Again a message to America’s condemning people so quick to persecute and rush to judgment– “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” Such remedial court decisions and legislation will empty America’s prisons by dramatically reducing crime to the protection of society, and lift America up, from an ignoble contempt towards its more imperfect fellow citizens, to a higher plateau of social grace. Axiomatically, anything that reduces or eliminates intolerance and hatred towards one’s fellow man will result in a higher and better America and a re-entrenchment of the notion of human decency in the American people.

The best medicine for America’s once errant people is rehabilitation. Keep them working. Most of the people with criminal records probably acquired the record because they were not working or weren't allowed to work. Let’s enter the stage of remedial America by providing overdue social reforms that will end this incredible injustice and suffering that allows American employers to impose an economic death sentence upon job applicants, fellow American citizens, who once made a mistake that got recorded.

Some of the hundreds of institutions among thousands that prohibit employing a job applicant with a criminal record are municipal, county, state, and federal governments, thousands of school districts, large corporations, insurance agencies, ad agencies, and personnel agencies which will not even offer the name of such a job applicant for a position an employer is trying to fill. Of course, there is the YMCAs, YWCAs, boy scouts, girl scouts, and even civic clubs such as Lions Club International, and the endless list goes on who continue to exclude these American citizens.The members of this disenfranchised class of job applicants finally hit a wall of reality when they realized that they are never going to get employed for the rest of their lives. A suicidal position of hopelessness for most of these fellow human beings who made a mistake during their life times, or anyone who is left without money and income for life. God bless them. God bless them indeed. No one else is helping them. Such an incredible social injustice. Such crushing suffering by this centuries old socially persecuted class. America doesn’t seemed to have learned from the days of the Massachusetts Puritans of the 1600s. These are the same intolerant religious people who conducted the Salem Witch Trials which hung 17 evil women from  trees.

The judgmental Americans of contemporary U. S. society have forgotten something else. Their very origins 300 years ago where our Forefathers sought to cave out individual freedoms. Freedoms of speech. Freedom of assembly. Freedom of religion. Freedom of choice. Freedom to chose one’s work and profession. Freedom to make a living. To be denied the freedom to make a living to pay for sustenance and the things of survival without which one is denied the liberty to physically survive also does not allow one’s children to survive. The right to work is the most necessary and essential freedom of all without which there is no actual survival. Americans have forgotten the author of America’s very Declaration of Independence which provides the critical rights of every free individual in the United States and which rights includes the right to work. To remove this right to work through permanent and universal employment discrimination against felons, from conviction to grave, is to remove not only one’s quality of life but one’s very life itself.

Thomas Jefferson wrote in Americans own Declaration of Independence, a hallowed document copied by the governments of almost every major country in the world, that every individual in America“ is entitled to life., liberty, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINES.” To deny an American convicted of a felony the right to work, as opposed to rehabilitation of this fellow American and fellow human being, numbering approximately 30 million in America, and restore that American to a respectable, gainfully employed, taxpaying citizen, is to deny these once errant, imperfect human beings, like the rest of us, not only the right to the "pursuit of happiness”, but to deny very physical survival itself. This incredible 400-year old, theologically based social persecution of individuals convicted of a felony, which persecution incorporates an economic death sentence from conviction to grave, is not only “cruel and unusual punishment”, beyond any court ordered sentence, exacted only by social discrimination, but is the greatest cruelty of all well below the status of slaves. Slaves are fed, clothed, and sheltered. With such life long universal shut out of felons from employment by almost all employers is employment discrimination unmatched by any of the listed protected categories in the American Civil Rights Act, from employment discrimination.. The crushing level of disenfranchisement of these 30 million Americans is such that they cannot even afford shoe laces, much less dignity, from conviction to grave, because of universal employment discrimination which bars them from all josb. A virtual hell on earth has been imposed upon these American numbering almost 30 million. Who cries for them?

Where are the spiritual among us? Theologies, for millennium, condemn individuals convicted of felonies no longer recognizing them as human beings much like the United States Supreme Court’s Dred Scott Decision which declared African Americans non-human and beasts of burden. In fact such intolerant, aberrant theologies historically made it a sin to help a convicted person. One can quickly trace where such brutal social persecution came from. However, American Christian theologies and others also teach mercy, forgiveness, goodness, charity, and human compassion. Among the tens of millions of judgmental Christian Americans so cruelly intolerant of once errant human beings with felony convictions, ostracizing these imperfect people from every facet of communal society, excluding them from civic and social clubs and as coaches, boy scout leaders, and PTA members, where are the rescuiing angers among these Christians who so fervently espouse these tenets of Christianity when it comes to our fallen brethren? What has happened to mercy, charity, compassion, and common decency from the major spiritual communities for these 30 million fellow human beings undergoing such incredible suffering? Disenfranchised from even the slightest quality of life. It takes money to buy a stick of chewing gum. If they don’t work, they don’t eat. It is almost as if the millions of well meaning Americans who crowd churches every Sunday are asleep or in a coma regarding the incredible cruelty and suffering being experienced by 30 million Americans each day, from conviction to grave, in this felony category, because of being universally denied the opportunity to work. What would any of us do if we could not pay our bills? What would happen to  our family and our lives. Reality quickly returns when we make it personal. It takes a job to pay bills and feed our children. Why has society completely given up hope on these falllen fellow Americans, and so abjectly perceived them as hopeless, accepting them as only evil, and completely abandoned them? Where did the blinders on one's perception come from when it comes to imperfect fellow Americans? Axiomaticallly, no life is worthless. And, axiomatically, there should always be hope. Wasn’t that the appeal and message of Jesus Christ and the other major spiritual world leaders? That there is hope. To never lose faith.That one can always rise again. It was never meant that any individual in the United States would be relegated to a state of hopelessness. Such was the mentality of former Europe’s debtor prisons. Just as the Germans had to change their perception that Jews were not worthless vermin but fellow human beings, Christians need to change their ancient perception from individuals with criminal records are only evil, to valuable but imperfect fallen human beings that made a mistake but need to be helped, lifted back up, and rehabilitated. To not feel that way is to divorce oneself from the tenet of Christianity i.e. to, in fact, not be Christian at all but something else.

The legitimate spiritual question to the American masses regarding the hopeless plight of felons to secure gainful employment in order to survive again becomes “Who cries for them?”Those tragic, errant, imperfect human beings and fellow Americans judgmental society has turned it back on. Who cries for them? Maybe no one. If there is a God, would he sanction social persecution of any certain class in society, including individuals with criminal records? The Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution also guarantees “equal protection of the law” for everyone, including the right to work but this same U. S. Supreme Court has chosen to not come to the rescue of America’s felons. Due to 400 years of entrenched social persecution rooted in theological indoctrination 3,000 years old that defines anyone with a felony conviction as no longer human but evil and, hence, not entitled to any human rights and making it a sin to help them, society and the courts have been slow to change their perception of individuals with felony convictions from evil to imperfect human beings, entitled to help, rehabilitation, and to be lifted back up by their fellow human beings, just as anyone else down on their luck. It is a shameless society that walks away from ordinary common decency afforded to this class of citizens, parallel to turning one’s back on a dog or child that has had their legs crushed by a car. To impose such crushing suffering is against all human instinct.

The compassionate and spiritual among us, like rescuing angels, must rise to the defense of and come to the aid of these pathetic and miserable human beings among us who are denied the income to even afford an ice cream cone, as their life plight from conviction to grave. “Who cries for them?” No one? Americans should contact their U.S. Congressional Representatives and request that felons, as a long time targeted group for social persecution, should be included in the list of protected categories from employment discrimination in the U. S. Civil Rights Act so that American society, holding hands together in a spirit of human compassion and common decency, can get these broken individuals with felony records back onto their feet, - and back to work. There is hope or should be. God bless them all These people, by law, must be given another chance - to live, and to life. Under the American system of jurisprudence and within the tenets of America’s theologies, no life or class of people should be rendered hopeless and abandoned. For American society to continue to do so is to fall from grace to a lower state of human co-existence.

Again, the legitimate question to the members of our society , regarding the 30 million fellow Americans among us with felony convictions and facing permanent, shut out, employment discrimination from conviction to grave is “Who cries for them?”Would anyone want to trade places with them? If we also make a mistake, we will be there. Isn't life so tenuous that “But for the grace of God, go I.” If we are to continue to call ourselves a decent and humane society, this 400-year old social persecution of individuals with felony convictions must end. They must be rehabilitated by laws ending this cruel, universal employment discrimination once and for all, and put back to work, where they once again can pay their bills, and pay for their dignity, esteem, and self respect. What human life is hopeless, - or should be? God bless America’s rescuing angels. They are being summoned again to continue their noble work, to get this job done. We are not a cruel and cold society. We again, as in the past, will once again rise to the occasion and correct this cruel situation. Americans’ tenacious sense of justice for all is what has accounted for the greatness of this Nation. Contact your U. S. Congresspersons and let’s get this mercy train moving, and correct this incredible ancient social evil. We can do this. And we will. We are a great people and a good people, well meaning. This is a civil rights issue. Once again, it is time for noble people to surface as they have always done in the past to carry the banner of justice – for America’s forgotten class. The socially persecuted individuals among us with felony convictions being denied employment. Every African American, Jew, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Mormon, Japanese, Chinamen, Native American, and person of color among us understand what social persecution is and what this essay is all about. Least we not forget, justice in America is and will always be a “work in progress” Let’s keep up our good work and not relax and live on our past laurels. The call goes out to our just, moral, and spiritual banner carriers at this time to once again marshall their forces as we have always done in the past, accept, engage, and carry this mission in defense of the imperfect human beings among us, individuals with felony convictions, to fruition. To reach down and pull our fallen brethren up and back onto their feet, and restore them to a hopeful life, in the name of human decency, as we Americans continue to build our great heritage in defense of human rights everywhere, and justice for everyone, regardless, even though the United States Supreme Court, in its blindness, refuses to acknowledge felons' 14th Amendment rights to "equal protection of the law", including the right to be employed. This is the same court that invoked the Dred Scott Decision dehumanizing all African Americans, legally defining them as "beasts of burden." Who cries for these devastated individuals with records who are completely disenfranchised by 400 years of cruel social persecution from obtaining gainful employment and earning a living or ever having a dollar in their pockets, from a job, all the way from conviction to grave due to a universal employment discrimination bar which leaves them not even able to buy their three year old little girl an ice cream cone? I DO. Do you?