A true parable of legal violence

I know that a lot of people are put off or perplexed by my feelings on the state. I have no respect for soldiers, police, judges. I know people wonder why. Why would I hate "civil society". I have my reasons, and now I wish to share one of them. One of them that, I hope, shows that it is not "civil society" that I hate, for these elements are not part of it. It is violence and inequity that boils my blood. Violence like that which was met by someone I knew... a man named Taghi.

He moved here from a far off land. He was a good guy, in his mid 20s. He had a couple of businesses. He had many friends. A nice apartment. A nice car. He was a shrewd business man, but I never saw him treat anyone worst than most of us do from time to time. I liked the guy, and used to occasionally buy pot from him. It was only one of his businesses. It was one that he was good at.

Nobody really talks about Taghi anymore. He is just a memory, some guy who was around, and now isn't. I think of him occasionally. I wonder where he is now. Whenever I lay in bed and feel the warmth of my wife's body against mine, I think of him, and wonder how long it will be before he again will experience such simple joy.

Taghi, in all likelyhood, is not experiencing that joy, and wont for a long time. Instead Taghi will know cold beds, and burly male bunk mates. He will know weight lifting and cafeteria food. He will know stark walls, and heartless people in uniforms, to whom he is just a number. A guilty man, a perpetrator. Not many things choke me up, or bring tears to my eyes. The thought of what he endures at the hands of men, that is a tragedy that sometimes almost paralyzes me with grief.

If you made it this far, you may wonder what he did. You may wonder if I just made all this up. You can find what the DA has to say about the incident here: http://www.mass.gov/dasuffolk/docs/12.10.08B.html.

Did he sell drugs? Yes he did. He wasn't a violent person, he didn't pressure people into things, he was just a man. A man who was in a business of getting people what they want, and selling it to them. The report may be a surprise. "Oh he had 25 grand in a sack" but, any business has to have stock. He was no different than any business man except in the product that he stocked.

I ask you though, how does that justify putting a man in chains? How does that justify denying a man the simple right to sleep in a bed with his lover, and sit free under the sky outside? How can any of us hold our heads high knowing that the hard earned money that we make, we pay in taxes to support hurting this man?

Taghi was not a good friend of mine, but, he was a man that I knew. His story is a story of a life ruined by an abusive system, for which there is no excuse. I will not forgive the state for what its done to him, and I dearly hope, that these words can help you to hold it against them too. Could you imagine being torn from your life? Kept in a cage like an animal?

I wont say that nobody deserves that.... but he certainly doesn't... and I am thoroughly embarrassed to be associated with anyone who feels otherwise. As long as stories like his continue to be written, how do we call ourselves civilized?

I don't know what has happened to him. The news stories talk only of his arrest. They talk of how he was "a dealer". Thats that for them. They didn't know him, they don't care what happens to him. He isn't a man that feels and loves. He isn't a person torn from his life. Apparently, he was just a dealer.... not worthy of having his story known.