The cost of doing the right thing
George Ryan is a hero -- but he's not running for re-election


A law and order guy should want the perps behind bars, and should not want our legal system to be tainted by random police and judicial efforts to find and convict someone, anyone, for a heinous crime.

The same is true, of course, for the nonsensical current enthusiasm for unprovoked war.

I've always been puzzled as to why many of the same people who don't trust the government to decide relatively petty issues like property rights, business regulation, or environmental law are so eager to let their state or country decide whether people should live or die. Such decisions are the ultimate in abrogating freedom of the individual. But in our current political system, they take a back seat to getting and staying in power -- just as on the liberal side, commitment to fair and equitable sentences, or to not jailing people for harmless drug crimes, or to easing the current fad for barbaric prison conditions, all take a back seat to the same lust for power.

Why bad things happen to the poorest people - the lust for power of politicians and the huge amount of money and power the richest and most powerful people have.