More laws, more prisons - or the gene machine?

[Guest guest]

The laws against criminals go on becoming more and more complicated -- more

courts, more jails, more legal experts -- but nothing has been of any help.

Criminals go on increasing. Our whole approach is unscientific. If a child is

born with a program of being a murderer, you cannot do anything. No moral

preaching is going to help, no legal threat, "If you murder somebody, you will

be sent to the gallows," is going to help. ...

 

People have been sentenced to death in thousands, but it has not prevented

murderers. The reason is that the murderer has a program in which he is not able

to make any change. It is intrinsic in his biology, in his physiology, in his

chemistry, about which he is not able to do anything. It is in every cell of his

body, and he will have to fulfill his destiny.

 

All your laws are stupid, all your courts are idiotic, and all your lawmakers

are utterly ignorant people. They want to do something which no individual is

capable of and which can be done only before the child is conceived -- not

afterwards. The world is full of blind people, crippled people, paralyzed

people, deaf people. ...

 

There are people who are retarded. They don't have any more possibilities of

intelligence -- and who is responsible for this? The priests of all the

religions have been deceiving humanity. They are the great deceivers. They have

been telling people, "You are suffering from blindness, from a crippled body,

from paralysis because of your past life's evil acts."

 

This is not true. The scientific truth is that people are unnecessarily

suffering because we are listening to the priests and not to the scientists. The

priests are absolutely against interfering as far as human life is concerned.

 

They start great protests immediately that you should not interfere in the work

of God. ... They are against family planning, they are against birth control,

they are against everything that man is now capable of doing to create a better

world, a better humanity.

 

So this is my first thing: education will never be right unless children are

born through genetic engineering, not through the old bullock cart method that

you have followed up to now. This is one of the most significant secrets: unless

we listen to sanity and intelligence, we are not going to revolutionize human

life.

 

Osho, The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here

[Guest guest]

Gee, Osho - you're so wrong. Murderers are made, not born.

 

The only program that has valid and proven results in reducing crime is Head

Start, which targets children identified as being "at-risk" for drug use,

poverty, and lives of crime.

 

Most murders are actually accidental, and incidental to other crimes, rather

than being the main end of the person who committed the murder.

 

You are correct that punishment after the fact doesn't work, because the crime

has already taken place, and others aren't deterred because they don't think

they'll get caught, or they don't mean to commit as serious a crime as ends up

occurring. (OOPS!)

 

As far as genetic engineering goes - who are you going to allow to call the

shots on that? I can't think of any scientist or politician that I would be

willing to turn MY genetic material over to. And I don't know that we would

want to revolutionize human life at the expense of human spirit.

 

Kay

Texas

 

-

Friends of Osho

osho_flowering ; oshoflowering

Tuesday, September 30, 2003 7:08 AM

More laws, more prisons - or the gene machine?

 

 

The laws against criminals go on becoming more and more complicated -- more

courts, more jails, more legal experts -- but nothing has been of any help.

Criminals go on increasing. Our whole approach is unscientific. If a child is

born with a program of being a murderer, you cannot do anything. No moral

preaching is going to help, no legal threat, "If you murder somebody, you will

be sent to the gallows," is going to help. ...

 

People have been sentenced to death in thousands, but it has not prevented

murderers. The reason is that the murderer has a program in which he is not able

to make any change. It is intrinsic in his biology, in his physiology, in his

chemistry, about which he is not able to do anything. It is in every cell of his

body, and he will have to fulfill his destiny.

 

All your laws are stupid, all your courts are idiotic, and all your lawmakers

are utterly ignorant people. They want to do something which no individual is

capable of and which can be done only before the child is conceived -- not

afterwards. The world is full of blind people, crippled people, paralyzed

people, deaf people. ...

 

There are people who are retarded. They don't have any more possibilities of

intelligence -- and who is responsible for this? The priests of all the

religions have been deceiving humanity. They are the great deceivers. They have

been telling people, "You are suffering from blindness, from a crippled body,

from paralysis because of your past life's evil acts."

 

This is not true. The scientific truth is that people are unnecessarily

suffering because we are listening to the priests and not to the scientists. The

priests are absolutely against interfering as far as human life is concerned.

 

They start great protests immediately that you should not interfere in the

work of God. ... They are against family planning, they are against birth

control, they are against everything that man is now capable of doing to create

a better world, a better humanity.

 

So this is my first thing: education will never be right unless children are

born through genetic engineering, not through the old bullock cart method that

you have followed up to now. This is one of the most significant secrets: unless

we listen to sanity and intelligence, we are not going to revolutionize human

life.

 

Osho, The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here

 

 

 

 

Sponsor

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Head Start does not do that! Show me where it says anything about targeting

children who are potential drug users or criminals!

 

"It is the purpose of Head Start to promote school readiness by enhancing the

social and cognitive development of economically challenged children and

families through the provision of health, education, nutritional, social, and

other services that are determined to be necessary, based on family needs

assessments."

 

------ kaystjohn writes:

 

The only program that has valid and proven results in reducing crime is Head

Start, which targets children identified as being "at-risk" for drug use,

poverty, and lives of crime.

[Guest guest]

I'd agree on this, Kay. Osho's writings are often valuable and

thought-provoking, but on this one, his logic was failing all over

the place.

 

You note, *** Murderers are made, not born. ***

 

In the vast majority of cases, I believe that this is true. I can't

tell you how gratifying it is to hear such a compassionate and

reasoned voice as your own emerging out of Texas, which -- more than

any other U.S. state --seems publicly associated with sky-high

prisonor execution rates (especially for minorities) and other such

examples of Compassionate Neo-Conservatism. Are you a tiny voice in

the wilderness, or do many others there share your views?

 

As for Osho, his argument seems to boil down to this: Murderers are

born that way; they can't help murdering. Osho (rather offensively)

compares this "murdering gene" to a range of other physical, mental

and emotional handicaps that a human child may be born with, and

then blames goes on to blame the parents for having such defective

children in the first place.

 

Osho then makes the inexplicable leap to blaming "priests of all the

religions" for "deceiving humanity," by counseling parents and

children on ways to understand and come to terms with physical and

mental handicaps -- as karmic corrections, say, or spiritual

challenges that will make one stronger, if only one perseveres and

refuses to let one's spirit be broken.

 

No, Osho says, what those horrible lying priests are doing is

denying us the wonders and perfections of human genetic engineering.

To that, I can only reply, as you did: *** I don't know that we

would want to revolutionize human life at the expense of human

spirit. ***

 

Aum Maatangyai Namahe

[Guest guest]

Don't have the stats - was quoting a friend of mine who is a licensed Social

Worker and works for Child Protective Services. It seems - and it makes sense

to me - that if you provide the kids with better "health (care), education,

nutrition, social (skills) and other services" they are less likely to become

criminals.

 

"...based on family needs assessments" means that the families of the targeted

children have difficulties with such things as neglect, substance abuse, basic

education, among other things, and these are the kinds of problems that are

passed on generationally, but it is through learning these behaviors, not

because of a genetic blueprint.

 

I, on the other hand, work with ex-offenders (i.e. criminals) and for the most

part, what they all have in common is amazingly abysmal childhoods, where they

were neglected, at best, but often physically, sexually, and emotionally

assaulted by either their primary caregivers or by someone from whom their

caregivers failed to protect them.

 

Even though part of what I do is help enforce parole stipulations laid down by

the courts, and I feel very strongly that people must in some way pay for crimes

they commit, I still sometimes find myself feeling very sorry and sad for the

children these people were, and the horrible childhoods they had.

 

Kay

Texas

 

-

bic2chick

Wednesday, October 01, 2003 8:08 AM

Re: More laws, more prisons - or the gene machine?

 

 

Head Start does not do that! Show me where it says anything about targeting

children who are potential drug users or criminals!

 

"It is the purpose of Head Start to promote school readiness by enhancing the

social and cognitive development of economically challenged children and

families through the provision of health, education, nutritional, social, and

other services that are determined to be necessary, based on family needs

assessments."

 

------ kaystjohn writes:

 

The only program that has valid and proven results in reducing crime is Head

Start, which targets children identified as being "at-risk" for drug use,

poverty, and lives of crime.

 

 

Sponsor

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

I've got a feeling that the original posting was a hoax. because Osho often

sounded eccentric (as far as I know) - but never idiotic.

 

Regards,

Uri-David

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Seems odd that anyone would automatically assume that low-income families = drug

families. I did, however, find this line in the write-up about Head Start: "If

you have a family member with a special problem, such as drug or alcohol abuse,

job loss, or other family crisis, your family can receive help through Head

Start." Please note the first word in this sentence: IF. I would even venture

to say that the majority of the children enrolled in Head Start come from young

teenage mothers. And that "needs assessment" may just be referring to the

language barrier; i.e., Spanish speaking in English speaking schools.

 

~Donna~

also in Texas

[Guest guest]

Well, I took Chicano Philosphy as a course in college, and we learned that it

has more to do with oppression than with poverty really. Oppressed classes

who are discriminated against due to race have deep wounds within them. It can

even lead to spouse abuse because often the women in minorities feel less

discriminated against than the men, and the women may end up finding better jobs

than their mates, which can exxaccerbate the wound and lead to deeper

resentments.

Poverty is often the result of racial discrimination, and this cannot be

overlooked when dealing with poverty: the racial component. Not always a

factor,

but very often a factor.

Often, people in racial minorities feel they need to "assimilate" into the

cultural attitudes of the dominant races in order to fit in and succeed and this

can also lead to resentment.

As a matter of fact, the unversity professor who taught the class, had a

drinking problem andhe was not in poverty he was very successful as a professor

but still felt a lot of deep pain in him over the cultural issues and feeling

split between his true culture and the culture he had "assimilated" into in

order to be successful.

Very deep and complex issues.

Take care lest in trying to help others, an unspoken and/or unconscious

requirement is that to be successful they must leave their old culture behind

and

assimilate to the dominant culture.

Peace,

Cathie

In a message dated 10/2/03 10:12:25 AM Mountain Daylight Time, bic2chick

om writes:

> Seems odd that anyone would automatically assume that low-income families =

> drug families. I did, however, find this line in the write-up about Head

> Start: "If you have a family member with a special problem, such as drug or

> alcohol abuse, job loss, or other family crisis, your family can receive help

> through Head Start." Please note the first word in this sentence: IF. I

> would even venture to say that the majority of the children enrolled in Head

> Start come from young teenage mothers. And that "needs assessment" may just

be

> referring to the language barrier; i.e., Spanish speaking in English speaking

> schools.

>

> ~Donna~

> also in Texas

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

I forgot to say that the university professor who was chicano and taught the

class, who was at war with himself over his true cultural roots and his

assumed personality that he acquired by assimilating to the dominant culture,

actually died from drinking too much one night. This was such a deep pain in

him

that it killed him and he was an educated man with all the tools to be able to

understand it and still he could not overcome this problem within himself by

finding the best of both worlds: he was a man at war.

 

A good book to read for anyone interested in prison laws is Jimmy Santiago

Baca's "Working in the Dark" and also his memoirs "A Place to Stand" --

Baca grew up homeless because as a boy his parents were farmers and when

draught hit and their farm was devistated, all the white farmers in those days

got

government aid but his father was turned down due to being hispanic ( this

was years ago when mexian people were very much discriminated against in this

country ). His family was destitute and it broke hs family apart. His parents

gave him to an orphanage at the age of five and his idyllic life was over. At

a very young age he ran away from the orphanage and lived on the streets. At

the age of 19 he ended up in prison, tragically, finding himself at the wrong

place at the wrong time, and in prison, illiterate, he stole a book from a

prison guard, taught himself to read in solitary confinement where they put him

when he refused to do work detail until they gave him his G.E.D. which they

never did, and came out of prison five years later writing the most beautiful

poetry. Now he is a famous poet and the two books I mentioned talk about his

life and what a deep wound that discrimination is in his life -- how it tore his

whole life apart, about the anger, about his vision of how the prison systems

are unjust because it heaps more pain and injustice upon those who are

already struggling due to having been the brunt of much pain and injustice.

Very

good books and I highly recommend them to anybody interested in these questions

because this man has LIVED these things and now he is educated and with a

movie about his life and a Ph.D. !

 

Peace,

Cathie

[Guest guest]

Hello:

 

This post is no different than the other Osho posts we are

treated to on the message board, so there's no indication that it's

a hoax. Someone posted awhile back that Osho was brilliant, but

that he went insane as he became corrupted by "power" in his

organization. Maybe this is a window into that transition in him.

Hitleresque.

 

Best,

Mary Ann

 

, OptOnline <uri@o...>

wrote:

> I've got a feeling that the original posting was a hoax. because

Osho often

> sounded eccentric (as far as I know) - but never idiotic.

>

> Regards,

> Uri-David

>

>

>