My posts on the War on Christmas are meant facetiously(I am really pro-holiday in the kind of secular/Santa way--gifts, tree, giving a little to charity, I am not Scrooge-y). But I think this guy is giving Christmas a very bad name. This story comes via Think Progress:
And the Beat Goes On……
Despite a series of lawsuits and grievances filed by inmates to stop it, Maricopa
County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has ordered that Christmas music by played throughout
his jail system through the holiday season.
The music is played in all jails, all day to the approximate 8000 people incarcerated.
Holiday music from all countries and faiths are included in the play list from Latin
America to the Middle East, Arpaio says.
Inmates have filed six (6) lawsuits over the Sheriff’s policy to play Christmas music
in the last two years. Grievances center on cruel and unusual punishment claims as
well as forcing inmates to participate in religious celebrations. To date, four (4) of the six suits have been dismissed and the two (2) remaining are expected to be
dismissed by the courts.
The judges dismissing these suits are out of their little black-robed minds. As I've mentioned before, exposure to holiday music in a setting where you don't want to be can drive you pretty much up the wall. But that's not just me and my hubby grousing about the music in our otherwise benign existence, the practice of playing music with the specific intention of driving people up the wall has been a proud psy-ops tradition for years:
The practice of forcing people to listen to crappy music all day long has been used in the past for interrogation purposes. For example, the U.S. military blared Metallica music at detainees in Guantanamo Bay with the intention of breaking them down psychologically.
If the GITMO detainees were breaking down over a little Metallica music, there's no way that forcing someone to listen to Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree isn't cruel and unusual.
It's by far not the worst thing this jackass has ever done. But it definitely is the most "humbug" take on the holidays I've heard of. Using a time associated in many people's minds with joy and being with loved ones since that's traditionally when families get together, to rub people's noses in the fact of their incarceration, is just really twisted.
He should be run over by a reindeer.
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