From The Ashes: America Reborn Read Online Free
Author: William W. Johnstone
outside its borders, greatly simplifying them. Give me an example and we’ll go from there.
Ben Raines: All right. Drunk driving. How many bars and roadhouses have you seen since you arrived?
WWJ: Not many. Do you have a nation of teetotalers?
Ben Raines: Hardly. My liquor cabinet in the house is full. I enjoy a drink or two before dinner. Most of my friends enjoy a drink. But after we’ve taken that first drink, none of us will get behind the wheel of a car. In the SUSA, drunk is .06 blood alcohol. Impaired is .04. Either one can cause loss of driver’s license.
WWJ: I believe in most states outside the SUSA drunk is .10. Is there that much of a difference?
Ben Raines: Quite a bit. The difference is, we enforce it to the letter here. If a person is convicted of drunk driving here, the authorities pull the plates from the vehicle and attach special plates: color-coded plates, signifying the owner has been convicted of driving while being impaired or drunk. They may only use their vehicle to drive to and from work during specified times of the day. Violate these times, and the vehicle is impounded. Sometimes they get it back, sometimes they don’t.
WWJ: But doesn’t that punish the entire family? Innocent and guilty alike?
Ben Raines: It certainly does. But very few families in the SUSA are one-car families. However, if that is the case, we don’t take the sole vehicle. We just put the violator in jail for a while and see how they like that.
WWJ: Then you do have jails here in the SUSA?
Ben Raines: Sure we do. The rumor that we don’t have jails or prisons has circulated for years. Just as the rumor that we shoot or hang people for speeding and other minor infractions. All that is nonsense. When we first formed our society our prisons were not nice places simply because we didn’t have the trained personnel to staff them adequately. We were fighting for our survival back then. Now, all that has changed.
WWJ: In what way?
Ben Raines: In every way. Prison without rehabilitation is nothing more than a temporary holding place. In many cases, probably most cases, the violent criminal is worse when he is released than when he went in. So society has accomplished nothing, really.
WWJ: And now the prisons in the SUSA offer . . . ?
Ben Raines: Full counseling by highly qualified personnel. Prisoners can get their high-school diploma and then go on and receive their Ph.D. in many areas. They have job interviews months prior to their release and have good jobs waiting for them upon release.
WWJ: Isn’t that terribly expensive for the system?
Ben Raines: Not really. Our prisons are, to a great extent, self-sufficient. Every morsel of food consumed by prisoners is grown right there on the prison grounds. Many times there is a surplus, and that is sold for a profit. We don’t have judges telling us how to run our prisons, and we pay no attention to probably ninety-nine percent of the lawsuits filed by prisoners. The prisoners know that going in and don’t clog up our system with bullshit lawsuits. Appeals are limited here. A death row inmate gets two. That’s it.
WWJ: Do you think this system has ever executed an innocent person?
Ben Raines: Absolutely not. We probably turn loose more guilty people than the system outside our borders. Purely circumstantial evidence won’t cut it in our courts. There must be physical evidence tying the suspect directly to the crime. Besides, our scientists have virtually perfected the polygraph and the PSE—Psychological Stress Evaluator. If a suspect requests it, he or she may undergo hypnosis; that request cannot be refused.
WWJ: The courts here operate much differently than those outside the system, right?
Ben Raines: Very much so. But let’s relax for a few minutes and have a bite to eat before we get into that, shall we?
BOOK #2
FIRE IN THE ASHES
Tell him to go to hell!
–Reply to Santa Ana’s demand for surrender at the Alamo
As
Ben Raines: All right. Drunk driving. How many bars and roadhouses have you seen since you arrived?
WWJ: Not many. Do you have a nation of teetotalers?
Ben Raines: Hardly. My liquor cabinet in the house is full. I enjoy a drink or two before dinner. Most of my friends enjoy a drink. But after we’ve taken that first drink, none of us will get behind the wheel of a car. In the SUSA, drunk is .06 blood alcohol. Impaired is .04. Either one can cause loss of driver’s license.
WWJ: I believe in most states outside the SUSA drunk is .10. Is there that much of a difference?
Ben Raines: Quite a bit. The difference is, we enforce it to the letter here. If a person is convicted of drunk driving here, the authorities pull the plates from the vehicle and attach special plates: color-coded plates, signifying the owner has been convicted of driving while being impaired or drunk. They may only use their vehicle to drive to and from work during specified times of the day. Violate these times, and the vehicle is impounded. Sometimes they get it back, sometimes they don’t.
WWJ: But doesn’t that punish the entire family? Innocent and guilty alike?
Ben Raines: It certainly does. But very few families in the SUSA are one-car families. However, if that is the case, we don’t take the sole vehicle. We just put the violator in jail for a while and see how they like that.
WWJ: Then you do have jails here in the SUSA?
Ben Raines: Sure we do. The rumor that we don’t have jails or prisons has circulated for years. Just as the rumor that we shoot or hang people for speeding and other minor infractions. All that is nonsense. When we first formed our society our prisons were not nice places simply because we didn’t have the trained personnel to staff them adequately. We were fighting for our survival back then. Now, all that has changed.
WWJ: In what way?
Ben Raines: In every way. Prison without rehabilitation is nothing more than a temporary holding place. In many cases, probably most cases, the violent criminal is worse when he is released than when he went in. So society has accomplished nothing, really.
WWJ: And now the prisons in the SUSA offer . . . ?
Ben Raines: Full counseling by highly qualified personnel. Prisoners can get their high-school diploma and then go on and receive their Ph.D. in many areas. They have job interviews months prior to their release and have good jobs waiting for them upon release.
WWJ: Isn’t that terribly expensive for the system?
Ben Raines: Not really. Our prisons are, to a great extent, self-sufficient. Every morsel of food consumed by prisoners is grown right there on the prison grounds. Many times there is a surplus, and that is sold for a profit. We don’t have judges telling us how to run our prisons, and we pay no attention to probably ninety-nine percent of the lawsuits filed by prisoners. The prisoners know that going in and don’t clog up our system with bullshit lawsuits. Appeals are limited here. A death row inmate gets two. That’s it.
WWJ: Do you think this system has ever executed an innocent person?
Ben Raines: Absolutely not. We probably turn loose more guilty people than the system outside our borders. Purely circumstantial evidence won’t cut it in our courts. There must be physical evidence tying the suspect directly to the crime. Besides, our scientists have virtually perfected the polygraph and the PSE—Psychological Stress Evaluator. If a suspect requests it, he or she may undergo hypnosis; that request cannot be refused.
WWJ: The courts here operate much differently than those outside the system, right?
Ben Raines: Very much so. But let’s relax for a few minutes and have a bite to eat before we get into that, shall we?
BOOK #2
FIRE IN THE ASHES
Tell him to go to hell!
–Reply to Santa Ana’s demand for surrender at the Alamo
As
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