What Robert Creamer Learned in Prison

Chicago political organizer Robert Creamer writes in The Huffington Post about what he learned serving a five month sentence in a Federal prison camp. Of course, he writes of how excessively long are the sentences imposed against federal offenders. He observes how they hurt the nation as well as the families of the men who serve them.

Eloquently, he writes about how precious is freedom.

He writes about the importance of the rule of law and respect for the law. But he doesn't say how horrid it is that our society's laws threaten so many people with punishment and imprisonment for conduct that is not wrongful in the first place.

Respect for law is important, but it is striking for the husband of a senior Member of Congress, the highly respected Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), not to mention the reckless manner in which law is made. Much too routinely, our laws are written with a contempt for the dispassionate judgment and deliberative process upon which respect for law depends. It is fine to argue for respect for the law because of the idea of law, but when the law makers themselves do not write law with respect for the law, nor for the people whose lives will be effected, the respect he argues for is hard to grant.

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