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I just returned from a trip to Canada (B.C.) a few hours ago. The Canadians there were very gracious and welcoming. They are alarmed by certain developments in the US, as am I, I have to confess. I live in a state (Georgia) which has the highest incarceration rate in the US. The US has the highest incarceration rate in the world. I have a young teenage daughter who developed bipolar disorder, and because of a series of minor events she was sentenced to 4 months in an unspeakable juvenile detention center, instead of a hospital wheres she would have received the appropriate care. My 18 yr old son, who confessed to a cop that he'd had a beer, was fined $1,300 and sentenced to six months probation. When I was in court with him I saw several young men who were constantly being sentenced to jail because they couldn't pay their steep probation fees, yet couldn't get a job to pay them because they were constantly being put in jail for not paying. A 17 yr old male in this state was sentenced as a sex offender for having relations with a 15 yr old classmate. We will soon need two forms of picture ID and proof of address to get a driver's licence--what about all the people who live with others, who don't have utility bills in their names? We are also keeping people in regular criminal prisons in this country without charges and without due process because they are immigrants who have been found to have old charges years previously, which they have already served time for, and many of them have been productive workers since that time, with families. The bottom line is that we are creating a large criminal class for the benefit of the lawyers and prison industry, and the politicians who ride on the backs of young men who have their lives ruined because they can't afford proper legal assistance. Jimmy Carter's grandson, who lives in my town, was caught breaking and entering, and stealing, and in posession of drugs. All charges were dropped for him. The Supreme Court has just ruled that large companies can seize private property for "public purposes." I'm proud to be an American, but we need to wake up and see what is happening in this country--or we will wake up soon and find no semblance of the America our fathers knew.