Welcome to this throwback edition of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast, where we remember the past and choose to repeat it.

With about half of the Best of Left crew sick right now, possibly from having someone during a friend's giving gathering cough directly into our faces, I thought it was time to look back on the topic of, well, not

health care, which maybe would have been more fitting, but about the failure of our prison

system. The famous stat that gets mentioned a lot is that the U.S. only has about 5% of the

world's population, but has 20% of the world's prisoners. The point being that we put people

in prison at a much higher rate than average globally.

So if people thought that we were living in a crime-free utopia, that might lend some

credence to the rationale for high incarceration rates.

You know, I'd still want to check the stats rather than just depend on vibes, but that doesn't seem to be the case with us.

So we're presented with a philosophical dilemma. Do we want to experiment with new ideas, or at least ideas that are new to us, for dealing with people who break laws and damage the social fabric?

Or do we want bad people go away without much thought

about how that plan is actually working?

Well, demonstrating these opposing philosophies conveniently are two recent articles from

the opposing right and left satirical outlets in the U.S.

I read the right-wing Babylon B, or at least the headlines,

so you don't have to. And also because I think that understanding what makes people who I don't

agree with laugh is a bit of a window into their soul. And in the case of the Babylon B, also a window

into their propaganda efforts. I read the left wing, the onion newspaper, because it's consistently enjoyable and on point.

First, the Babylon B, they recently published the article, Chicago Judge, hoping 23rd time is the charm for rehabilitating violent criminal.

And then, you know, the article goes on to detail all of the rape and robbery and murder

and other crimes the person had committed.

The joke being that apparently judges in Chicago are very interested in rehabilitation,

...