Forty-five years ago, I had a friend that I viewed as the consummate liberal. She was twenty-something at the time and never had a mean thought for anyone. However, due to her trusting nature, people from all walks of life took advantage of her. She wasn't stupid, but even when she discovered their true nature, she would still extend her hand to help them up again when they needed it. What made her a liberal to me, was that she believed everyone was a good person, no matter what. All that a "bad person" needed was for someone to understand them and then they would magically become a "good person."
She graduated college with a B.A. degree in Literature and a minor in Sociology. Unable to find a job at the time, she lived at home with her parents and spent most of her time filling out job applications. She hated it and in order to feel better about herself, she started volunteering out at the prison and began teaching some of the inmates how to read. She had been doing this for about three weeks when one of the prisoners grabbed her, putting one hand over her mouth while ripping her clothes off with the other. He was working his pants down when the guards pulled him off of her. The event traumatized her (of course) and I tried to explain to her that some people are just broken. That they've got a short-circuit somewhere in their head that can't be fixed by teaching them how to read or by being nice to them. She disagreed with this and insisted that everyone was naturally good inside. You just had to find it.
Two weeks later she went back and met with the same prisoner again. She wasn't going to give up on him. This time the guards stood closely by while she sat and talked with him. She had known that he had a long history of raping women, but she wanted to know why he had tried to rape her. After all, she had been kind to him, had listened to him as he learned to read, and had talked about all manner of things. Why did he jump her?
I wasn't there, but she told me what he said. "Sex is always more exciting when you can't have it and you have to fight for it." And then he jumped her again, this time knocking her out with a backhand before the guards could stop him. Oddly enough, she was less traumatized by this than the first time and she wanted to go back to talk to him again. She said that she felt responsible for provoking him, somehow. That maybe the dress she wore reminded him of someone. Or whatever. She still believed in her heart that this man was fixable, somehow. As I tried to convince her not to go back to the prison again, I began to realize that something had short-circuited in my friend's mind as well. It had been there all along, I just hadn't seen it as such.
I don't know what happened to her after that because I moved to a faraway land and never heard from her again. However, if everyone on the planet was like my friend, we would all get along and have no locks on any of our doors or cars. Unfortunately, there are people living and working among us that actively prey on other people. Some of these do so because of their particular situation and circumstance, but others are vicious psychopaths that will do anything to protect themselves. Even murder, if that's what's required to get their way. There are broken people and we need jails and prisons to house them. Some are more broken than others. All claim to have been rehabilitated when they come before the parole board (although I suspect that some of them may be lying).
