Hey Everyone!! :-)
I've got a little more of Alyce's adventure to share with you, today! Enjoy! :-)
Excerpt from Answers From Alyce:
"What's a concentration camp and how is it different from a prison," asked Squid-boy, apparently deciding to ignore my rude behavior.
"A prison is somewhere that a person who has been convicted of a crime is sent to serve a specific sentence. They know what they have been accused and found guilty of, they know how long their sentence is, there's due process and a right to representation, etc. There are an awful lot of problems with our criminal justice system, and the rights of people accused and convicted of crimes are violated with disturbing regularity, but at least they exist in theory."
I gestured at the exhibit. "These people don't even have that much protection under the law. They're just sent wherever the government wants to send them, for however long the government wants to hold them, and the only way they have a lawyer when they finally do get a day in court is if they pay for it themselves. The places they're sent are just holding facilities to warehouse people the government doesn't like. To concentrate them all in one place."
"Ah, thus the term 'concentration camps'," said Yax.
I nodded. "And they aren't being separated by size. Children are being taken away from their parents. For the adults and the older children, men and women and girls and boys are often separated. For the youngest children, toddlers and infants, they might not be separated by gender."
Squid-boy blinked at me. "I was under the impression that your species conformed to the mammalian norm of adults caring for partially developed offspring until they reach physical maturity. Is this not the case?"
My lips twitched at the way he described human families, but I nodded. "We do. Most parents love their children a lot and would do anything to see them safe and happy."
He made a buzzing sound in the back of his throat and gestured at where the uniformed robots were tearing the small robots away from the larger ones. "Then why separate the offspring from the parents?"
"Because the people running our government don't like these people and want to cause them pain. It's a deliberate act of cruelty. They took those kids away and didn't even keep track of who they took them from; they never intended to return them. They just wanted to hurt people they don't like."
"That's…"
"Barbaric. I know."
"Why separate the older children from the younger children?" interjected Yax.
I sighed. "Because older children and younger children require different types and levels of care, and because older children who don't know how to care for younger children might accidentally hurt them. Plus, separating them means that the private corporations that are running the places where the kids are being kept can charge more. And the people who own those corporations are friends with and donors to the people running our government. They put the youngest kids into what they call 'tender age facilities' and they can charge a premium for them, but really they're just concentration camps for babies."
"Corruption and cruelty working in tandem."
I nodded. "Those two things often go hand-in-hand in our society."
Now Out:
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