[/font]wrote:Good morning. My name is Rith Fiddir. Many of you possibly know me: owner of the Changing Room adult Theatre. Soon-to-be owner of the Ace in the Hole Casino.
It has been brought to my attention that the Mercykillers see fit to add a new wing to the prison. A wing for those who are unwilling..or unable..to pay their debts.
Is this really the Sigil that we wish to live in? A society in which the poor and the down-trodden can be cast into jail for merely being poor and down-trodden? Where those who are unable to pay their debts, perhaps through no fault of their own, can be treated like criminals the same as murderers, rapists, and thieves?
People fall upon hard times. I see it all the time. I see single mothers working two jobs to try and support their children. I see beggars on the street who have lost their homes to fire. I see children who have been turned away from Orphanages for being too old, their parents killed by gangs who would rob them for the few coppers in their pockets.
This new prison wing is a travesty. An abomination. To give the mercykillers the right to throw someone into jail for being unable to pay a debt is beyond criminal. It's tyrannical. Who is to stop a Taker from imposing some ridiculously high taxes upon somebody to whom they hold a personal vendetta? Now not only can you be taxed by the Takers nearly at whim, you can be thrown into a Mercykiller prison where you will be beaten, starved, and stripped of all dignity just for not having enough money. Just for being poor.
People who are poor can't HELP the fact they are poor. It is merely the situation they have found themselves cast into. The cards they have been dealt in life. Punishing the poor in the Hive just for being poor is the same as punishing someone for being an Elf. Or punishing somebody for having blonde hair and blue eyes. It's discrimination. It's classism.
And more importantly: It's wrong!
How many people have been in debt to Hospitals for getting sick? How many people are in debt because the Takers decided to raise their taxes, or because local gangs have shaken them down? Are we to throw them in jail, to treat them the same as the very criminals who have wronged them?
I fully believe that those who have WILLINGLY put themselves in debt should be fully required to pay off their debts. The man who borrows money to buy a mansion that he knows he can never afford...those are the types that should be punished. But this wing would punish normal, good, honest folk who are trying to earn an honest wage in the day to day, but simply don't have enough to pay their bills.
If you want to think about it logically: A man can't pay his bills. So he's thrown into prison where he's going to get fed, a roof over their heads....and we're the ones paying for it. The Takers will have to raise the taxes on everybody else so that we can pay to house the criminals. But these taxes will only drive more and more people into Debt, with less money in their pockets. It will only create more poor to be thrown into the very same jail that we are taxed to maintain. It's not right. It's not fair. It's one step further to Plutocracy....and it's a load of crap.
That's just my two coppers on the matter, but knowing the Takers they'll tax those too..
Cheers,
Rith Fiddir.
The letter is signed with a cartoonish tophat.