Lynndie England can get on line with all of them. She doesn't get my sympathy, and not because of what she was involved in, but because finding stable employement is damn near impossible for a hell of a lot of people right now. And those folks don't have media coverage projecting their sad stories.

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And I'm all for giving her or anyone a second chance, but she falls into a specific class of criminals that are very hard to hire. She is very recognizable, so any business will have a problem with their customers if they hire her (she could improve her chances by simply changing her name). Also, the specific crime she comitted, as well as her failure to EVER show any type of remorse for the victims, causes many (including me) to judge her as heartless and ignorant. Honestly, I wouldn't want to work with her. I feel fairly confident she's a lousy human being.

Had she ever come out and explained that she understands the wrongness of her action and taken responsibility for her role in this crime (however limited), I might feel differently, but right now, it's hard to work up much sympathy for her.

I also work with employers for a living, and I notice a lot of them hire felons, but it depends on what the crime was. Employer will overlook drug convictions, immigration violations, etc. Violent crimes, such as this one, are harder to overlook.

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Do that many people point her out. If I walked into a WalMart and she was my cashier I would have no idea who she was.

What I do know is that everyone, no matter what they have done in the past, should be able to move on and earn a living once they have paid their "debt to society".

Would we rather the taxpayers support her for the rest of her life?

I wonder why the conservatives out there who think torture is awesome are not stepping up to help this woman.

It is too bad that Lindie was not more media savvy and able to write a book that talks about how she is sorry and how God has changed her life and how she is now knows that sex before marriage is a bad idea and how she is glad she choose life and how...oh wait I lost my train of though....

Anyway, what i ment was it is too bad she is unable to get on that Evangelical/Neo Conservative gravy train the Carrie Prejean, Kate minus Jon, Oliver North ect have been able to hook into.

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(I work for a big corporation, which is surprisingly also the most progressive place I've worked, with aggressive affirmative action hiring, generous maternity/paternity leave and sweet health benefits. I would have never have guessed.)

A policy like this, that take people on a case by case basis rather than categorically denying all convicts, is helpful when it comes to reintegrating people into society. Which should be the ultimate goal, should it not? Otherwise we might as well just send every felon off to work in a gulag for the rest of their lives, for all the good the justice system does them.

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But at the same time, I can't say I fault these businesses for refusing to hire her. If I owned a busienss and she walked in wanting a job, I probably wouldn't hire her either. Not just due to my own personal convictions but because her very precense, being associated with something so horrific and ugly, might offend my customers/clientele and negatively affect business.

We can argue that people are going to buy cheeseburgers from Mickey Ds regardless of whether or not the person putting on the pickles is a felon - that's true, BUT - if these places make an exception for Lynddie England it opens a whole can of worms about why they would hire certain felons and not others.

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