Alabama legislators boldly work to ban prison Pinterest use.

You have a friend request.

As a politico, I’m a big fan of deranged populist rhetoric regarding prisons. It’s just good political whoring.

If you are immediately unfamiliar, I’ll give you an example you’ve likely already encountered. For interpretative purposes, the following dramatization is best imagined as being said by an old man in a 1992 Alabama National Championship T-shirt at one of those gas stations that both sells hardware and makes sandwiches:

I tell you what, I pay my taxes and these assholes done gone and they take them prisoners and they done get three meals of day for free and the color TV and a place to exercise. And I pay taxes and don’t break the law and I don’t get any of that shit for free!

So you’ve probably heard that more than a few times, correct? And when you have a candidate say that in a cleaned-up way at a town hall or a campaign event, crowds eat that shit up.

Of course, as with many popular political memes, it ignores inconvenient realities. And if you took the realities into account here, it’s a bit harder to make prison seem like criminals’ taxpayer-funded vacation.

To demonstrate, I’ll mention a few things that Alabama prisoners likely face on a daily basis and follow each example with our same caricature of a crotchety old man that hangs out at the gas station attempting to rationalize these things as prisoners living the good life.

Let’s begin.

-The ever-present threat of brutal violence.

Excitement!

-Overcrowding.

Companionship!

-Rape.

Romance!

So yeah, it can be a bit difficult to reconcile reality and the image that people want to believe because they need something to be angry at because they feel like they’ve been denied it all somehow.

But that don’t mean that Alabama legislators, including the House’s version of Phil Williams, ain’t opposed to coming up with some creative ways to keep the lie alive:

A House committee has approved a bill to ban prisoners from using social networking sites.

‘Kay.

Bracing for embarrassment from the Alabama Legislature.

"WE SHOWED Y'ALL ORIGINAL WHITE MEXICANS!"

The Alabama Legislature opens its 2012 session today. As usual, virtually nothing of value will probably be accomplished, but people keep recommending basic competence anyway.

The only thing certain from this session is that lawmakers will put their heads together and strive as hard as they can to embarrass the lot of us through their bills, through their actions, and through their rhetoric.

But how?

Here’s some of the ways the Legislature could conceivably embarrass us this year.

BETTERS’ READING: Jeff Foxworthy will teach your children how to discriminate against MoonPies, you goddamn ridiculous Southern caricature, you.

This has been more costly and pointless than Biloxi's Bathe-in-RC Valentine's Day Jubilee.

Things that people who are better than you worthless lessers have been reading.

-Fucking MoonPies.

-I’m sure you’ve read it several times over by now, but Newt’s Spaaaaaace Cooooast public masturbation fit yesterday afternoon is such a moment of unchecked ego and bombast that you really have to continue to behold it.

-Your sweatshirt is just too gay for Brookwood High School.

-When you you read the Huffington Post headline in a couple years about an absurd sentence being handed out for someone stealing a bunch of manhole covers or copper things from a graveyard—strange but true thing, some people don’t know taking things off graves is stealing because, um, lack of zombie comeuppance, I guess—look back at this story. The copper theft bill is otherwise fairly reasonable when you look at its practical legal effect (making the value of what is stolen measurable off the repair cost, which often dwarfs the value of the wire stolen by wire thieves), but making stealing manhole covers and copper grave decorations a felony? Shit, are we planning on farming all the people in our overpacked prisons for blood at some point? Somebody’s got to pay for this somehow.

-Huzzah to government and private companies actually getting something done in Hackleburg here in my neck of the woods, I just wish I didn’t have to permanently associate the product with Brett Favre’s penis.

-It may be a few more months yet before we figure out exactly how Alabama’s legislators will strip away black voters’ voices for the next decade.

-Warning, kids: Based on the subject matter, the final will be bullshit. But hey, whatever keeps you from burning churches.

-My God, Steve Harvey has aged poorly. Though be forewarned, this has-been-comedians-as-principals thing will only lead to Larry the Cable Guy as the Superintendent of Lauderdale County Schools. (This has already happened, most likely.) (#BacktoBackDayLauderdaleCountyJokeAchievementUnlocked.)

-But, but AirTran and the Huntsville Airport were a match made in Suck Heaven! You know, the place right next to Mediocrity Purgatory! You know! Down by the old outlet malls in Boaz!