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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
On December 23 2016 16:03 Nyxisto wrote:
Fine them, give them a counsellor, put them in group therapy, legalise nonsensical crimes. That's what everybody else does
Lol this post. Jesus some crimes are punished only with fines. Sometimes the the court orders you to see a counselor or attend group therapy.
You can't just tell people that the guy who robbed your house or delt drugs on the corner as apart of a gang is just going to be fined or put into group therapy. There are real socio-economic situations that cause these crimes that doesn't exist in a nation like Germany that naturally grew cities.
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What has cities being older to do with this?
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On December 23 2016 16:24 Velr wrote:
What has cities being older to do with this?
Age gives a city time to develop through different industries rising and falling and allowing groups to migrate out and in properly without leaving a poor underclass thats economically directed twords crime. Euro cities have had centuries to deal with the eb and tide of economic changes naturally while America has socio-economic shitholes like chicago DC and LA that don't make any sense until you look at that these cities were never suppose to be what they are today let along with the reason why people came disappeared a long time ago.
I mean imagine if all the syrian immigrants in Germany suddenly became citizens because you were actually enslaving them and their ancestors for long enough that they don't have their natural culture anymore. Where are they going to go and what possible jobs are they going to take? You think people won't be calling for them to be locked up en mass pretty quick?
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On December 23 2016 15:27 Sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On December 23 2016 15:19 Thieving Magpie wrote:On December 23 2016 15:14 Sermokala wrote:On December 23 2016 14:29 Mohdoo wrote:On December 23 2016 13:51 bloooargh wrote:On December 23 2016 09:47 Karis Vas Ryaar wrote:On December 23 2016 09:36 Liquid`Jinro wrote:On December 23 2016 03:10 Karis Vas Ryaar wrote:When he was in prison, Lorenzo Palma strongly suspected he was an American citizen. He had spent his whole life in the United States, and he knew his grandfather was born in El Paso, Texas, in 1914.
Palma had served five years on an assault conviction and was about to be released on parole, but immigration officials had stopped his release because they wanted to deport him. They said he wasn't a U.S. citizen.
So in the summer of 2014, Palma found himself among dozens of inmates about to face an immigration judge in Huntsville, Texas. "They would sit us by groups of 10 and they would start deporting left and right," he said.
Getting the paperwork to prove his citizenship was hard: He didn't have money to call his mother in El Paso, Texas, so he was forced to send letters asking her to find the documents.
When it was Palma's turn in court, Judge Richard Walton was short. Palma tried to explain that he was an American. But Walton simply asked Palma if he wanted time to get a lawyer; Palma said yes. Court recordings obtained by NPR show that Palma then softly asked Walton what his chances were of staying in the country.
"Are you a gambling man?" Walton asked. "If I told you [that] you had a 91 percent chance to stay, do you think that would be good? Because you still might fall into that 9 percent chance."
***
It's illegal for U.S. immigration authorities to hold Americans in detention.
However, an NPR analysis of data obtained through a Freedom of Information Act Request shows that hundreds of American citizens each year find themselves in a situation similar to Palma's. That data show that from 2007 through July of last year, 693 U.S. citizens were held in local jails on federal detainers — in other words, at the request of immigration officials. And 818 more Americans were held in immigration detention centers during that same time frame, according to data obtained through a separate FOIA request by Northwestern University professor Jacqueline Stevens and analyzed by NPR.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/22/504031635/you-say-you-re-an-american-but-what-if-you-had-to-prove-it-or-be-deported How can you not have money to call someone but enough money to send a letter....? I found that the most bizarre part too. American prisons are weird Phone calls are another revenue stream in American prisons. Up to $14 a minute: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/03/court-stops-fccs-latest-attempt-to-lower-prison-phone-rates/ The entire idea of privatized prisons is just so fucking foul. Definitely one of the big blemishes of our country. Edit: Is this something conservatives disagree with? Are there people on TL cool with privatized prisons? Private prisons I think are a great thing in concept and potential, its just terribly directed and executed. Right now the only thing private prisons care about is keeping the slaves fed watered and in a half decent sleeping environment. If we instead directed theses corporations to take in the raw material that is Joe criminal and deliver a product of a fully functioning member of society it'd be good. Concentrate on factors such as their propensity to re enter a jail and their ability to find a job and the quality of that job. Would save the government money and would probably make money in the super long term. I think the question people have is "why is that a private industry responsibility?" All of that could be done on the state/federal level. and the basic answer would be why not?
And the basic answer is because a private organization is trying to maximize profits. So when faced with a choice between a possibility that might enhance rehabilitation and a possibility that doesn't, but costs less money, a private organization that is run well is always going to choose the latter. Which is in direct competition with the goal you have stressed for your private prison system.
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On December 23 2016 15:42 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On December 23 2016 15:24 Karis Vas Ryaar wrote:
regarding 2nd amendment people
living in a rural pro gun community the main issue with the prison system here is that there’s not enough room and because of California rulings a lot of people had to get released so you see a lot of drug offenders and homeless running around and stuff like gas being siphoned isn’t really investigated. so they want more prisons. of course rather than complain that the local city council won’t pass anything to deal with the addiction problems in the community (things have been proposed but always die) they’d rather just blame that damn governor Jerry Brown and claim that he’s the worst governor ever and that California hates the rural community. I find it a bit ironic that these are the same personal responsibility people who want the government to do less but won't even try to solve the issue locally without wanting money for more prisons. of course the community is also mostly white so don’t know if thats important. Both Jerry Brown and the court system are largely at fault the absurd releases they are making. Meanwhile, solving it locally is a hard issue, because many of the homeless (or criminals) don't care about help programs or temporary housing. Voluntary programs certainly won't solve the problem.
maybe I was a bit harsh but the point I was making was that the city literally refuses to even try anything and tends to just discuss and do nothing. but yeah its kind of complicated. I just wish the city/county I live would just try some type of program instead of just talking about solutions. People are proposing things that have proven records but their just getting ignored/put off. Council literally discussed trying to implement something that was working in texas at dealing with mental illness and homeless but decided to not do it . (or at least they were as of september. don't think much has changed.)
even the newspaper is saying they need to actually do something. I don't know if people really want to just throw all the homeless and drug users in jail but I don't think that would be a good solution at all. There might not be a ton that can be done but certainly something can be done rather than just complaining about it and arguing with each other.
at least where I live the issue seems to be more lack of action (seemingly due to a council that is dysfunctional) than monetary or capability to do something. even if they were to magically get the prison money the community would still have these problems. they'd just be off the streets and in the jails
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Story about the now infamous Comey letter that highlights a long streak of internal issues: Link
A long story involving a fear of public outcry from either possible outcome (notifying or not notifying), an incompetent Attorney General who compromised her reputation by talking to old Billy, an indecisive DoJ leadership, and some odd circumstances. All in all a head-scratcher.
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On December 23 2016 09:42 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:Show nested quote +On December 23 2016 07:19 zlefin wrote:On December 23 2016 07:15 LegalLord wrote:
As a person with snow-white skin I'm apparently meant to just die off so demography can do its work. I bet my skin is paler than yours, I had the palest skin of any male in my high school, and paler than most of the women too. Though I don't think it's quite as pale now, still pretty pale though. Also, you don't have to die off until 2500 or so. by that point the races will have mixed enough as to have lost most meaning probably. At current rate humans won't exist by 2500. Either extinction or transhumanism seems the future.
At the current rate of Trump humans won't exist by 2018. The dude just is so over his head he's going to send us into nuclear war probably by accident because someone questioned the size of his "hands" on twitter
User was warned for this post
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On December 23 2016 15:14 Sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On December 23 2016 14:29 Mohdoo wrote:On December 23 2016 13:51 bloooargh wrote:On December 23 2016 09:47 Karis Vas Ryaar wrote:On December 23 2016 09:36 Liquid`Jinro wrote:On December 23 2016 03:10 Karis Vas Ryaar wrote:When he was in prison, Lorenzo Palma strongly suspected he was an American citizen. He had spent his whole life in the United States, and he knew his grandfather was born in El Paso, Texas, in 1914.
Palma had served five years on an assault conviction and was about to be released on parole, but immigration officials had stopped his release because they wanted to deport him. They said he wasn't a U.S. citizen.
So in the summer of 2014, Palma found himself among dozens of inmates about to face an immigration judge in Huntsville, Texas. "They would sit us by groups of 10 and they would start deporting left and right," he said.
Getting the paperwork to prove his citizenship was hard: He didn't have money to call his mother in El Paso, Texas, so he was forced to send letters asking her to find the documents.
When it was Palma's turn in court, Judge Richard Walton was short. Palma tried to explain that he was an American. But Walton simply asked Palma if he wanted time to get a lawyer; Palma said yes. Court recordings obtained by NPR show that Palma then softly asked Walton what his chances were of staying in the country.
"Are you a gambling man?" Walton asked. "If I told you [that] you had a 91 percent chance to stay, do you think that would be good? Because you still might fall into that 9 percent chance."
***
It's illegal for U.S. immigration authorities to hold Americans in detention.
However, an NPR analysis of data obtained through a Freedom of Information Act Request shows that hundreds of American citizens each year find themselves in a situation similar to Palma's. That data show that from 2007 through July of last year, 693 U.S. citizens were held in local jails on federal detainers — in other words, at the request of immigration officials. And 818 more Americans were held in immigration detention centers during that same time frame, according to data obtained through a separate FOIA request by Northwestern University professor Jacqueline Stevens and analyzed by NPR.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/22/504031635/you-say-you-re-an-american-but-what-if-you-had-to-prove-it-or-be-deported How can you not have money to call someone but enough money to send a letter....? I found that the most bizarre part too. American prisons are weird Phone calls are another revenue stream in American prisons. Up to $14 a minute: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/03/court-stops-fccs-latest-attempt-to-lower-prison-phone-rates/ The entire idea of privatized prisons is just so fucking foul. Definitely one of the big blemishes of our country. Edit: Is this something conservatives disagree with? Are there people on TL cool with privatized prisons? Private prisons I think are a great thing in concept and potential, its just terribly directed and executed. Right now the only thing private prisons care about is keeping the slaves fed watered and in a half decent sleeping environment. If we instead directed theses corporations to take in the raw material that is Joe criminal and deliver a product of a fully functioning member of society it'd be good. Concentrate on factors such as their propensity to re enter a jail and their ability to find a job and the quality of that job. Would save the government money and would probably make money in the super long term.
Private corporations exist for profit. The best way to generate profit is through repeat business.
Turning criminals into productive citizens takes away repeat business.
You want a private corporation that actively tries to limit its source of revenue.
It does not work.
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I don't quite understand Sermokala's point. A public prison system is bad, because wasteful. But the current private system is worse, because it's modern slavery with no intention at all of reforming the prisoners and rehabilitating them back into society, because that would reduce the number of slaves available. So we should make private prisons act more like public ones, by forcing them to change their business model. Why not just admit that private prisons are an abject failure and the public model works better? Either the government pays so much that private prisons have the same goals as public ones do, in which case you can cut out the middle man and save on paying the shareholders a bunch of profits. Or your private prisons don't have the right goals and you keep slave labor camps instead of rehabilitating prisoners.
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On December 23 2016 19:40 Acrofales wrote:
I don't quite understand Sermokala's point. A public prison system is bad, because wasteful. But the current private system is worse, because it's modern slavery with no intention at all of reforming the prisoners and rehabilitating them back into society, because that would reduce the number of slaves available. So we should make private prisons act more like public ones, by forcing them to change their business model. Why not just admit that private prisons are an abject failure and the public model works better? Either the government pays so much that private prisons have the same goals as public ones do, in which case you can cut out the middle man and save on paying the shareholders a bunch of profits. Or your private prisons don't have the right goals and you keep slave labor camps instead of rehabilitating prisoners.
Many Americans hold to the belief that anything the public sector does, the private sector can do better and cheaper because government is bad and wasteful.
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On December 23 2016 19:22 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On December 23 2016 15:14 Sermokala wrote:On December 23 2016 14:29 Mohdoo wrote:On December 23 2016 13:51 bloooargh wrote:On December 23 2016 09:47 Karis Vas Ryaar wrote:On December 23 2016 09:36 Liquid`Jinro wrote:On December 23 2016 03:10 Karis Vas Ryaar wrote:When he was in prison, Lorenzo Palma strongly suspected he was an American citizen. He had spent his whole life in the United States, and he knew his grandfather was born in El Paso, Texas, in 1914.
Palma had served five years on an assault conviction and was about to be released on parole, but immigration officials had stopped his release because they wanted to deport him. They said he wasn't a U.S. citizen.
So in the summer of 2014, Palma found himself among dozens of inmates about to face an immigration judge in Huntsville, Texas. "They would sit us by groups of 10 and they would start deporting left and right," he said.
Getting the paperwork to prove his citizenship was hard: He didn't have money to call his mother in El Paso, Texas, so he was forced to send letters asking her to find the documents.
When it was Palma's turn in court, Judge Richard Walton was short. Palma tried to explain that he was an American. But Walton simply asked Palma if he wanted time to get a lawyer; Palma said yes. Court recordings obtained by NPR show that Palma then softly asked Walton what his chances were of staying in the country.
"Are you a gambling man?" Walton asked. "If I told you [that] you had a 91 percent chance to stay, do you think that would be good? Because you still might fall into that 9 percent chance."
***
It's illegal for U.S. immigration authorities to hold Americans in detention.
However, an NPR analysis of data obtained through a Freedom of Information Act Request shows that hundreds of American citizens each year find themselves in a situation similar to Palma's. That data show that from 2007 through July of last year, 693 U.S. citizens were held in local jails on federal detainers — in other words, at the request of immigration officials. And 818 more Americans were held in immigration detention centers during that same time frame, according to data obtained through a separate FOIA request by Northwestern University professor Jacqueline Stevens and analyzed by NPR.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/22/504031635/you-say-you-re-an-american-but-what-if-you-had-to-prove-it-or-be-deported How can you not have money to call someone but enough money to send a letter....? I found that the most bizarre part too. American prisons are weird Phone calls are another revenue stream in American prisons. Up to $14 a minute: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/03/court-stops-fccs-latest-attempt-to-lower-prison-phone-rates/ The entire idea of privatized prisons is just so fucking foul. Definitely one of the big blemishes of our country. Edit: Is this something conservatives disagree with? Are there people on TL cool with privatized prisons? Private prisons I think are a great thing in concept and potential, its just terribly directed and executed. Right now the only thing private prisons care about is keeping the slaves fed watered and in a half decent sleeping environment. If we instead directed theses corporations to take in the raw material that is Joe criminal and deliver a product of a fully functioning member of society it'd be good. Concentrate on factors such as their propensity to re enter a jail and their ability to find a job and the quality of that job. Would save the government money and would probably make money in the super long term. Private corporations exist for profit. The best way to generate profit is through repeat business. Turning criminals into productive citizens takes away repeat business. You want a private corporation that actively tries to limit its source of revenue. It does not work.
That's because there's the wrong incentive. They get paid for every prisoner. If you'd pay them instead for succesful reintegration they'll focus on that instead. You could make it so that they get paid for every year a prisoner is out of prison for 5 / 10 years and doesn't commit a crime again. If there's no interest in the private sector for such a system there is always the public sector to fall back on.
On December 23 2016 19:40 Acrofales wrote:
I don't quite understand Sermokala's point. A public prison system is bad, because wasteful. But the current private system is worse, because it's modern slavery with no intention at all of reforming the prisoners and rehabilitating them back into society, because that would reduce the number of slaves available. So we should make private prisons act more like public ones, by forcing them to change their business model. Why not just admit that private prisons are an abject failure and the public model works better? Either the government pays so much that private prisons have the same goals as public ones do, in which case you can cut out the middle man and save on paying the shareholders a bunch of profits. Or your private prisons don't have the right goals and you keep slave labor camps instead of rehabilitating prisoners.
The question is if the public prison system actually works in the US. I don't think that's true. Both the public and private prison systems seem to be more for punishment than reintegration.
I don't see a problem with a combination of private and public prisons as long as there are the correct incentives and there's a minimum standard.
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On December 23 2016 19:04 showstealer1829 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 23 2016 09:42 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:On December 23 2016 07:19 zlefin wrote:On December 23 2016 07:15 LegalLord wrote:
As a person with snow-white skin I'm apparently meant to just die off so demography can do its work. I bet my skin is paler than yours, I had the palest skin of any male in my high school, and paler than most of the women too. Though I don't think it's quite as pale now, still pretty pale though. Also, you don't have to die off until 2500 or so. by that point the races will have mixed enough as to have lost most meaning probably. At current rate humans won't exist by 2500. Either extinction or transhumanism seems the future. At the current rate of Trump humans won't exist by 2018. The dude just is so over his head he's going to send us into nuclear war probably by accident because someone questioned the size of his "hands" on twitter
To be perfectly honest, this election genuinely dented my faith in humanity. If people in one of the most advanced and well off country in history base their common decisions on conspiracy theories and completely disregard truth as a value, we probably don't stand a chance.
Trump is a regretable accident of history and will hugely damage america, but the real story here is that we passed that stage were saying the truth or making things up don't make any difference anymore. When you can tell a Trump supporter "mate he lied to you six time in the last minute, here are the facts!" and the supporter to shrug his shoulders because his anti elite, anti intelligentsia resentment is the only thing that matters to him, you know you are in trouble.
By the way, the nomination of a vulture hedge fund billionaire to deregulate wall street (hurray for the crises to come) goes really hand to hand with the anti establishment anti elite message. But eh, it was never about that. Only about people liking him for being a tacky bully and shouting very loud in a typically american anti intellectual manner the crap small people think.
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Eh unlike Hillary he actually has charisma though, blame it on DNC for putting her up against him
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On December 23 2016 20:56 LemOn wrote:
Eh unlike Hillary he actually has charisma though, blame it on DNC for putting her up against him
It's very fashionable to "blame the DNC" "blame the elites", "blame the establishment", what about starting with the people who voted for him?
Guys lies every other sentence, has a xenophobic proto-fascist post-truth contradictory piece of garbage as a platform and one of the most obnoxious, bombastic and immature personality ever seen at that level of politics. If people think it's a great idea to give him the keys of the white house, i would be encline to blame them. Because it's simply shameful.
And here is the thing, people voted for him to say "fuck you" to those well educated, coastal cosmopolite folks they resent. I believe most Trump voters knew perfectly he was a really bad choice, and i suspect that's partly why they voted for him. The irony is that it's not New York university professors and californians hipsters who are now going to suffer immensely. It's mainly Joe Noone, Mississipi. And who knows, maybe in the long run it might be a good thing that people start again to realize that they do have something to lose after all.
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Lol. This is how it begins. Better hope this roll of the dice avoids snake eyes.
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On December 23 2016 16:18 Sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On December 23 2016 16:03 Nyxisto wrote:
Fine them, give them a counsellor, put them in group therapy, legalise nonsensical crimes. That's what everybody else does Lol this post. Jesus some crimes are punished only with fines. Sometimes the the court orders you to see a counselor or attend group therapy. You can't just tell people that the guy who robbed your house or delt drugs on the corner as apart of a gang is just going to be fined or put into group therapy. There are real socio-economic situations that cause these crimes that doesn't exist in a nation like Germany that naturally grew cities.
Don't care about what other people think should happen?
If someone killed a loved one of mine, I would want them to suffer horribly before death. Obviously, what I think should happen really shouldn't happen. Rehabilitation is the answer whether people want killers to die or drug dealers to rot in jail, since the goal is to "fix" criminals, not ensure that they'll have a higher chance to commit crimes.
And yes, the history of the nation plays a huge part in the situation, but that doesn't mean there aren't answers available.
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On December 23 2016 20:15 RvB wrote:Show nested quote +On December 23 2016 19:22 Gorsameth wrote:On December 23 2016 15:14 Sermokala wrote:On December 23 2016 14:29 Mohdoo wrote:On December 23 2016 13:51 bloooargh wrote:On December 23 2016 09:47 Karis Vas Ryaar wrote:On December 23 2016 09:36 Liquid`Jinro wrote:On December 23 2016 03:10 Karis Vas Ryaar wrote:When he was in prison, Lorenzo Palma strongly suspected he was an American citizen. He had spent his whole life in the United States, and he knew his grandfather was born in El Paso, Texas, in 1914.
Palma had served five years on an assault conviction and was about to be released on parole, but immigration officials had stopped his release because they wanted to deport him. They said he wasn't a U.S. citizen.
So in the summer of 2014, Palma found himself among dozens of inmates about to face an immigration judge in Huntsville, Texas. "They would sit us by groups of 10 and they would start deporting left and right," he said.
Getting the paperwork to prove his citizenship was hard: He didn't have money to call his mother in El Paso, Texas, so he was forced to send letters asking her to find the documents.
When it was Palma's turn in court, Judge Richard Walton was short. Palma tried to explain that he was an American. But Walton simply asked Palma if he wanted time to get a lawyer; Palma said yes. Court recordings obtained by NPR show that Palma then softly asked Walton what his chances were of staying in the country.
"Are you a gambling man?" Walton asked. "If I told you [that] you had a 91 percent chance to stay, do you think that would be good? Because you still might fall into that 9 percent chance."
***
It's illegal for U.S. immigration authorities to hold Americans in detention.
However, an NPR analysis of data obtained through a Freedom of Information Act Request shows that hundreds of American citizens each year find themselves in a situation similar to Palma's. That data show that from 2007 through July of last year, 693 U.S. citizens were held in local jails on federal detainers — in other words, at the request of immigration officials. And 818 more Americans were held in immigration detention centers during that same time frame, according to data obtained through a separate FOIA request by Northwestern University professor Jacqueline Stevens and analyzed by NPR.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/22/504031635/you-say-you-re-an-american-but-what-if-you-had-to-prove-it-or-be-deported How can you not have money to call someone but enough money to send a letter....? I found that the most bizarre part too. American prisons are weird Phone calls are another revenue stream in American prisons. Up to $14 a minute: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/03/court-stops-fccs-latest-attempt-to-lower-prison-phone-rates/ The entire idea of privatized prisons is just so fucking foul. Definitely one of the big blemishes of our country. Edit: Is this something conservatives disagree with? Are there people on TL cool with privatized prisons? Private prisons I think are a great thing in concept and potential, its just terribly directed and executed. Right now the only thing private prisons care about is keeping the slaves fed watered and in a half decent sleeping environment. If we instead directed theses corporations to take in the raw material that is Joe criminal and deliver a product of a fully functioning member of society it'd be good. Concentrate on factors such as their propensity to re enter a jail and their ability to find a job and the quality of that job. Would save the government money and would probably make money in the super long term. Private corporations exist for profit. The best way to generate profit is through repeat business. Turning criminals into productive citizens takes away repeat business. You want a private corporation that actively tries to limit its source of revenue. It does not work. That's because there's the wrong incentive. They get paid for every prisoner. If you'd pay them instead for succesful reintegration they'll focus on that instead. You could make it so that they get paid for every year a prisoner is out of prison for 5 / 10 years and doesn't commit a crime again. If there's no interest in the private sector for such a system there is always the public sector to fall back on. Show nested quote +On December 23 2016 19:40 Acrofales wrote:
I don't quite understand Sermokala's point. A public prison system is bad, because wasteful. But the current private system is worse, because it's modern slavery with no intention at all of reforming the prisoners and rehabilitating them back into society, because that would reduce the number of slaves available. So we should make private prisons act more like public ones, by forcing them to change their business model. Why not just admit that private prisons are an abject failure and the public model works better? Either the government pays so much that private prisons have the same goals as public ones do, in which case you can cut out the middle man and save on paying the shareholders a bunch of profits. Or your private prisons don't have the right goals and you keep slave labor camps instead of rehabilitating prisoners. The question is if the public prison system actually works in the US. I don't think that's true. Both the public and private prison systems seem to be more for punishment than reintegration. I don't see a problem with a combination of private and public prisons as long as there are the correct incentives and there's a minimum standard.
If they're paid to keep people out of prisons why rehabilitate at all? Revolving door that shit and maximize profits
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On December 23 2016 22:42 Dark_Chill wrote:Show nested quote +On December 23 2016 16:18 Sermokala wrote:On December 23 2016 16:03 Nyxisto wrote:
Fine them, give them a counsellor, put them in group therapy, legalise nonsensical crimes. That's what everybody else does Lol this post. Jesus some crimes are punished only with fines. Sometimes the the court orders you to see a counselor or attend group therapy. You can't just tell people that the guy who robbed your house or delt drugs on the corner as apart of a gang is just going to be fined or put into group therapy. There are real socio-economic situations that cause these crimes that doesn't exist in a nation like Germany that naturally grew cities. Don't care about what other people think should happen? If someone killed a loved one of mine, I would want them to suffer horribly before death. Obviously, what I think should happen really shouldn't happen. Rehabilitation is the answer whether people want killers to die or drug dealers to rot in jail, since the goal is to "fix" criminals, not ensure that they'll have a higher chance to commit crimes. And yes, the history of the nation plays a huge part in the situation, but that doesn't mean there aren't answers available.
The issue is that America wants to punish criminals at all. If the goal is rehabilitation then it should be short prison sentences for all but a higher police presence to continually send them back for rehabilitation.
If the goal is to get rid of criminals then Duterte shows us what's need to be done about that.
Taking this American middle ground of isolating people until they have no chance to integrate smoothly back into society is the worse of all worlds.
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Post Mortem
I’ve been reading and thinking a lot about the election since Nov. 8 trying to figure out what the hell happened, and this post summarizes my thoughts on it. These are just my subjective impressions - I’m not an authority on this stuff or anything like that, so I could be very off base.
Trump’s Support – Trump was able to win because he mobilized a group which doesn’t normally vote in high numbers, without significantly hurting his support from traditional Republicans. His support can be divided up as follows:
- “The Deplorables” – This group includes white nationalists and authoritarians, and played a large role in Trump winning the primary. His slogan “Make America Great Again” was a direct call out to the white nationalists. This group feels a great deal of nostalgia for a time when white people, even poor ones, were not only the focus of American political rhetoric on both sides of aisle, but also the focus of popular culture. They are uncomfortable with the demographic changes in the United States, and support policies which keep brown people out and down. Authoritarians, on the other hand, want an active federal government to protect them from “the other,” i.e., brown people. There is a lot of overlap between the two groups, though authoritarians are more likely to support a strong military presence abroad, and the suspension of civil liberties so that the government can “keep us safe.”
- “Change Voters” – The other group which contributed to Trump’s primary win. They wanted to give a big “fuck you” to the GOP establishment, and Trump was the perfect vehicle for this.
- “Traditional Conservative Voters” – This group includes traditional Republican voters such as the religious, and people who want tax cuts and a small federal government. The big question of the election was whether this group would come home to Trump. Many of them didn’t like or support him in the primary, and a larger than usual group was undecided until very close to the election.
- “White Low Information Swing Voters” – This group tends to be lower middle class / working poor, and it turns out they feel a lot of resentment towards the truly poor [brown] people who they perceive as getting a lot of government benefits. For example, they are really pissed off that poor people get Medicaid while they are forced to spend a lot of money on inferior health care plans on the exchanges.
Hillary’s Strategy & Why She Lost – People in this forum have been very critical of Hillary since the campaign. Justifiably so, because she lost. However, I think it’s important to try to evaluate her strategy without the benefit of hindsight, and during the campaign it seemed to be working.
- “Identity Politics” – The critique of Hillary’s campaign that I find the most frustrating is that she relied too much on “identity politics,” i.e., she talked about issues which are important to groups besides white people. ALL politics is identity politics. That’s why poor white people vote for Republicans who want to cut taxes for the 1%, and de-regulate the financial sector. Trump relied on identity politics by characterizing black communities as war zones, and Hispanic immigrants as criminals and gang members. His strategy was laser focused on getting white people to vote based upon their identities as white people, and it worked.
Hillary used a similar strategy, but focused on different demographics. For example, she couldn’t rely on African Americans to turn out like they had for Obama, so she had to spend a lot of time talking about issues which are important to African Americans. This had the unfortunate effect of reinforcing the success of Trump’s strategy, but her campaign felt it was necessary in order to turn out key groups in the Democratic coalition.
- “Playing to the Center” – The Deplorables and Change Voters discussed above were always going to vote for Trump, but Hillary’s campaign believed they had a good chance of picking off the Traditional Conservative Voters if they focused on the abnormality of Trump as a candidate. If this had been successful, Hillary may have been able to win in a landslide. As a result, she focused on attacking Trump rather than playing up her own policies, which Traditional Conservative Voters would not have supported. Based upon exit polling, this seems to have worked to an extent. Something like 60% of voters believed Trump was unqualified to be President. Many of them just voted for him anyway which is the primary reason Hillary lost. Traditional Conservative Voters came home to the Republican party despite not thinking Trump would make a good president. More than anything else, I think the failure of Hillary’s strategy to get Traditional Conservative Voters to defect or stay home explains her loss.
Unequivocally, Hillary’s strategy failed. However, it’s unfair to be too critical because it seemed to be working during the campaign. Polls seemed to give her a comfortable lead throughout the campaign, and even members of Trump’s own team seemed to believe she was going to win. If the polls had been more accurate her campaign would have likely tried something else. They just didn’t realize they needed to.
- “Other Factors” – To a greater or lesser extent, the following factors help explain the outcome of the election:
The media – the “MSM” spent 3x more time covering stories related to Hillary’s email than it did covering policy issues. I don’t know how much of an effect this had on the outcome of the election, but hopefully we can all agree that the media did a terrible job giving people a sense of the policy stakes of the election.
Fake news – troubling, but probably didn’t affect the outcome. People sharing stories about Hillary’s child sex pizza ring probably weren’t going to vote for her anyway.
Russian hacks – Hillary has a lot of baggage, to put it lightly. As a result, the emails dribbling out were perceived as evidence of massive corruption even though I am of the opinion that nothing surprising or damning turned up. If Hillary was a different politician without the public’s ingrained perception of corruption I don’t think the hacks would have mattered. She wasn’t such a politician however.
Comey’s letter – It’s impossible to say whether Comey’s letter changed the outcome. However, we do know that a lot of people were undecided until the last weeks of the campaign, and that a lot of those people decided to vote for Trump at about the same time Comey’s letter came out. I think it’s likely that the letter caused an impact, and it certainly hurt Hillary. I don’t know whether it was decisive though.
Would Bernie Have Won? – The short answer is I don’t know. He certainly had advantages over Hillary which have been played up recently. He also shared some of her weaknesses, however, and had some all his own.
- “Bernie’s Strengths” – Bernie enjoyed significant strengths relative to Clinton. I think it’s quite probable that in such a close election these strengths would have proven decisive:
Perception as an outsider candidate – I think this would have been Bernie’s biggest advantage over Clinton. He probably would have been able to pick up some of Trump’s Change Voters, as well as some of the White Low Information Swing Voters.
Less baggage – nuff said.
Would have mobilized the left wing.
- “Bernie’s Weaknesses” – Despite his strengths, Bernie also was a weaker candidate than Clinton in a lot of ways:
Policy – Bernie’s policies weren’t as well-articulated as Clinton’s were, and they weren’t even that popular among the people who voted for him in the primary. For example, a large majority of his own supporters didn’t support his tax plan. This factor was decisive for me, and is why I supported Clinton. However, I think it’s reasonable to think this wouldn’t have mattered in an election against Trump. People on both sides care more about identity than policy.
Traditional Conservative Voters would have HATED him – This group of voters really hates taxes. They may have taken one look at his platform and turned out in record numbers to prevent “socialism” from taking hold in the US.
Middle class and working poor white people MAY have hated him – as discussed above, this group of voters doesn’t like social welfare programs which benefit the really poor [brown] people. This may have been enough for this group to support Trump in large numbers over Bernie.
Identity politics – I think Bernie would have had to use a strategy similar to Hillary’s to get minority groups to turn out for him. We saw this during the primary. This would have reinforced Trump’s white identity politics strategy the same way that Hillary’s approach did.
With hindsight we know that Hillary lost to Trump, so I was wrong during the primary and the Democrats should have nominated Bernie. However, there is no guarantee that he would have won.
Future of the Democratic Party – People are probably going to take issue with this, but I think a candidate with less baggage than Hillary using her exact same strategy would have won. It was a very close election, and just small nudge in the other direction would have been decisive. As a result, I’m not sure it’s clear that the Democratic party needs to significantly adjust its strategy in order to win elections going forward.
That said, I don’t think it would hurt for the party to refine its strategy in a few key ways.
- “Identity Politics” – I believe it is important for the Democratic party to continue speaking to the interests of minority groups other than white people. As much attention as the WWC gets, that demographic is still generally better off than African Americans, Native Americans, and Hispanics. However, this should be done in a broader based manner. One criticism I read about Hillary’s campaign is that she spoke to Hispanic groups about Hispanic issues, spoke to black groups about black issues, spoke to women’s groups about women’s issues, etc. Rather than this compartmentalized approach, I think future candidates should speak about the same issues messaged for a broader audience. For example, instead of only talking to African Americans about police brutality candidates can talk about strategies to reduce police violence which are race neutral. Campaign Zero’s platform is a good example of this (google it, it’s a great website). This would hopefully signal to African Americans that the candidate takes their issues seriously, without alienating white voters quite as much.
- “Fix the Primary System” – Rightly or wrongly, a lot of people, particularly on the left wing, believe that the primary was rigged unfairly in Hillary’s favor. I disagree, but this doesn’t mean that changes can’t be made to improve the way Democratic presidential candidates are chosen:
Get rid of super delegates – The only purpose super delegates serve is to overturn a popular vote in the primary that the establishment doesn’t agree with. Doing this would be a disaster for the party. Therefore, we shouldn’t bother having super delegates. A few weeks ago my dad (who voted for Trump) told me that he had heard that Hillary only won the primary because of super delegate support. This was wrong, but a lot of people believe it anyway. Getting rid of the super delegate system will get rid of the perception that a few elites get to choose the Democratic candidate.
Require registration as a Democrat to vote, but allow same day registration – I think this strikes a good balance between making sure primary voters are invested in the Democratic party, while ensuring that the primary is reasonably democratic.
Make sure people don’t have to wait in line for hours to vote – this was embarrassing, and a fair critique of the primary process. Similarly, I would get rid of the caucus system. It’s stupid to make people wait all day listening to speeches in order to vote for their candidate, and this gives too much power to small groups of true believers.
Thanks for reading if anyone made it this far : ) Happy holidays!
Tldr:
- Trump won because traditional Republican voters came home to the party.
- Hillary lost because her strategy to appeal to traditional Republican voters didn’t work.
- Bernie may have been a better candidate than Hillary, but this is far from certain.
- In the future Democrats should not shy away from identity politics, they should just do it better.
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EPT
