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On December 15 2013 05:52 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Kwark, you disagree with law being supposed to have a preventive effect? This is "the message that is being sent", that rich people can get away with committing crimes that poor people cannot. How is that an okay message to send? Unless you actually believe that rich people should be allowed to commit crimes that poor people should not be allowed to?
The kid getting locked up for 20 years does not stop teens from drinking&driving.
The kid getting "away" with it isnt going to make rich teens start running over people for lolz.
There is no message being send to teens either way.
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The teens are not the ones being addressed when the system is allowed to prescribe punishment in this case as it does in others.
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Norway28797 Posts
On December 15 2013 05:55 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2013 05:52 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Kwark, you disagree with law being supposed to have a preventive effect? This is "the message that is being sent", that rich people can get away with committing crimes that poor people cannot. How is that an okay message to send? Unless you actually believe that rich people should be allowed to commit crimes that poor people should not be allowed to? The kid getting locked up for 20 years does not stop teens from drinking&driving. The kid getting "away" with it isnt going to make rich teens start running over people for lolz. There is no message being send to teens either way.
It's not about this particular ruling, its about the precedent. It's not really-really a precedent in the sense that drug laws have functioned like this in USA for decades, even seen in lighter punishment for more expensive drugs, but it is a precedent in the sense that someone got off manslaughter for being wealthy.
I'm not talking about this particular case meaning that now, rich jerk kids will drink and drive with impunity because they can just cite their wealth as reason for why they should avoid punishment even in the event of them killing someone. But punishment having an overall deterring effect is absolutely true and one of the major arguments for why punishment even exists and should continue to exist. (And in the event where someone is confused by my negativity towards jail yet seemingly being positive towards punishment, I guess I should expend a sentence or two explaining: I think there are three very legitimate reasons why we need a penal system. Deterrence, rehabilitation and public safety. I however, do not think that revenge or punishment for the sake of punishment should be factors in the equation. This means that I am negative towards "harsh punishments" because harshness of punishment has little relation to deterrence, a negative relation with rehabilitation and from my point of view a negative relation with public safety because it brutalizes our society which makes all the individual components of our society more brutal. )
The difference in ability to deter between some punishment and basically no punishment however, is absolutely there. And that's what I was commenting on when I replied to Kwark, the idea that justice is blind and has no educational purpose. I disagree entirely with that, I think justice is political, and should be political, and it should be one of many components in trying to educate citizens towards making healthier choices for themselves and everyone else. As for 16 year old kids, I'm opposed to strict punishments of them by default because every teenager does retarded shit and it's largely just a coin-toss whether the retarded shit you do when you are 16 ends up having dire consequences for yourself or others.
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On December 15 2013 04:38 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2013 04:32 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 15 2013 04:24 WhiteDog wrote:On December 15 2013 04:21 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 15 2013 04:06 WhiteDog wrote:On December 15 2013 03:58 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 15 2013 03:43 sam!zdat wrote:On December 15 2013 03:42 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 15 2013 03:31 sam!zdat wrote:On December 15 2013 03:30 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
A general complaint of the US justice system is that mandatory minimums are too strict and that they dis-proportionally hurt the poor and minorities. And now here we are now saying the opposite - that the law is too lax and discretion is being abused. it's not the opposite duh. your second sentence is a corollary of your first. Lack of discretion vs too much discretion. Opposites. what's the point of the complaint jonny. use your brain. hint: On December 15 2013 03:30 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
dis-proportionally hurt the poor and minorities. now let's ask ourselves jonny how do they do that? What are you disagreeing over? There's a bad outcome - disparate impact. Often mandatory minimums are cited as a cause. Here, lack of a minimum is a cause. It is a different thing causing the same outcome. Lack of minimum is NOT the cause. The problem is not even that the kid was released, it is that he was released on the ground that his condition (being rich lol) made him not entirely responsible for his actions, while others in different conditions are considered responsible. I don't see the word "justice" in any of your posts because using that word would force you to think about this court sentence relatively to others (yeah that is justice, it's the social norm in action on all of us, and everybody is supposed to be equal before it) and not only on the specific situation of that kid. I don't think he was given a lax sentence because he had a specific condition (affluenza). The argument was that he behaved poorly because he was, well, a spoiled brat and that he could be rehabilitated while on probation. That's not a different argument (at least to me) than a poor minority committing a crime because he grew up in a neglectful household. It's about bad upbringing and the potential to be rehabilitated at a young age. The way that relates to minimum sentences is that mandatory minimums are a normal societal response to these news stories, which could have an opposite effect here of hurting the poor more than the rich. Equal treatment is certainly a part of justice. But I think there's more to justice than just that. "Justice is a concept of moral rightness based ethics, rationality, law, natural law, religion, equity and fairness, as well as the administration of the law, taking into account the inalienable and inborn rights of all human beings and citizens, the right of all people and individuals to equal protection before the law of their civil rights, without discrimination on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, color, ethnicity, religion, disability, age, wealth, or other characteristics, and is further regarded as being inclusive of social justice." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice Great, so you agree with me then? You said equal treatment is part of justice, but that there's more to it than "just" that. I give you a definition that says that justice take into account the "inalienable and inborn right of all human being and citizens", the "right of all people and individuals to equal protection", " without discrimination on the basis of race...age, wealth...". What's needed to be clarified ?
A law can be unjust yet equally applied. Also, applying the law equally should not mean that all sentences will be the same. Some criminals will have mitigating circumstances, others not.
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On December 15 2013 06:19 Liquid`Drone wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2013 05:55 Gorsameth wrote:On December 15 2013 05:52 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Kwark, you disagree with law being supposed to have a preventive effect? This is "the message that is being sent", that rich people can get away with committing crimes that poor people cannot. How is that an okay message to send? Unless you actually believe that rich people should be allowed to commit crimes that poor people should not be allowed to? The kid getting locked up for 20 years does not stop teens from drinking&driving. The kid getting "away" with it isnt going to make rich teens start running over people for lolz. There is no message being send to teens either way. It's not about this particular ruling, its about the precedent. It's not really-really a precedent in the sense that drug laws have functioned like this in USA for decades, even seen in lighter punishment for more expensive drugs, but it is a precedent in the sense that someone got off manslaughter for being wealthy.
Everyone here knows what's really going on; you're not setting the precedent for getting off manslaughter for being wealthy, you're setting the precedent that if better options are available, they should be denied to rich people because of the nebulous assertion or view that their class is 'above the law'. Its not even specific to that family; these rich people may be completely innocent individuals who don't try to game the system. Their child is even more innocent, and obviously wouldn't drink and drive if he understood the risks better as he could have killed himself and no one in their right mind risks that. Yet you are classifying all of them as being the same.
So you're bringing down an entire class of people by harming the innocents, which is the opposite of justice. The precedent will of course seem fair to the common folk, but its actually pretty unethical when you think about it. Just because bad laws exist doesn't mean they should be universally applied...we should be instead fighting for rehabilitation programs for poor people. I know it won't look good in the papers, but justice shouldn't be about appealing to the common denominator's view of justice, it should be about doing what's right and what's better for society. In this case if we can avoid subjecting a 16 year old to 20 years in prison, which if anything may only turn that kid into a criminal later in life, then we should do that.
By the way I agree in some cases rehabilitation isn't enough and we need actual deterrance in the form of prison sentences. But this isn't one of those cases, and the experts in court apparently agree. Not just in court but in general
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yes, and if those options were denied to the children of the bourgeoisie, then the bourgeoisie would have more incentive to fix the system. as it is, they don't, and if the bourgeoisie doesn't care about something, it doesn't get fixed
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On December 15 2013 06:37 sam!zdat wrote:
yes, and if those options were denied to the children of the bourgeoisie, then the bourgeoisie would have more incentive to fix the system. as it is, they don't, and if the bourgeoisie doesn't care about something, it doesn't get fixed
But they are 'fixing' the system...
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On December 15 2013 06:41 Deleuze wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2013 06:37 sam!zdat wrote:
yes, and if those options were denied to the children of the bourgeoisie, then the bourgeoisie would have more incentive to fix the system. as it is, they don't, and if the bourgeoisie doesn't care about something, it doesn't get fixed But they are 'fixing' the system...
i'd like to 'fix' their children 
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This article is for Minnesota, but I think it's still relevant:
In drunken-driving deaths, state sentencing guidelines call for a four-year prison term for offenders with no criminal history, but nearly 60 percent of those convicted from 2004 through 2008 received no prison time at all, a Star Tribune analysis shows. Usually, the sentences include long probations with various conditions and up to a year in jail. Unlike many states, Minnesota has no minimum sentence for the crime.
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Judges cite an offender's fitness for probation and potential for rehabilitation as the No. 1 reason for reducing sentences for people convicted of criminal vehicular homicide while impaired. Other major factors include a driver's show of remorse or willingness to get treatment for alcoholism.
Link
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[...]
Nausea, headaches and nosebleeds, invasive chemical smells, constant drilling, slumping property prices – welcome to Ponder, Texas, where fracking has overtaken the town. With the chancellor last week announcing tax breaks for drilling companies, could the UK be facing the same fate?
Source
Interesting article about personal experiences with fracking in Texas.
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On December 15 2013 06:42 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2013 06:41 Deleuze wrote:On December 15 2013 06:37 sam!zdat wrote:
yes, and if those options were denied to the children of the bourgeoisie, then the bourgeoisie would have more incentive to fix the system. as it is, they don't, and if the bourgeoisie doesn't care about something, it doesn't get fixed But they are 'fixing' the system... i'd like to 'fix' their children
I've only just started following this topic, it seems clear that the institution of the nuclear family is at fault hear.
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Norway28797 Posts
I'm not arguing that the rich must be punished with the utmost severity so they don't end up being too cocky. I'm arguing that while I'm very positive towards rehabilitation in general being favored over punishment, in the american context (especially applying to Texas actually) where punishment for the sake of punishment is very much a real thing and where personal choice is considered the deciding factor in what makes people act in a particular way, it's very weird to suddenly abandon these principles because the perpetrator of a crime is wealthy.
I also don't understand why you quote one sentence of my post and then seemingly disagree with it (?) while the rest of your post actually looks a lot like the rest of my post which you omitted from your quotation, but am I just understanding you wrongly here?
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United States43989 Posts
On December 15 2013 05:52 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Kwark, you disagree with law being supposed to have a preventive effect? This is "the message that is being sent", that rich people can get away with committing crimes that poor people cannot. How is that an okay message to send? Unless you actually believe that rich people should be allowed to commit crimes that poor people should not be allowed to?
How is he being allowed to do anything? He got caught and has been sentenced. I don't see how it's fair that the message being sent is a reasonable factor for the punishment. Gang crime is way higher in black communities than whites yet if I proposed harsher sentences for black people to send the black community a message that it was unacceptable you'd not approve of it, and rightly so.
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On December 15 2013 06:37 sam!zdat wrote:
yes, and if those options were denied to the children of the bourgeoisie, then the bourgeoisie would have more incentive to fix the system. as it is, they don't, and if the bourgeoisie doesn't care about something, it doesn't get fixed
Generally I don't think vindictive justice or any threat of jailtime for a certain class of people gets society anywhere. Violence begets violence generally, I very much doubt your solution holds much promise either. Your solution could just end up with rich people becoming even more corrupt and self-serving then they already (apparently) are. If you're openly telling them that true justice isn't being served because of their class...I don't think their natural drive will be to change the system for everyone. It will be outrage, and anger, and the desire to game the system even more.
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uh, no, the message is that they get the same justice as everybody. if they think they are being denied "true justice" then they can make sure everyone gets "true justice"
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Norway28797 Posts
On December 15 2013 06:47 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2013 05:52 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Kwark, you disagree with law being supposed to have a preventive effect? This is "the message that is being sent", that rich people can get away with committing crimes that poor people cannot. How is that an okay message to send? Unless you actually believe that rich people should be allowed to commit crimes that poor people should not be allowed to? How is he being allowed to do anything? He got caught and has been sentenced. I don't see how it's fair that the message being sent is a reasonable factor for the punishment. Gang crime is way higher in black communities than whites yet if I proposed harsher sentences for black people to send the black community a message that it was unacceptable you'd not approve of it, and rightly so.
Isn't gang crime basically something that is punished more harshly than similar, non-gang crime in the first place? Which targets black people by default? This is what I meant when I alluded to the difference in punishment for different drugs in my earlier post; crack cocaine is punished with jail time whereas cocaine is punished with rehabilitation, I consider this an extension of that discriminatory policy. It's a continuation of viewing poor people as less capable of reform, more prone to "bad personal moral", and in general worse people. And it offends me more so knowing that it's happening in a society which greatly reinforces patterns of wealth, one where wealth actually doesn't correlate with personal integrity, societal contribution or kindness of heart.
I'm not at all proposing a harsher punishment for him because he is rich, I'm proposing not-lesser punishment for being rich. And I would be absolutely delighted, to the point where I would dance around in the streets screaming "YES! THEY'RE MAKING THE WORLD BETTER!" if the US penal system in general decided to adopt a policy of rehabilitation over punishment. But this is not indicative of that; this is an example of the US penal system selectively abandoning its principles to give a lighter punishment for a rich kid for reasons I can only speculate about.
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"Affluenza" my afflu-ass.
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On December 15 2013 04:51 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2013 04:24 sam!zdat wrote:
but he WON'T be rehabilitated while on prohibition because his parents are the reason he's a spoiled shit in the first place. he's going to keep on being an entitled asshole Have you ever killed 4 people? Do you know whats going on in the kids head? There is a big difference between not caring about drunk driving and not caring about killing 4 people.
If he cared about killing four people he wouldn't have had daddy pay a psychologist big $$ to testify that "affluenza" is an actual thing. Man up.
Ironic-- using the argument of affluenza (his parents never taught him that there are consequences for his actions) to justify getting relatively no consequences for his actions.
Hilarious.
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United States43989 Posts
On December 15 2013 07:29 darthfoley wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2013 04:51 Gorsameth wrote:On December 15 2013 04:24 sam!zdat wrote:
but he WON'T be rehabilitated while on prohibition because his parents are the reason he's a spoiled shit in the first place. he's going to keep on being an entitled asshole Have you ever killed 4 people? Do you know whats going on in the kids head? There is a big difference between not caring about drunk driving and not caring about killing 4 people. If he cared about killing four people he wouldn't have had daddy pay a psychologist big $$ to testify that "affluenza" is an actual thing. Man up. Ironic-- using the argument of affluenza (his parents never taught him that there are consequences for his actions) to justify getting relatively no consequences for his actions. Hilarious.
Whereas this way he'll learn... wait, he'll be in prison til he's 36 and then come out with no skills and no prospects and probably still give no fucks because prison sucks at actually dealing with the root causes of crime.
How is taking the most futile option manning up?
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On December 15 2013 07:33 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2013 07:29 darthfoley wrote:On December 15 2013 04:51 Gorsameth wrote:On December 15 2013 04:24 sam!zdat wrote:
but he WON'T be rehabilitated while on prohibition because his parents are the reason he's a spoiled shit in the first place. he's going to keep on being an entitled asshole Have you ever killed 4 people? Do you know whats going on in the kids head? There is a big difference between not caring about drunk driving and not caring about killing 4 people. If he cared about killing four people he wouldn't have had daddy pay a psychologist big $$ to testify that "affluenza" is an actual thing. Man up. Ironic-- using the argument of affluenza (his parents never taught him that there are consequences for his actions) to justify getting relatively no consequences for his actions. Hilarious. Whereas this way he'll learn... wait, he'll be in prison til he's 36 and then come out with no skills and no prospects and probably still give no fucks because prison sucks at actually dealing with the root causes of crime. How is taking the most futile option manning up?
Did I ever say I would've given him the max sentence with no probation/therapy option? No.
I do believe he should've been awarded SOME jail time and some accompanying therapy. I am well aware of the consequences of prison in regards to finding a job after being released. It shouldn't leave him with no prospects-- but that's a different issue. You also make the assumption that he will becoming a shining citizen because of this therapy. Plenty of people have gone to rehab, e.g. Linday Lohan, and done the same shit afterwards.
This young man needs to finally HAVE some consequences for his actions. I'm not saying the kid is inherently and categorically bad. He did however, get off much lighter than a poor kid would've in those circumstances, mainly because of his wealth and social status. This sort of precedent is not just.
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