Re: Re: Tutu's Forgiveness

[Guest guest]

Is that something to do with the propagation of geese?

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[Guest guest]

greeneuropa2 wrote:

> That would not be accurate- the one and only issue I am to the right

> on is crime. Everything else I'm far left. There is no black and

> white, hard and fast way to meld those ideas into one definition of

> my standing. I would never say I'm a centralist. Since I'm mostly

> to the left, and those issues are the most important to me, I'm far

> left.

You judge people to be evil, you advocate self-defense, and you are in

favor of harsh punishment for crime. That's more than one issue.

> Rehabilitation doesn't work, either- at least for the sorts of

> serious felonies I'm talking about (murder, rape, child molestation

> and murder, wife beaters). In some programs where they've tried it,

> it doesn't stick. People stay out of trouble for a few years, life

> shits on them as it does everyone, and they act out again, or

> whatever.

Just because it has not worked in the past does not mean that it cannot

ever work. The system we have now is a lot worse than anything intended

to rehabilitate-- it is virtually a school for criminals.

> Drug recovery programs have a 95% failure rate when you look at it

> for continous life long sobriety, which is the goal. AA even states

> that 95% of alcoholics die in their disease. If rehabilitation

> doesn't work for simple addicts, it won't work for criminals, and it

> doesn't matter.

I fail to see how it is logical to presume that what fails for drug

addicts will fail for criminals.

> Of course anything that puts faith in the hands of a " power that be "

> is doomed to failure since that power doesn't exist.

It doesn't have to-- if people think it exists, it gives them strength.

The people that do recover using 12-step programs, including the

admitting they are powerless and surrendering to a higher power part,

have, in fact, proven that they were not powerless, because it was their

own power that did the job, not some supernatural superguy. That is why

I could never use a program like that seriously-- because there is no

higher power of any kind for me to believe in.

> They can pull high recovery numbers for a few years, but not for

> permanent, life long change.

Research into how addiction works in the brain may lead to discoveries

that change this. The same may be true for criminals-- but that will

not happen as long as we emphasize plain old vengeance in criminal

" justice " rather than fixing the problem.

> > The fact is that unless you intend to incarcerate all criminals

> for life, or to kill them, putting them in prison only makes them

> worse.

>

> That's why you kill them all, once found guilty. You don't try to

> have " compassion " on them so they can have a few more years of free

> life to do whatever it is they will more than likely do again.

That would be truly terrifying if it ever happened. Do you know how

many people are in prison or jail for doing things that should not be

illegal? This is one case where there is really a slippery slope. The

more power we give to the government to kill people that are

" criminals, " the more we enslave ourselves. China always justified

killing dissidents by calling them criminals, and they were criminals,

because the government gets to decide who is a criminal and who is not.

> > Of course, another problem is that the government is criminalizing

> so much of our lives that every one of us can be put into the

> criminal " justice " system if the government decides that it wants us

> to be there.

>

> This is true, but I wasn't talking about whom the " government " called

> a criminal, per se. I was talking about people who had been found

> guilty in a fair trial of serious offenses.

But who defines a fair trial? The government does. Who would be

conducting the trial? The government. Who wrote the law that the person

supposedly violated? The government. Who would kill the offender? The

government. Going down that road is a terrible slippery slope.

A person right now could be put in prison for stealing radios out of

cars. While in prison, he is exposed to a culture in which killing is

good and society is " the man " that keeps them down, where committing

crimes is the norm, and where the must brutal people are the most

respected and feared. He lives in that culture under duress; conditions

very similar to what is encountered in brainwashing take place.

When that criminal is released, he is stigmatized. No one wants to hire

him because he is an ex-con. He carries the weight of his incarceration

with him wherever he goes. His parole officer is just waiting for him

to screw up so he can send him back to jail. He feels like society has

crapped on him, and it has... so he feels no allegiance to that

society's ideals at all. All he can think of is that the killers in the

joint were the ones that got the least amount of crap from the other

inmates. That is the new role model for this former thief. The

pressure to re-offend is tremendous; no one wants him around in

legitimate society. He is more likely to turn to violent crime now than

if he had never gone to prison at all.

Now, we can solve this by killing all criminals, including the ones that

have done things as petty as stealing car radios, not to mention all of

the victimless crimes. I don't think that death is a good penalty for a

car radio thief. It's unconstititional, for one thing, and it is way

excessive. We would lose the collective moral right to impose penalties

on criminals if we went that route.

And if we did not go that route, and make no effort to rehabilitate, we

can count on seeing our radio-stealing friend later on, and next time,

the crime will probably be worse.

> > That is one of the reasons I moved out of California (which is run

> > by liberals who hold the views I mentioned in my first

> paragraph above;

>

> That's funny, I thought it was run by a republican named Arnold??

Nope. It's run by the state legislature. Not only that, but Arnold is

pretty liberal himself.

> > Violent people are violent people. It is no worse to be a wife

> beater than to be a beater of any other innocent person.

>

> There is a distinct difference; a guy that beats up another guy in

> the heat of passion or something like that doesn't necesarrily have

> the obessive, deadly, control grip wife beaters, stalkers, etc have

> on their mates.

The crime is what he did that was violent, not what is in his head. We

don't need thought police making certain kinds of thoughts illegal. It

is the conduct that matters.

> Wife beaters have a much, much higher incidence of

> stalking their vicims and killing them to control them. THAT'S what

> makes that crime and all domestic violence particularly more severe.

I don't think that someone that has little respect for the life of

another would restrict it to his wife or ex-wife only. Someone that has

no respect for life is a problem no matter who he attacks.

> While the convicts are incarcerated, rather than just treating them

> like crap and making them meaner and angrier.

>

> Well, they can be used as organ donors until they are dead; after all

> dead people don't kill other people and are pleasantly quiet and not

> mean.

They should specifically prohibit organ donation from people that are

executed by the state. China has been accused of killing convicts to

get their organs; whether true or not, it is not something that we need

here. There should not be any incentive to take the life of any person;

it should be done (if at all) only in the gravest extreme of

circumstances.

> > I don't think encouraging a government-led carnage-fest is the best

> >

> answer. The government has already proven that it makes no

> distinction between real criminals and those that are politically

> inconvenient-- it is willing to kill them all.

>

> That is the problem. I was speaking with the idea that the

> government in place wouldn't do that.

But it would. And the more broadly it applied capital punishment, the

more easy it becomes to justify it for lesser crimes. If we, as the

citizenry of the country, were ever to become accustomed to the

goverment executing people, with our blessing, it would be a lot easier

for them to kill whomever they want without the people getting too upset

about it. When execution becomes old hat, we cease to care about it.

That should never be allowed to happen.

\>> Keep in mind that some of the " killers " in prison, that you would

> have lined up and shot, are people that used force to defend

> themselves against a deadly threat.

>

> I wasn't refering to them.

But the government would refer to them... it calls them murderers, just

the same as it calls actual murderers that. That is exactly the point.

> > How about the innocent blood from people wrongfully convicted?

> That's what really bothers me about capital punishment (other than

> its inherent barbarism). Death is irreversible; incarceration of an

> innocent party is not. Illinois recently suspended its death

> penalty after the wrongful convictions of many death-row inmates

> came to light.

>

> That department was so corrupt it was ridiculous.

That's government in a nutshell.

> And the DUMBEST

> thing they did was to suspend the death penalty and say everyone

> could live, instead of going case by case and looking at the

> evidence.

I disagree. I think it sent a message to the prosecutors and their

cohort-- convictions must be by the book, or your death penalty

convictions will be overturned with prejudice.

> Scientific evidence needs to become the crux of any conviction. DNA

> evidence and testing should be allowed when criminals request it

> without question. If they got the right man, the evidence will show

> that. If they don't, what are they so afraid of?

They are afraid of not having the highest conviction rate. District

attorneys are rated on how many convictions they make, and how harsh the

penalties are for those convictions, NOT in how much justice they

dispense. DAs are supposed to be advocates for public justice, but they

are NOT... they are advocates for state power over individuals. They

want to punish every person that comes before them, right or wrong.

They get more convictions when they suppress exculpatory evidence, and

hide it from the defense. When the police investigate a crime scene,

they are acting as agents for the prosecution-- the defense does NOT

have the same rights as the police to go in and investigate crime

scenes. Only the police to that, and when they do, they are looking for

incriminating evidence, NOT for exculpatory evidence. And you have to

trust that they do their job honestly, because they have absolute

credibility in court, and they were the only ones that got to look at

the crime scene.

I find that absolutely terrifying.

> The government has fucked up the death penatly and the justice system

> to the point where it is easy to see why people are afraid and

> untrusting of the system, and are trying to come up with ways to

> compensate for that, which don't work.

That is the nature of government. Governments are inherently

self-exacerbating; they seek to grow their power over time, and they

do. In a republic like the US, the only thing that would have stopped

that would be vigilance on the part of all of the citizens. You and I

do not like it, but most people in the US think the way the government

operates is just fine. Most people think they want freedom, but they

don't; they just want to remain slaves to a kind master. The people

could have stopped this from happening... it has been a gradual thing,

starting with the Civil War, and it has been so slow that no one can

remember when things were different. It's like staring at a glacier and

thinking it has always been where it is, because it got there so slowly

that you can't remember it not being there.

> But I still think the death penatly is the best way to solve serious

> crime- at least in priciple; it has to be used properly and trials

> must be fair.

And the laws must be just as well. A good many people are being

incarcerated for things that should not be illegal.

There is a lot more to crime than incarceration. A lot of it, in the

US, is a function of socioeconomic status. It is not politically

correct to even mention it, but more than half of the violent crime in

the US is committed by blacks, and most of that (something like 80-90%)

is against other blacks. A good part of it is gang related.

Incarceration or execution is not really the answer, because it only

addresses the issue after the crime has taken place, after someone has

been caught, and after a trial and conviction. If we can address the

sociological causes of crime, before and after the crime has taken place

(ie rehabilitation), we might be able to stop some of this.

Of course, stopping the idiotic war on drugs would probably end most of

this right away, just as violent crime rates fell like a rock after

Prohibition ended. Prohibition was an utter and complete failure, yet

the government continues to butt its head against the brick wall, doing

the same things that did not work in Prohibition. Maybe that is by

design; as long as we are afraid of terrorists, drug runners, crime,

whatever, we are much more likely to demand that " somebody do

something! " and not worry so much about having our freedoms pissed away

for good. As long as the government can keep people fooled into

thinking that the street criminals are the ones to worry about (not the

politician criminals, who are lots more dangerous), they will happily

hand their freedoms over.

And they have.

[Guest guest]

At 09:05 AM 3/15/2004 -0800, you wrote:

>Jeanette wrote:

> >That's why you kill them all, once found guilty. You don't try to

> >have " compassion " on them so they can have a few more years of free

> >life to do whatever it is they will more than likely do again.

>

>I was convicted of five felonies when I was 20 years old.

>So under your plan, I would have been killed 34 years

>ago. No great loss to the planet, I guess. But I'm sure

>glad you don't rule the world.

>

>Jane

It would have been a great loss to *my* planet....

-jypsy

________________________________

Ooops....Wrong Planet! Syndrome

Autism Spectrum Resources

www.PlanetAutism.com

jypsy@...

[Guest guest]

Jane Meyerding wrote:

> Jeanette wrote:

> > That's why you kill them all, once found guilty. You don't try to

> > have " compassion " on them so they can have a few more years of free

> > life to do whatever it is they will more than likely do again.

>

> I was convicted of five felonies when I was 20 years old. So under

> your plan, I would have been killed 34 years ago. No great loss to

> the planet, I guess. But I'm sure glad you don't rule the world.

I did not want to mention that fact and drag you into this issue against

your will, but I was thinking of that. I think it would be a great loss

to the planet.