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Breakdown In Civil Order

Shadowy Man said:
the problem with politics in general is that we can’t vote on an issue by issue basis. If you vote in a representative you have to live with all of their stances not just one of them.
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This is indeed a big problem with the two party system. The tents of both parties are too big and contain too many clowns to the left and jokers to the right.

Is there a better system available?
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Proportional election of the House of Representatives and of State General Assemblies would definitely help, by making smaller parties viable. That would make it more transparent what exactly you vote for.
 
bilby said:
I must say, there's something very disturbing about anyone who gets satisfaction from watching another person being assaulted.
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You see a person being assaulted. I see people getting sick and tired of a system that gives a pass to brazen thievery.
If the system looks the other way and ignores lawlessness it is hardly surprising when citizens take the law into their own hands.
 
Politesse said:
It's a dangerous fantasy, antithetical to civil society.
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Quite the contrary! Law enforcement and maintaining order are necessary conditions for any civil society.
We cannot catch, and punish with effective enslavement, every single crime that is committed.
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No, perfection is not possible. That does not mean that police should not investigate crimes, and arrest suspects. That does not mean that prosecutors should not prosecute them and courts try them. DAs not adequately prosecuting crimes retail theft is just giving thieves a free reign. DAs saying that 16 and 17 year old murderers will always be tried as children is encouraging gangs to use more minors for hits.
And that you call custodial sentences "effective enslavement" is just showing how far out there you are.

It might, though this seems like an absurd equivocation.
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Not nearly absurd enough not to be taken up unironically by some fauxgressives out there.
After all, just above you called custodial sentences "effective enslavement".

Depends what you mean by "locked up".
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I mean the regular meaning of the phrase. To jail or imprison somebody.
I don't think any society could function without some form of incarceration,
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At least you are not a full abolitionist.
but that doesn't mean a situation where 7 in every 1000 citizens is a prisoner is sustainable or desirable.
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I found this chart. Apparently it is 5.65/1000, a little less than your 7.
pie2023.png

I agree with you that there is a lot of room there to reduce jail and prison population. I disagree that it would be most people though.
As you can see, most state prisoners are there for violent crimes. There are a lot of drug crimes there. Certainly one thing we can agree should be reformed. No reason to send anybody to prison, or even jail, for mere possession. Most people in jails are on pretrial detention, and again there is a lot of drug crime there. But also a lot of violent crime.
I think pretrial reforms are a good idea. The problem with laws like in NY is just how inflexible they are. I have no problem with releasing somebody on their own recognizance for a minor non-violent crime as long as it is first offense. If they are repeat offender, and especially if they are picked up again while awaiting trial for the first arrest, the court system should escalate. Second offense - make it either bail or electronic monitoring with curfew. Third offense? Judge should be able to hold you until trial even for petty thefts - you have shown that you are not trustworthy. The NY system where somebody can be picked up dozens of times and the judge has no choice but to ROR them each and every time is just Albany-mandated insanity.
Nor do I think prisoners should be stripped of any of the rights of a citizen except for those that must be abridged in order to incarcerate them.
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Like what? Voting?
 
ZiprHead said:
We all see your actual words.
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You may see them, but you do not remember them correctly, much less comprehend them.

If I ever wrote anything close to what you claim, i.e. advocating life in prison for petty crimes, you would have no problem finding some quotes to that effect.
That you fail to do so, and keep weaseling out while making unsubstantiated claims merely demonstrates that you have nothing.
 
lostone said:
If you do not like that answer, I am not the least surprised. You asked a question and I gave you an answer. Other Dems may have other answers. None of them require your approval.
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So I guess your answer is no? That most crime should not be punished?
I guess the only exception would be crimes committed by Trump and his supporters? In that particular case, all of a sudden all the "defund, abolish and decarcerate" nuts become "lock them up and throw away the key" nuts.
 
lostone said:
Democrats fantasize about a society where there is no poverty, a strong social safety net,
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A society without poverty is indeed a fantasy. And a stronger safety net does not mean there won't be crime. Most crime is driven by wants, not by real needs. A safety net (really a hammock at that point) so generous that it funds people's wants is not desirable, as it would remove incentive to work.
If people have to work for what they want, there will always be those who want to short-circuit the process by stealing or robbing in order to get what they want.
You can look at this report:
Comparisons of Crime in OECD Countries
Even though US has homicide rates higher than other developed countries, the rates of other crimes such as robberies, burglaries, car thefts, assaults and rapes are higher or comparable in many other developed countries with strong safety nets.
It is from 2012 though. Maybe I can find a more up-to-date source later.

and less crime It has been noted that few billionaires sleep in the street and rob convenience stores
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So make everyone a billionaire? Is that your solution?
 
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Derec said:
At least you are not a full abolitionist.
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I am, without any shadow of reservation, an abolitionist. Slavery is this country's shame one of the two principle poisons that contaminated our democratic experiment from the start, and we should have ended it utterly in 1868, not let it hide and reformulate itself for two more centuries as we have done. Imprisonment is no excuse for the continuance of slave labor.
 
I can't go that far, because of upper-middle-class and upper-class criminality. What makes some people do fraud schemes when they are already very comfortable?

But I think that the scope of incarceration can be greatly reduced, and saved for the likes of armed robbers.
 
lpetrich said:
I can't go that far, because of upper-middle-class and upper-class criminality. What makes some people do fraud schemes when they are already very comfortable?

But I think that the scope of incarceration can be greatly reduced, and saved for the likes of armed robbers.
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No, I do not support enslavement of the wealthy either. All citizens are deserving of certain fundamental rights, regardless of your opinion of their moral choicrs.
 
Politesse said:
lpetrich said:
I can't go that far, because of upper-middle-class and upper-class criminality. What makes some people do fraud schemes when they are already very comfortable?

But I think that the scope of incarceration can be greatly reduced, and saved for the likes of armed robbers.
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No, I do not support enslavement of the wealthy either. All citizens are deserving of certain fundamental rights, regardless of your opinion of their moral choicrs.
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What do you recommend, then?
 
lpetrich said:
Politesse said:
lpetrich said:
I can't go that far, because of upper-middle-class and upper-class criminality. What makes some people do fraud schemes when they are already very comfortable?

But I think that the scope of incarceration can be greatly reduced, and saved for the likes of armed robbers.
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No, I do not support enslavement of the wealthy either. All citizens are deserving of certain fundamental rights, regardless of your opinion of their moral choicrs.
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What do you recommend, then?
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Abolishing slave labor, without exception. Ideally, by Constitutional amendment of the loophole that allowed for all of these abuses of power in the first place. You want someone to make a widget for you, you pay the same wages you would anyone else. I have similar feelings about the other abuses that occur in prisons - denial of medical care, denial of education, tolerance of rape and violence, torture as a means of behavioral correction or interrogation, etc. These inhuman methods harm our nation, and there is no evidence whatsoever that they reduce crime. Quite the opposite is true.
 
repoman said:
Politesse's politics may be more impractical than that of libertarians.
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I'm not asking for anything that isn't already law in most other nations of the world. It may not be politically practical in our bloodthirsty nation, but I'm not asking for anything rationally unreasonable. Indeed, no other nation has anything like our prison industrial complex, at least not in scale and brazenness, yet they all seem to get by.

If you want to continue to insist that it's impossible to fix the system and therefore wrong to try, fine, but don't then complain about endemic crime in the cities. It's not a mystery why throwing someone in jail over and over and offering them no tangible lifeline out of the system results in crimes happening, we're just addicted to doing it because it feels childishly good to "hurt bad people" and Americans never grow up.
 
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So I watched a video of Indian or similar 7-eleven staff (or maybe franchise owners) beating the hell out of a surprisingly old black shoplifter who was putting cigarettes into a large garbage can.



I think that the total lack of prosecution is leading to this kind of overreaction.

Even if this shoplifter does not have hairline fractures in his shins the amount of bone bruising or bone compacting may affect him badly for the rest of his life.
 
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