Breakdown In Civil Order

[TomC]

I think we should try it. At least Australia has experience dealing with such things.

JK Not really.

I'm pretty sure that a fair number of the original US colonists arrived because their other options were prison or hanging or something.
Tom

 

[ZiprHead]

I think we should try it. At least Australia has experience dealing with such things.

JK Not really.

I'm pretty sure that a fair number of the original US colonists arrived because their other options were prison or hanging or something.
Tom

The Puritans tried to take over Britain. Good, god fearing, warm beer swilling Britons kicked them out because they were religious assholes so they came here.

 

[Elixir]

WE don't know because WE are not on those drugs or at least I am not. I have known plenty of people on antidepressants and some much more serious medications for much more than depression and yes, those can have undesirable side effects, some very undesirable and sometimes, they are just not the correct medication(s).

We're not talking about mood disorders here, so references to antidepressants are irrelevant.

We already know that people often stop taking antibiotics when they feel better rather than completing the course as directed. And we know that plenty of people will cut down on their meds to save money.

References to bacterial infections are also irrelevant.

It is not at all surprising that people who are taking heavy duty psychotropic drugs will hope to go off of those drugs and may be lulled into a false sense of security as the treatment works and those symptoms dissipate--but side effects remain. Not to mention that those drugs are not perfect in their abilities to manage serious symptoms and can conflict with other medications....

The difference is that for those with disorders that present with delusions and/or hallucinations, when they go off their meds because they don't like the side effects, they become a danger to themselves and others.

The Brits have known that forever. That’s why there’s Australia.

Somehow I don't think that deporting the US's population of schizophrenics and psychotics to Australia would be considered acceptable behavior these days...

That wasn't the suggestion. Go get your own island continent!
I mean, as long as we're talking magic, why compromise?

 

[bilby]

WE don't know because WE are not on those drugs or at least I am not. I have known plenty of people on antidepressants and some much more serious medications for much more than depression and yes, those can have undesirable side effects, some very undesirable and sometimes, they are just not the correct medication(s).

We're not talking about mood disorders here, so references to antidepressants are irrelevant.

We already know that people often stop taking antibiotics when they feel better rather than completing the course as directed. And we know that plenty of people will cut down on their meds to save money.

References to bacterial infections are also irrelevant.

It is not at all surprising that people who are taking heavy duty psychotropic drugs will hope to go off of those drugs and may be lulled into a false sense of security as the treatment works and those symptoms dissipate--but side effects remain. Not to mention that those drugs are not perfect in their abilities to manage serious symptoms and can conflict with other medications....

The difference is that for those with disorders that present with delusions and/or hallucinations, when they go off their meds because they don't like the side effects, they become a danger to themselves and others.

The Brits have known that forever. That’s why there’s Australia.

Somehow I don't think that deporting the US's population of schizophrenics and psychotics to Australia would be considered acceptable behavior these days...

I think we should try it. At least Australia has experience dealing with such things.

JK Not really.

It is now an offence to unintentionally feed a crocodile, so...

 

[Politesse]

I think we should try it. At least Australia has experience dealing with such things.

JK Not really.

I'm pretty sure that a fair number of the original US colonists arrived because their other options were prison or hanging or something.
Tom

Debtor's prison, most often. People who committed capital crimes could not generally escape the noose by moving to Massachusetts. The problems were prison overcrowding in the UK, and desire for cheap indentured labor here, not lack of stomach for executions. Even if you transported them, who's going to want to hire a murderer for a domestic servant, cheaply or no?

 

[Elixir]

Even if you transported them, who's going to want to hire a murderer for a domestic servant, cheaply or no?

Somebody does, or “the butler did it” wouldn’t be a cliché.

 

[bilby]

I think we should try it. At least Australia has experience dealing with such things.

JK Not really.

I'm pretty sure that a fair number of the original US colonists arrived because their other options were prison or hanging or something.
Tom

The Puritans tried to take over Britain. Good, god fearing, warm beer swilling Britons kicked them out because they were religious assholes so they came here.

The UK only founded Australia as a prison colony because the US revolted and was no longer available, which led to the prison hulks filling up beyond their capacity.

 

[robnisch]

Church that worships with AR-15 is giving away Trump rifle

Rod of Iron Ministries is hosting its annual Freedom Festival this weekend in Pennsylvania.

www.newsweek.com

Praise god and pass the ammo!

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I remember a lot of people taking issue having to remain in their homes during the pandemic.

Do you also remember that there was nothing actually wrong with the people that were told/forced to remain at home?

You seem to think infection is nothing. There are over a million dead that would say otherwise. And probably a similar number who are totally disabled by it. And many millions with lesser damage.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I think we should try it. At least Australia has experience dealing with such things.

JK Not really.

I'm pretty sure that a fair number of the original US colonists arrived because their other options were prison or hanging or something.
Tom

Debtor's prison, most often. People who committed capital crimes could not generally escape the noose by moving to Massachusetts. The problems were prison overcrowding in the UK, and desire for cheap indentured labor here, not lack of stomach for executions. Even if you transported them, who's going to want to hire a murderer for a domestic servant, cheaply or no?

My impression is that it included people guilty of fairly minor offenses.

 

[Politesse]

I think we should try it. At least Australia has experience dealing with such things.

JK Not really.

I'm pretty sure that a fair number of the original US colonists arrived because their other options were prison or hanging or something.
Tom

Debtor's prison, most often. People who committed capital crimes could not generally escape the noose by moving to Massachusetts. The problems were prison overcrowding in the UK, and desire for cheap indentured labor here, not lack of stomach for executions. Even if you transported them, who's going to want to hire a murderer for a domestic servant, cheaply or no?

My impression is that it included people guilty of fairly minor offenses.

Exactly. Though attitudes about crime and punishment in general were very different in the 18th century. Not easy to map to current sensibilities.

 

[bilby]

I think we should try it. At least Australia has experience dealing with such things.

JK Not really.

I'm pretty sure that a fair number of the original US colonists arrived because their other options were prison or hanging or something.
Tom

Debtor's prison, most often. People who committed capital crimes could not generally escape the noose by moving to Massachusetts. The problems were prison overcrowding in the UK, and desire for cheap indentured labor here, not lack of stomach for executions. Even if you transported them, who's going to want to hire a murderer for a domestic servant, cheaply or no?

My impression is that it included people guilty of fairly minor offenses.

Exactly. Though attitudes about crime and punishment in general were very different in the 18th century. Not easy to map to current sensibilities.

Debtors were one of the least likely classes of criminals to be transported to the colonies. Most transportees were theives of various kinds (including fences and handlers of stolen goods); Forgers, fraudsters, and coiners were also quite well represented.

The English legal system had capital punishment as the 'standard' sentence for such crimes, but it was believed that showing mercy by reducing the death penalty to one of transportation, would improve the public perception of the law.

Of course, in an era before police, much less detectives, forensics, photography, fingerprints, or really anything other than eyewitness testimony, the average thief correctly expected not to be caught. And the law responded by increasing the severity of sentences - up to hanging - for any who were, even for fairly trivial offences. But this was so obviously unfair that it regularly led to civil unrest. Royal intervention to pardon offenders was widely used (a legal mechanism that today survives in the US Presidential pardon, long after it disappeared from English legal practice). But a middle ground - a way to show leniency, but without allowing offenders to get away without any punishment at all, was needed.

Prison as a sentence (rather than as a place to hold people while they awaited the carrying out of their sentence) was only really used for debtors. So it was all the other criminals, who were legally bound for the gallows, but who were not murderers, rapists, sodomites, or otherwise similarly irredeemable, who were instead placed out of sight and out of mind, by sending them to effective slavery in the colonies.