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Dusseldorf posted:How would an unmarked APC even work? He believed that the article said that the man who owned the house commented that the APC had no signs on it while the picture clearly shows it did. However, I just read the article again to find this and it clearly says that the apc was out of site and the men outside had no distinguishing marks on him. So my dad was an idiot who saw what he wanted to see I guess. I can point it out to him tomorrow but I doubt that would change his mind about anything. After all, as I previously stated, he has massive reservations about the validity of all the stories. Sylink posted:I dont know how old your dad is, but guessing I still have no idea how people grow up through Vietnam, Nixon, and all the hosed up poo poo the CIA and Reagan did and actually believe the system "works". Well it's quite simple. He believes that the Vietnam War was justified for containing the spread of communism (he also believes the age old bullshit that the media lost the war for us but whatever), that Nixon got a bad rep, that the CIA is justified to do ALL it does in the name of national security, and that Reagan was a great president. So to him, the system is working fine. Shimrra Jamaane fucked around with this message at 07:47 on Jul 26, 2010 |
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Jul 26, 2010 07:39
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Only people who never fight in wars or risk their lives for anything believe that war works. Condolences.
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Jul 26, 2010 08:06
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Sylink posted:Only people who never fight in wars or risk their lives for anything believe that war works. Condolences. I'm not sure that's true. I would be fairly surprised if a majority of soldiers didn't believe that war "works," whatever that means. But I suppose that's off-topic. I'm glad to see this thread being restarted here now that LF has been placed out of view; I was a big reader and fan of all the HidingFromGoro threads.
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Jul 26, 2010 08:45
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Billy Idle posted:But I suppose that's off-topic. I'm glad to see this thread being restarted here now that LF has been placed out of view; I was a big reader and fan of all the HidingFromGoro threads. The only problem is we all seem to be pretty much in agreement that this is a terrible situation - I guess we should start talking about how to change it, but I'm pretty much without realistic ideas on that front. It would take a massive shift in public opinion and/or some kind of nationwide grassroots campaign. Which seems unlikely. And to top it off, as far as I can tell the problem seems to be getting worse if anything. quote:Lets not forget that prison serves as a means of disenfranchisement since people on probation or parole are often forbidden from voting except after undergoing some restorative process or other waiting period. I never really got this either. As far as I'm concerned, once you've been released from prison you've paid your "debt to society" (and in many cases, several times over). You should be treated as any other citizen, and that includes the restoration of voting rights - after all, you're a (nominally) free citizen of the country, why shouldn't you be allowed to participate in its democracy? Obvious cycnical answer is that Republicans in power generally don't want
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Jul 26, 2010 10:15
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Don't forget the power of denial and revulsion. This country has so many problems that even I tend to turn away in disgust at the uglier ones sometimes, and I'm probably in or close to the 99th percentile in political knowledge and engagement. It's the reason people in LF just post DTA instead of responding to poo poo; there's so much wrong and it's wrong so terribly that after a while the capacity to invest yourself in it gets worn down. It's much more comfortable to believe, "if they did it they must have had a reason for doing it," even if that's recognizable as basically being Stockholm Syndrome, than to acknowledge that your state and by extension you and everyone around you is party to the monstrous crime against humanity that is the modern corporate U.S.A. The prison system specifically is going to be hard to change, mostly because the average voter is an idiot who considers the effects of his vote on his fellow man a little less than he considers what he will eat after voting. Or to be more charitable, because the majority of the electorate (middle class whites) has no idea about any of the worst crimes built into this country, whether out of disgust, gullibility, or sheer lack of interest. After all, the people who've been through the prison system often can't vote.  (Even if they could the much more important wealthy people who own the prison system count more anyway.)
Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 10:24 on Jul 26, 2010 |
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Jul 26, 2010 10:20
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:He believed that the article said that the man who owned the house commented that the APC had no signs on it while the picture clearly shows it did. However, I just read the article again to find this and it clearly says that the apc was out of site and the men outside had no distinguishing marks on him. So my dad was an idiot who saw what he wanted to see I guess. Its an unfortunately common fallacy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_phenomenon The just-world phenomenon, also called the just-world theory, just-world fallacy, just-world effect, or just-world hypothesis, refers to the tendency for people to want to believe that the world is just so strongly that when they witness an otherwise inexplicable injustice they will rationalize it by searching for things that the victim might have done to deserve it. This deflects their anxiety, and lets them continue to believe the world is a just place, but often at the expense of blaming victims for things that were not, objectively, their fault. Another theory entails the need to protect one's own sense of invulnerability. This inspires people to believe that rape, for example, only happens to those who deserve or provoke the assault. This is a way of feeling safer. If the potential victim avoids the behaviors of the past victims then they themselves will remain safe and feel less vulnerable.
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Jul 26, 2010 11:57
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Does any other country have anything like our sex offender registry stuff? Criminal for life stuff for any crime for that matter.
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Jul 26, 2010 14:15
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mew force shoelace posted:Does any other country have anything like our sex offender registry stuff? Criminal for life stuff for any crime for that matter. The UK definitely has one. Sometimes people on it get vigilante'd. Also the occasional pediatrician. And people whose addresses the Sun misprints instead of the real ones.
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Jul 26, 2010 14:24
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mew force shoelace posted:Does any other country have anything like our sex offender registry stuff? Criminal for life stuff for any crime for that matter. It's only a matter of time before the government starts considering a "final solution" for sex offenders. I'm only kidding slightly here. America doesn't seem to mind doing absolutely morally repugnant things to people as long as they "deserve it". Heck on this very forum there is a crowd that seriously thinks that the mass sterilizing of the poor is a great idea. It's kind of a shame that comparing people to Nazis is so played out as to become ineffective, the analogies are getting pretty apt.
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Jul 26, 2010 15:39
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Rutibex posted:It's only a matter of time before the government starts considering a "final solution" for sex offenders. I'm only kidding slightly here. America doesn't seem to mind doing absolutely morally repugnant things to people as long as they "deserve it". Remember the time sex offenders were literally forced to live under a bridge because everywhere else fell within a certain distance of pools/schools/whatever they were not allowed to be around? 
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Jul 26, 2010 15:57
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Broken Knees Club posted:Remember the time sex offenders were literally forced to live under a bridge because everywhere else fell within a certain distance of pools/schools/whatever they were not allowed to be around? The best part of that story was the guy who got the laws set up (some legislator that had a daughter raped who is all crazy sex offender vengeance) got elected the commissioner in charge of homelessness in that city just to make sure he could screw with them more after he already made them homeless.
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Jul 26, 2010 16:00
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Broken Knees Club posted:Remember the time sex offenders were literally forced to live under a bridge because everywhere else fell within a certain distance of pools/schools/whatever they were not allowed to be around? Edit: There are seriously not enough words that can express my hatred for Jindal. get that OUT of my face fucked around with this message at 17:03 on Jul 26, 2010 |
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Jul 26, 2010 16:59
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Fortunately U.S. legal precedent classifies forced sterilization as a violation of constitutional rights... right? Tell me it still does? All this bullshit stems from Othering. Nobody would approve of any of this if they took the time to think about what would happen to them if they got caught up in the system, but the don't because (black) criminals are the Other. I've never had the opportunity, but I've been thinking that you could challenge the common prison rape acceptance/joking by suggesting that you and the people talking to you go rape the inmate right now. Describe in graphic detail how you would rape this person and talk like you really mean to go find them, hold them down, and anally rape them, then when the people you're talking to are horrified try to drive home the point that this is what they are laughing about.
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Jul 26, 2010 17:18
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Qublai Qhan posted:I could always be wrong here, but I'm almost positive that mandatory convict labor is non-existent in the US. It's true that convicts are not paid particularly well for optional labor, and maybe there are reasons to pay better, but I think comparing it to slavery is probably going several steps too far. I don't think it's going too far. Saying it is literally slavery is probably a tough one, because everyone will choose to define slavery as narrowly as possible, but it's wrong to ignore the serious slavery issues involved, such as black Angola inmates picking cotton on a plantation with the descendants of slave overseers guarding them, or the fact that much of the prison industrial complex can trace it's roots back to racist Reconstruction policies aimed at replacing the slave class. Arglebargle III posted:Fortunately U.S. legal precedent classifies forced sterilization as a violation of constitutional rights... right? Tell me it still does? Sounds like somebody is "soft on crime", boys.
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Jul 26, 2010 18:15
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Guys, there's no forced prison labor. They always have a choice. Either they accept to clean up dangerous chemicals with no training and substandard equipment or all their good time is erased and they're back at square one. No one forces them to stop being lazy leeches on society. Sheesh.
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Jul 26, 2010 18:21
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Forced labor of prisoners is explicitly constitutional. Like it's one of the few things the constitution goes out of it's way to be all "yeah, you can do this" in the 13th amendment. 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
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Jul 26, 2010 18:36
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mew force shoelace posted:Forced labor of prisoners is explicitly constitutional. Like it's one of the few things the constitution goes out of it's way to be all "yeah, you can do this" in the 13th amendment. Wow, really? How can slavery not be considered "Cruel and unusual punishment"? Edit: Would it be possible for an amendment to be passed withholding first amendment rights from Muslims, for example? Do new amendments overrule older ones?
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Jul 26, 2010 18:37
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21stCentury posted:Wow, really? It was written that way specifically to sort of compromise that we could still arrest all the black people for being homeless and make them farm more after they were released as slaves (and homeless).
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Jul 26, 2010 18:44
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21stCentury posted:How can slavery not be considered "Cruel and unusual punishment"? I hate to be the one to tell you this, but the 8th Amendment is basically a joke in the United States, in all aspects. edit: VVV Yes Zeitgueist fucked around with this message at 19:01 on Jul 26, 2010 |
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Jul 26, 2010 18:44
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Zeitgueist posted:I hate to be the one to tell you this, but the 8th Amendment is basically a joke in the United States, in all aspects. It's not a big surprise. That's the amendment against cruel and unusual punishment, right? (Not american)
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Jul 26, 2010 18:56
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21stCentury posted:Wow, really? Yeah, they kind of have to otherwise the 18th amendment would still be in effect and selling alcohol would be illegal. Amendments trump everything in the US, if there was enough support for it they could author one that trumps elections and makes the country a monarchy.
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Jul 26, 2010 19:13
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Yet another factor in the rising prison population is the increase in imprisonment of those with untreated mental illnesses. Instead of care we just lock them up.
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Jul 26, 2010 19:33
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Sylink posted:Yet another factor in the rising prison population is the increase in imprisonment of those with untreated mental illnesses. Or put them on the streets. Thanks Reagan!
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Jul 26, 2010 19:36
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Sylink posted:Yet another factor in the rising prison population is the increase in imprisonment of those with untreated mental illnesses. "Look at what they do in Canada, they leave them unchecked and let the behead people in buses. Is that what you want to see in America? That's what I thought  "Seriously, though, anyone remember that Greyhound beheading case? It made me pretty angry when the mother of the victim went on the news and tearfully asked why the government didn't lock up every schizophrenic permanently. This thread should include stuff from Canada as well, like the new law preventing violent offenders and sexual offenders from getting pardons after the 5 year period (to prevent a notorious murderer from getting her pardon. She's out of jail, stayed out of trouble for 5 years and she's cheated out of her right for a normal life.)
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Jul 26, 2010 20:15
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21stCentury posted:"Look at what they do in Canada, they leave them unchecked and let the behead people in buses. Is that what you want to see in America? In California the governor has to sign every parole but once someone on parole raped a baby or something scary like that so for decades they just refuse to sign any ever. Parole board goes through all the work of checking someone for release, prisoners go through all the stuff to earn good behavior and then pretty much every single one gets flat out rejected because no one wants to sign off on someone that goes on to kill again.
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Jul 26, 2010 20:35
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mew force shoelace posted:In California the governor has to sign every parole but once someone on parole raped a baby or something scary like that so for decades they just refuse to sign any ever. Parole board goes through all the work of checking someone for release, prisoners go through all the stuff to earn good behavior and then pretty much every single one gets flat out rejected because no one wants to sign off on someone that goes on to kill again. That reminds me of that Willie Horton add.
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Jul 26, 2010 20:45
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mew force shoelace posted:In California the governor has to sign every parole but once someone on parole raped a baby or something scary like that so for decades they just refuse to sign any ever. Parole board goes through all the work of checking someone for release, prisoners go through all the stuff to earn good behavior and then pretty much every single one gets flat out rejected because no one wants to sign off on someone that goes on to kill again. So, the net result is that everyone has to do their entire sentence at the very least?
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Jul 26, 2010 20:50
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Zeitgueist posted:Thanks Reagan! (I think I got that line wrong, I'm a bad Frisky Dingo fan) We shouldn't be "tough on crime" in this country, we should be smart on crime. Of course, that will never catch on.
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Jul 26, 2010 20:51
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Y-Hat posted:Your legacy is complete. The whole "tough on crime" bit is a very christian attitude. The whole redemption through suffering concept. The thing is though, that doesn't make society better and it's not like your saving their souls for some after life. What we really need is some good old behavioral modification studies. Set up each prison in a different way, say one that is punitive and one that forces you to attend collage, and one that gives a lot of free time, or WoW, or any of a million things. Try everything (except cruel stuff obviously) and collect recidivism data (these people are already being tracked for parole purposes, why not for science?). The best systems will boil to the top and can be implemented nation wide.
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Jul 26, 2010 21:09
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In the youtube documentary about kids being sentenced to death, the pinhead defending it pointed to scripture as his primary motivation.
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Jul 26, 2010 21:15
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Rutibex posted:The whole "tough on crime" bit is a very christian attitude. The whole redemption through suffering thing. The thing is though, that doesn't make society better and it's not like your saving their souls for some non-existent after life. From what I've read, it seems that rehabilitation results in lower recidivism whereas harsher punishments (like death) result in high recidivism rates. Unfortunately, I don't think rehabilitation will ever catch on in this country because that would mean upgrading prison conditions to provide decent education and libraries, as well as programs that help to destroy an 'us and them' gang mentality that is so prevalent in prisons. Obviously, all of this stuff would cost a lot of money, money that no taxpayer would want to pay. I'm not saying they wouldn't want to pay it because of the expenses, but rather what it would go toward. Some people already have qualms about paying for the horrible conditions in prisons already, and they probably aren't going to want to pay for stuff that might give convicts a safe environment to serve their time in. It all relates back to the 'tough on crime' mentality.
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Jul 26, 2010 21:16
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You could probably get similar results just by comparing prison systems in the United States with Western Europe/Scandinavia and their recidivism rates. Its possible France has lovely prisons for the immigrants they hate on par with American black plantation prisons.
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Jul 26, 2010 21:16
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Fire posted:In the youtube documentary about kids being sentenced to death, the pinhead defending it pointed to scripture as his primary motivation. Thats an even larger problem with American Bible thumpers. They try to quote an ancient writing as law but refuse to accept all the logical inconsistencies. You know if the Bible was consistent as far as punishment and life goes you could at least accept their stance even if its stupid. But the fact is you have to cherry pick to use scripture for anything.
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Jul 26, 2010 21:18
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Sylink posted:You could probably get similar results just by comparing prison systems in the United States with Western Europe/Scandinavia and their recidivism rates. Yep. It's unnecessary to do all these fancy experimental prisons when other countries don't have near the problems we do, though they also don't have the centuries of institutionalized racism.
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Jul 26, 2010 21:20
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Fluoride Jones posted:From what I've read, it seems that rehabilitation results in lower recidivism whereas harsher punishments (like death) result in high recidivism rates. Unfortunately, I don't think rehabilitation will ever catch on in this country because that would mean upgrading prison conditions to provide decent education and libraries, as well as programs that help to destroy an 'us and them' gang mentality that is so prevalent in prisons. Obviously, all of this stuff would cost a lot of money, money that no taxpayer would want to pay. I'm not saying they wouldn't want to pay it because of the expenses, but rather what it would go toward. Some people already have qualms about paying for the horrible conditions in prisons already, and they probably aren't going to want to pay for stuff that might give convicts a safe environment to serve their time in. It all relates back to the 'tough on crime' mentality. This attitude is really counter productive. I wish people would just think these things through instead of jumping on hysterical bandwagons when someone in their community gets raped or something. If you can cut the prison population in half by slashing recidivism rates then it's a cost savings, even if it costs more per prisoner. Not to mention free men working will be paying taxes (though I guess in this economy they wouldn't find jobs anyway). Also there is the whole not turning people into dangerous career criminals from horrible conditions and then setting them loose.
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Jul 26, 2010 21:23
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I think a part of it is that the US has such rock bottom terrible social programs that it makes it hard to stomach making the prison programs. Basically all our safety nets are so terrible that if you give prisoners ANYTHING it ends up better than what non-prisoners get and that upsets people.
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Jul 26, 2010 21:40
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Crossposting from the LF Freep thread, but I think it's very telling that even they think the US prison system is broken. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3252008&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=423#post380142360 How hosed up does something have to be where even Free Republic is in agreement with progressives?
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Jul 26, 2010 21:44
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Thanks for reposting this. Despite mostly being joke posts LF did have the occasional huge effort posts like this one which were much appreciated. Hopefully they migrate over to D&D.
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Jul 26, 2010 22:18
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Sylink posted:You could probably get similar results just by comparing prison systems in the United States with Western Europe/Scandinavia and their recidivism rates. Not even  . The stuff you see in US prisons is unambiguously torture and sadism.
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Jul 26, 2010 22:32
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21stCentury posted:This thread should include stuff from Canada as well, like the new law preventing violent offenders and sexual offenders from getting pardons after the 5 year period (to prevent a notorious murderer from getting her pardon. She's out of jail, stayed out of trouble for 5 years and she's cheated out of her right for a normal life.) This is the thing that most worries me about the Conservatives. The "lets get tough on crime" approach sells incredibly easily but is patently unnecessary when this is the status quo:   They are taking care of this though with their campaign to knock out the foundations of Stats Can.
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Jul 26, 2010 22:49
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