As Samuel Clemens said, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.

This 3 minute and 47 sec video can't begin to tell the full story.

One reason so many people in the US go to prison is because there are so many recidivists. You don't go to jail in the US unless you have committed a major felony crime or you are a repeat offender.

That's why those in prison for "mere" drug possession actually have a higher arrest rate for violent crimes than those in prison for burglary, robbery or even drug trafficking, according to innumerable studies, including one in the Journal of the American Statistical Association.

We now have more diversionary programs available than ever before. If you commit a theft crime, you get the opportunity to make recompense and/or attend a program. Same with DUI, take a 3 day class or get locked up for 3 days.

Another reason many black men get locked up is because they commit a lot of violent crimes. Violent crimes will almost always get your ass locked up.

I know a fellow in Oregon who used to be the prayer leader for the Seattle Seahaws, a white man, who to my knowledge has never committed a violent crime, yet he is a repeat offender on DUI driving laws. He was recently committed to prison for 3 years.

And as for these 'get tough on crime' laws...the last one passed in Ohio did just the opposite, making repeat felony thefts a misdemeanor. The lawyers in your local legislators know how to title a crime bill...most of which are an effort to save money, not fight crime.

Also, prison guard unions don't send people to prison, judges do.

As for fewer prisoners in China...they just shoot their offenders in the head...saves quite a bit on housing prisoners.

Making crack cocaine a stiffer penalty crime...well, crack is more addictive than cocaine. So why doesn't Al Sharpton get behind the decriminalization of crack cocaine? Probably not enough money in it.

If you want to make a point about people in the US being incarcerated compared to other countries, I'm going to need to see some numbers on the recidivism rates in those countries, not just some surface facts that don't tell the full story.

it's rather like some countries that don't count neonatal deaths unless the child has survived for 30 days...you can't compare that to numbers from countries that count neonatal deaths at 2 hours.

Not just 'tough on crime' policy, it's 'incarcerate' policies lobbied for by the private prison guard union, the biggest lobbying group in the US. Privatization of prisons is the root cause, as I see it. When putting people in prison is for profit, you can only increase profits by putting more people in prison. I'm glad they finally got to that...but just barely.

You are once again sounding insane.
First, "conservatives" barely exist, and you are not one.
Neocons, like yourself, still believe in enslavement...they claim to be the "law and order" party, which means they write ridiculous laws (drug war, debtors prison, privatize prisons and let prison guards write laws, etc.) that put people in jail/prison for money...a type of enslavement.
Regulation is not enslavement.
Yeah, I see you can't even read yourself....they "haven't changed since Lincoln", but they have changed positions 100% since Nixon....and you don't seem to have the capacity to understand the two things are mutually exclusive.
What...you don't think there are enough highways, but there are too many salamanders? That seems like a typical assessment from you.


Oh, and for your last post, you are absolutely clearly racist. No question about it for anyone who's read your posts. When you separate people by race then talk crap about the other groups, that's racist, and you do it daily. You seem to just not know what the word means, that's the only explanation for you claiming to NOT be racist. The rest of your post is just insane straw men you made up....as in "only white people can be racist"...no one said or implied any such thing...you just WISH they had so your argument would make sense.

OK, so you say my arguments don't hold water because a democrat is in charge of a government organization, and so you imply that means everything will be done properly without obstructionist barriers put up to halt the process, because the fed, and democrats always get the right thing done even when obstructed? That's a new 180 deg. turnabout viewpoint from you.

Actually, many of the laws being enforced by cops were put there, or kept there by police lobbying organizations. The prison guard union (cops) is the biggest, best funded, heaviest lobbying union in the nation. You know this, but you ignore it to spout nonsense.

Acting non-criminally only 99% of the time is 1% too little. If I only don't kill or attack 99% of the people I meet daily, I'm a cut throat thug on a murder mission. Are you so insane you don't get that?

Yes, required by law to be reported, but not enforced at all, with ZERO oversight. That means unless there's incontrovertible proof that's already gone public, they'll deny the charges, intimidate the abused, and have even gone so far as to steal and destroy the evidence of their crimes. Who's going to stop them, fellow cops? I think not.

My citizen complaint was first refused, then obstructed, then ignored. It was NEVER investigated, and no reprimand was ever given to the officer that jerked me out of my car, threw me to the ground, pulled his gun on me, and stepped on my head, all because HE read my license plate wrong and wrongly assumed my car was stolen...that's an assault and battery with a deadly weapon (yes, he was calling me disgusting names and threatening me while he did it, and afterwards) but my hard fought official complaint was never investigated at all. When the follow up is left 100% to the people being investigated, there's no follow up or investigation. That's the system we have today, we must trust the cops (who break the law daily, at least 1% of the time according to you) to police themselves, when it's been proven 99.99999% of the time they won't do that, and will lie, obstruct, destroy evidence, intimidate, and even kill people with honest complaints.

A few police may be fired when they can no longer hide the truth about their actions, but those times are few and far between compared to the proven indisputable situations that warranted far more than firing, as in prosecution, which almost NEVER happens even when they shoot unarmed kids in the back.

'You are here because of your actions, don't blame the corrections dept, or the cops, or the judge...'
He intentionally ignores the fact that the corrections dept is the largest lobbying group in Washington and lobbies for more draconian laws and mandatory sentences because that's how they make money. No inmates, no dough.

'You gave up your rights by committing murder....committing rape....'
He intentionally ignores the fact that most convicts are in prison for non-violent drug crimes, not murder, not rape, not violent crime at all.

'This is prison utopia...for the inmates.'
He seems too dense and set in his 'us VS them' mentality to see that it's prison utopia for the guards too, and society in the long run because this prison doesn't create violent criminals, it creates well adjusted citizens.

Imagine that, treating inmates like human beings, because we want them to act like human beings when they're released. And big surprise, it works! Not only less recidivism, but less problems while they're in the system as well.
Thanks to privatization and profitization of prisons and lobbying by prison guard unions, and a mindset by so many that all 'criminals' are sub-humans that don't deserve proper treatment, we'll never see this in the USA.

No, this is police theft under the guise of 'regulation'. Actual regulation would regulate when they can seize, not give carte blanche to steal any money they find and require the victim to 'prove' their money isn't suspect. That's a lack of regulation along with immunity granted for institutional theft.
Once again, (reiterating because of your repeatedly and recently displayed lack of comprehension) cops are at their discretion to seize, and they repeatedly and constantly abuse that power, meaning they need to be regulated. Government regulation can mean regulating the government...but that's a concept that escapes you.
Cops (and their 'conservative' lawyer buddies) wrote this law and lobbied to have it instated....proof that sometimes cops do make the law AND abuse it. Prison guards have the largest, best funded, biggest lobbying union in the US, they're cops, and they've written many laws.

One of great things they discovered during the draft back in WW2 and Vietnam was that a certain segment of the general population were sociopaths and abuse victims-It was some of these, the best and the darkest, who became brass...Captains, majors, colonels, etc. Now that it's an all volunteer army, they can perform psyche-tests to recruit the complete shit-spectrum of the damaged-goods humans to become the next gen of soldiers, and then back home, they can become prison guards, police, and private security fucks, or your average psycho-criminal petty thug.

Yes kids, some soldiers actually enjoy killing anything that moves.

That one guys a complete retard who will get any battle-buddy killed. Bet he washes out or stays a private for 4 years.

OH, and you can be DEAD certain that every single prison guard, warden are masochistic low-ebb, base human garbage (broken humans) as well. All were abused and are abusers, none are without fault.

I bought a Russian SKS, a double barrel Mossberg 12 gauge shotgun and a glock 9mm at 2 gunshows locally few years back no questions asked.

but private sale between citizens are fine here. If I want to sell my neighbor my tv, my baseball bat, my RC Helicopter, my car, my gun collection, etc I have every right to sell whatever I wish that I own.

I can also barter for goods if I wish, If I no longer need the shotgun, but I'm out of a job and need food and I can use the gun to aquire a butchered pig/cow from local butcher I can do that as well.

course its simple in south east and everyone owns a gun, heck my 93 year old grandmother owns a .410 shotgun she keeps loaded by her bed. Course her husband, my grandfather, passed away before I was born, was a prison guard that walked inmates to "old sparky" in Florida long ago.

Medical professionals routinely take blood samples, sometimes done with the help of law enforcement or prison guards.

Yes, the easiest way to get out of being suspected of drunk driving is to take the breathalyzer.


Focusing your life on a long-term career will bring you more happiness than trying to overthrow governments.

Earn enough to make a down-payment on a house. Gain enough value that you appreciate law enforcement protecting it.

Hey detheter.." when an American tried to use an isolated case in Canada to justify opposition to gun regulations in the US"

Not true. Regulation of the insanity is all. See, here in America the current atmosphere of paranoia and mistrust of government was created not by and for any people but the ones running the entire planet into the shitter.
The worst city in the country(the one the President called home) from the worst state for crime (including police, whose collusion with criminals' in tomes) has the most restrictive gun laws. Television, the vilest of offenders offers-up pharmaceuticals, bobble-heads re-writing the English language and grooms fleshapoids for agendas whose brains are putty after years of programming.

Bottom-line for me nutters-all, would be this simple fact:
The police, military, active reserves, prison guards, private security forces, Nato troops, Swat teams, etc., all have weapons more capable of wreaking havoc on civilians than what civilians may already own or purchase therefore, Shouldn't civilians be so armed, under mandate of the natural order of life and freewill should they chose to do so, for what ever the reason as long as they are responsible for the same and ALSO responsible for taking part in the process that determines the equity of the laws governing their ownership and usage?

For the U.S., it will come eventually, as it will to the entire planet. Police, security, controlled, ordered, and sanctioned by mandate not vote.
Fascism plain and simple.
Radical Democracy, corporate police state, I don't care for either option thank you, and our shit would work just fine if the cunts were toppled and the script adjusted in favor of sanity over developmental disability and cushy slavery. Fuck That.

Meet someone who does not identify with right, left, or any other meaningless dipole...whose opinion is shaped by an inner dialogue and multi-sensory experiential reasoning tinctured with freedom of movement and expression, in an ever-changing constant of evolution:
"NRA, Grover Norquist, Rush Limbauh. and Fox" are constructs of something you believe according to your particular developmental disability which have some sort of effect on the OTHER star-bellied sneetches with more (OB-viouslaaay!) going on upstairs, be it through mo edumacation or proximity or distance from some geographical region of the country over another.

How many more ways can you say fucked, when the distillation of all these incidents as we continue the experiment becomes only:
Police
Soldiers
Private Security
Prison Guards.....who are allowed to carry weapons?

Fuck that world, until guns are not part of the paradigm, fuck that fucking world and those who would that it be that world conveniently for themselves, today...for instance, anyone trying to pass legislation that seeks to limit rights and create laws telling people what they can't do, rather than increase personal responsibility through shaping a society and culture worth saving.

In the past era, we hit a communications Boom. The onset of media has both enslaved and set the people free in different aspects.

TV and the internet has allowed people to communicate all over the world in the snap of a finger and compare ideals. This has educated the people on their subjugation and people have started to stand up and gain a voice for themselves. This IS NOT that the people have turned their back from any divine entity so much as they see the truth of Control and Enslavement both to religious ideologies and to political dominance. People are just now starting to free themselves from the chains and shackles of being force fed how they should see, hear, talk and think.

This is just the beginning, and I expect it to get worse, as people stand up all over the world and demand their own personal rights and opinions be observed, instead of dictated like Kings, Queens and Religion have been doing for centuries. Those that seek to dominate and rule over others will start to feel the backlash of the free spirit.

The key export for religion has always been control. The goal of the church has always been to enslave the weak minded and control them; tell them how to think, tell them how to act and direct them on every aspect of their lives.

So if you want to sell us that as a society, we have turned our backs from religion, then you better look at why. It hasn't been on a whim. It's because people are opening their eyes and standing up against the lies and the bull that they have been fed for countless years. Now that people can successfully communicate en mass, they are learning, and knowledge is power. People are standing up against authority because they are realizing that their authority was forced and not earned. Forced through, lies, deceit, cheating and all the other things that come with power.

As the people revolt, the power tries to hold on tighter by trying to limit what we have, whether it's free speech, freedom of movement, gathering in large numbers or communicating and sharing ideas (see the pattern here?)

The decention of society is due to the power struggle of the population finally looking up and identifying his prison guard.

Good or bad for society is yet to be seen but that's what's going on. People can accept some rules when the rules are equal but those rules no longer serve the people but are used to keep the people down then they are no longer rules but edicts!

>> ^shinyblurry:

>> ^RFlagg:
Problem is, they say the reason we were doing better was because we had God in schools, then we took him out of the schools and everything else... everything comes to how god was involved back then and less so now therefore we are paying the punishment of not having god in our lives... never mind how well many of the more atheist countries are doing (they think atheist countries are more like the old USSR)...
>> ^Fairbs:
Something most Republicans can't grasp is our country is better off when the rich are taxed more. 40 years ago, taxes on capital gains were 80%, but now Romney feels he's taxed too much at 15.


The argument isn't really about countries that are more atheist versus countries that aren't. It's that the United States has uniquely been a Christian nation since its founding. We are one nation, under God. Most people don't understand what that means; they think it is archaic when it is really the most important founding principle we have. The rapid decline in civil society has to do with the fact that, for the first time generations of Americans are growing up without the judeo-christian ethic being instilled in them from society, especially from their schools. And what we've seen since 1963 is a dramatic increase in the rate of violent crimes, teen pregnancy, STDs, the divorce rate, broken families, drug use, etc..the list goes on. There are the top 7 problems we had in our schools according to government records in 1940 vs 1990:
1940
1. Talking out of turn
2. Chewing Gum
3. Making noise
4. Running in the Halls
5. Cutting in Line
6. Dress-code violations
7. Littering
1990
1. Drug abuse
2. Alcohol abuse
3. Pregnancy
4. Suicide
5. Rape
6. Robbery
7. Assault
So, the argument is really that, we as a society have collectively turned our back on God, and therefore God has also turned His back on us. The principle is, you reap what you sow, and that's exactly what is going on right now. That's why this nation is facing calamity after calamity, because we have lost our way and we refuse to repent and turn back to our Creator.

>> ^quantumushroom:

According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) 2,266,800 adults were incarcerated in U.S. federal and state prisons, and county jails at year-end 2010 — about .7% of adults in the U.S. resident population.

Sorry, I forget I'm dealing with liberals. I'll type slower.


You'd do better learning to read...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States

The United States has the highest documented incarceration rate in the world.

Fairly unambiguous, I'd figure even you could wrap your head around that one... X D

>> ^quantumushroom:

It's hard to build a Jenga of wit and whimsy off of your original mirth, "Woody".
>> ^acidSpine:
>> ^quantumushroom:
I'd rather live in a gayborhood than in the 'hood. And I'm against kids.
>> ^acidSpine:
>> ^quantumushroom:
This is the first time a lot of these men have ever heard anything straight from a father figure.

So I assume you'd be in favour of kids having two fathers?

Ahh ha ahh ha ahhhh, did your mum come up with that joke?

That's right, It's "Woodys'" fault your jokes sound like an octogenarian on oxycontin came up with them... Wait a minute... Is that you Rush Limbaugh?