Bring it, my authoritarian statist friends.

"Irony is asking government to fix the problems it caused"

Not if it's a different government.

^ Not in any case, actually. A bad idea, perhaps, but not irony.

I remember taking a bath with Mr. Bubbles a long time ago...we went out to lunch last week to catch up but I didn't feel any of the spark we used to have.

Bush & Brownie fuck up Katrina. But you're opposed to the fed. gov. disaster relief teams to help literally clean the place up?

Who else is going to do it, just some every day good samaritans?

I can think of a million scenarios where you're completely out of your mind.

I am opposed to Federal Government disaster relief - and who shouldn't be? Did you notice the expert job they did after Katrina? Talk about quick responders. Money well spent.

Their idea of disaster relief is making the effort a military one. If you don't see how that's a bad thing, then I can think of a million scenarios where that makes me sad.

I fix stuff I break all the time. Can I be ironic too?

Pretty please!

^No. Because you work for the money to pay for the things that you break, you don't steal it. There is no irony to see here.

>> ^blankfist:
I am opposed to Federal Government disaster relief - and who shouldn't be? Did you notice the expert job they did after Katrina? Talk about quick responders. Money well spent.
Their idea of disaster relief is making the effort a military one. If you don't see how that's a bad thing, then I can think of a million scenarios where that makes me sad.


Lame argument.

Bush's failure to do anything isn't the result of that big bad gummit being shitty. It's a result of Bush being shitty, Brown being shitty, and neither giving a shit about black people.

In the 80's after the hurricane swept through Florida, FEMA was the only thing that saved many people's lives. If it weren't for FEMA under Bush I, many of my friends may have died, or at the very least had their lives tosseed into a nightmare world worse than what the hurricane alone caused.

It's not that I'm opposed to the idea of disaster relief; I'm just opposed to it being funded involuntarily and that it becomes a violent military effort once put into practice. I don't want men in military fatigues in my own neighborhood pointing assault rifles at me. At that point, I'd prefer to save myself, but they don't even give you that option. It's comply or be shot.

Sorry if that's a lame argument.

Dude, do you know anyone who went through hurricane Andrew?

I have family and many friends who did, and what you're describing has nothing to do with how FEMA and the Nat'l Guard took care of business.

Simmer down, boiling water. No reason to make it personal. This is dispassionate discourse. I have lived in NC for the better part of my life, and we have seen many hurricanes. It's anecdotal and irrelevant.

That was personal?

I'm just wondering what you're getting at here. There are many ways the Gov should fix messes they've created.

Iraq is a good one. As Colin Powell said to GWB "You break it, you own it."

Obviously the Bush admin was too corrupt and incompetent to fix a fucking flat tire, but still, the US now owes Iraq big time. We completely fucked their shit up, and to not fix it is a horrendous idea.

Yes, you were making it personal by implying that if I didn't have a first hand perspective of Hurricane Andrew, then my argument was defunct to some degree.

Iraq. You are now asking government to fix what it was incapable of not breaking. Hmmm. I question that logic.

Yes, I was asking if you had any first hand experience with disaster relief or FEMA. Because it seems that your anecdotes were 100% straight outta Katrina, and that's not the only time they've ever been (mis)used.


Point #2: The U.S. didn't break Iraq?

"No, it was like this when we got here"


wtf?

I think your right blankfist. But this voluntary help you mention has to be based on something other than market and pragmatism.

Volumpy, Point #2: I said the government DID break Iraq. You should read it before replying in a huff. If you hired an electrician that burned down your home with his faulty wiring, would you hire him again to fix it?

And, bluecliff, you're right. I'm not opposed to the idea of disaster relief, I'm just not sure the government can do it effectively without being violent and inefficiently expensive.

Prove government action was the primary or only reason for the housing bubble. Feel free to use charts and graphs, just make sure you cite sources and are prepared to back them up.

Until that happens, I reject the premise of your irony.

That there are several recent and obvious failures in US government disaster relief efforts does not mean that incompetence or a harsh military-syle operation automatically follows, any time any government moves to deliver essential rescue-aid, materials, and medical care, when many citizens are in crisis.

Drawing an analogy from crisis, I only see a weak claim and no argument against the state drafting legislation that enables it to move against the consequences of disaster in any form. Citizens of many countries have enjoyed the resultant benefits of what are, in fact, various forms of social insurance.

Extending the analogy, governments that are properly representative of its citizens can draft legislation that precludes crisis while at the same time delivering the various social benefits that derive from citizenship.

Your logic is wrong on so many levels, I'd need a ladder to even attempt to address it. Since arguing with you is about as constructive as arguing with a brick wall, I'll just leave a comment here noting that people think you are wrong.

>> ^volumptuous:
That was personal?
I'm just wondering what you're getting at here. There are many ways the Gov should fix messes they've created.
Iraq is a good one. As Colin Powell said to GWB "You break it, you own it."
Obviously the Bush admin was too corrupt and incompetent to fix a fucking flat tire, but still, the US now owes Iraq big time. We completely fucked their shit up, and to not fix it is a horrendous idea.

edit

Wait, what? Now I'm confused as to who you're talking to. I assume it's me since I'm who you quoted. But where am I wrong?

USA didn't fuck-up Iraq? We have no responsibility to help them financially?

"Sorry guys, we bombed the shit out of your country, destroyed your infrastructure, your electrical grid, your sewage and water systems. We leveled your hospitals and schools, filled your morgues and cemetaries, disbanded your armies and killed off your police forces. We even were kind enough to leave your museums open to looters, almost erasing your cultural artifacts, which happen to kinda be important since Babylon n shit was like all first human colonies n stuff. But, you guys been around these parts a while now. I'm sure you need no help or money from us. BYE!!"



@blankfist: Sorry, I read the sentence wrong. I did read your whole stupid thing, but I missed that part, cuz i dum. also.


>> ^imstellar28:
Your logic is wrong on so many levels, I'd need a ladder to even attempt to address it. Since arguing with you is about as constructive as arguing with a brick wall, I'll just leave a comment here noting that people think you are wrong.
>> ^volumptuous:
That was personal?
I'm just wondering what you're getting at here. There are many ways the Gov should fix messes they've created.
Iraq is a good one. As Colin Powell said to GWB "You break it, you own it."
Obviously the Bush admin was too corrupt and incompetent to fix a fucking flat tire, but still, the US now owes Iraq big time. We completely fucked their shit up, and to not fix it is a horrendous idea.

^I understand your thought process. Can you think of any ways in which any part of it may be incorrect?

>> ^imstellar28:
^I understand your thought process. Can you think of any ways in which any part of it may be incorrect?



Other than the fact that we never should've been there to begin with, and almost every Iraqi wants us the fuck out now, no, I can't think of why the USA isn't obligated to help them un-fuck their country, whether we have a physical presence there or not.

This has very little to do with BF's original topic. I so win.

But, I guess the original point about involuntarily being taxed for stuff like disaster relief and volcano monitoring is bordering on Jindalian weirdness.

I think the point is that we as a society have decided long ago that we will pool our resources to help each other through relief efforts and catastrophe prevention. Maybe states like Oklahoma don't care about earthquakes, and California doesn't care about tornadoes, but we've realized that as a "union" we look out for each other especially when its required the most.

Stuff like that.

>> ^NetRunner:
Prove government action was the primary or only reason for the housing bubble. Feel free to use charts and graphs, just make sure you cite sources and are prepared to back them up.
Until that happens, I reject the premise of your irony.


QFT.

I think that is probably true for most Iraqis. Now, when someone commits a crime, who should determine the restitution: the criminal or the victim?

If the criminal were to force an unwanted restitution on the victim, would that not be another crime?

>> ^volumptuous
almost every Iraqi wants us the fuck out now

But the Obama administration didn't invade Iraq, so the analogy isn't quite fitting.

But generally neither the victim nor the criminal determine restitution. That's what judges and juries do. But in the case of the US invading Iraq, I think it's up to the Iraqi's to decide. I'm not quite sure I've seen any reports stating what and when and how much help the Iraqi civilians would like from us.

But I'd be safe to bet that "GTFO now, and you owe us billions" would be the end result.


>> ^imstellar28:
I think that is probably true for most Iraqis. Now, when someone commits a crime, who should determine the restitution: the criminal or the victim?
If the criminal were to force an unwanted restitution on the victim, would that not be another crime?
>> ^volumptuous
almost every Iraqi wants us the fuck out now

>> ^imstellar28:
I think that is probably true for most Iraqis. Now, when someone commits a crime, who should determine the restitution: the criminal or the victim?
If the criminal were to force an unwanted restitution on the victim, would that not be another crime?

I'm better at deciphering your abstractions than I used to be, but this one seems somewhat opaque to me.

Let me try to vernacularize your statement, and see if I get it right:

Now, when someone commits a crime if the United States illegally invaded and pillaged Iraq, who should determine the restitution who should determine what reparations are necessary: the criminal invader or the victim invaded?

If the criminal the United States were to force an unwanted restitution on the victim stay to rebuild and defend Iraq despite their government's wishes, would that not be another crime?

Assuming I translated that correctly, I would say yes, still a crime but I think it's fair to say we have their government's blessing to stay in Iraq for the time being (until 2011).

It's an open question as to whether that government is accurately representing its people's will, but I don't think the Iraqis object to our attempts to aid their reconstruction and attempts to rebuild their military; it's the strings we might attach to such things that concern them. I think they want assurances that our stay is temporary, and that once we leave we'll respect their sovereignty.

The situation in Iraq is way too complex to reasonably be shoehorned into this topic; what we're doing there now isn't meant to be restitution, nor is it clear that all of it is being done by force. Nor is it simply a "mess" government "created" that government will now "clean up".

It's much, much worse than that, and there's no way we can simply "clean up" what we did.

Locking up the people responsible would go a long way towards reclaiming what's left of our souls, though.

The Obama administration is not a new country, and the actual personnel - soliders and generals - who initially invaded Iraq are the ones who are still there. It is not an analogy, it is a precise description of the role of the US (criminal) and the role of the Iraqis (victim).

In a flawed legal system the judge or jury determines restitution. Example: the US invades Iraq, and the UN puts sanctions on the US. Or, a person robs your house and a judge sends them to jail. What of your lost possessions, and what of the invaded country? There is no restitution for the victim in most cases.

In an authoritarian regime, the criminal determines restitution. Example: the US invades Iraq, and then rebuilds it with government contractors.

In a legitimate legal system, the victim presses charges, requests restitution and the judge/jury finds the defend guilty/not guilty and either rejects or approves part or all of the restitution. Example: the US invades Iraq, and the Iraqis demand we remove all troops/personnel and pay some monetary cost for damages inflicted.


>> ^volumptuous:
But the Obama administration didn't invade Iraq, so the analogy isn't quite fitting.
But generally neither the victim nor the criminal determine restitution. That's what judges and juries do.

I don't think theres any way you could have that information, given the amount of political influence the US has in the Iraqi government.

>> ^NetRunnerI think it's fair to say we have their government's blessing to stay in Iraq for the time being (until 2011).

Why would the Iraqi people care whether or not a few people they've never met are in or out of jail? It in no way improves their condition. Justice is when a criminal pays the victim for what they did, not some abstract entity. More importantly, justice is not about punishment it is about restitution.

If you are trying to lock these people up to save your soul, or to prove a point that we aren't bad people for "letting this happen" then you don't really care about the Iraqi people...you just care how you are perceived by the global community.

And that, I think, is a fundamental misunderstanding of what justice means and what law is for.

Locking up the people responsible would go a long way towards reclaiming what's left of our souls, though.

I don't know what the Iraqi people want. I don't think the Iraqi people are unified about what they want.

Like I said, I recognize that the government might not be representative of the country, but they're the ones who have the power to sign treaties right now, and they signed a treaty with us that calls for us to withdraw over the next couple years.

I'm not sure I agree with the blanket statement that justice is solely about restitution. If you kill someone's son or daughter, there's not really any possible way for the killer to provide restitution for that. They can be punished in any number of ways, but as many victims of such a thing say "it won't bring them back".

Same principle applies here; we can't undo what was done to Iraq. We can try to help them recover (which I think we are at least partially doing), and we can hold the people who did this to account for what they did.

In many senses justice is about enforcing a code of behavior, and punishing infractions thereof, so that most people will follow the code.

I think a society should try to make sure that code is informed by a sense of morality and practicality, and that by and large it's done with the consent of the people who are bound by it, but sometimes you have to override people who think they should be free to steal, murder, torture, etc.

To someone like me who flirts with religious ideology while remaining mostly atheist, I do often feel that immoral acts stain a person in some permanent, invisible way. They can cleanse that stain by seeking and receiving forgiveness from the aggrieved, or by receiving and serving punishment from a court, and yes, possibly if they transform their moral calculus by way of religious revelation.

I think some people understand (or have been trained by parents) that acting outside a moral code requires some form of penance, and that this is a good way for people to self-reinforce the idea that some behaviors can threaten their own personal survival, mostly because of the way society will treat them.

To tie that back into our discussion of the Iraq situation, I think the same is true not just on a personal level, but at the level of an entire nation. We drummed up a phony case for war on Iraq, and that is bad in and of itself, but I'm more concerned about the question of torture.

I don't know about everyone else, but it troubles me to know that my country was involved in torturing people, and continues still to try to justify and excuse it rather than seek forgiveness or own up to the crime (or even call it a crime).

I want that fixed, and I see our justice system as being the chief vehicle for fixing it. I'm not worried about whether Bush winds up doing time in jail or executed, or pardoned, I'm worried about the idea that we might just say "let bygones be bygones", because it sets precedent for others to do the same in the future.

On a personal level, I want to think of my country as being a good (read: moral) one. If we insist on building a legal case and set of precedents for the use of torture, that goes out the window.

Theres a lot going on in that post, and I really don't have a good way to address it with the commenting system we have on this site.

Murder is the sole exception of a crime where the criminal cannot provide restitution to the victim. For such an exceptional case, the solution is quite simple. I believe you can figure out a reasonable alternative.

I think your argument regarding justice is circular.

>> ^NetRunner:
I'm not sure I agree with the blanket statement that justice is solely about restitution. If you kill someone's son or daughter, there's not really any possible way for the killer to provide restitution for that. They can be punished in any number of ways, but as many victims of such a thing say "it won't bring them back".

...

In many senses justice is about enforcing a code of behavior, and punishing infractions thereof, so that most people will follow the code.

I agree, comments here need an upgrade.

My argument about justice isn't circular. To put it in economic terms, I'm saying government artificially inflates the risk of certain types of behavior, hopefully to a point where the risk/reward scenario prevents most people from engaging in that behavior.

There are also plenty of crimes that you can't really undo that aren't murder. Severe physical injury (severing a limb, say), rape, defamation, perjury, most forms of pollution, etc. Theft and fraud are pretty unique in that they are theoretically correctable, but even then there are opportunity costs that are impossible to properly gauge, and usually there's no way to exact true restitution from the criminal anyways.

In a lot of ways I do think we should use punishment less and instead "sentence" people to treatments to address the problem that created the bad behavior...but people would probably start calling that brainwashing or reeducation or something nefarious.

I'd rather have criminals rehabilitated than punished.

^You are speaking as a third party who is afraid of criminal activity, not as a victim of a crime. I don't think that is the correct perspective.

If someone robs your house, do you care whether or not they get rehabilitated? No, you just want your stuff back. Rape, assault, murder, etc. are not as straightforward as theft, but you can't see any ways to repay the victim? I never said anything about full, 100% restitution.

To use an example, if someone assaulted me and say, I lost my hand in the process. There is an exponential curve (monetary sum) where I am going to be more and more okay with the fact that you just cut off my hand. However, no amount of jail time or rehabilitation for you would ever make me feel okay (or better) about losing that hand. They could give you the death penalty or life in jail and I would still rather have my hand back.

Its not always possible for a criminal to fully repay a victim, and in such cases the criminal should also be punished, but punishment was never meant to be the primary purpose of justice.

The problem with your notion of justice is that at no point does it address the only problem with crime: victims.

I'm speaking as someone objectively trying to analyze the problem of crime. I'm not "afraid" of criminal activity per se, I just think one of the goals of civilized society is to reduce the amount of criminal activity in order to give people an ability to not have to fear criminal activity.

If someone robbed my house, I'm not sure what I'd feel. Probably in order: shocked, violated, angry, annoyed, and finally pity for the criminal whose life has brought them to the point where they could do such a thing.

If someone killed one of my dogs, I'd want their head on a pike, period.

That's why justice isn't supposed to be about what the victim wants. That should be factored into the process in some detached way, but the idea is that we dispense objective punishments for proscribed behaviors that society has reached some sense of consensus in establishing based on our legal system.

We punish murder harshly because people agree that it's a truly horrible thing to inflict on anyone. I doubt I could get the state to execute someone who hurt my dog, though, even though I'd probably demand it, loudly.

I don't think the "only" problem with crime is victims. Some crimes, like drunk driving, don't require that the infraction managed to link up with a specific victim before you can be charged/punished for it. Some behaviors are a threat to other people's safety, and should be against the law.

If a person proves that they are going to chronically be a danger to others, they need to be imprisoned.

I'd love for a system that focused more on trying to make victims whole than on putting holes in criminals. I do think both parties need healing in the aftermath of a crime, but it seems beyond the ability of us mortals to truly do that in all but the most harmless of situations.

I'm not really sure what you're suggesting we change in our justice system. Make criminal trials more like civil suits for damages? I don't think that would be an improvement.

We've strayed very far from the point here, which was "should the gov fix messes they create?"

I say, yes, most of the time.

If the US owns a nuclear power-plant which creates a toxic mess, then yes, the US gov should fix it. Who else would? The Ron Paul R3volution? Just some guys from down the street? Or maybe the local VFW members have a bake-sale to raise the funds?

The same goes for Iraq. The US fucked their shit up, hardcore. We are now obligated to help un-fuck their country. We should be building schools, installing sewage and water treatment systems. Rebuilding their armies, and hospitals, and helping to bring back the doctors and other professionals who left the country, causing the brain-drain that has resulted.

I know that BF's original point was to poo-poo any government involvement in the banking/finance clusterfuck. But he actually doesn't have a counter-argument. He just thinks it's "bad".

Again, the logic is wrong on so many levels (both of you) its difficult to address in this format. It appears you need much more clarification on this issue than is available in this forum.

NetRunner, you are talking about reducing/punishing crime but you don't seem to understand (or acknowledge) why crime is a problem.

volumptuous, you don't perceive this "tangent" as relevant, which to me, is symptomatic of a fundamental misunderstanding of authoritarianism.

To respond to your example of the Nuclear power plant, if a US controlled power plant had a toxic spill it would be unwise to ask those responsible to clean it up because it was their ineptitude that caused the problem in the first place. Wise would be finding a more responsible party to clean it up, and run the power plant from that point forward.

This is so painfully obvious in so many areas in life, I do not see the difficulty in drawing the connection here. If you pay a doctor to remove your appendix, and he accidentally removes your liver, would you want to pay that same doctor to fix it? NO. you find a new doctor and never go back.

Asking someone who was too inept to correctly perform a job in the first place, to try to correct what they have screwed up (an even more difficult job) is ironic, unwise, and in the case of an authoritarian regime who presents no other option, very unfortunate.

imstellar: Thanks for trying to insult me but it doesn't work.


You think the government is some monolithic monster, as opposed to the myriad of departments and structures and individuals that it actually is.

Of course I wouldn't ask the operators of the hypothetical nuclear plant to clean up the mess. I would ask the specific gov agency which is trained at specifically this very problem. And yes, I would fire the head of the plant. But I wouldn't just throw up my hands and state "well, the one guy sucked, so the other hundreds of thousands of individuals in government must be exactly just as sucky".

I mean, you don't lump Ron Paul in with Bush, do you?


In the case of Iraq: Obama is not Bush. Their administrations, policies and agendas are drastically different. I don't know why this is confusing to some.

>> ^volumptuous:
Obama is not Bush.

wrong again

http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/4052/bushobamaevolutionpictubk4.jpg
http://www.jwharrison.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/bush-obama-skull-732160.jpg



Seriously though, isn't it a little silly/ironic to lecture an individualist about the government being made up of individuals?

Also, if they are different I would like to see a diff file please. As far as I can see nothing has changed.

1. We still torture
2. We are still in Iraq
3. Drugs are still illegal
4. We still don't have habeus corpus
5. The RIAA still controls the courts
6. Our economy still sucks
7. Nobody has been prosecuted for any crimes of the last administration
8. 95% of the people in this administration worked for the last administration
9. I still lose 50% of my income to taxation
10. Our federal budget is still greater than $3 trillion

Its naive to assume they are different because they have different names or party affiliations. You say they are different tell me why the budgets they propose are almost identical.

>> ^imstellar28:
NetRunner, you are talking about reducing/punishing crime but you don't seem to understand (or acknowledge) why crime is a problem.

I think we just disagree about the root problem that we're trying to solve with laws.

In my mind it's about protecting society from individual actions that damage or risk damage to the whole, or enforcing a commonly accepted moral judgment about individual behavior (e.g. adults shouldn't have sex with 12 year-olds, even if the 12 year-old consents).

In your philosophical outlook, I have this 100% backwards, all law is intended to safeguard the rights of individuals. That, however, doesn't describe the actual state of what law has been and is being used for here or in other countries. It's your desired state, but it's not a description of the system in which you live.

I'm all for establishing rights for individuals, I just think there's also a wide range of self-destructive or society-damaging behaviors that it's perfectly okay to use laws and police enforcement to curtail.

You disagree with that, and call it authoritarianism, no matter how open or inclusive I make the process of writing those laws.



I do agree with volumptuous that this is a serious tangent from blankfist's original point.

I think as libertarians you have to tie yourselves in logical knots in order to think this is somehow a ridiculous concept.

If we were talking about an individual, you would say that they should be held accountable for damage they do to others; they should be made to provide restitution if it's desired. In some circumstances, you might even make them directly fix the problem they created (by returning stolen property, or scrubbing the wall they vandalized, etc.).

On a corporate level this is also considered true by libertarians. In the nuclear power-plant example, the company that created the spill should be forced to pay to clean it up. It might even be the case that the company that does the cleanup is owned by the same parent corporation as the one that was responsible for the spill. There will also be market repercussions to the company that one would hope would force them to take steps to prevent the problem from happening again, or change management, or even go bankrupt, but that's far from guaranteed.

Why then at a government level shouldn't we expect the same to be true, and use the same reasoning that excuses what happens in the corporate-level example for the government-level case?

In my mind, this joke is more accurately directed at individuals on Obama's economic team than at government generally. People like Larry Summers shouldn't have a seat at the table. I'm still undecided about Tim Geithner, but his hands aren't clean either.

This quote is why it is relevant.

>> ^NetRunner:
Why then at a government level shouldn't we expect the same to be true, and use the same reasoning that excuses what happens in the corporate-level example for the government-level case?

You don't understand the difference between the government and a third party in the context of a criminal-victim relationship.

When a state run power planet causes a toxic spill, the community is the victim. When the state pays to fix it, the community is the one who pays. What you have is a criminal who forces the victim to pay for the crime.

THAT is ironic, can't you see?

If a privately run power plant caused a toxic spill, the community would sue them in court and they would pay some third party to clean it up - at the expense of the owners not the community. That makes more sense in a lot of ways.

Justice is impossible under an authoritarian/statist regime, why is that so hard to comprehend?

I'm sorry but you are still wrong about your notion of justice. You claim your system (the current system) succeeds in "...protecting society from individual actions that damage or risk damage to the whole"

Please explain how putting a criminal in jail after assaulting/murdering/robbing someone "protects society from...damage." The damage has already been done and you are doing nothing to fix it. Putting a criminal in jail in no way attempts to correct the damage done. Your entire system is based on the idea that all criminals are repeat-offenders, which is completely baseless.

Your system makes an assumption (all criminals will repeat their crimes if left free) whereas mine does not. Mine directly addresses the problem with crime (damage to the victim) and yours does not. Almost all illogical arguments start with an incorrect assumption, and now that I have pointed yours out, why exactly are you still advocating an illogical system?

>> ^imstellar28:As far as I can see nothing has changed.
1. We still torture
2. We are still in Iraq
3. Drugs are still illegal
4. We still don't have habeus corpus
5. The RIAA still controls the courts
6. Our economy still sucks
7. Nobody has been prosecuted for any crimes of the last administration
8. 95% of the people in this administration worked for the last administration
9. I still lose 50% of my income to taxation
10. Our federal budget is still greater than $3 trillion
Its naive to assume they are different because they have different names or party affiliations. You say they are different tell me why the budgets they propose are almost identical.



Ugggh

1. No we don't
2. We are leaving soon. If Obama were prez in 2003, we wouldn't be in Iraq in the first fucking place.
3. Oh I forgot, Obama was elected to legalize all drugs immediately
4. We do have habeus
5. The RIAA and FISA are shitty matters that make me angry.
6. Our economy sucks, which wasn't Obamas fault. I guess to you, we should've already been rich again in three months. Stupid Obama!
7. Yeah, what a dick that Obama hasn't prosecuted Bush&Cheney himself within three months!
8. %95 statement is ridiculous and completely inaccurate.
9. You lose 50% of your income? WTF? Where the fuck do you live and how much money do you make to lose that much? Fuck man, I make 120+ and only lose 34%
10. Yeah, shame on Obama for not zero-ing out our debts



Man, what world do you have to live in to think that Obama would have everyone out of Iraq, fix our economy, legalize all drugs, and prosecute the Bush admin within 100 days of being in office?

Jesus fucking christ man!

^diff file please

http://open.salon.com/blog/dennis_loo/2009/04/26/obama_gitmo_prisoners_arent_persons

>> ^imstellar28:
When a state run power planet causes a toxic spill, the community is the victim. When the state pays to fix it, the community is the one who pays. What you have is a criminal who forces the victim to pay for the crime.
THAT is ironic, can't you see?

I agree, there would be some irony in that. But we don't have state-run power plants, or banks.

Feel free to take up my challenge of proving that government is the primary or sole cause of the current economic crisis. I believe the only fault that can be laid at the feet of government is for relaxing safety restrictions on banks.

The fix then is not to say "government is to blame" and oppose the safety restrictions being restored, it's to restore the safety restrictions, and make sure people remember what happens without them.

You claim your system (the current system) succeeds in "...protecting society from individual actions that damage or risk damage to the whole"
Please explain how putting a criminal in jail after assaulting/murdering/robbing someone "protects society from...damage." The damage has already been done and you are doing nothing to fix it.

I don't claim it works 100% of the time. Traffic laws are there to help make the streets safer so fewer people die in accidents. Safety regulations for nuclear power plants are intended to prevent companies from cutting corners on safety in the attempt to make bigger profits, and protect us from the damage such practices could inflict on us. I don't expect it to ensure there is never, ever any kind of accident, but I do expect it to drive the likelihood of such an event way down.

I do think the threat of punishment has a deterrent effect on crime, but it's mostly about prevention.

As far as trying to "fix" the damages caused by violent crime, I think that's a laudable goal, but I don't think it's practical. I don't have a good source of statistics, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and say most violent crime is being committed by people who're at the poorer end of the economy. I also think the monetary value of the damage caused will naturally be very high, especially relative to the lifetime earning potential of such individuals.

As far as the assumption that people who have committed violent acts will do so again in the future, I think that's a valid assumption. But I don't think that's the primary reason we have long prison sentences for violent offenders.

I'd say part of the point of justice is to inflict a sort of karmic balance on people: if you do bad things to someone, bad things will happen to you. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time, to coin a phrase.

I guess I don't understand what your proposal really even is. Is it to just abolish the idea of criminal justice entirely, and make everything into a civil suit over damages?

What would you do with people who would not, or could not pay?

^It wasn't my idea to use power plants as an example. That is the whole point of an analogy though, that you can demonstrate the concept without using exactitudes. You think the logic changes if we use banks instead of power plants?

You don't think its practical for criminals to repay their victims, but you think its practical to lock people in cages and force the victims to pay for it? Our justice system, then, is just another outlet for sadistic people who want to inflict pain on others.

You are using poor people as an example of criminals. You say that they commit crime because they don't have money, thus they can't pay their victims anyways. Okay, so how is putting them in a cage helping anything? Whatever meager wage they could have earned on the outside, now they are earning and producing nothing. They will come out angry, dehumanized, grossly overpunished, and in a worse position than when they were sent in; and nothing will be done to console the victim. Unless you are sending them to jail for life you are merely delaying the problem for another generation to deal with when they get back out. That is your plan to prevent or address crime?

Most crimes (save for sheer brutality) are not against the person, but against their property. Unless you are a psychopath, you don't steal, mug, kidnap, or kill for pleasure you do it for personal gain - monetary or otherwise. People steal because they don't want to (or can't) work. Your solution is to take people who don't want to work or can't work, and threaten them with a situation where they don't have to work and merely sit inside, get three square meals, and watch cable TV all day? And you want to enact thousands of laws designed to punish victimless crimes? Sounds like a great way to create the largest prison population in the world.

Oh wait that already happened (http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/03/02/record.prison.population/). Your ideas have already been tested (where do you think you got them from?) and have already failed miserably.

NetRunner,

Please make a list of the problems associated with crime. Then give me a percent (number addressed / number listed) for proposal #1, and proposal #2

Example crime:
I see you withdrawing money from the ATM and as you are putting money in your pocket, I grab it and run away. The amount lost was $1,000. A week later the cops catch me using a surveillance camera.

1. Our current system which focuses on punishment:
The district attorney presses charges against me, and you are subpoenaed. You have to take off time from work to go to court to testify. The jury finds me guilty, and sentences me to 1 year in jail. You pay taxes to feed, shelter, and pay for my cable TV in jail. So far you are out $1,000 cash, a days work, and approximately ($43.11*365/number of people in your state) in taxes. How do you feel about being mugged? How afraid are you of being mugged in the future?

2. The system I am proposing which focuses on restitution:
You go to the police station and decide to press charges. You voluntarily testify at the trial. You state how much money you lost and how it has impacted your life. The jury finds me guilty, and orders me to pay you $1,000 for the money I stole, $1000 for the impact to my life (psychological and otherwise), and orders me to 100 hours of community service. How do you feel about being mugged? How afraid are you of being mugged in the future?

Now lets assume I don't have $1000 to pay you back (after all I was probably stealing because I don't have much money). You could address this any number of ways, but here is one possible system:

1. Lien against my person
2. Wage garnishment
3. If I have no money, no possessions, no job, then I will be sent to jail. While in jail I will be permitted work release, and the ability to search for jobs. If I find a job, I will be immediately released from jail and proceed with wage garnishment until the debt is paid.
4. If at this point I still have no way to repay the debt, inmate work programs, or term sentencing may apply.

Compare these two systems as the damages become greater and greater (say for bank robber stealing $50,000, or a mugger violently assaulting someone). Now imagine you are a bank CEO who is thinking about committing $5 million fraud.

Which system is scarier to a criminal (someone who doesn't want to work)?
Which system provides more restitution to the victim?
Which system encourages the criminal to re-enter society as a law abiding citizen?
Which system allows the criminal to absolve themselves of their crime?
Which system reduces the fear associated with being a victim of crime?
Which system is less of a monetary drain on society?

>> ^NetRunnerI guess I don't understand what your proposal really even is. Is it to just abolish the idea of criminal justice entirely, and make everything into a civil suit over damages?
What would you do with people who would not, or could not pay?

The second half of your second post was mostly what I was asking for at the end of mine. I agree with the thrust of your argument in your first post; forcing people to serve jail time doesn't really work out well for society for most crimes. I'm all for alternatives that might rehabilitate people.

I do rather like the alternative you propose.

I think the clear answer to "which is scarier to a criminal" is prison. The answer to which reduces fears about becoming a repeat victim of crime would sometimes be prison, especially in cases where the experience was personally traumatic.

Here's one issue I see: what's to keep the thief from simply stealing again to pay off his existing debt? Worst case, he still has the same debt to work off, just now he owes it to another person. Best case, he gets away with it, or the victim decides it's not worth the hassle to press charges, etc.

Then he realizes this is a risk-free mode of supporting himself.

You need some way to disincentize that behavior. Probably adding punitive damages, or charging some large fee for the jail time would suffice though.

It'd need to be designed and developed and tested, but it'd probably be worth trying out.

In the case of the Wall Street meltdown, I doubt anyone responsible could even begin to repay the damages in their lifetime, even if they continued to earn at the same ridiculous rate they had been before. If they got to be free, and kept working in the same profession, it seems like we wouldn't have fixed anything at all, especially if they play games with how compensation is done so that it won't be "garnished" (e.g. "renting" a lavish estate for a pittance, allowing all food/clothing/travel/medical expenses to be paid for by the company, etc.).

^The exact details would have to be worked out, as I just made it up on the spot, but it looks like you agree it would be better than our current system.

Have you ever had a conversation with prisoners, visited a prison, known anyone who has done time, or spent any time in jail yourself?

I honestly believe most prisoners would much rather spend a year or two in jail than have to work off $100,000 in debt. Remember, you have to put yourself in a criminal's shoes. You may (as I might) prefer to pay off $100,000 in debt than lose a year of your life in jail, but we aren't at the corner robbing people at gunpoint. The threat of losing your freedom and having to watch TV and eat 3 meals a day is different depending on the perspective you have in life.

Visited a prison, and known people who've claimed to have done time. I don't know of anyone who said "prison was such a nice place, I want to go back".

I definitely know of stories of people who got a several decade long sentence and had trouble readjusting to life as a free man.

I don't like prison time much as a civil punishment, but I'm not sure owing a debt, while remaining otherwise free is punishment enough.

I'm more interested in turning criminals over to mental health professionals than locking them in a box, or letting them out owing a literal debt to society. I've never really read too much about different types of ways of dealing with crime, though. Could be they don't have any better ideas.

I tend to think most criminals need help, not prison time.

Criminals don't need help, they need to do work.

Psychopaths, who derive pleasure from the pain and suffering of others, need help - but such people are such a small percentage of criminals it doesn't make sense to design a system around them. They are the exception, not the rule.

If you give any sane (non-psychopathic) man an option - work as a free man, or work as an inmate, what is he going to chose? Either way society wins.

If you send a sane (albeit lazy or unmotivated) man to jail, or to a mental ward, all you do is force a sane man to go insane.

I think most criminals are driven to crime out of desperate circumstances. Drug addiction is a common reason for theft, for example. Domestic abuse could probably be helped by family counseling and/or individual psychiatric therapy.

Psychopaths are pretty rare, but true psychopathy is also curable with medication these days.

There's plenty of crime that's being committed by morally bankrupt people acting out of some sense of opportunism, but there's also plenty of crime that's being done because of desperate economic circumstances, or out of mental distress, where what people really need is help.

Being morally bankrupt also sounds like it probably is a mental illness to me, though I doubt it's in the DSM. I don't know what might be the treatment, but something tells me a little elbow grease isn't the answer. Prison clearly doesn't turn immoral people into moral ones, either.