Didn't any boy cry? This girl certainly did...

[delalluvia]

Kat

Quote from: delalluvia on Today at 01:29:06 AM
Actually I was thinking on how they compare to the people who are victimized by the guilty who get out of prison and commit more crimes.  I think the ripple effect is greater with them than with the innocent soul mistakenly executed.  Again, who suffers the most?

I guess anyone who dies suffers, whether they are a victim of a murderer or a victim of a mistake by the justice system. If you're saying which group is bigger, I'm willing to grant that it's possible there are more victims of guilty people who get out of prison than there are innocents executed. So the solution would be, tighten the laws regarding life sentences and parole to let fewer potential murderers back on the street. And meanwhile, abolish capital punishment, so the government won't be in the business of committing murder.

That would be one solution.

Those countries are much smaller than the U.S. and can afford to do things that we cannot.  I remember the discussion right after 9/11 how Israel had great security at their airports, guards and search teams and why couldn't the US do that?  The answer was scale.  The US had over 100 times the air traffic of Israel.  It wasn't cost-effective.  I have a feeling that whatever those countries are doing, we cannot afford to do the same.

Well, since apparently neither of us knows what those countries are doing, it's impossible to judge the cost-effectiveness or affordability. One thing I suspect those countries may be doing, though, is not maintaining the culture of violence that the U.S. has -- in many ways, but a big one being capital punishment.

Excellent point.  But of course, some of those countries have contradictory elements that confound.  For example, the Japanese pop culture is rife with extreme violence, yet they have – aside from their gangster culture – a relatively peaceful culture…at least in the last 60 years they have.  Before that…[shrug].   

Going to have to agree to disagree about that.  I think McDuff was the poster boy for the need for capital punishment.  One of his victims, Colleen Reed, was kidnapped from a car wash that I passed every day on my way to school.  I remember feeling like I had dodged a bullet.

It's a genuinely horrifying story, and I can see how this would have had a profound effect on you and your opinions.

McDuff was doing his business in Texas.  Can’t tell you how panicked I was when I got a flat tire while he was still at large and was desperately changing it as quick as I could lest someone come by and offer to ‘help’.  Once he was caught and the details of what he had done to her came out…I had nightmares.

Yes different subject, but I brought it up simply to say that 'state sanctioned murder' can also be applied and is applied by some people to the waging of war.  Those poor blown up civilians wouldn't necessarily agree with ANYone who said their deaths were for the good of ANY war effort.  One reason war is hell.  Only the end result matters.

Agreed on all counts. War is state-sanctioned murder. And the blown up civilians probably wouldn't agree that their deaths were necessary. And the end result does matter very much. A moral government would be extremely careful and thoughtful and cautious about deciding to wage war, and do so only for a very, very good reason.

Absolutely.

I think if someone sells drugs to kids, then they deserve prison.  If someone is in possession of drugs, depending upon the drug and if they happened to be a surgeon or professional driver or pilot, they are the people who keep the demand for drugs up and keep the cycle of addiction and crime going, if not prison, then a hefty fine might be the answer there. 

What fines to apply and to whom -- and when a prison term is called for -- is debatable. What's clear to me is that the drug penalties in place now are way out of line. Actually, I'm not only for reducing drug penalties, but for legalizing at least some drugs. Marijuana should never have been illegal in the first place. And I wonder how many people are doing time for pot-related crimes.

Agree about pot.  I’m not sure about other areas, but Texas passed laws sometime ago, (depending upon how much is on a person if caught - things like potted plants or just some for personal use, obviously indicates the person is not a drug smuggler or dealer), most pot smokers just get a ticket.

Hold on.  I didn't mean to imply that wealthy people were acquitted while the poor got executed, what I meant was that the poor get executed while the wealthy - still found guilty - manage to get jail time instead for the same crimes.

I don't think that I implied that you implied that. What I said was, "when the difference between being executed and not being executed is a matter of having money -- earned, inherited, whatever -- rather than being guilty, IMO the system is evil." There's a big difference between being executed and getting jail time. Any system that allows those punishments to be allocated on the basis of the convicted person's wealth is fundamentally immoral.

I agree the difference is reprehensible, but just because they are poor, doesn’t mean the convicted criminals didn’t deserve execution.  The rich people, IMO, just didn’t get what they had coming.  They got punished, it’s just a matter of degree.  The poor just lost out big time due to their financial situation.


Penthesilea

Killing people is wrong. Why should it suddenly be alright, when the killing is done by a state? Plus, a "state" is nothing more than an artificial structure, made by humans and represented by individuals. This means there are persons who think they have the right to take another person's life. When this person is an electrician, he's a murderer - and when this person is a judge (in office) it's alright?
The effect remains the same: one person thinks s/he is entitled to decide on another person's life or death. One (or more) person thinks another human being deserves death - this is simply wrong under any circumstances.

IMO, killing someone in self-defense isn’t ‘wrong’.  I don’t think in some situations killing people when you are at war is ‘wrong’.  Both are regrettable but necessary.  What is the state doing but the larger version of ‘self-defense’?  I don’t get your argument though about the state being an ‘artificial structure’.  Yes it is, but what has that to do with anything?  The state is artificial.  Killing is quite natural.  People have always thought there was some reason to take another’s life.  We have evidence going back to prehistoric times - bones of Neanderthal Man showing knife wounds; Otzi the glacier man has an arrowhead in his back.  The state developed to help organize and control society.  We let it do or prevent what we would normally do as individuals.   

From dellaluvia:
For the state to try to fund such a program would be like throwing money down a pit.  Taking it simply as a financial matter, it might be cheaper over the long haul for the taxpayer to keep the offender in jail.

This frightens me outright. To judge people on a monetary basis, if it pays for the majority or not. I know it happens, not only in justice but also in other areas of life, but the coldness with which you seem to accept this as natural frightens me. I hope I got you wrong here.

No, it’s disgusting to put a price on life, but in the end, that’s what it comes down to.  Especially in a capitalist society.  It’s pie in the sky to think a country can afford everything.

In Texas for example, to implement a drug-treatment program for life on all drug-offenders would probably cost in the hundreds of millions of dollars.  Maybe billions.

Texas currently has one of the lowest tax rates in the nation.  That would not continue if we implemented this program.  People who are living on the edge of being lower income as opposed to poor, would become destitute.  My conservative friend is already bitching about the tax rate here and we have low taxes.  He is law-abiding, has a mortgage, a stay-at-home wife, two young children and a quarter million dollar hospital bill due to the hospital stay of his last child who was born premature.  You increase the tax rate and he will be pushed over the edge, his wife forced to work, his children put in some low-charge daycare.  He might lose his home.  And why?  Because someone wants to give convicted criminals a drug program?

He would not respond positively to this.

Some Texans – if presented with the need to increase taxes would say ‘that money would be better spent on schooling for our children.  Texas’ education is a joke.  We also need our roads repaired and cleanup of some industrial areas and etc.’. 

The rightwing conservative thinking is really just an extreme version of capitalism in these kind of situations.

‘Why doesn’t the state put in a drug treatment program for addicts?’

The conservative/extreme capitalist response is ‘Why don’t addicts seek help for themselves?  They know they have a problem.  I’m sure their family/friends tell them that.  Society certainly does.  That way they don’t end up doing crimes and being in prison.’  It’s a matter of personal responsibility and in their opinion drug-addicts and criminals have fallen down in that.  'No one made them start taking drugs.  They did it to themselves and now they want the state to bail them out?'  They don't feel like spending money on people who don't take personal responsibility for their actions.

[isabelle]

The conservative/extreme capitalist response is ‘Why don’t addicts seek help for themselves?  They know they have a problem.  I’m sure their family/friends tell them that.  Society certainly does.  That way they don’t end up doing crimes and being in prison.’  It’s a matter of personal responsibility and in their opinion drug-addicts and criminals have fallen down in that.  'No one made them start taking drugs.  They did it to themselves and now they want the state to bail them out?'  They don't feel like spending money on people who don't take personal responsibility for their actions.

DEL, this statement is a "pie in the sky" statement of sorts. This is really where the divide is between the American and the European ways of thinking: it is deeply engrained in American 'ideology', or so it would seem, that every person has total freedom, total free will, and therefore total responsibility and should answer for what they do wrong because they wanted to do wrong.

In Europe, we believe that some people need help, that not everyone was born with the same opportunities in life, nor with the same strength and mental make-up, and where some will come out of a fucked up childhood more or less sane, others will go wrong given the circumstances, or the mental strength.

Not everyone is equal as far as resisting drug addiction for instance is concerned. There are deep, sometimes mysterious reasons for a person to become an alcoholic or a drug addict, and it is NOT all up to self control and personal choice.

I remember reading in a New York Times article 2 months ago, around Martin Luther King day: "MLK held the unfashionable (in the US) view that the community must help those who are in trouble". I think in Europe, so far, it has been 'fashionable' to agree with MLK on that point.

And if your friend paid higher taxes, then he'd have decent public health care for his child and wouldn't have to ruin himself and his family on private health care. All in all, he'd probably come out richer in the end.

[delalluvia]

DEL, this statement is a "pie in the sky" statement of sorts. This is really where the divide is between the American and the European ways of thinking: it is deeply engrained in American 'ideology', or so it would seem, that every person has total freedom, total free will, and therefore total responsibility and should answer for what they do wrong because they wanted to do wrong.

In Europe, we believe that some people need help, that not everyone was born with the same opportunities in life, nor with the same strength and mental make-up, and where some will come out of a fucked up childhood more or less sane, others will go wrong given the circumstances, or the mental strength.

Not everyone is equal as far as resisting drug addiction for instance is concerned. There are deep, sometimes mysterious reasons for a person to become an alcoholic or a drug addict, and it is NOT all up to self control and personal choice.

Yes.  I agree that not everyone has the same opportunities, but you get the argument right back that 'XYZ is blaming is his bad and poor background on his drug addiction and killing spree, but ABC had the same background and pulled himself up by his bootstraps and now owns his own business and has a nice life, obviously it's not a defense to say you had it so bad you couldn't help becoming a criminal.  Other people have it just as bad and don't become criminals, so there is a choice somewhere down the line.'

And they would be correct.  It doesn't necessarily follow that because one was born poor and had a bad home life that criminality is always the final outcome. [shrug]

I remember reading in a New York Times article 2 months ago, around Martin Luther King day: "MLK held the unfashionable (in the US) view that the community must help those who are in trouble". I think in Europe, so far, it has been 'fashionable' to agree with MLK on that point.

And if your friend paid higher taxes, then he's have decent public health care for his child and wouldn't have to ruin himself and his family on private health care. All in all, he'd probably come out richer in the end.

They don't think much of public health care.  They want to be able to go to whatever doctor they want and think best and get the necessary tests and treatment whenever they want to (and can afford it).  According to what has been said about public healthcare, this isn't always possible.

[isabelle]

Yes.  I agree that not everyone has the same opportunities, but you get the argument right back that 'XYZ is blaming is his bad and poor background on his drug addiction and killing spree, but ABC had the same background and pulled himself up by his bootstraps and now owns his own business and has a nice life, obviously it's not a defense to say you had it so bad you couldn't help becoming a criminal.  Other people have it just as bad and don't become criminals, so there is a choice somewhere down the line.'

And they would be correct.  It doesn't necessarily follow that because one was born poor and had a bad home life that criminality is always the final outcome. [shrug]

NO, I do not mean that the same causes have the same effects, not at all! I say it depends on the person's mental make up, and NO, I do not believe that there is much personal choice in becoming a criminal.

They don't think much of public health care.  They want to be able to go to whatever doctor they want and think best and get the necessary tests and treatment whenever they want to (and can afford it).  According to what has been said about public healthcare, this isn't always possible.
Well, in France we have public health care and you can still choose which doctor you want to see, and which hospital you want to go to! All our best specialists are covered by public health care.

[Penthesilea]

DEL, this statement is a "pie in the sky" statement of sorts. This is really where the divide is between the American and the European ways of thinking: it is deeply engrained in American 'ideology', or so it would seem, that every person has total freedom, total free will, and therefore total responsibility and should answer for what they do wrong because they wanted to do wrong.

In Europe, we believe that some people need help, that not everyone was born with the same opportunities in life, nor with the same strength and mental make-up, and where some will come out of a fucked up childhood more or less sane, others will go wrong given the circumstances, or the mental strength.

Not everyone is equal as far as resisting drug addiction for instance is concerned. There are deep, sometimes mysterious reasons for a person to become an alcoholic or a drug addict, and it is NOT all up to self control and personal choice.

I remember reading in a New York Times article 2 months ago, around Martin Luther King day: "MLK held the unfashionable (in the US) view that the community must help those who are in trouble". I think in Europe, so far, it has been 'fashionable' to agree with MLK on that point.

And if your friend paid higher taxes, then he's have decent public health care for his child and wouldn't have to ruin himself and his family on private health care. All in all, he'd probably come out richer in the end.

Isabelle, I wholeheartedly agree with everything you said here. Thanks for bringing it so eloquent to the point.
It's called solidarity. I live in a solidary community and I am thankful for that. I'm willingly paying a whole lot of taxes when I consider what I get in exchange for it: we have insurence against unemployment, we have health insurance, my children can go to public schools who deserve the name educational institution and so on.
I, personally, and my family would perhaps be financially better off if we had to pay and organize all insurances and other benefits on a private basis instead via a big solidary community. And our system is far from being perfect. But I am willing to pay more into the system than I get from the system because I know many people are far worse off than we are. And who knows? Maybe one day I will be on the receiving end of the line. As I said before: I am thankful to live in a solidarity community.

I'm aware that the system is far from being perfect and injustices happen here, too. But maybe the basic structure if living in a solidarity community is one reason for the lower violence in (most?) European countries than in the US.

From dellaluvia:
IMO, killing someone in self-defense isn’t ‘wrong’.  I don’t think in some situations killing people when you are at war is ‘wrong’.  Both are regrettable but necessary.  What is the state doing but the larger version of ‘self-defense’?  I don’t get your argument though about the state being an ‘artificial structure’.  Yes it is, but what has that to do with anything?  The state is artificial.  Killing is quite natural.  People have always thought there was some reason to take another’s life.  We have evidence going back to prehistoric times - bones of Neanderthal Man showing knife wounds; Otzi the glacier man has an arrowhead in his back.  The state developed to help organize and control society.  We let it do or prevent what we would normally do as individuals.   

I didn't mean the state being an artificial structure in any negative judging way. The emphasis was on it being made by humans and represented by humans, individuals. Therefore it is at first failable and in the end it comes down to every representative of the state being nothing more than just one person: human, failable, having good days and bad days and being not more "worth" than any other person of the community. And therefore having not the right to judge over another person's right to live.

Edit: this is my third edit of this post. I give up now. If you find any more typos or other mistakes, you may keep them  .

[serious crayons]

Yes.  I agree that not everyone has the same opportunities, but you get the argument right back that 'XYZ is blaming is his bad and poor background on his drug addiction and killing spree, but ABC had the same background and pulled himself up by his bootstraps and now owns his own business and has a nice life, obviously it's not a defense to say you had it so bad you couldn't help becoming a criminal.  Other people have it just as bad and don't become criminals, so there is a choice somewhere down the line.'

And they would be correct.  It doesn't necessarily follow that because one was born poor and had a bad home life that criminality is always the final outcome. [shrug]

You are right. This is a very complex issue, and I think opinions on either end are a little bit right and a little bit wrong. Environment is not the sole determinant of behavior. In other words, many people come from poor or otherwise bad backgrounds and turn out just fine. Those resillient people are very admirable. They show that it CAN be done.

On the other hand, the proportion of people who come from bad backgrounds and then become criminals is much higher than the proportion of people from middle-class or wealthy families who turn to crime. Does that mean affluent people are somehow inherently or genetically less crime-prone? Of course not. It means background is one factor in causing crime. Even though it's POSSIBLE to grow up in poverty and turn out fine, that doesn't work for everybody. Poverty is more likely than affluence to produce criminals.

Now, poverty is an explanation, not an excuse or a defense. People are ultimately responsible for their own actions. Criminals should be punished whatever their backgrounds.

BUT is our ultimate goal to point the finger and blame people, or to reduce crime? If it's reducing crime, then we'd better just face the reality that poverty is correlated with crime, and helping more people out of poverty would be one logical way to cut crime rates.

The classic American view that individuals are responsible for their own actions makes some sense. But it doesn't actually solve anything. To solve a problem, you have to pragmatically deal with its causes.

[delalluvia]

Isabelle

Well, in France we have public health care and you can still choose which doctor you want to see, and which hospital you want to go to! All our best specialists are covered by public health care.

You left out the ‘when’ part.  Can they go see the doctor of their choice whenever they want?  My friends consider this very important.  After all, if one thinks one has cancer or has a painful chronic problem, they would want to be able to seek out a specialist and begin treatment at once.

What do doctors get paid in France?  I watched a movie once called ‘Shallow Grave’ and it was set in Scotland.  In it, one character was a doctor and she lived with two other roommates.  I was amazed.  Why would a doctor of medicine need to have roommates?  In the US being a doctor is a very lucrative, very respected profession and as such, many many people strive to be one, so colleges have their pick of the best of the best.  The schooling is long and rigorous and expensive.  I used to work at a scholarship service for African students and those students who wanted to be doctors didn’t come to the US for medical school.  They went to England.  Reason?  There was less schooling in the UK.  I’m not sure what that means, but it didn’t sound very reassuring.


Penthelisea

It's called solidarity. I live in a solidary community and I am thankful for that. I'm willingly paying a whole lot of taxes when I consider what I get in exchange for it: we have insurance against unemployment, we have health insurance, my children can go to public schools who deserve the name educational institution and so on.
I, personally, and my family would perhaps be financially better off if we had to pay and organize all insurances and other benefits on a private basis instead via a big solidary community. And our system is far from being perfect. But I am willing to pay more into the system than I get from the system because I know many people are far worse off than we are.

I'm aware that the system is far from being perfect and injustices happen here, too. But maybe the basic structure if living in a solidarity community is one reason for the lower violence in (most?) European countries than in the US.

During the recent student strikes in Paris, my friends were shocked to find out that once you get a job there it’s almost impossible to be fired.  They were wondering, how in the world does anyone change jobs, change careers or anyone who isn’t from France and perhaps wants to live there, get a job with laws like these?

Coming from a capitalist society, you won’t find many people who want a lot of government involved in the daily running of the economy and general living.  One idea of America is rugged individualism, taking care of your own, not depending on someone else to do it for you.  Again, the right-wing extreme viewpoint is that not everyone is going to make it, and it is folly to try to make it so.  My more religious right-wing friends even quote Jesus, “There will be poor, always.”

The emphasis was on it being made by humans and represented by humans, individuals. Therefore it is at first failable and in the end it comes down to every representative of the state being nothing more than just one person: human, failable, having good days and bad days and being not more "worth" than any other person of the community. And therefore having not the right to judge over another person's right to live.

Yes, they are each one person, but they aren’t running things as one person.  The system is running things, and people work and take actions within the framework set up by the system which was designed and agreed upon and implemented by groups of people over the generations.  Not everyone was having a bad day when they set it up.  Individuals have good days and bad days, sure, everyone does, but the system doesn’t.


Kat

Does that mean affluent people are somehow inherently or genetically less crime-prone? Of course not. It means background is one factor in causing crime. Even though it's POSSIBLE to grow up in poverty and turn out fine, that doesn't work for everybody. Poverty is more likely than affluence to produce criminals.

Is more likely, yes.  So why is that?  People aren’t being put in jail because they’re stealing food to feed their kids or clothes to put on their backs.  Poor people see that life can be very very very good if you have a lot of money.  They aren’t happy living in a dump and eking out a living, knowing that they might never rise about their economic status and never have what wealthy people have.  Some poor people decide – choose – the easier option.  Instead of working hard, living within their means, which may not be much, they turn to crime as a quicker way to get what they want.

It's less poor people producing criminals as greed producing criminals.  I don’t recall where I read this, but some older person was quoted as saying ‘We was poor growing up, but we didn’t know we was poor.  We had food, clothing, roof over our heads, life was great and we were proud of our hard work’.  He went on to posit that perhaps the advent of television helped fuel greed and the feeling of worthlessness in poor people by opening up the world and exposing poor people to the fact that they were monetarily poor and that having money brought respect and attention and easy living.

BUT is our ultimate goal to point the finger and blame people, or to reduce crime? If it's reducing crime, then we'd better just face the reality that poverty is correlated with crime, and helping more people out of poverty would be one logical way to cut crime rates.

Well, the answer is both.  As you say, this is a very complicated issue.  Crimes happen, poverty happens, so someone or something must be responsible, so one must point the finger to the causation in order to ameliorate it.

The classic American view that individuals are responsible for their own actions makes some sense. But it doesn't actually solve anything. To solve a problem, you have to pragmatically deal with its causes.

To view something doesn’t solve anything, agreed, but if classic American society is set up so that people are held responsible for their individual actions, then it does.  The problem is, when individuals are not held responsible, because people say their actions stem from society or poverty or some great boogeyman, suddenly you have criminals justifying their individual actions as not their fault.

Boggle boggle boggle.

[isabelle]

Isabelle

You left out the ‘when’ part.  Can they go see the doctor of their choice whenever they want?  My friends consider this very important.  After all, if one thinks one has cancer or has a painful chronic problem, they would want to be able to seek out a specialist and begin treatment at once.

What do doctors get paid in France?  I watched a movie once called ‘Shallow Grave’ and it was set in Scotland.  In it, one character was a doctor and she lived with two other roommates.  I was amazed.  Why would a doctor of medicine need to have roommates?  In the US being a doctor is a very lucrative, very respected profession and as such, many many people strive to be one, so colleges have their pick of the best of the best.  The schooling is long and rigorous and expensive. 

OOOhhh, poor Scottish doctor! No, in France you can see a doctor WHEN you want ! And yes, doctors are VERY well paid in France (it's like: private salary, public funding, which can be shocking), and the colleges to become a doctor pick the very best students since there are WAY too many of them (everybody wants to become a doc, it's so well paid!).  The studies are long, but in France you don't have to be rich to become a doctor (if you don't have a vital need of a job in the short term!): colleges to become a doctor are public! Free studies (or very very small fee), like in a lot of cases in France.

[isabelle]

During the recent student strikes in Paris, my friends were shocked to find out that once you get a job there it’s almost impossible to be fired.  They were wondering, how in the world does anyone change jobs, change careers or anyone who isn’t from France and perhaps wants to live there, get a job with laws like these?

Don't you worry, France is also a capitalist country, and don't worry about the "they can't sack their employees" bit: employers have found a way around it, by giving now only short term contracts. Never fear, the turnover of employees is VERY high, and now almost everyone in France is in a precarious situation jobwise. There are more and more poor people (a sign that we are becoming more and more capitalistic?). More and more poor people, but we have the richest CEO's in the world! And how do they make all their dough? By sacking (yes, even in France!) thousands of employees in the big companies, because they want to outsource although they are making TREMENDOUS benefits! Come and live (and work, it is possible) in France and see for yourself that people get sacked by the hundreds and thousands every day.
Sorry, but I do not buy the whole "capitalism is so much better" thing.

Chrissi (penthesilea):I agree that caring more for the people from a social point of view (making sure they can live decently) makes for less violence. Radical capitalism certainly leads to more violence, as it is itself an incredibly violent system, socially speaking.

[delalluvia]

OOOhhh, poor Scottish doctor! No, in France you can see a doctor WHEN you want ! And yes, doctors are VERY well paid in France (it's like: private salary, public funding, which can be shocking), and the colleges to become a doctor pick the very best students since there are WAY too many of them (everybody wants to become a doc, it's so well paid!).  The studies are long, but in France you don't have to be rich to become a doctor (if you don't have a vital need of a job in the short term!): colleges to become a doctor are public! Free studies (or very very small fee), like in a lot of cases in France.

Wow, that sounds great!