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General discussion (archive)Man installs TV with gun, kills wife(146 posts)(146 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted July 03, 2010
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Wishbone: By the same sort of reasoning, you can argue that the people of North Korea are completely free.

Funny how often some folks' versions of "freedom" takes the form of Morton's Fork or Hobson's Choice.
Posted July 03, 2010
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Lou: If you give then 1 and 3 not 2 and four ;-)
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Wishbone: No, your argument is that Americans are free because they can choose to follow the law or not. Unsurprisingly, that goes for every human being in the world. Even the ones in North Korea. Everyone are free to make whatever choices they want. Of course, some choices have consequences, but there it is.

Thats only half the argument my friend. As stated above you are only focusing on points 1 and 3 but are leaving out points 2 and 4. Everyone always has the option of obeying the law or not even in North Korea. However, in a truely free society we can challenge those laws without fear of incarseration - Point 2, and can move to a location were the laws may be more in line with our thinking - point 4. Niether of which a North Korean can take advantage of.
Posted July 04, 2010
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PoSSeSSeDCoW: The problem with having minimums for crimes is that they can often hurt those that the minimum sentences aren't supposed to apply to. Let's say Arkansas has a law on the book that makes it illegal to fire a gun on Sundays and someone gets busted for breaking that law. That would be a 15 year sentence that neither the Judge nor the Jury would be able to prevent.

Look up Jury Nullification, it's your duty if you're a juror, but most judges and lawyers don't want you to know about it. It is absolutely legal and has been upheld as valid 3 times by the US Supreme Court. Your point about stupid mandatory sentencing stands. I'm just saying there is a prevention, it's just rarely used.
Posted July 04, 2010
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orcishgamer: Look up Jury Nullification, it's your duty if you're a juror, but most judges and lawyers don't want you to know about it. It is absolutely legal and has been upheld as valid 3 times by the US Supreme Court. Your point about stupid mandatory sentencing stands. I'm just saying there is a prevention, it's just rarely used.

That's good to know. Thanks.
Posted July 04, 2010
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Gundato: ...
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iuliand: There are reasonable alternatives for every situation where a firearm may seem to be the obvious solution.

The caveat to this statement is that what you find reasonable may not be to all folks. It's all about morals and social standards and expectations. If the police don't even carry in your country it's clear you are quite different from a lot of other countries (I'm guessing you guys still have some kind of armed SWAT when it's necessary).
In the US a couple of things are always true: you are always guilty of something, it is literally impossible to know what laws you have violated as they rarely come off the books. People don't trust the police, and for good reason, anything you tell the police can be used to prosecute you, anything you tell them that could exonerate you is considered hearsay and is inadmissible. Most folks don't believe the police can protect them, nor do they even want to.
We have a lot of prohibition here, and we have a habit of permanently screwing anyone who ever gets in trouble even once and doesn't have the money to buy their way out of it somehow. This breeds a lot of desperation and people can and do give up. I've seen it. Some of these pursue potentially violent crime as a solution, it's not, but they see no other way. This puts everyone in danger. Shoot, my brother in law had to pull his coworker off some guy who stole baby food from the store they worked at. He held his coworker back and told the guy that he couldn't catch him. That's the sad state of the US today. In fact, it's worse now.
Posted July 04, 2010
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Lou: Show me one statistic that shows Americans are not free please as I don't think one exists. As they say in grade school - show your work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate
760 prisoners per 100 000, that puts you on top of the global statistics. To put that into perspective, it's more than double the amount they have in Israel. Almost four times as many as in Iran. You're even well ahead of Russia.
Posted July 04, 2010
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Wishbone: No, your argument is that Americans are free because they can choose to follow the law or not. Unsurprisingly, that goes for every human being in the world. Even the ones in North Korea. Everyone are free to make whatever choices they want. Of course, some choices have consequences, but there it is.
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Lou: Thats only half the argument my friend. As stated above you are only focusing on points 1 and 3 but are leaving out points 2 and 4. Everyone always has the option of obeying the law or not even in North Korea. However, in a truely free society we can challenge those laws without fear of incarseration - Point 2, and can move to a location were the laws may be more in line with our thinking - point 4. Niether of which a North Korean can take advantage of.

Sure they can, they're exactly the same as point 1. They are free to make the choice - and face the consequences. If you want to put forth the argument you seem to be trying to do, you need to argue not what choices people have, but what is actually legal and illegal. And not just what constitutes a criminal offense, but what you can actually be sued for and lose.
Posted July 04, 2010
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Lou: Show me one statistic that shows Americans are not free please as I don't think one exists. As they say in grade school - show your work.
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Zeewolf: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate
760 prisoners per 100 000, that puts you on top of the global statistics. To put that into perspective, it's more than double the amount they have in Israel. Almost four times as many as in Iran. You're even well ahead of Russia.

Holy crap, yes! People outside our country get it why can't our stupid voters get it? Our prison system is FOR PROFIT. They lobby for 3 strikes laws and ever increasing sentences. We criminalize stuff that should be merely a small fine.
America is not free, not in the least. Some of us here get it, Zee.
Posted July 04, 2010
What about the Patriot Act?
We fight for our right to bear arms, but we passed a law infringing our freedom of speech.
Also, I can drive down to a gun show and buy a gun with full auto and AP bullets. And even better is that a mentally insane person can buy a gun ( remember VT shootings).
Posted July 04, 2010
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Zeewolf: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate
760 prisoners per 100 000, that puts you on top of the global statistics. To put that into perspective, it's more than double the amount they have in Israel. Almost four times as many as in Iran. You're even well ahead of Russia.
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orcishgamer: Holy crap, yes! People outside our country get it why can't our stupid voters get it? Our prison system is FOR PROFIT. They lobby for 3 strikes laws and ever increasing sentences. We criminalize stuff that should be merely a small fine.
America is not free, not in the least. Some of us here get it, Zee.

Wait, so we are not free because we have criminals?
Or because we enforce the law against white collar crime?
Or are you saying that someone who robs a kwik-e-mart every time he or she gets out of prison should not be given special treatment?
Don't get me wrong, we definitely need to work on rehabilitation. But to say we aren't free because we have criminals?
Post edited July 04, 2010 by Gundato
Posted July 04, 2010
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Gundato: Wait, so we are not free because we have criminals?

OK, I have only been to America once (Los Angeles), but I came away thoroughly impressed with the country and the people. Everyone I met were friendly, welcoming and helpful. I refuse to believe that the people in USA are more criminal than people elsewhere (generally speaking).
So what's happening here? Why on earth are so many Americans in prison? As far as I can see, Spain tops the list of Western European countries, with 162 out of 100 000 people in jail. USA has 760! I mean, Jebus!
Posted July 04, 2010
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Gundato: Wait, so we are not free because we have criminals?
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Zeewolf: OK, I have only been to America once (Los Angeles), but I came away thoroughly impressed with the country and the people. Everyone I met were friendly, welcoming and helpful. I refuse to believe that the people in USA are more criminal than people elsewhere (generally speaking).
So what's happening here? Why on earth are so many Americans in prison? As far as I can see, Spain tops the list of Western European countries, with 162 out of 100 000 people in jail. USA has 760! I mean, Jebus!

Well, if we want to be optimistic:
We are a pretty wealthy nation (even with the economy falling apart...). So lots of white collar crime (tax fraud, tax evasion, etc)
We are much more prudish, so we have more laws relating to improper sexual (before people freak out, I am referring to having a comparatively high age for legal-ness, indecent exposure, etc)
Drug usage/possession. The US is one of the stricter "european" nations with regard to drug use.
If we want to be more realistic (but very politically incorrect):
For varying reasons, we have large concentrations of poor people. Even worse, an over-emphasis on guilt with regard to the struggle for civil rights has led to certain ethnicities feeling that they are entitled to be taken care of by a welfare state. I won't get into whether or not that is right or wrong (although, I think it wouldn't be too hard to guess which side I am on :p). (Un)fortunately, that welfare state doesn't do quite as good a job as many would hope. So that leaves a bunch of poor people with little to no skills who are growing up in crime-heavy areas. No-brainer as to how they decide to make ends meet...
DISCLAIMER: That is not to say it is restricted to certain ethnicities (pretty much all across the board), but that is one "common sense" explanation for the statistics.
Either way, I just get very annoyed when people start arguing "criminals' rights" and the like. It sucks that we have a lot of crime and there is a lot more that we can be doing for the criminals, but it doesn't mean we don't have freedom if we put a rapist in prison.
Posted July 04, 2010
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Zeewolf: So what's happening here? Why on earth are so many Americans in prison? As far as I can see, Spain tops the list of Western European countries, with 162 out of 100 000 people in jail. USA has 760! I mean, Jebus!

There are two major reasons that contribute to this. The first is the whole "war on drugs" that's been going on for the past several decades. A fairly large portion of the prison population is non-violent drug offenders; countries outside the US don't tend to lock up these people with nearly the amount of gusto that the US does. Second, it's because locking people up is a very profitable business for some people (and those people have quite a bit of political influence). Most prisons have various contracts with private industry (if not being outright run by a private company), and prison guard unions are some of the strongest in the country. Both of these groups have a strong economic incentive to keep a steady stream of people flowing into prisons, and as a result you can find these groups constantly lobbying for longer sentences, minimum sentencing guidelines, three strikes laws, and the like. And as appearing "tough on crime" is almost always a way to grab votes politicians tend to be all too happy to oblige voting for these kinds of laws.
Posted July 04, 2010
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Gundato: ...

Sorry, but I don't really buy it. You have some good points, but the USA is not the only western country with a lot of white collar crime, as well as large concentrations of poor people and income (as well as other) divides between ethnic groups. Every major European nation has the exact same problems.
And then there are countries like Israel, which has a combination of a lot of unrest and a very efficient police force. By all logic they should be way ahead of the US in this statistic, but the opposite is the case.
That there are some differences between different countries is one thing, but in this case the difference is, frankly, enormous, and the US is in a unique situation, statistically speaking, compared to all major countries except perhaps Russia. And Russia, well, they can be the topic for another thread.
And just like I don't believe people in the US to be more criminal than people in other countries, I also find it unlikely that the US is the only country doing things "right" whereas all the other countries are doing it "wrong" (which I suspect might be the opinion of certain people in this thread, but whatever).
So that leads me to suspect two things, namely that more things are considered criminal offenses in the USA than in other countries (which does say a lot about how free the people really are), and that punishments are more severe in the US than in comparable countries (which also says something about the general level of freedom).
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Just noticed DarrkPhoenix' reply.
Thanks for explaining the profit element, I was not aware of that (I guess I should have been, there is a game called Prison Tycoon after all...). If the situation really is as you describe, well.... :-(
Posted July 04, 2010
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Gundato: ...
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Zeewolf: Sorry, but I don't really buy it. You have some good points, but the USA is not the only western country with a lot of white collar crime, as well as large concentrations of poor people and income (as well as other) divides between ethnic groups. Every major European nation has the exact same problems.
And then there are countries like Israel, which has a combination of a lot of unrest and a very efficient police force. By all logic they should be way ahead of the US in this statistic, but the opposite is the case.
That there are some differences between different countries is one thing, but in this case the difference is, frankly, enormous, and the US is in a unique situation, statistically speaking, compared to all major countries except perhaps Russia. And Russia, well, they can be the topic for another thread.
And just like I don't believe people in the US to be more criminal than people in other countries, I also find it unlikely that the US is the only country doing things "right" whereas all the other countries are doing it "wrong" (which I suspect might be the opinion of certain people in this thread, but whatever).
So that leads me to suspect two things, namely that more things are considered criminal offenses in the USA than in other countries (which does say a lot about how free the people really are), and that punishments are more severe in the US than in comparable countries (which also says something about the general level of freedom).
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Just noticed DarrkPhoenix' reply.
Thanks for explaining the profit element, I was not aware of that (I guess I should have been, there is a game called Prison Tycoon after all...). If the situation really is as you describe, well.... :-(

Uhm, take a look at how Israel works. They tend to KILL a lot more of their criminals outright (but they do it before said people count as criminals :p). And they are also heavily restricted due to the insanely political nature of things.
So how about this: You go find those magic freedom-stealing laws. I am no lawyer, so I don't know every single law in this country. But of the ones i do know, they seem pretty fair. Some are stupid, but I wouldn't call them wrong (just, not right).
And while Phoenix raises some great points, take a look at what it means to be "tougher on crime". It doesn't mean "Well, we are going to make masturbating on a wednesday evening a crime". It means "Well, we used to give a fine for trying to take twenty kilos of cocaine across a state border. Let's just arrest them now!" (an exaggeration, admittedly).
So again, are we less free because we enforce our laws? Are we less free because we have criminals?
If you want to complain that there are massive flaws and problems with our legal system, I'll join in (admittedly, I tend to favor stricter punishments). But to say that we are less free because we enforce our laws? You might as well say we aren't free because we have laws in the first place.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussion (archive)Man installs TV with gun, kills wife(146 posts)(146 posts)
(146 posts)