Any "law 101" text book would tell you that incarceration has always served multiple purposes: justice, deterrence, punishment, revenge, reform of the criminal, etc...
The extent to which each is effective is another matter.
The message is clearly intended as "Don't do this; if you get caught, this is what will happen to you
That may have been someone's intention, but it sure doesn't work very well. Or at the least it is pretty hard to show if it is working or not.
Like take the 3 strikes legislation. Very little evidence that it deterred any amount of crime. But it sure did cost states more money by locking more people up. http://www.lao.ca.gov/2005/3_strikes/3_strikes_102005.htm http://ucrtoday.ucr.edu/9405 (Democracy Now! podcast on 11/15 was taking about 3 strikes cases).
Any further taxes, restrictions, or regulations along these lines won't be accepted.
I don't know about regulations, but in terms of taxes, we are all time historic lows. Go back 50-60 years if you want. Taxes have never been lower. Why is there this ongoing idea that the average person is being taxed to death?
But anyway, I digress. To your point about the world not doing anything about it, so why should we: the USA has a huge economy and can influence the world if it wants to. We've seen world wide cooperation on things like solving the ozone layer problem. It can be done.
And you may want to look at the growth of renewable energy in Europe as a better indicator than some of them shying away from a problematic carbon trade system. Renewable energy is growing fast in a lot of countries, and even in parts of the US. Oregon for example.
Lastly, as to your question again of "why should we do anything if we can't stop it"?. We should do something, because our current fuels are not renewable. They will run out. It really doesn't matter too much if it is 100 years, 200 years, 300 years, etc.. The point is that they are going away, we might as well get used to them not being around. So lets start now. We can argue about the pace of the change. But there shouldn't be any argument about needing the change.
And of course, there are lots of other reasons to change even if we can't "save the planet". Pollution, energy independence, de-centralized power production (storm and terrorist resistant), etc.. the list is a long one.
I almost feel like it is up to your side to show why we SHOULD NOT change fuels at this point. No one is saying it has to happen overnight. No one is saying it shouldn't be market driven. About the only thing that is being said, is that policy needs to reflect our society's desire to move in that direction. That would mean things like stopping the subsidizing of oil and coal companies and increasing the subsidies to renewables.
Which still only amounts to 76 dollars per trip for real security instead of security theater according to your link.
I bet a lot of people would pay 76 dollars extra to get through the line faster and without having to endure all the new crap. Get to bring full bottles of shampoo or bring your drink on the plane, leave your belt and shoes on, don't have to be seen naked with the new xray machine or be groped, etc..
An extreme example is a city like Detroit. There are parts of the city where for miles and miles around you, the only places selling food are fast food places or 7-11/convenience stores. And there may be no easy public transportation routes out of the city to the richer suburbs to go shopping. So you better own a car, and then be prepared to drive after work in heavy traffic for an hour or more.
But that isn't the only reason. There are matters of parenting and education also. You likely were armed already with some knowledge of cooking handed down to you by parents, or some level of education that made learning about cooking easy for you.
I think you'd be surprised how foreign the concept of making a meal from scratch is for a surprisingly large percent of Americans.
1. The Big Senate [thirty-thousand.org] no longer represents the people meaningfully.
2. The Little House [usconstitution.net] no longer represents the 50 States United, or offers any thoughtful feedback to the Big Senate.
Last I read the Constitution, the Senate represents the States, and the House represents the people.
While in practice, the Senators represent State and National corporate interests, and the House members represent highly gerrymandered districts that allow them to get away with votes that are against most citizen polling.
You are paying for healthcare things you don't want to pay for right now. But in the most inefficient manner possible.
If you want a truly free country, that means that hospitals should be free to let kids die outside their emergency rooms. As soon as you are on board with that 'freedom', your arguments are at least logically consistent.
Until then, get used to living in a society that tries to manage shared costs (shared based on common resource pools or common morality) in an efficient way.
But fundamentally I think it showed that the public does have it's limits in terms of not wanting a police state
I hope I'm wrong, but it might just be that the public only reaches that limit if politicians push too fast, or too much at once. If the police state is moved towards a little more slowly and smaller steps at a time, I suspect the public won't care.
I do not support what's happening at Guantanamo Bay. I voted for Obama in 2008 largely because he vowed to close it. He won the election, and yet he did not close it. That is the strongest example I have of why you cannot blame the electorate; we simply don't get what we vote for.
1. We got exactly what we voted for in Congress, and Congress is the branch making the closing of Gitmo impossible. Where can Obama send the 46 people labeled as too dangerous to release, but who's evidence against them cannot be used in a civilian court to justify their detention? He needs congress to change the laws so that he has a legal framework to handle this new class of 'criminals'.
One thing he could do is simply close it and release all the prisoners. But to where? Which country on this planet has a government who will officially support taking in 50 of the 'most dangerous terrorists' in the world? Whether they are or are not dangerous isn't the issue. The issue is no government is going to offer them refuge.
2. Politicians promise things they don't have the power to deliver all the time. Of course, the media and the populace need to hold them more accountable, but that is something an informed populace will have to deal with forever.
I was under the impression that that secret intelligence court, the one who's judges are appointed by the Chief Justice, had already declared that what the NSA was doing was constitutional.
Specifically what did the NSA do that was illegal, as defined by court rulings?
Whistleblowing on illegal activities is legal in the US. Snowden revealed programs which are currently legal.
Common sense tells us that future court challenges will likely rule the NSA mass data gathering as unconstitutional, but for now, the secret intelligence court ruled it constitutional. I hope some group also challenges the existence of the secret court itself.
Well and to be more specific than just the term 'poverty', it may have more to do with wealth and income inequality.
Sweden and Canada have lots of guns but low gun crime. So how is the US different? Well we have a lot more poor people. But more than that, a lot less social safety nets, especially mental health support, and a lot more (as in, we are the most unequal society of all the first world western nations) income and wealth inequality. Our poor are VERY poor compared to our rich and middle class families.
There are several Ted Talks about the correlations between income and wealth inequality vs crime, vs education, etc.. it seems to match more closely than poverty numbers. This is a very complex subject so it is hard to prove cause of course.
Here's one that talks about how inequality, in and of itself is a problem. http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson.html
I was curious about just how easy it was to get food in the US.
20.2% of US households are food insecure. (breakdown is 5.7% don't have enough to eat or serious disruptions in food supply often, and the remaining 14.5% basically can only afford very poor food low in dietary value).
I don't know how these current numbers compare with the current numbers in communist countries, but they sure seem way higher than I expect from a nation as wealthy as the US.
Insecure definitions: http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-us/definitions-of-food-security.aspx#.Unk6FxDOSZk Low food security (old label=Food insecurity without hunger): reports of reduced quality, variety, or desirability of diet. Little or no indication of reduced food intake. Very low food security (old label=Food insecurity with hunger): Reports of multiple indications of disrupted eating patterns and reduced food intake.
If we took subsidies away from oil and energy producers, and included the cost to the environment and human health by pushing those back on the energy and oil companies, the free market would quickly re-adjust the cost of energy to a more accurate figure.
The reason people want to raise the price of dirty non-sustainable energy is mainly because through lobbying and other means, no external costs are ever attached to the production or use of said energy. Which means that competing energy sources, with very low external costs, but higher operation or start up costs, cannot compete fairly.
It is no different than if we both owned dairy farms. Both farms were located along the banks of a river. Now, my Uncle happens to be the Governor of the State, so I was able to arrange to get a 'waste dumping permit' which allowed me to just push my cow waste right into the river. You can't get a permit, so you are forced to ship your cow waste off to a processing and recycling center, which is much more costly than just dumping it in the river. You can guess who's milk is going to be cheaper for consumers to buy. Not to mention all the detriment to users of the river downstream.
There is a debate to be had about exactly what the costs should be concerning air pollution and human health, environmental impacts like rising temperatures, increasing ocean acidification, etc.. but to pretend that oil/coal have no external costs is gaming the free market system.
But isn't the issue that secret courts have already ruled that what the government is doing is, in fact, legal?
We might argue that having a secret court in the first place is wrong, or that their ruling was wrong, but there was a ruling that made much of the NSA stuff legal. Are you thinking about a specific technical issue that is considered still considered illegal? Because, unfortunately, the mass tapping of data, storing it, and locking it away for future searches, is legal right now.
... it turns the government does have an Apollo program for health care - Medicare. And guess what, it works great.
You should talk to Doctors. They seem to have a quite different opinion of Medicare.
Medicare isn't in the service of doctors. It is a service for patients. And patients love it.
The reasons are obvious why doctor's don't like it: they can't charge what they feel like charging, and they can't charge for any procedure they want. Medicare dictates cost and the covered procedures.
Which is yet another reason why 'for profit' doesn't belong in healthcare. A doctor shouldn't be worrying about money when making decisions about the best procedure or test for a patient.
You are a rare breed of conservative. I wish there were more of you who understand factual things like "liberals in this country co-opted the right's plan and passed the ACA". The vast majority of conservatives in this country think the ACA is a socialists dream or something....
Well, hopefully enough conservative voters get mad about it happening to their elections, that Dems and Republicans can get together can put some campaign finance laws in place. Some common sense laws that don't allow 1-2 people to completely change a state election or state issue.
If by "We" you mean, people that pay attention to politics in detail, and are likely progressives and liberals, then yes, "We" know all about the Koch brothers.
However, every conservative relative I have not only has very little understanding of the Koch brothers' influence in politics, but they refuse to believe that the Tea Party, or many of the conservative ideas, are pushed and propped up by wealthy groups.
Slashdot Mirror
Prison is not primarily to punish.
Any "law 101" text book would tell you that incarceration has always served multiple purposes: justice, deterrence, punishment, revenge, reform of the criminal, etc...
The extent to which each is effective is another matter.
The message is clearly intended as "Don't do this; if you get caught, this is what will happen to you
That may have been someone's intention, but it sure doesn't work very well. Or at the least it is pretty hard to show if it is working or not.
Like take the 3 strikes legislation. Very little evidence that it deterred any amount of crime. But it sure did cost states more money by locking more people up.
http://www.lao.ca.gov/2005/3_strikes/3_strikes_102005.htm
http://ucrtoday.ucr.edu/9405
(Democracy Now! podcast on 11/15 was taking about 3 strikes cases).
Any further taxes, restrictions, or regulations along these lines won't be accepted.
I don't know about regulations, but in terms of taxes, we are all time historic lows. Go back 50-60 years if you want. Taxes have never been lower. Why is there this ongoing idea that the average person is being taxed to death?
But anyway, I digress. To your point about the world not doing anything about it, so why should we: the USA has a huge economy and can influence the world if it wants to. We've seen world wide cooperation on things like solving the ozone layer problem. It can be done.
And you may want to look at the growth of renewable energy in Europe as a better indicator than some of them shying away from a problematic carbon trade system. Renewable energy is growing fast in a lot of countries, and even in parts of the US. Oregon for example.
Lastly, as to your question again of "why should we do anything if we can't stop it"?. We should do something, because our current fuels are not renewable. They will run out. It really doesn't matter too much if it is 100 years, 200 years, 300 years, etc.. The point is that they are going away, we might as well get used to them not being around. So lets start now. We can argue about the pace of the change. But there shouldn't be any argument about needing the change.
And of course, there are lots of other reasons to change even if we can't "save the planet". Pollution, energy independence, de-centralized power production (storm and terrorist resistant), etc.. the list is a long one.
I almost feel like it is up to your side to show why we SHOULD NOT change fuels at this point. No one is saying it has to happen overnight. No one is saying it shouldn't be market driven. About the only thing that is being said, is that policy needs to reflect our society's desire to move in that direction. That would mean things like stopping the subsidizing of oil and coal companies and increasing the subsidies to renewables.
Why do you think the Israeli method is cheaper? They spend about 10 times as much per passenger as we do:
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/01/07/would_you_pay_25_for_71_seconds_of_scrutiny_in_an_airport
Which still only amounts to 76 dollars per trip for real security instead of security theater according to your link.
I bet a lot of people would pay 76 dollars extra to get through the line faster and without having to endure all the new crap. Get to bring full bottles of shampoo or bring your drink on the plane, leave your belt and shoes on, don't have to be seen naked with the new xray machine or be groped, etc..
I wonder if the BDO's were not allowed to use all the same techniques, like racial profiling, that they use in Israel. It didn't say in the report.
"Walmart and local grocery stores"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert
An extreme example is a city like Detroit. There are parts of the city where for miles and miles around you, the only places selling food are fast food places or 7-11/convenience stores. And there may be no easy public transportation routes out of the city to the richer suburbs to go shopping. So you better own a car, and then be prepared to drive after work in heavy traffic for an hour or more.
But that isn't the only reason. There are matters of parenting and education also. You likely were armed already with some knowledge of cooking handed down to you by parents, or some level of education that made learning about cooking easy for you.
I think you'd be surprised how foreign the concept of making a meal from scratch is for a surprisingly large percent of Americans.
Last I read the Constitution, the Senate represents the States, and the House represents the people.
While in practice, the Senators represent State and National corporate interests, and the House members represent highly gerrymandered districts that allow them to get away with votes that are against most citizen polling.
You are paying for healthcare things you don't want to pay for right now. But in the most inefficient manner possible.
If you want a truly free country, that means that hospitals should be free to let kids die outside their emergency rooms. As soon as you are on board with that 'freedom', your arguments are at least logically consistent.
Until then, get used to living in a society that tries to manage shared costs (shared based on common resource pools or common morality) in an efficient way.
It violates .... most likely several portions of HIPPA.
What is up with half the posters on slashdot just parroting Fox/GOP talking points? Most of which are highly misleading or flat out lies.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2013/10/25/claims-that-obamacare-website-violates-health-privacy-reveals-embarrassing-fact-gop-does-not-understand-hipaa-or-obamacare/
But fundamentally I think it showed that the public does have it's limits in terms of not wanting a police state
I hope I'm wrong, but it might just be that the public only reaches that limit if politicians push too fast, or too much at once. If the police state is moved towards a little more slowly and smaller steps at a time, I suspect the public won't care.
I do not support what's happening at Guantanamo Bay. I voted for Obama in 2008 largely because he vowed to close it. He won the election, and yet he did not close it. That is the strongest example I have of why you cannot blame the electorate; we simply don't get what we vote for.
1. We got exactly what we voted for in Congress, and Congress is the branch making the closing of Gitmo impossible. Where can Obama send the 46 people labeled as too dangerous to release, but who's evidence against them cannot be used in a civilian court to justify their detention? He needs congress to change the laws so that he has a legal framework to handle this new class of 'criminals'.
One thing he could do is simply close it and release all the prisoners. But to where? Which country on this planet has a government who will officially support taking in 50 of the 'most dangerous terrorists' in the world? Whether they are or are not dangerous isn't the issue. The issue is no government is going to offer them refuge.
2. Politicians promise things they don't have the power to deliver all the time. Of course, the media and the populace need to hold them more accountable, but that is something an informed populace will have to deal with forever.
In theory maybe. Left/right have voted nearly identical when it comes to military/police state powers (patriot act type stuff).
Technically, yes, but technically so did the NSA;
I was under the impression that that secret intelligence court, the one who's judges are appointed by the Chief Justice, had already declared that what the NSA was doing was constitutional.
Specifically what did the NSA do that was illegal, as defined by court rulings?
Whistleblowing on illegal activities is legal in the US. Snowden revealed programs which are currently legal.
Common sense tells us that future court challenges will likely rule the NSA mass data gathering as unconstitutional, but for now, the secret intelligence court ruled it constitutional. I hope some group also challenges the existence of the secret court itself.
I wonder if Russel's not voting has something to do with the election system specific to Britain.
Well and to be more specific than just the term 'poverty', it may have more to do with wealth and income inequality.
Sweden and Canada have lots of guns but low gun crime. So how is the US different? Well we have a lot more poor people. But more than that, a lot less social safety nets, especially mental health support, and a lot more (as in, we are the most unequal society of all the first world western nations) income and wealth inequality. Our poor are VERY poor compared to our rich and middle class families.
There are several Ted Talks about the correlations between income and wealth inequality vs crime, vs education, etc.. it seems to match more closely than poverty numbers. This is a very complex subject so it is hard to prove cause of course.
Here's one that talks about how inequality, in and of itself is a problem.
http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson.html
I was curious about just how easy it was to get food in the US.
20.2% of US households are food insecure. (breakdown is 5.7% don't have enough to eat or serious disruptions in food supply often, and the remaining 14.5% basically can only afford very poor food low in dietary value).
I don't know how these current numbers compare with the current numbers in communist countries, but they sure seem way higher than I expect from a nation as wealthy as the US.
Citations:
http://feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/hunger-facts/hunger-and-poverty-statistics.aspx#_edn12
Insecure definitions:
http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-us/definitions-of-food-security.aspx#.Unk6FxDOSZk
Low food security (old label=Food insecurity without hunger): reports of reduced quality, variety, or desirability of diet. Little or no indication of reduced food intake.
Very low food security (old label=Food insecurity with hunger): Reports of multiple indications of disrupted eating patterns and reduced food intake.
If we took subsidies away from oil and energy producers, and included the cost to the environment and human health by pushing those back on the energy and oil companies, the free market would quickly re-adjust the cost of energy to a more accurate figure.
The reason people want to raise the price of dirty non-sustainable energy is mainly because through lobbying and other means, no external costs are ever attached to the production or use of said energy. Which means that competing energy sources, with very low external costs, but higher operation or start up costs, cannot compete fairly.
It is no different than if we both owned dairy farms. Both farms were located along the banks of a river. Now, my Uncle happens to be the Governor of the State, so I was able to arrange to get a 'waste dumping permit' which allowed me to just push my cow waste right into the river. You can't get a permit, so you are forced to ship your cow waste off to a processing and recycling center, which is much more costly than just dumping it in the river. You can guess who's milk is going to be cheaper for consumers to buy. Not to mention all the detriment to users of the river downstream.
There is a debate to be had about exactly what the costs should be concerning air pollution and human health, environmental impacts like rising temperatures, increasing ocean acidification, etc.. but to pretend that oil/coal have no external costs is gaming the free market system.
I work with a lot of consultants and vendors and most of them use Skype for quick chat sessions. All US vendors.
But isn't the issue that secret courts have already ruled that what the government is doing is, in fact, legal?
We might argue that having a secret court in the first place is wrong, or that their ruling was wrong, but there was a ruling that made much of the NSA stuff legal. Are you thinking about a specific technical issue that is considered still considered illegal? Because, unfortunately, the mass tapping of data, storing it, and locking it away for future searches, is legal right now.
It is mostly people with personal plans that are being dropped, not people who's plans come from an employer.
... it turns the government does have an Apollo program for health care - Medicare. And guess what, it works great.
You should talk to Doctors. They seem to have a quite different opinion of Medicare.
Medicare isn't in the service of doctors. It is a service for patients. And patients love it.
The reasons are obvious why doctor's don't like it: they can't charge what they feel like charging, and they can't charge for any procedure they want. Medicare dictates cost and the covered procedures.
Which is yet another reason why 'for profit' doesn't belong in healthcare. A doctor shouldn't be worrying about money when making decisions about the best procedure or test for a patient.
Obama is a president, he should act presidential, assign the task to the experts and let them do it
What fantasy world do you live in where a President can 'let the experts do it' without involving Congress and eventually the Courts?
You are a rare breed of conservative. I wish there were more of you who understand factual things like "liberals in this country co-opted the right's plan and passed the ACA". The vast majority of conservatives in this country think the ACA is a socialists dream or something....
Well, hopefully enough conservative voters get mad about it happening to their elections, that Dems and Republicans can get together can put some campaign finance laws in place. Some common sense laws that don't allow 1-2 people to completely change a state election or state issue.
If by "We" you mean, people that pay attention to politics in detail, and are likely progressives and liberals, then yes, "We" know all about the Koch brothers.
However, every conservative relative I have not only has very little understanding of the Koch brothers' influence in politics, but they refuse to believe that the Tea Party, or many of the conservative ideas, are pushed and propped up by wealthy groups.