That's funny, precisely the same thing happened here in Sweden in the 1970's. Mental hospitals were closed, and the mentally ill were supposed to get help living on their own, and getting treatment from home. Then the economic crisis hit, and many of the seriously ill were left to themselves.
As an example Richard Feynman liked to talk to himself. He was known to do this (he cheerfully admits it) as he'd be walking around in public. Clearly the man was not insane, but something like that could have been used to claim he was and lock him up if he pissed people off.
Computer scientist Alan Turing was convicted of homosexual practices and forced to undergo hormone treatment to cure him of his homosexuality (this was in 1950's England). It was all very legal and proper - he was clearly guilty of a crime, scientists agreed that homosexuality was a mental disorder, and believed it could be cured by injecting a homosexual man with estrogen.
It's naive to think that everything "science" believes today will hold up in 50 years. Science of today is just as vulnerable to political and social bias as sixty years ago.
Btw, Turing developed physical abnormalities as a result of the estrogen treatment and committed suicide two years later.
That's when the official decide, hey...this guy us a lot more dangerous than we thought....now what do we do? Let me out after 18 months and just hope he 'learns his lesson'?
The same problem occurs with ordinary criminals (non-sex offenders). They also commit many crimes which are never discovered or proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Yet, we have to let them out after their sentence is served, risking that they hurt or kill people even more badly. It is a flaw in the system we have to live with.
As I understand it, his current incarceration is not punishment for something he has actually done. He is being held for being dangerous, i.e likely to commit serious crimes in the future. So it doesn't violate the principle of double jeopardy, although you could argue it violates other principles of justice.
I don't agree. Judging if someone is *likely to commit future crimes* is by necessity more arbitrary than judging if they have committed an *actual* crime.
Sentencing everyone to be incarcerated until they're "corrected" would lead to a very arbitrary justice system which would be very easy to abuse. How do you determine if someone *will* commit a crime after they're released? Today, we only attempt to do that with people who are so seriously disturbed they appear unable to control themselves.
It would also mean the punishment might be completely out of proportion to the crime - someone who was unable to stop herself from, say, getting into bar fights every now and then could be held in prison for decades, while a one-time murderer may get away with a month.
It also ignores the deterring effect of punishment. Someone who committed a crime and successfully argued to the court that the circumstances were so unusual, it was unlikely he would be driven to do it again, and therefore posed no danger to society, would have to be released without any punishment. This would effectively give a free pass to anyone who was tempted to commit a one-time crime.
Also, what is considered "mentally ill" is mostly a matter of social conventions. People act and react irrationally all day long, often without being able to control it; it is only when such behaviour comes too far from the social norm that it is considered mental illness.
People are *first* deemed mentally ill by their environment, and only then handed over to psychiatry. The task of psychiatrists is to find diagnoses that fit the people who society have put in their care. In most cases, it is society that tells psychiatry what is normal, not the other way around.
I think that, in an extreme case, someone who was disturbed when they committed their initial crime but still found competent for trial could emerge from prison even more disturbed.
Isn't it also possible that the law uses different standards when determining whether someone is responsible for their actions, and when they're too dangerous to be free, respectively?
For example, someone with an acute psychosis may be confused and not responsible for his actions, but still not very dangerous, while on the other hand, a violent psychopath may be perfectly clear over his own actions and their consequences while being very dangerous to those around him.
I'm not sure that evolution-supporters have generally been atheists. Darwin considered himself a christian, and many priests and churches outside of the USA support or are neutral to the theory of evolution. Even the Catholic church, which is often depicted as an enemy to scientific progress, has nothing against the theory.
Has the theory of evolution EVER been used to further an atheist agenda in schools? I've never heard of any actual examples, only of christian people's fears that the teaching of evolution may lead to atheism.
Perhaps. I'm not trying to argue about what communism truly is. I'm just saying that Orwell had the political system in Russia in mind when he wrote "1984" in the 1940's. At that time, many people still naively believed that imitating that system would lead to a better world.
All countries at war disseminate propaganda to their own citizens, but I think Stalinist Russia went a little beyond that. For example, they falsified history by removing former allies from photographs (similar to what Winston worked with in "1984"), and created socialist versions of sciences like economics and biology to go with their ideology.
Stalinist Russia tried to remake society from the ground up, including how people worked, thought and socialised. Nazism never had such a grand plan for society; people were allowed to work out the details of their own lives and believe in other ideologies, like christianity, as long as they didn't go against nazi politics.
As I understand it, public schools in the USA are afraid to be partial to one religion. The slightest partiality or imbalance could lead to complaints and lawsuits from parents.
By "strict separation" I mean that the separation of church and state is explicitly written into the law, like in the US constitution. Many countries are much more secularised than the USA without a strict separation between church and state.
For example, here in Sweden, arguably the most secularised country in the world, we've only had freedom of religion explicitly written into the law since 1952, and we had an official state church until ca. 2000(!).
And there is nothing in our constitution that explicitly forbids the state from favouring one religion. In fact, our constitution requires the Swedish monarch to confess to the protestant faith(!)
There's a paradox built into state religions: when a religion is mandated by the state, it tends to lose its religious meaning and become more of a social duty or non-religious tradition, and the church itself tends to become more and more secularised.
You don't have to go that far. Here in Europe, there has been a heated debate over whether the murder of civilian Armenians by Turks from the late 1800's to the early 1900's should be officially declared a genocide. In Turkey it is now illegal to call it a genocide, and many politicians in western Europe want to make it illegal to deny it (!).
I wholeheartedly agree. For example, here in Sweden, left-leaning historians put heavy emphasis on learning about the living conditions of ordinary people (like workers), while the politically right-leaning emphasise learning about the kings ("Sweden's history is that of its kings" is a popular saying among them). This is hardly a coincidence.
It makes sense once you realise creationism has more to do with politics than with religious faith. Creationism (in the modern sense) was created by religious groups in the USA as a way to get religious education into American schools. Since the USA has a strict division between church and state, religious education has always been controversial in public schools, sometimes avoided entirely, so religious groups have had to "disguise" religious education as science. And they didn't attempt this until they saw religious influence on society fade in the early 1900's - before that, Darwin's theory of evolution was largely accepted by christians and even officially embraced by many churches.
In Europe (and presumably the Americas outside of the US), there is generally no strict separation between church and state, and religous education in schools is common - so there is no need to disguise religion as science.
I don't see how "1984" is a diatribe against fascism. Double-thinking, rewriting history and language, surveying and controlling people's lives in detail, and so on, are much more typical of Stalinist Russia than of Nazist Germany.
Why wouldn't the thief have copyright in the modified version of the Van Gogh painting, assuming the modifications were so significant they warranted copyright protection? She doesn't have a claim to the physical painting, of course, but she would be entitled to part of the profit from copies made from the modified version.
But surely you don't believe that the game company obtained thousands of individual copies of the game crack from the cracking group, and then only distributed the existing copies?
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That's funny, precisely the same thing happened here in Sweden in the 1970's. Mental hospitals were closed, and the mentally ill were supposed to get help living on their own, and getting treatment from home. Then the economic crisis hit, and many of the seriously ill were left to themselves.
As an example Richard Feynman liked to talk to himself. He was known to do this (he cheerfully admits it) as he'd be walking around in public. Clearly the man was not insane, but something like that could have been used to claim he was and lock him up if he pissed people off.
Computer scientist Alan Turing was convicted of homosexual practices and forced to undergo hormone treatment to cure him of his homosexuality (this was in 1950's England). It was all very legal and proper - he was clearly guilty of a crime, scientists agreed that homosexuality was a mental disorder, and believed it could be cured by injecting a homosexual man with estrogen.
It's naive to think that everything "science" believes today will hold up in 50 years. Science of today is just as vulnerable to political and social bias as sixty years ago.
Btw, Turing developed physical abnormalities as a result of the estrogen treatment and committed suicide two years later.
That's when the official decide, hey...this guy us a lot more dangerous than we thought....now what do we do? Let me out after 18 months and just hope he 'learns his lesson'?
The same problem occurs with ordinary criminals (non-sex offenders). They also commit many crimes which are never discovered or proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Yet, we have to let them out after their sentence is served, risking that they hurt or kill people even more badly. It is a flaw in the system we have to live with.
As I understand it, his current incarceration is not punishment for something he has actually done. He is being held for being dangerous, i.e likely to commit serious crimes in the future. So it doesn't violate the principle of double jeopardy, although you could argue it violates other principles of justice.
P.S. Imprisoning someone because of what they are likely to do may be necessary in extreme circumstances, but if so should be used very sparingly.
I don't agree. Judging if someone is *likely to commit future crimes* is by necessity more arbitrary than judging if they have committed an *actual* crime.
Sentencing everyone to be incarcerated until they're "corrected" would lead to a very arbitrary justice system which would be very easy to abuse. How do you determine if someone *will* commit a crime after they're released? Today, we only attempt to do that with people who are so seriously disturbed they appear unable to control themselves.
It would also mean the punishment might be completely out of proportion to the crime - someone who was unable to stop herself from, say, getting into bar fights every now and then could be held in prison for decades, while a one-time murderer may get away with a month.
It also ignores the deterring effect of punishment. Someone who committed a crime and successfully argued to the court that the circumstances were so unusual, it was unlikely he would be driven to do it again, and therefore posed no danger to society, would have to be released without any punishment. This would effectively give a free pass to anyone who was tempted to commit a one-time crime.
Also, what is considered "mentally ill" is mostly a matter of social conventions. People act and react irrationally all day long, often without being able to control it; it is only when such behaviour comes too far from the social norm that it is considered mental illness.
People are *first* deemed mentally ill by their environment, and only then handed over to psychiatry. The task of psychiatrists is to find diagnoses that fit the people who society have put in their care. In most cases, it is society that tells psychiatry what is normal, not the other way around.
Yes... if only there was a system of government where the decision-makers were elected and held responsible for their actions by the people.
*sigh*... one can dream, can't one?
fyngyrz, are you against any kind of civil imprisonment order?
I think that, in an extreme case, someone who was disturbed when they committed their initial crime but still found competent for trial could emerge from prison even more disturbed.
Isn't it also possible that the law uses different standards when determining whether someone is responsible for their actions, and when they're too dangerous to be free, respectively?
For example, someone with an acute psychosis may be confused and not responsible for his actions, but still not very dangerous, while on the other hand, a violent psychopath may be perfectly clear over his own actions and their consequences while being very dangerous to those around him.
I'm not sure that evolution-supporters have generally been atheists. Darwin considered himself a christian, and many priests and churches outside of the USA support or are neutral to the theory of evolution. Even the Catholic church, which is often depicted as an enemy to scientific progress, has nothing against the theory.
Has the theory of evolution EVER been used to further an atheist agenda in schools? I've never heard of any actual examples, only of christian people's fears that the teaching of evolution may lead to atheism.
Perhaps. I'm not trying to argue about what communism truly is. I'm just saying that Orwell had the political system in Russia in mind when he wrote "1984" in the 1940's. At that time, many people still naively believed that imitating that system would lead to a better world.
All countries at war disseminate propaganda to their own citizens, but I think Stalinist Russia went a little beyond that. For example, they falsified history by removing former allies from photographs (similar to what Winston worked with in "1984"), and created socialist versions of sciences like economics and biology to go with their ideology.
Stalinist Russia tried to remake society from the ground up, including how people worked, thought and socialised. Nazism never had such a grand plan for society; people were allowed to work out the details of their own lives and believe in other ideologies, like christianity, as long as they didn't go against nazi politics.
As I understand it, public schools in the USA are afraid to be partial to one religion. The slightest partiality or imbalance could lead to complaints and lawsuits from parents.
By "strict separation" I mean that the separation of church and state is explicitly written into the law, like in the US constitution. Many countries are much more secularised than the USA without a strict separation between church and state.
For example, here in Sweden, arguably the most secularised country in the world, we've only had freedom of religion explicitly written into the law since 1952, and we had an official state church until ca. 2000(!).
And there is nothing in our constitution that explicitly forbids the state from favouring one religion. In fact, our constitution requires the Swedish monarch to confess to the protestant faith(!)
There's a paradox built into state religions: when a religion is mandated by the state, it tends to lose its religious meaning and become more of a social duty or non-religious tradition, and the church itself tends to become more and more secularised.
You don't have to go that far. Here in Europe, there has been a heated debate over whether the murder of civilian Armenians by Turks from the late 1800's to the early 1900's should be officially declared a genocide. In Turkey it is now illegal to call it a genocide, and many politicians in western Europe want to make it illegal to deny it (!).
I wholeheartedly agree. For example, here in Sweden, left-leaning historians put heavy emphasis on learning about the living conditions of ordinary people (like workers), while the politically right-leaning emphasise learning about the kings ("Sweden's history is that of its kings" is a popular saying among them). This is hardly a coincidence.
It makes sense once you realise creationism has more to do with politics than with religious faith. Creationism (in the modern sense) was created by religious groups in the USA as a way to get religious education into American schools. Since the USA has a strict division between church and state, religious education has always been controversial in public schools, sometimes avoided entirely, so religious groups have had to "disguise" religious education as science. And they didn't attempt this until they saw religious influence on society fade in the early 1900's - before that, Darwin's theory of evolution was largely accepted by christians and even officially embraced by many churches.
In Europe (and presumably the Americas outside of the US), there is generally no strict separation between church and state, and religous education in schools is common - so there is no need to disguise religion as science.
I don't see how "1984" is a diatribe against fascism. Double-thinking, rewriting history and language, surveying and controlling people's lives in detail, and so on, are much more typical of Stalinist Russia than of Nazist Germany.
I think the game company should be applauded for demonstrating the value of the free flow of information and how outdated the copyright laws are.
From a copyright perspective it doesn't matter if a modification reduces or enhances the value of a work.
Why wouldn't the thief have copyright in the modified version of the Van Gogh painting, assuming the modifications were so significant they warranted copyright protection? She doesn't have a claim to the physical painting, of course, but she would be entitled to part of the profit from copies made from the modified version.
You're perfectly right. The game company didn't steal anything, but they may have broken the law (which was quite broken to begin with ;-) ).
But surely you don't believe that the game company obtained thousands of individual copies of the game crack from the cracking group, and then only distributed the existing copies?