As soon as I saw the headline I thought "I bet she's black". And it turns out she is.
Texas woman sentenced to 5 years in prison for voting while on probation
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Re: Texas woman sentenced to 5 years in prison for voting while on probation
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
While I agree that what this woman did shouldn't be voter fraud, community service isn't sufficient deterrent for actual voter fraud. People put in lots of volunteer hours to help get their preferred candidate elected, so they'd probably be willing to risk community service too. Voter fraud is very dangerous to society, as society depends on our trust in institutions.
It's not nearly as dangerous as privatised corporate justice, or jailing people for five years for essentially trivial offences.
Those are also things that we as a society should try to prevent.
Re: Texas woman sentenced to 5 years in prison for voting while on probation
#73How does such an attorney and judge feel after such a trial? Do they feel satisfied, fulfilled? Taking away 5 years of someone's life over a little mistake that didn't hurt anyone? I don't get it: why does a free people like the Americans allow for that kind of sinister figures to be their prosecutors and judges?
I would assume that if they had doubts about the job they would change careers. So I would guess that either they feel like she’s an unfortunate victim of an imperfect system that works correctly in other cases, or that she must be guilty of something else but that something else was never discovered.
Currently there is a lawsuit to overturn life sentences for juvenile offenders. One of the leaders in that movement is a judge who gave a teenage murderer a life sentence with the comment “I feel the same thing you felt for your victims: nothing.” She doesn’t admit to having changed her mind on harsh punishment in general, but based her change of heart on new scientific beliefs about how morally developed teenagers are.
Re: Texas woman sentenced to 5 years in prison for voting while on probation
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
While I agree that what this woman did shouldn't be voter fraud, community service isn't sufficient deterrent for actual voter fraud. People put in lots of volunteer hours to help get their preferred candidate elected, so they'd probably be willing to risk community service too. Voter fraud is very dangerous to society, as society depends on our trust in institutions.
It's not nearly as dangerous as privatised corporate justice, or jailing people for five years for essentially trivial offences.
An isolated case of voter fraud isn't dangerous. The danger is what would happen if fraud became widespread.
Re: Texas woman sentenced to 5 years in prison for voting while on probation
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
I find five years a bit surprising, but what do you think the proper penalty would be for a felon committing voter fraud should be? Edit: I'm utterly amazed that this comment has been downvoted to silence. Disenfranchising felons — i.e., those who have committed extremely serious crimes — is while somewhat controversial a long-standing practice. The woman in question committed voter fraud by voting without being lega…
How is this voter fraud? The issue is with them not being allowed to vote in the first place.
> How is this voter fraud?
Because she wasn't legally allowed to vote, and she did. That's voter fraud.
I'm fine with forbidding felons to vote, and of course any law forbidding something has to have penalties. I'm very surprised that the penalty in this case was so high and that it appears to have been a strict-liability crime. Honestly, six months or even less for a first offense would seem reasonable to me — but I'm not a judge.
Re: Texas woman sentenced to 5 years in prison for voting while on probation
#76Man the US just disgust me. Land of the free my ass. The amount of inhumane policies is just staggering. The most brutal and unjust “justice” system in the free world. That American put up with this system is the biggest puzzle. It seems like the only freedom Americans care about is to carry a gun. Any other freedom they are cool with flushing down the toilet. Sorry for the angry rant, I know there are lots of good a…
While I 100% agree about the amount of inhumane policies and do not believe the US (or any other nation) are free.
It is completely untrue that the only freedoms Americans care about is guns, that seems like that because
1. The Mainstream media loves to cover it
2. Guns are a taboo or unusual Topic for many nations
3. Given the US is one of the last if not the last first world nation that has few regulations on owning Auto-Loading guns it is common for other nations to us that as a sign post to express how "backwards" the US is, and virtue signal how much "better" they are in comparison because they outlawed the evil gun
4. The US has made lots of process in the progression of liberty even in my life time. Drugs laws are beginning to loosen, More expansions on Free Speech over the protest of the "hate Speech is not free speech" people, and others
Over all there is MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH more work to be done for the cause of liberty, but the idea that Americans only care about guns is simply incorrect or rather incomplete probably based on biased news coverage
Re: Texas woman sentenced to 5 years in prison for voting while on probation
#77What a disgusting story. How come the State is so vindictive towards the weak and so powerless against people who starts unjustified wars or brings down the financial system ?
Probably centuries of institutionalized racism.
Re: Texas woman sentenced to 5 years in prison for voting while on probation
#78How does such an attorney and judge feel after such a trial? Do they feel satisfied, fulfilled? Taking away 5 years of someone's life over a little mistake that didn't hurt anyone? I don't get it: why does a free people like the Americans allow for that kind of sinister figures to be their prosecutors and judges?
Do you notice the color of the woman's skin? There you go.
I'm not racist, so no, I don't notice it. :-)
Re: Texas woman sentenced to 5 years in prison for voting while on probation
#79This is a feature, not a bug. The prison system is designed to drag you in and keep you in. Just disgusting.
The US criminal system isn't meant to rehabilitate, and a corrections officer told me that directly once (after I asked for a Bible and he said no). It's only meant to provide the public with a false sense of security. "Another scumbag has been locked up, key's been thrown away, you're all safe once again. Enjoy the rest of your evening." But it's okay because people are easily forgettable. If you have 100 people on…
I don’t think it was intentionally designed, but I believe the criminal justice system is best described as handing out draconian sentences to the unlucky few actually caught committing crimes. I’m convinced there are better approaches ( https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-09-26/plea-barg... ).
Re: Texas woman sentenced to 5 years in prison for voting while on probation
#80How does such an attorney and judge feel after such a trial? Do they feel satisfied, fulfilled? Taking away 5 years of someone's life over a little mistake that didn't hurt anyone? I don't get it: why does a free people like the Americans allow for that kind of sinister figures to be their prosecutors and judges?
Vote fraud is an extremely serious crime in a democracy.