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I spent 29 years in solitary confinement (2010)

theguardian.com

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Re: I spent 29 years in solitary confinement (2010)

#181

Post by Maultasche »

irrational wrote: post #156
orf wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your point about great Britian isn't completely correct, no power could have stood against the empire at its peak. France could have given it a go perhaps, and did around 1800 and where beaten (Waterloo! Waterloo! Waterloo!). The differences you talk about now are, in my opinion, down to advanced weaponry. Where before it was about manpower (and England's vast empire made procurement of such very easy) and sailing (a…

Wait, didn't the US (not that the US existed yet) with the help of the French stand up to Great Britain at its peak?

It seems that way, but Britain was not all in on that war. The 1770s and 1780s was definitely not a peak time for Britain. The government was having financial problems and military spending was very low. The peak for Britain was later on in the 19th century.

I think Britain could have won that war if they had really wanted to, given enough time and resources, but there was a great reluctance to spend the resources to win it, money in particular.

There was lack of will on the part of the British government combined with a low point in British military funding. The British government (Parliament, the King was a figurehead by this time) was simply unwilling to convert the country to a war footing.

The political leaders kept hoping they could win the war with a low level of military funding and save money, which was in short supply. So the war effort was underfunded and undermanned. In the end, the Whig party (who had been against the war) came to power and negotiated an end to it. Wars are expensive, and the Whigs didn't think this one was worth the expenditure.

Compare that sad performance to the Napoleonic Wars 20 years later. Britain was on full war footing and spending huge quantities of money (going deep into debt in the process) on their military. They were cranking out large numbers of ships and training large armies.

When the War of 1812 broke out, the British were uninterested in fighting it. They were busy with Napoleon at the time, and the American war was a sideshow with few resources devoted to it compared to what was being devoted to Europe. Even then, their vastly improved military and lavish spending resulted in a much better performance than the Revolutionary War.

In the end, once the Americans were tired of fighting, a peace was negotiated. The British were uninterested in keeping that war going any longer than necessary. It was costing them money and they had better fish to fry.

Re: I spent 29 years in solitary confinement (2010)

#182

Post by merpnderp »

BlackjackCF wrote: post #173
arcticbull wrote: post #7

Honestly, I find the US prison system absolutely horrifying in all respects. As satisfying as it may be for victims to feel the person that did something to them is 'gone' they will eventually be let out, and when they do I want them to be ready to integrate with society. Recidivism rates in the US show it is objectively not working, with state prisons leaving inmates to re-offend 76% of the time. [1] In Norway, much…

Something's rotten when you have for-profit prisons: https://www.aclu.org/banking-bondage-private-prisons-and-mas... .

It isn't the for profit prisons doing things like rolling back Oklahoma's ballet referendum to ease up on crime or keeping California from even considering it. It's public unions lobbying to keep their jobs.

Re: I spent 29 years in solitary confinement (2010)

#183

Post by arethuza »

irrational wrote: post #156
orf wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your point about great Britian isn't completely correct, no power could have stood against the empire at its peak. France could have given it a go perhaps, and did around 1800 and where beaten (Waterloo! Waterloo! Waterloo!). The differences you talk about now are, in my opinion, down to advanced weaponry. Where before it was about manpower (and England's vast empire made procurement of such very easy) and sailing (a…

Wait, didn't the US (not that the US existed yet) with the help of the French stand up to Great Britain at its peak?

"Peak British Empire" was in the early 20th century - when it covered about 25% of the area of the planet and 25% of the world population.

Re: I spent 29 years in solitary confinement (2010)

#185

Post by anonacct37 »

rhino369 wrote: post #91
erikpukinskis wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A politican voting to reform a clearly broken prison system faces tons of risks to their career. Can you say more about this? It sounds like you think that's normal in your community, to think that way. That's not how I hear the people around me talking about prison. I think most of us would support a candidate who talked about rehabilitation. I worry that by trotting out this old meme as if it were an permanent fi…

Part of the problem is that even thought a lot of people generally agree that we are too harsh on criminals, they don't stick to that viewpoint when the rubber meets the road during situations they care about. People who are liberal on sentencing get angry if short sentences are handed down in rape or financial crime cases.

There's an appropriate amount of punishment. It's too much for a joint and too little for the people who broke the economy.

This is not a contradiction or indication of hypocrisy.

Re: I spent 29 years in solitary confinement (2010)

#186

Post by cuckcuckspruce »

loa_in_ wrote: post #178
cuckcuckspruce wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're being a little naive here. If you could wave a magic wand and make it so private prisons got a one-time fee for accepting convicts then I don't think they would invest more in preventing recidivism. What would likely happen is that private prisons would spend even less on each inmate, doing the accounting to determine how much they have to cut from what they already spend to account for the amount of t…

You seem to have missed the part when he writes about high penalization of recidivism.

Penalties would only be levied after an inmate actually got out of prison, and there is ample time for the prison to use the inmate for slave labor to more than offset whatever penalties you set.

Also expect for the corrections officers unions and police and sheriffs groups to start lobbying for mandatory life sentences because if there's one way to prevent recidivism it's to never actually release the prisoner.

Re: I spent 29 years in solitary confinement (2010)

#187

Post by vkou »

DennisP wrote: post #166
coldtea wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and there amendments etc. But in public discourse, it's not treated as a mere law, something humans created, and they could toss if they like, but as some kind of holy scripture given by some wise old men.

There are plenty of people who treat it as some dusty old-fashioned document that we should just ignore, instead of what it is, which is the law of the land.

It is the law of the land that has successfully been used to base mutually contradictory laws on.

Re: I spent 29 years in solitary confinement (2010)

#188

Post by dragonwriter »

DennisP wrote: post #30
coldtea wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always found the faith in the revered interpretations of some constitutional document written centuries ago, and the respect for the "Founding Fathers" not as historical figures, but as some kind of guiding lights for today, totally bizarro. Even the name "Founding Fathers" and the way it's thrown around seems quite bizarre for a democracy. It's the people, and the will of the people, that should be respected, not…

The Constitution isn't just a historical document, it's the law. It's certainly open to change by the will of the people, and it defines a process for doing so, which has been used seventeen times. It's not the only law we interpret this way, considering the intent of the people who created it; courts do the same with laws passed by Congress.

> The Constitution isn't just a historical document, it's the law. It's certainly open to change by the will of the people, and it defines a process for doing so, which has been used seventeen times.

Either 27 or 18, depending on whether you count the simultaneous ratification of the first 10 amendments as one use of the Amendment process or 10 separate, parallel uses.

The only way I can remotely see that gets to 17 is if you count 1-10 and 27 as one use of the Amendment process since they were submitted together, even though 27 was ratified 200 years and a few months after 1-10.

Re: I spent 29 years in solitary confinement (2010)

#189

Post by planteen »

jernfrost wrote: post #84
arcticbull wrote: post #7

Honestly, I find the US prison system absolutely horrifying in all respects. As satisfying as it may be for victims to feel the person that did something to them is 'gone' they will eventually be let out, and when they do I want them to be ready to integrate with society. Recidivism rates in the US show it is objectively not working, with state prisons leaving inmates to re-offend 76% of the time. [1] In Norway, much…

I am Norwegian, so I thought I'd add a few points, which I think greatly influence the difference. 1) Prison guard education is just a few weeks in the US to my knowledge. In Norway it is a 3 year college education, where you learn about mental illness, why people become criminals, how to rehabilitate people etc. The prison guard job in Norway, is by American standards more like a social worker. Guards spend a lot of…

> Christianity is quite focused on the idea of good and evil. Norse mythology was never like that.

It's interesting you say that. My only exposure to sagas was from reading Beowulf in school, which is a canonical example for the theme of "good vs. evil".

Re: I spent 29 years in solitary confinement (2010)

#190

Post by jaggi1 »

humanrebar wrote: post #154
vivekd wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Christianity is quite focused on the idea of good and evil. Norse mythology was never like that. Norse mythology was never like that. There was no evil devil. The world was divided into order and chaos not good and evil. What? Why do people say stuff like this? The Norse myths were from a millennium ago, no one has believed in them for almost a thousand years. Maybe Norway is largely atheistic now but for the majori…

It's also bad understanding of Christian theology. > Christianity is quite focused on the idea of good and evil. No, it's mostly focused on the contrast between being a follower of Christ or not. To that end, the character of God and Jesus are elaborated on at length. So subjects like "good" and "evil" come up as a part of that. Yes, Christ is described as being intrinsically good, but the end goal isn't to: * do goo…

One has to differentiate between Christian influence and general thinking. "Do good things" is common sense but Christian theology has opinion on what is good and bad and it matters at a subtle level.

For example as a Hindu when my kid went to a missionary school they would try to portray polytheism as bad and temporary tattoos as evil.

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