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French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

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Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#261

Post by 9dev »

SirMaster wrote: post #205
n4r9 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Must justice include punishment? If someone hits me, I'd much rather they take responsibility, apologise, and work on themselves to become a better person, than simply get locked up for a while.

If the only repercussion for assault is they need to apologize and "work on themselves", then what's stopping more people from committing assault? There needs to be punishment.

If they show no remorse or actual will to better themselves, that's obviously not enough and the reason why we have prisons.

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#262

Post by scotty79 »

Aurornis wrote: post #216
greatgib wrote: post #146

Something really scary in France right now is that you can see really clearly how most mainstream media are used for propaganda. Since a few days, there is an abundance of cover and articles in most major newspaper here with propaganda and repeated lies supporting him. It's hard to imagine but non stop. You have everyday interviews of his family saying that it is an injustice, that he did nothing, that the judgement…

> Since a few days, there is an abundance of cover and articles in most major newspaper here with propaganda and repeated lies supporting him. How much of this is driven by contrarian and counter-cyclical reporting? I’m not familiar with French media, but I see the same pattern in every country where I’ve kept up with the news: Media starts being favorable to a topic when it’s up and coming, switching to being highly…

This reminds me so much of fashion and what young people find cool and not as the time passes.

Enslaving our media to what triggers the cravings of the masses was probably one of the dumbest thing we did. And we owe it, like many other terrible things, to ad industry.

It's a parasite of the economy and cancer of society. Serves no useful purpose beyond what an open access database of all products and services could cheaply fulfill.

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#263

Post by n4r9 »

philipallstar wrote: post #239
lostlogin wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apply the same thought process to ‘punishment’. Those who spend a lot of time in prison seem to come out worse and reoffend. How is that helpful?

This sort of thinking always misses that part of the reason for punishment is deterrent of others.

I think most people who commit a crime either do it in the heat of the moment, or believe that they're very unlikely to get caught. The distant prospect of punishment doesn't apply in either case.

I guess there are some edge cases. Drug smugglers for example are probably aware of the rough probability of detection and weigh it up against the length of jail time. But I reckon Sarkozy thought he'd just get away with it and didn't even consider what the potential punishment would be.

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#264

Post by IMTDb »

adev_ wrote: post #195
fransje26 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mostly the former. The current sentence is for the illegal financing of his presidential campaign to the tune of 50 million euro, which is well above the legal cost cap. Although the amounts are benign compared to the amount of bribery seen in the US presidential runs, it is still unfair democratically and should be punished harshly accordingly. Interestingly, this case isn't motivated by financial greed, as in bribe…

> So you could be certain that such a high-profile case was not done without the go-ahead of the executive. In that sense, it can be considered politically motivated. Not really. It is more complex than that. There is two systems within the system for the "penal" (judiciary) in France: - Le parquet, with a "procureur" who indirectly under the influence of the executive power. - The "Juge d'Instruction". They are inde…

It's also worth noting that members of the second system had his picture pinned on a wall called "The wall of the assholes"[1] amongst other political and public servant they did not like. They still claim they are totally independent and impartial when judging any of these figures.

[1] (French Wikipedia article about the affair) https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affaire_du_%C2%AB_Mur_des_cons...

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#265

Post by scotty79 »

greatgib wrote: post #146

Something really scary in France right now is that you can see really clearly how most mainstream media are used for propaganda. Since a few days, there is an abundance of cover and articles in most major newspaper here with propaganda and repeated lies supporting him. It's hard to imagine but non stop. You have everyday interviews of his family saying that it is an injustice, that he did nothing, that the judgement…

Probably russian money is involved in this campaign of discord.

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#266

Post by MangoToupe »

greatgib wrote: post #146

Something really scary in France right now is that you can see really clearly how most mainstream media are used for propaganda. Since a few days, there is an abundance of cover and articles in most major newspaper here with propaganda and repeated lies supporting him. It's hard to imagine but non stop. You have everyday interviews of his family saying that it is an injustice, that he did nothing, that the judgement…

> is that you can see really clearly how most mainstream media are used for propaganda.

Was there ever a time or place where this was not true?

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#267

Post by epolanski »

greatgib wrote: post #146

Something really scary in France right now is that you can see really clearly how most mainstream media are used for propaganda. Since a few days, there is an abundance of cover and articles in most major newspaper here with propaganda and repeated lies supporting him. It's hard to imagine but non stop. You have everyday interviews of his family saying that it is an injustice, that he did nothing, that the judgement…

I think propaganda is only obvious when it involves topics you follow or now intimately.

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#268

Post by Nextgrid »

akudha wrote: post #231
TacticalCoder wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the issue. The issue is that there are hundreds , if not thousands, of french politicians who should be in jail. I don't disagree with him going to jail: but it's one heck of a corrupt country where they all have their hands in the cookie jar. Most french politicians who served at the EU, for example, have friends and family as "employees" on their payroll (well, on the EU citizens' payroll). Same at non-E…

corrupt politicians who think a politician going to jail is a dangerous precedent There is a reason why administrations don't go after obvious, in-your-face crimes committed by previous administrations/politicians. They all hate each other, but they are also terrified that if they prosecute previous administrations (for legitimate crimes), they'll be the target when someone else is in power (even if they themselves d…

> even if they themselves didn't commit any crimes

Does that still even exist? The problem I see in politics is that everyone has their hand in the cookie jar to some degree.

You don't get into politics unless you already have your hand in there, or are given the option to prove yourself where moving up the ranks involves helping someone getting their hand in there, with the unspoken assumption that they'll return the favor. And of course once you're in and have your hand in there, why rock the boat and waste all that effort?

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#269

Post by schmidtleonard »

adriand wrote: post #233
schmidtleonard wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's crazy to me is seeing this happen at an individual level. In 2022, my conservative family members were reluctantly but firmly on board with the idea that Trump did the crimes: lied to the tax man, stole the classified documents, leaned on the Georgia secretary of state to "find me 11780 votes," and on Jan 6 set up fake electors and asked Pence to overturn the election. In each case, they gave a good fight, but…

Man, that's a scary story. The Georgia thing especially is so easy to understand: just listen to the tape!

That, and Mike Pence went on Fox News and said:

> President Trump demanded that I use my authority as vice president presiding over the count of the Electoral College to essentially overturn the election by returning or literally rejecting votes.

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#270

Post by philipallstar »

n4r9 wrote: post #263
philipallstar wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sort of thinking always misses that part of the reason for punishment is deterrent of others.

I think most people who commit a crime either do it in the heat of the moment, or believe that they're very unlikely to get caught. The distant prospect of punishment doesn't apply in either case. I guess there are some edge cases. Drug smugglers for example are probably aware of the rough probability of detection and weigh it up against the length of jail time. But I reckon Sarkozy thought he'd just get away with it…

> But I reckon Sarkozy thought he'd just get away with it and didn't even consider what the potential punishment would be.

It's worth considering then that the next person who has the option to do this might behave differently, given Sarkozy has not got away with it.

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