Category: News and Views
so, where do you stand on net nuetrality? do you care what the FCC is doing? does it influence your life? personal economy?
death penalty. is it cruel? should we just scrap the practice?
laws against the poor and homeless. it is against the law in some cities to give money to, food, or shelter to poor or homeless people. what are you doing in yo community to battle big brother? what can be done? grassroots movement? picket? hunger strike? revolution? anarchy?
I wish they would leave the internet alone.
Death penalty? Hang'em all. So the guy in Oklahoma died a painful death. Big fucking deal! I'm sure his victums died peacefully, right? I think not so I really don't have allot of sympathy for him. I personally think that if we're going to have the death penalty though, it oughta be a bullet to the head, one shot, quick and easy. Hell, why not bring back Old Sparky?
As for laws against helping the poor, I hadn't heard of that. What a crock of shit. I'll give shelter and food to whom ever I choose so long as I'm the one paying my mortgage payment and grocery bills.
Then again, I'm one of those "Tea Party" people everyone is so fond of hating.
Oh, have yall heard the latest? Now the feds want to start imposing tolls on the Interstates. Yeah, that's really gunna stimulate the economy and boost travel.
Hmm, I seem to be feeling pithy tonight.
how many unrelated topics can we cram under one heading? I think this is a
good start to proving how uh, strange things can get.
On the subject of death penalties... Aside from filling our barbaric need for
"equal justice," the death penalty does more harm than good. More money is
spent by the government as death penalty cases make their way back and forth
threw the courts, all this does is create more drama for the media, stress for the
families involved, and someone still has to be the executioner. Granted, they
usually use several, so no one knows who to target later, but still. not to
mention there really isn't a method of execution that doesn't violate cruel and
unusual punishment by most of the worlds standards. while this isn't a huge
deal in it self, the US is one of the few countries that still allows this human
rights violation to take place. honestly, when we can't fix simple things like this,
I don't think we have the right to tell others how to live their lives, in far away
countries.
Lastly, I couldn't put someone to death for the above reasons. I'd feel like a
murderer, no matter the justification provided. Because i'm killing someone to
make up for killing someone else. Its a lot like hitting a kid back as a kid,
because they hit you, if you're the stronger kid. the death penalty is sanctioned
murder by the state. the only thing that separates it from being a criminal act is
the government saying its OK to kill killers.
I don't feel its realistic or logical to honor those moral contradictions. We need
to stop thinking like barbarians, for ethical reasons, as well as financial ones.
Looks like all the hostiles are out tonight.
Hey Domestic Goddess, you said, "Then again, I'm one of those "Tea Party" people everyone is so fond of hating."
Wonder why that is?
Bob
As for the death penalty, I used to be a very strong proponent of it, until I got smart or some would call weak or whatever. Don't care. I don't want to be lumped in, for one thing, with the likes of Saudi Arabia, China, Iran or Russia. If you put one innocent person to death, which is always possible and probably has happened more than once, you've committed murder, not imposed justice. I'd be much more comfortable with life in prison without parole for violent offenders. That way, if they are found innocent eventually, they can be set free. I would not in that case be averse to some form of state compensation for wrongful conviction.
Oh James, thank you, thank you! My thoughts exactly. That's all... :)
I'm all for it. We put other animals to sleep when they kill a human. And, humans are animals too. No?
The problem with the death penalty is not the law itself, but the people that control this law.
It is suppose to be only used in extreme cases, and where the shadow of a doubt is not present.
An example of this would be when someone stands up and tells you he killed several people, can show you were the bodies are, and says he's not finished. Shoot him.
The enternet will most likely be left alone in some countries, but has always been controlled in others from day one, like Cuba.
Because it is so broad we'll never solve this.
Giving food and money to the poor a crime? Where did you get this information?
This is possible in some countries, but I've not heard of such in America?
I agree with James on a lot of this.
Death penalty? I am torn. I support it in principle but think in practice it is horribly mismanaged. The innocence project, which operates using DNA evidence, has demonstrated for us that there are a lot of people innocent of these crimes.
So DomesticGoddess, since you asked and you did say the tea party thing:
a: Evolutionary biology is a reality whether religious people like it or not. DNA analysis is a reality even though some religious people called the Human Genome project an abomination. Where does all this lead?
Here we go, as I said, you asked:
We execute the guilty, yes. And if we dare find out there was a cover-up and framing? Those responsible get executed also. Here is where your tea partier conservatives fall apart. If anything I am rationally consistent. So: condemn those charged with high crimes to death. But don't let us catch you (not you personally) framing, covering something up, or otherwise responsible for the death of an innocent, thereby making a mockery of justice and lying to the victims. For that, I say, the punishment should be swift, terrible and public.
For this opinion I have seen tea partiers turn tail and run. But it is completely fair: you convict and execute an innocent, now you lied to the victim's family for sake of the cover-up, and made a mockery of jurisprudence to boot.
This is one reason why neither conservatives nor liberals would have me.
over 200 innocents have been excited in the US. That's 200 too many IMO.
considering how totally fucked some aspects of our justice system are, I think
the death penalty is too much power, with too little responsibility.
Wayne, cities all over the country are making it against the law to feed the
homeless, because they "don't want that rifraf in their cities." Usually tourist
towns, or towns with a lot of wealthy people.
Interesting. I've not seen that.
Here we had a sweep, but that sweep was made up of places for them to stay, food, and such things.
We even had where they are given apartments, and buildings are built for no, or low income people.
How it's working, the summer will tell, because that is when most enjoy hanging out.
We don't have a law against feeding them, and we have several places anyone can simply go eat, no questions asked.
Yes, the death penalty is to much power in the wrong hands, and many times used for revenge.
I don't think it is a religious thing however Leo. If you go back in history the pagans had the laws not the religious.
One of the commandments is not to kill, and another is judgement is the lords, Vengance is mine saith the lord, I believe that goes,if I have it correctly. Now, what people do is another thing. Smile.
yeah GizmoBear is from Florida. That is a very touristy state so this may be why the laws about feeding the homeless.
We have no such laws in Portland either. The only thing we have to stop is their building camps in some places and starting a fire.
But, I am with those people who say if we are going to tell them to break camp, we need to give them a place where they can land. Otherwise you are just chasing them all over the place.
Ok, obviously I'm in the minority here and I certainly don't claim to be as brainy and analytical as most of you. I'll take these things one at a time.
As a response to the person who asked if I ever stopped to think about why people hate people with beleifs such as mine, no, not really. Here's my deal. I disagree with allot of liberal thinking but I don't hate people who hold those views. I'm just not a hating kind of person. I respect everyone's right to have his or her own beleifs. Just because I disagree with someone, I don't hate or disparage them. I actually have allot of friends who are more liberal minded than I so we just agree to disagree on allot of things and enjoy the things that we do have in common.
Honestly though, I'm more of a libratarian than I am a Tea Partier, I suppose although I lean more on the conservative side when it comes to taxes, money etc, and definitely lean more on the liberal side when it comes to social issues, same sex couples, drugs, etc. I guess what irritates me most is being stereotyped, just as it would irritate anyone who is stereotyped. Oh well, such is life.
As for my thoughts on the death penalty, yes, absolutely the system is completely FUBAR. Here in my community we had a drunk driving teen kill 4 people in a car accident and he was given a stent in Rehab because he has "Afluensa," a so called condition that decreases his ability to feel guilt or remorse because he comes from an affluent family. What a complete and utter crock of shit.
I don't think the death penalty should necessarily be thought of as a detourant to crime because obviously it isn't. It's costly because of all the appeals and people sitting on death row for years and years. What about the innocent? That's a great question and I definitely think that the DP should only be used when there is absolutely no doubt of guilt.
I just don't see the point in allowing people who have committed hanus crimes to live in prison for the rest of their lives supported by tax payers, watching cable TV, getting 3 hots and a cot, while we have so many other people in need, like our wounded warriors.
Don't even get me started on how our returning vets are treated.
Anyway, quite obviously we all have different opinions. It would just be nice if we could have a discussion without resorting to insulting one another. But, this is the zone after all.
Domestic Goddess, I'm the one who ask you about your tea party affiliation, for that snarky response of mine I apologize. My only excuse is that it was 4 a.m. and I hadn't had any coffee yet.
Bob (off to sleep soon)
Been there and done that. Hope ya got some sleep or some good coffee.
I do agree that its annoying prisoners end up costing so much money to
house, etc. Problem is its really hard to do this kind of work objectively when
the incentives reward prosecutors, police government law enforcement, and the
like for meeting quotas. not only that, but considering most prosecutors are
prosecutors because they're on the path to try and become mayor, a judge,
hold a government office, etc... these people have the motivations of fame and
publicity to deal with. We take all that, and combine it with a system that's a lot
easier on the police than the accused, in several ways, and wrongful convictions
are bound to occur, more often than you'd think. then, you look at other
unfortunate crime trends. State and federal prisons are being outsourced to
federal contractors, who naturally put the prisoners to work to return a prophet.
Prisoners do things like manufacturing, call center work and hard labour for
between 25 cents, and 1 dollar and 50 cents an hour. Prisoners that refuse to
work are punished by increased jail terms, or being sent to super max facilities.
This is a major problem for our economy, because companies are choosing to
lay off minimum wage workers, because hiring forced labour is cheeper. Its a
net negative for the economy, but a net positive for all the players.
the drive to create a system where profits are maximized lead to things like
mandatory minimum sentences, the expansion of prosecuting miner crimes with
harsher jail terms, and even believe it or not, judges being bought off to insure
the maximum amount of prisoners are sent to the private camps, for as long as
possible.
the To long, didn't read of my point is this... currently, the justice system isn't
really based around things like innocent until proven guilty, but rather quotas,
federal prisons profiting off a steady stream of slave labor, and laws being
created to institutionalize all this, at the expense of justice. Crime and
punishment shouldn't be about ego. the death penalty as well as everything i've
mentioned above reflects how far from that standard we are.
zoners, thank you for posting. it is healthy to discuss current events in a sane and respectable manner. not preaching, or outlining a code of ethicis..withthis said..how about invest in real damn good legalrepresentation in cases where the possible outcome could be the death penelty as punishment. this way we can be certain of the persons guilt? so, when we put such said criminal to death we wont have to worry ab out innocence..hell how about invest and assure everyone who annot afford representation has acces to it? it might not be to ocostly compared to the amount we already spend on the cirminal system? if we were one hundred percent certain of guilt, would you be then ok with the death penelty?
wayne, here in ft lauderdale it is against the law to panhandle! even to give money to those who panhandle. sad real sad
I just have to say that the claim, "I don't hate (insert such and such group here) but I hate what they do/how they act," is intellectually dishonest, as I see it.
I used to buy into that, like most people do, but that was when I didn't have a mind of my own. now, though, I feel strongly that it's perfectly fine not to like people who have such radical views, or for any other reason that truly causes discomfort to others (such as abuse, someone being deeply religious/disrespectful towards someone who isn't, ETC).
Domestic Goddess,
Your post reminds me of the tattoo discussion I had with the daughter: when you do or
proclaim something that is not the mainstream, you have to accept responses that are not
mainstream as well. None of that is personal. If I tell some religious people that I am an
atheist, I have to realize what their likely responses will be. Religious not only outnumber
us atheists, but have a lot of superstitions about us as well. Again, none of this is
personal.
On the death penalty, I agree about the case you mentioned, this is not a case of
tampered evidence, but sounds like the defense used a Glen Beck style of treating the
affluent as victims.
You are right, the deterrent argument has no merit. Recidivism prevention is a far more
sound argument.
But as I said in my earlier post, any rational supporter of the death penalty will naturally
want to fix the evidence-gathering problems, so we don't execute the innocent and
thereby let the guilty go free.
There may be something worse than the death penalty though, if you really want to punish someone for a vile criminal act like murdering a child or anyone else, for that matter. Prisons should be designed to punish, so simply locking someone away for life without parole, in solitary confinement with nothing whatsoever to do and no possible human companionship, would be fine with me. Maybe if the general populace knows that if they commit a grave enough crime that this is all they have to look forward to for the rest of their lives, this could constitute a deterrent. And scrap parole altogether for violent offenders of any kind. If the abductor of Jaycee Lee Dugard had truly served out his fifty-year sentence for repeatedly raping a woman in 1976, he wouldn’t have gotten out to do what he did, but probably would have died in prison. Frankly, I’m okay with that.
Guess Domestic Goddess, and I are on the same page.
The problem with prison actually punishing, is the same problem we have with the death penalty. “People”
If we had prisons like Mexico, and some other places, where if your family doesn’t support you, you basically get what is required to live and nothing else, maybe folks would think more about the things they do.
I have known young men wanting to actually go to prison, so they could be with their friends, have shelter, and be known as “gangster!”
I knew a young man that got killed in prison with this attitude.
Now, if he/she had to server hard labor, and I mean keeping the streets and highways clean, doing labor that most people wouldn’t want to be paid to do, and having the minimum luxuries, I think sentences could be shortened, and we’d have less people basically begging to get in.
I’m serious, I know buys as I type this that would prefer to be in jail over getting a decent job.
Send somebody away for 2 years of hard life instead of 10 years of cable TV, great meals, gyms that would put your health club to shame, books, GED programs, and you name it, we’d have less crime, or general crime.
We have a tier system for different types of crimes, and that is a good thing, but max crimes should get max punishment.
American spend a ton of money building new prisons to house people caught with a little dope on them. That, to me was a terrible waste of money. The war on drugs hasn’t slowed drug at all, and even the warriors are getting rich on the war.
What makes a crime needs to be adjusted to actual crimes.
prisons for profit is the model prisons are built on. until we change this model there will not be a good enough deterent. it has been provin prisons for profit do not work. we have 25 percent of the worlds population pplus there are currently more blacks in prison than there were during slavery!
net nuetrality. o man, this is one the blind groups should be rallying for. we are going to be fleeced if we do not stop the fcc on this one. they will be able to pull off and censor any content big isp's dont agree with. so they are going to filter out whatever they want. our freedom of speech is in dier jeopardy in a place meant to foster growth and questioning. imagine them comming in here and removing jthis post becasue they did not like it
I refuse to answer the questions of someone who cannot master the simple
art of punctuation. Learn to ask your questions, and I'll come back and answer
your questions.
Not sure what your name is above commentator and don’t care to inquire. I will say, ignorance and petty conpulsions along with trifling knit picking 5 are often excuses of the masses who refuse to engage in matters of great importance. Regardless if the messenger is a fool, drunk, bad speller, or intellectual. They need only find willing ears to plant the seed of change. If only one of you does something to evoke change then I have done my part. “Now more than ever before, the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness and corruption.”
President James Garfield
Ok, you mastered copy and paste, now try looking up how to hit the question
mark and rewrite your first post. And, by the way, I'm a commenter not
commentator. I commented, I didn't tell you what was happening on your local
sports field or tell you which horse was in the lead down at the tracks.
Does anybody remember brainy smurf?
"Papa Smurf, Papa Smurf, there's a fight going on down in the school yard!"
Bob
love the smurfs
do you have anything to say about the subjects? or do you get off by pointing out the obvious?!if it's your thing more power to you. it takes all types to make the world go around. to bad you cant afford some energy into trying to make a change. guess its easier to troll then to enact change?
I never really got into those cartoons. Not really my thing. But to each their
own. I do enjoy reading some of the crazy theories about how they were nazis
and things like that.
And how exactly is commenting on completely disparate subjects that are
barely even strung together with words let alone punctuation or subject matter
enacting change? Were you under the impression that when the bumper stickers
said question everything they meant for you to badly construct hypotheticals on
the zone boards?
Problem is you don't understand what net neutrality is, does, why people are for
it, why people are against it, or the ways that it will actually impact you.
And also that there's a diference between the words To, T O and Too, T O O.