[oppose_obama]

Lol you people are insane. The US criminal system is working as intended. It takes undesirables out of society and puts them in a cage. If you don't like it, tough. Nothing is changing and god bless our jails. Keeps the other 300 million safe.

[Malatant of Shadow]

Lol you people are insane. The US criminal system is working as intended.

Yeah. That's why they call this country the Land of the Free, isn't it? It's an ironic title, sort of like calling the Taliban a society of free thinkers, or Donald Trump a man of the people. It's black humor in view of the U.S. having more people in the gulags than the Soviet Union ever did.

If the system is "working as intended," then the intentions are those of despots and tyrants.

[michael3]

No State=No Prisons full of Prisoners.

No Illegal Drugs=No drug offenses....responsibility back on the individual person.

No Capitalism=no trade that rewards and enriches psychotic elements.

Community based justice=quick and merciful on-the-spot policing and judgement of antisocial behavior.

[Dave]

I like how liberal lunacy (acting like imprisoning criminals is a problem) flows so effortlessly into anarchist lunacy.

[Ombrageux]

Why is this apparently such a uniquely American problem, Dave? (And before, "minorities," well European countries have lots of minorities and still have one seventh the incarceration rate..)

[Malatant of Shadow]

I like how liberal lunacy (acting like imprisoning criminals is a problem) flows so effortlessly into anarchist lunacy.

The point is not that imprisoning criminals is a problem. The point is that imprisoning SO MANY criminals is a problem.

Drinking water isn't a problem, either. Drowning is, though.

[michael3]

I like how liberal lunacy (acting like imprisoning criminals is a problem) flows so effortlessly into anarchist lunacy.

Is it 'lunacy' to expect better of a Society than imprisonment of two million souls to so little productive effort, when if justice were returned to the local communities (as in the era before the modern 'police') these people would have better things to do with their time?

Imprisoning people is inhumane and a waste of manpower and resources, when justice by jury in a local community can be done quickly and effeciently. And in a better society of no private property but sufficient personal goods for all, why steal, etc?

It is not lunacy to want and work for a better world, but rather it is lunacy by definition to continue the same failed policies decade after decade, century after century, expecting different results.

[oppose_obama]

It's a ridiculous argument that because 6 million CRIMINALS are in jail, the other 310 million LAW-ABIDING citizens aren't free. They are certainly free from the criminal activity of those incarcerated, that's for sure. You know it's really easy not to goto jail, don't do illegal shit. WOW. Then it's don't get caught doing illegal shit. Then it's if you do get caught, you have to be proven guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt. Even then many first time offenders get probation. So let me play the worlds smallest violin for those behind bars. A tragedy, truly.

The fact is those people locked up are not productive members of society. Furthermore, they pray on and disrupt the lives of productive members of society.

[Jihsan]

The fact is those people locked up are not productive members of society. Furthermore, they pray on and disrupt the lives of productive members of society.

Another words you want them to be a slave of society and culture... just like yourself?

Humans are not better than ants?

"Slave rebellion is widespread in ants" ( http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 092910.htm )

I'm sorry but I'm not entirely happy with the justifications posted on this thread. These people are human beings and don't just get up one morning and decide to commit a crime. It takes years in the making... society and culture as a whole are responsible.

[michael3]

It's a ridiculous argument that because 6 million CRIMINALS are in jail, the other 310 million LAW-ABIDING citizens aren't free. They are certainly free from the criminal activity of those incarcerated, that's for sure. You know it's really easy not to goto jail, don't do illegal shit. WOW. Then it's don't get caught doing illegal shit. Then it's if you do get caught, you have to be proven guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt. Even then many first time offenders get probation. So let me play the worlds smallest violin for those behind bars. A tragedy, truly.

The fact is those people locked up are not productive members of society. Furthermore, they pray on and disrupt the lives of productive members of society.

So does your definition of 'immoral' only extend to that which is 'illegal'? If people want to abuse themselves by ingesting harmful substances into their bodies, why criminalize what is in essence a medical/psychological problem? Is it because rather that many criminals make a parasitic life off of the drug trade, and the State cannot abide any competition on that level? Hard to tax a black-market economy, isn't it?

And with prisons, the State forces you and me to maintain these people and further subsidize their useless lives in enforced idleness, when community-run justice would have near-instant rehabilitation or removal of antisocial elements from society. Warehousing and storage isn't much in the way of punishment or rehabilitation, is it?

Now the State goes after people you don't care about. But as the State grows, it will begin going after those you do, or even yourself. And you'll never figure out how it happened with the Statist blinders you're wearing.

[oppose_obama]

Ugh entire post got deleted. Let me go at this again.

@mike- I make no statement about if drug laws are moral or not, I could careless what people put into their bodies. However, right now it's illegal. So I won't cry if you do something illegal, get caught and get sent to prison. Responsibility right, you knew what you are doing could get you sent to prison. So don't get caught. I'm in law school in dc dude, I will be the state one day and so will my classmates ;) some who even smoke weed lol. I understand your point of the failure of prohibition, but it is the law of the land. You break it you run the risk of going to jail. I got my own problems to deal with, don't have time to try to legalize drugs so other people can use them.

@jihsan- the prisoners are not slaves to our culture society. They couldn't follow the rules, so we seperate them from our society. Now they get their own society in prison.

[michael3]

Ugh entire post got deleted. Let me go at this again.

@mike- I make no statement about if drug laws are moral or not, I could careless what people put into their bodies. However, right now it's illegal. So I won't cry if you do something illegal, get caught and get sent to prison. Responsibility right, you knew what you are doing could get you sent to prison. So don't get caught. I'm in law school in dc dude, I will be the state one day and so will my classmates some who even smoke weed lol. I understand your point of the failure of prohibition, but it is the law of the land. You break it you run the risk of going to jail. I got my own problems to deal with, don't have time to try to legalize drugs so other people can use them.

@jihsan- the prisoners are not slaves to our culture society. They couldn't follow the rules, so we seperate them from our society. Now they get their own society in prison.

So it seems that despite whether or not you as a person are decent or not, once again reality shows that behind all the mummery and loghorrea Statists use to justify the State, it always come down to mere Custom and Force, which apparently need no justification...

[oppose_obama]

What does the law care if you are a decent person or not? I've never said the government is not based on force. Try not paying your taxes. The law cares if you violated it or not, not if your made of sunshine and sugar.

[michael3]

What does the law care if you are a decent person or not? I've never said the government is not based on force. Try not paying your taxes. The law cares if you violated it or not, not if your made of sunshine and sugar.

Well, as you were talking about not caring about people in prison, and you assume that you'll never have a turn of fortune and wind up there, I thought we were talking about morality, the two of us. But since we are only talking about Force and not Right, that's a whole different calculus, I agree.

But in a way we're still talking about morality-to you, is the State 'Evil' by any objective humanistic or spiritual standard? This goes back to the utility of the Prison system, I hope you understand.

[joeylyrics]

There is a plus to all these inmates...
I say let them start doing all the jobs that the mexicans came sneaking on over here to do that not even a hungry and homeless American would even think twice about doing themselves.
Maybe they just might make a run back to their own border to work for more than what our inmates would be getting paid to do it for.
Better yet... we'd stop them at the border to help us build the Great Wall of America before finally giving them the boot.
Problem solved.

[oppose_obama]

I do not plan on going to prison. I plan on either sending alot of people to prison or defending a lot of people from going to prison. If I somehow ended up going to prison I'd know I was fucked. Similiar to getting diagnosed with terminal cancer.

I believe a state is founded and based on force and violence. Is that evil? Depends. When I have to pay my taxes I'm not happy, when the state subsidizes my loans and the rule of law is my business, it's good.

The utility of prison, from my point of view, is to keep undesirables out of society.

[michael3]

I do not plan on going to prison. I plan on either sending alot of people to prison or defending a lot of people from going to prison. If I somehow ended up going to prison I'd know I was fucked. Similiar to getting diagnosed with terminal cancer.

I believe a state is founded and based on force and violence. Is that evil? Depends. When I have to pay my taxes I'm not happy, when the state subsidizes my loans and the rule of law is my business, it's good.

The utility of prison, from my point of view, is to keep undesirables out of society.

Nobody plans on going to prison.....

I agree that the State is founded and based on force and violence. If it has any utility at all in the scheme of things, it is to restrain the greed of all within it's grasp, in order that all may satisfy some of their urges. Without the State, most persons would likely exterminate each other within a matter of days, if not hours.

But overall, it is evil, and that's from a societal viewpoint, the good of all versus tyrants and parasites of fortune who render power 'just', because they've failed to make the just powerful.

I would say that Prison has the utility to the State (not Society) of removing those undesirables who don't quite fit the heirarchical order, or who form an alternate State; legal bandits versus illegal ones, who defy the State's monopoly on force and violence.

[Malatant of Shadow]

The utility of prison, from my point of view, is to keep undesirables out of society.

When such a large percentage of the population is defined as "undesirable," that's a problem.

Of course, if you're planning to go into criminal law, that means you have a vested interest in making sure as many things are illegal as possible. That may explain your attitude.

[oppose_obama]

I disagree with your assertion that it is a high percentage. I didn't make the laws. Weed is illegal in certain jurisdictions. If you get caught you run the risk of going to jail. That's a personal choice one makes.

[EastCoastAmerican]

A huge number of US prisoners are in their solely for drug use, even for stuff as light as marijuana. It's particularly bad in the Southern States, where marijuana possession can land you 10-20 years in prison (far greater time than you'd get for stealing a car).

We've got college kids who were law-abiding citizens languishing in prisons solely for drug use.

There's also the for-profit prison system, which has its fair share of controversies. The juvenile private prison system was infamous in the news for "Cash for kids" scandals, where they'd pay judges to impose a guilty sentence on teenagers regardless of evidence or other circumstances.

The US prison system is in desperate need of reform. Too many innocent people and non-violent offenders get disproportionate and unreasonably long sentences.