American Politics

Status
Not open for further replies.
Bross said:
Can anyone enlighten me on the logic behind the American prison system.

Since 1980 the population has risen by around 1/3. In the same period, the amount of inmates has risen by 800%. A ridiculous 0.7% of the population is locked up.

Having large portions of the population locked up for years based on repeat crimes they did in their youth growing up in harsh neighborhoods doesnt really seem to serve much purpose. From an outsider perspective there doesnt seem to be any attempts at rehabilitation and reentry into society either.

How do American politicians defend the ridiculous prisoner rates and dysfunctional prison system?
Click to expand...

No politician wants to be perceived as "soft on crime." It may predate 1988, but Dukakis was tarred with such a brush against Bush (Sr). So-legislators vote for ever more draconian laws. It doesn't seem to bother anybody that our incarceration rates are so high.

Moreover, nobody seems to care that incarceration rates have disproportionate effects on minorities, particularly African-American men, which affects their ability to get jobs after release from prison. About a third of young black males are in prison, on parole or on probation.

Politically it isn't an issue because African-Americans overwhelmingly vote Democrat. Consequently Republicans don't care and Democrats take their votes for granted.

You may find the following interesting:

http://www.naacp.org/pages/criminal-justice-fact-sheet
 
@KeninDC

It fascinates me because its so so far away from the Scandinavian system. Strikes me as one of the areas where public opinion shouldnt be allowed to have too much influence, because most people are simply unable to put their need for swift revenge aside and look logically at how much it costs the tax payers to have such a large number of people being nothing but a drain on society.
 
Bross said:
@KeninDC

It fascinates me because its so so far away from the Scandinavian system. Strikes me as one of the areas where public opinion shouldnt be allowed to have too much influence, because most people are simply unable to put their need for swift revenge aside and look logically at how much it costs the tax payers to have such a large number of people being nothing but a drain on society.
Click to expand...

@Bross--Like baseball, apple pie and guns-just another charming aspect of our culture. Here's a link to The Sentencing Project's website. The organization advocates for more sensible policies regarding criminal justice matters.

http://www.sentencingproject.org/template/page.cfm?id=122
 
Bross said:
@KeninDC

It fascinates me because its so so far away from the Scandinavian system. Strikes me as one of the areas where public opinion shouldnt be allowed to have too much influence, because most people are simply unable to put their need for swift revenge aside and look logically at how much it costs the tax payers to have such a large number of people being nothing but a drain on society.
Click to expand...

Of course, but common sense is not what matters in plutocratic US. Everyone in a position of power in the US knows that this is a crappy system, but, as with everything else in the US, enough off them are bought off by corporate interests for it to change.
 
KeninDC said:
No politician wants to be perceived as "soft on crime." It may predate 1988, but Dukakis was tarred with such a brush against Bush (Sr). So-legislators vote for ever more draconian laws. It doesn't seem to bother anybody that our incarceration rates are so high.

Moreover, nobody seems to care that incarceration rates have disproportionate effects on minorities, particularly African-American men, which affects their ability to get jobs after release from prison. About a third of young black males are in prison, on parole or on probation.

Politically it isn't an issue because African-Americans overwhelmingly vote Democrat. Consequently Republicans don't care and Democrats take their votes for granted.

You may find the following interesting:

http://www.naacp.org/pages/criminal-justice-fact-sheet
Click to expand...

Wow, that's really very shocking.
 
KeninDC said:
No politician wants to be perceived as "soft on crime." It may predate 1988, but Dukakis was tarred with such a brush against Bush (Sr). So-legislators vote for ever more draconian laws. It doesn't seem to bother anybody that our incarceration rates are so high.

Moreover, nobody seems to care that incarceration rates have disproportionate effects on minorities, particularly African-American men, which affects their ability to get jobs after release from prison. About a third of young black males are in prison, on parole or on probation.

Politically it isn't an issue because African-Americans overwhelmingly vote Democrat. Consequently Republicans don't care and Democrats take their votes for granted.

You may find the following interesting:

http://www.naacp.org/pages/criminal-justice-fact-sheet
Click to expand...

One of the ironic things about Dukakis is that the first person to try and make use of the issue was Al Gore in the primaries. Al sort of handed the Repubs an issue to use against Dukakis. Of course they might have found out anyways, but Al was first.

Don't forget people with a felony record can't vote. Make of that what you will.
 
This Dennis Prager clown is now on a local Fox radio during the afternoon (had never heard of him before today). He claimed that the left is a bunch of barbarians and they're all educated, which makes them even more barbaric.

So I presume he prefers his audience to remain uneducated? I mean, the last thing these right-wing ass-clowns want is people to think for themselves.
 
Bross said:
Can anyone enlighten me on the logic behind the American prison system.

Since 1980 the population has risen by around 1/3. In the same period, the amount of inmates has risen by 800%. A ridiculous 0.7% of the population is locked up.

Having large portions of the population locked up for years based on repeat crimes they did in their youth growing up in harsh neighborhoods doesnt really seem to serve much purpose. From an outsider perspective there doesnt seem to be any attempts at rehabilitation and reentry into society either.

How do American politicians defend the ridiculous prisoner rates and dysfunctional prison system?
Click to expand...
A common belief is that the abrupt deinstitutionalzation of mental health care really did it. It used to be the mentally ill were institutionalized, that is placed in large mental hospitals. This could be indefinite. A court ruling declared this is equivalent to enprisonment without trial and a violation of constitutional rights.

The patients were set free but the community based mental health care clinics that were supposed to fill in the gap never materialized. That left the ill with no care and the freedom to make trouble for themselves.

Invariably, they end up on the wrong side of the law when left to their own devices. It's a tragic cycle that's gone on too long. You'd be amazed how many prisoners are mentally ill with a lifetime of inadequate care. They end up in and out of jail with increased sentences.

The politicians really stay out of it. From the 1960s to the mid-1990s there was a large uptick in crime. It was a serious social problem that resulted in hard crackdowns: the War on Drugs, minimum sentencing guidelines, more aggressive policing, etc. Despite positive signs that there will be some common sense changes to drug crime law, there is still little sympathy for criminals after what the country went through--right, wrong or indifferent. Add in the fact that endorsements from police associations are big to winning elections and the semi-privitazation on the prison sentence has made for a lobby, this won't change soon.
 
Last edited:
MrMarcello said:
This Dennis Prager clown is now on a local Fox radio during the afternoon (had never heard of him before today). He claimed that the left is a bunch of barbarians and they're all educated, which makes them even more barbaric.

So I presume he prefers his audience to remain uneducated? I mean, the last thing these right-wing ass-clowns want is people to think for themselves.
Click to expand...

in a nutshell.
 
Here's what I never understood about American politics re: Socialism. It's the greatest evil of all time, right? (well you can argue for Fascism or Communism too but I'll stick with socialism for the sake of argument).

So the USA hates Socialism.


If that's the case, why on earth do people love Jesus so much? He was literally the biggest Socialist of all time! He advocated being meek, turning the other cheek and sharing all your love and possessions with all your fellow men! That's about as pure as socialism gets!

Another thing I don't understand is, if the USA really hates socialism so much, why on earth does it use the best Socialist model currently in effect in the world for all its big sports teams - the Draft System? That's the very definition of socialism! Share all the wealth around for everyone so that nobody gets left behind - why so socialist?! The European sports systems are much less socialist than their US counterparts - sink or swim, survival of the fittest and a pure meritocracy where everyone gets exactly where they deserve to be. That sounds far more 'American' than the socialist Draft System to me.
 
The NFL is as socialist as it comes to sports. Yet it is the biggest sport in America.

They hate socialism because it became this scary system that was attached to Democrats by the Republicans. Yet many programs the government employs, from food stamps to grants to financial aid for college to subsidies for various business and industries to parks, is socialist in nature, at least from my limited understanding.
 
This is hilarious and yet another reason one should see through Fox's bullshit rhetoric.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/...hort-and-sweet-takedown-of-Fox-s-Eric-Bolling

---
Folks, if you follow the news, you know that Benghazi has been blowing up again because of a scandalous new memo linking the Obama administration directly to things said by members of the Obama administration. And Fox News's The Five's the Eric Bolling has an ironclad explanation for why they did whatever it is we're accusing them of having done after the Benghazi attack.

5/5/2014:
ERIC BOLLING: There's one more piece to this. Don't forget that this was prior — prior — to Osama bin Laden being taken down, and the thought was, and the discussion was, is President Obama going into the re-election soft on terror or not? A lot of people were saying.... It was after?

DANA PERINO: Yeah, yeah, yeah. A year.

ERIC BOLLING: My bad, I take it back.

DANA PERINO: But a great point if it were true.

(hysterical audience laughter and applause)
Yes. That's undeniable. Yes, a great point and a fantastic new motto: Fox News, Fair & Balanced. A Great Point If It Were True.

Still, I gotta give a wag of my finger to Dana Perino. Why did you correct him? Bolling was pulling a passionate heartfelt conspiracy theory straight out of his ass! You don't interrupt a man in mid-yank, that's rude! (audience laughter) Just say, "Great point." Because Bolling was right, up to a point. Obama not having caught bin Laden at the time of the Benghazi attack would have made him look soft on terror, if time happened in that order. (picture of clock winding backwards)

So Dana, come on, give your colleagues a break. They've been talking about Benghazi non-stop for 20 months. You can't expect them to remember the exact date that it happened. I mean, when was it anyway?

Oh, September 11th. Well, how on Earth are you supposed to never forget that? We'll be right back.
---
 
Sigh...

Out of sheer boredom I went and posted my post up there on a Conservative Tea Party forum and 50% of them have just quoted scripture saying that Jesus approved of personal possessions,while one of them is trying to convince me that the Nazis were Socialist Communists. You couldn't make it up :lol:
 
He supported immigration reform didn't he? That won't sit well with primary voters.

They'll definitely have a stronger field than in 2012 (not that hard though to be honest), but they'll need different ideas and different rhetoric in order to win the general election in any case, and I'm just not sure whether that will fly in the primaries.

Chait had a good piece on him a few months ago. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/02/how-the-gop-sabotaged-marco-rubio.html
 
JohnDoe said:
He supported immigration reform didn't he? That won't sit well with primary voters.

They'll definitely have a stronger field than in 2012 (not that hard though to be honest), but they'll need different ideas and different rhetoric in order to win the general election in any case, and I'm just not sure whether that will fly in the primaries.

Chait had a good piece on him a few months ago. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/02/how-the-gop-sabotaged-marco-rubio.html
Click to expand...
Good read that, I'd been wondering why he'd fallen off the map so much of late. This would seem to be the key line:

Everything Rubio touches has turned to shit.
Click to expand...
 
Raoul said:
I reckon this actually made him more popular. He was less well known before the infamous water incident.
Click to expand...

It definitely made him more of a name outside of Conservatives, but the heat around him seemingly died down after this. I've seen his name thrown about less and less over the last year on Fox or Drudge, possibly because of other candidates like Christie and Paul getting a lot of press. Rubio may well be re-emerging as an electable candidate now, with the extra recognition as a result of the excruciating dry mouth.

They need someone who isn't Bush, Christie or Cruz. Would love to see what Ron Paul would do but I doubt they will tone him down enough. Rubio makes sense.
 
Ron Paul seems to have retired and would probably support his son Rand if he chooses to run. The front runners right now would be Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and Rand Paul, with the former two being electable.
 
Both Pauls are massive twats. Wouldn't want them within a mile of the Oval Office. Ron is a massive conspiracy supporting twat and Rand is a charlatan selling out all around (like his recent meeting with Murdoch after Murdoch roasted him previously), and with some crazy ideas (abolish the IRS?).

Rubio is a token Republican.
 
Red Dreams said:
both Pauls are loony racist twats.

it would be a gift to have Rand Paul win the nomination.

btw as I said Obamacare is working and the Republicans are quiet on it...now its all about Bengahzi.

...joke of a party.
Click to expand...

Its actually being challenged in court again, so they're not going to be too quiet for much longer.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.