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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

Ekuran Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
#100851: Sep 16th 2015 at 7:33:57 AM

[up][up][up][up]That's great. They became that way through suffering and/or brain damage, ultimately through no fault of their own. That's why the very concept of blame is stupid.

edited 16th Sep '15 7:34:24 AM by Ekuran

LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#100852: Sep 16th 2015 at 7:41:01 AM

Criminals are people. The sooner we get that through people's heads the better.

The idea that they aren't and they deserve to be gunned down in the streets is exactly why we have so many cases of police brutality and so many shootings.

Oh really when?
Karkadinn Karkadinn from New Orleans, Louisiana Since: Jul, 2009
Karkadinn
#100853: Sep 16th 2015 at 7:46:12 AM

By and large, people are products of their circumstances. Even the most terrifying sexual predators are created by environments and genetic factors that they didn't necessarily have any direct control over. While we should strive to protect ourselves and society at large from base predation, self-defense shouldn't be accompanied by rationalizing predators not counting as human beings, because that prevents us from addressing systemic problems in how we deal with human psychology.

And our hindbrains may jump to lurid imagery of back alley rapists and the like when we think of monsters needing to be put down, but based on how society's turning out so far, I'd say the predators we need to fear the most are the ones in Wall Street. The people most likely to directly impact your life with sociopathic behavior are the ones least in danger of suffering any physical repercussions from their actions.

Furthermore, I think Guantanamo must be destroyed.
Aszur A nice butterfly from Pagliacci's Since: Apr, 2014 Relationship Status: Don't hug me; I'm scared
A nice butterfly
#100854: Sep 16th 2015 at 9:01:51 AM

Only a very, very small segment of people, due to severe neurobiological disorders, are truly "irredeemable". I am talking about psycopathy as the neurological disorder.

The vast majority of criminals have motives other than "I felt like it and it is the only way I get my kicks". And if they do have it, I assure you they learned this behavior, or they know no other behavior.

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
JackOLantern1337 Shameful Display from The Most Miserable Province in the Russian Empir Since: Aug, 2014 Relationship Status: 700 wives and 300 concubines
Shameful Display
#100855: Sep 16th 2015 at 9:04:33 AM

In short criminals are people, terrible people as a rule, but people.

Edit: I do find it interesting though that people here are willing to make excuses for criminals and point out their actions are a "product of their environment", but will constantly say how conservatives are worthless pieces of human shit who should be shut off from society, never mind how their beliefs are almost certainly a product of their environment and experience.

edited 16th Sep '15 9:08:26 AM by JackOLantern1337

I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.
Mopman43 Since: Nov, 2013
#100856: Sep 16th 2015 at 9:10:00 AM

[up]Well, no necessarily all that terrible. Certainly, I have lesser amounts of sympathy for child molesters and the like, but a petty burglar? A shoplifter? By and large, you can find many sympathetic motives for what they are doing. Basically, the majority of people wouldn't be committing robberies if they had good living conditions and means of improving their situation.

[up] I have never said anything like these words. At most, I think Trump is a piece of shit. Palin and Bachman as well. But certainly not the rank and file, who can largely be perfectly pleasant people, with utter assholes as political leaders.

edited 16th Sep '15 9:11:24 AM by Mopman43

JackOLantern1337 Shameful Display from The Most Miserable Province in the Russian Empir Since: Aug, 2014 Relationship Status: 700 wives and 300 concubines
Shameful Display
#100857: Sep 16th 2015 at 9:12:16 AM

[up] It's still harming someone else or their property for their own benefit usually, the steal bread to feed your family scenario is a rare one. Usually it's steal a TV to sell it to buy myself a cell phone. Or at least that's my understanding of crime in this country.

Edit: Maybe not in those exact words, though I do have a vague memory of hearing them somewhere, but certainly that's the sentiment that comes across. And certainly the sentiment is "these people are a lost cause we should quite arguing with them." If most conservatives are "good people", and most of the ones I have met have at least some good in them, then they can be shown that at least some of their ways are wrong, especially the racist one's, and "redeemed."

edited 16th Sep '15 9:17:28 AM by JackOLantern1337

I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.
AngelusNox Warder of the damned from The guard of the gates of oblivion Since: Dec, 2014 Relationship Status: Married to the job
Warder of the damned
#100858: Sep 16th 2015 at 9:13:33 AM

Still does little to explain why white collar crimes and people who have every financial and education means to avoid having to resort crime still do that.

There are many people who were pushed into a crime life, but there is also a lot of shitty people who do it simply because they can.

Inter arma enim silent leges
Mopman43 Since: Nov, 2013
#100859: Sep 16th 2015 at 9:15:32 AM

[up] True, but those aren't the sort of criminals a gun would protect you from.

BonsaiForest Since: Jan, 2001
#100860: Sep 16th 2015 at 9:16:38 AM

When it comes to politics, I think there are people who share certain political beliefs for selfish reasons, and those who do so for selfless reasons.

If someone is a conservative because they genuinely believe that it's the best way to help people, I can respect their heart for being in the right place, even though I disagree with their methods. If they're a conservative because they don't give a damn about other people, then I have a problem with that person.

Likewise with liberals. There's more than one kind of liberal. There are the kinds who would happily vote for, say, higher taxes for themselves if they believe the taxes will actually be used to help the poor. There are liberals who see personal gain from liberalism.

One test I think that can say a lot about a well-off person is how they'd respond to this question: "If you knew for a fact that this politician's policies would harm you a little bit but significantly help those who need it the most, would you vote for this politician?"

JackOLantern1337 Shameful Display from The Most Miserable Province in the Russian Empir Since: Aug, 2014 Relationship Status: 700 wives and 300 concubines
Shameful Display
#100861: Sep 16th 2015 at 9:19:53 AM

[up][up][up] You could argue that some of them, like Trump, were influenced by their environment because they were raised by parents who taught them to "be winners" and that others were "beneath them." That is Affluenza, and that is why I'm so weary of the "environmental factors argument." at the end of the day, unless you have certain mental illnesses, we are all responsible for our actions.

I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.
Aszur A nice butterfly from Pagliacci's Since: Apr, 2014 Relationship Status: Don't hug me; I'm scared
A nice butterfly
#100862: Sep 16th 2015 at 9:27:27 AM

The Freudian Excuse (Daddy didn't love me so now I beat up people) is a dumb excuse that has no place. When we call in enviromental factors to help explain behavior, it is not done to excuse the behavior, merely to point out factors that may be influencing them in order to help us change it.

At least from a more academic point of view.

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#100863: Sep 16th 2015 at 9:28:43 AM

This is an argument that doesn't really get us anywhere.

Looked at one way, we are all products of environment and genetics, with constrained free will. Looked at another way, we are all independent actors with moral choice. Both are fundamentally true, but the degree to which they interact is complex.

Modern psychology has done a lot of work on the topic and the pendulum has swung quite a bit over to the "constrained free will" argument. Most of us are creatures of habit going through our days by rote. Those habits are the product of an entire lifetime of learned behaviors, behaviors that are shaped by our genetics. Added to that, we have reserves of willpower that allow us to deviate from our habits. Those reserves are finite.

Modifying learned, habitual behaviors takes an enormous amount of effort, effort that people caught in ordinary, humdrum lives — or worse, lives of drudgery and subsistence — simply cannot afford. More importantly, it is nearly impossible to break out of self-destructive habits from within. It demands some form of external intervention that is consistent and repeated.

For someone who steals for a living, their behavior is every bit as learned as someone who carves wood for a living (or serves lunch or does anything else). Human beings do not comport their day to day lives in accordance with moral judgments. We do what we do because we do it, because we've been doing it. Moral judgments are externalities, and a person struggling to survive can afford little in the way of externalities.

All of this is to say that the guy who steals for a living is every bit as much a human being as the guy who carves wood. He's just got a different set of learned behaviors. Treating him as an animal to be destroyed is applying a moral externality that is simply not a part of day to day life for most humans.


Conservatives are not "bad people" any more than liberals, or criminals, or soldiers, or whatever. They are products of environment and genetics with constrained free will. It so happens that their moral paradigms are based on fear of otherness — this has been demonstrated via clinical studies — and so they are vulnerable to memetic exploitation of that fear. That's what Trump provides.

Some of the greatest evils in human history have been perpetrated by ordinary people whose fears were manipulated by charismatic leaders against particular targets. If Trump leads a pogrom against Latin-American immigrants, history will chalk up another such atrocity.

edited 16th Sep '15 9:53:54 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#100864: Sep 16th 2015 at 9:31:25 AM

Calling the worst of criminals "animals" is a cop out, it's a way to avoid the uncomfortable fact that we as a society have at least some level of responsibility for that person being what they are.

An animal is a product of nature, they simply are that way, nothing you can do about it. A person however, a person is a product of the society around them, yes they are also a product of their own choices and nothing will absolve them of responsibility for the choices they make, but they made those decisions based on an idea set we gave them. They say takes a village to raise a child, if we call the worst of our society animals we pretend that they simply were that way, if w face up the to truth that they are people, then we have to look at ourselves, our society and our beliefs and ask how it is that we as a society managed to produce someone who would do such a horrifying thing. That's pretty difficult to do, even when we manage it on a societal level we often ignore it on a smaller level.

I know some people who've done horrible things, I was once friends with one, me and others had an impact on that person and yet he still did the horrible things that he did. As part of the community that helped raise that person for a part of their life, I have to accept that I was part of a system that lead him to believe what he did was okay, that's a tough realisation to have but it's an important one, because unless I have it I'm never going to try and change the system I'm in today so that it doesn't lead some other person to think that doing that kind of thing is okay.

edited 16th Sep '15 9:33:11 AM by Silasw

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#100865: Sep 16th 2015 at 9:57:51 AM

May I suggest that the discussion on how to improve criminal justice systems in general be spun off to its own thread?

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Skycobra51 A suitable case for treatment from The US of A Since: Nov, 2013 Relationship Status: Only knew I loved her when I let her go
A suitable case for treatment
#100866: Sep 16th 2015 at 10:13:31 AM

I was wondering when someone was going to step in. I suppose issuing a gag rule/order, or thread spin off is probably for the best.

edited 16th Sep '15 10:20:15 AM by Skycobra51

Look upon my privilege ye mighty and despair.
Aszur A nice butterfly from Pagliacci's Since: Apr, 2014 Relationship Status: Don't hug me; I'm scared
A nice butterfly
#100867: Sep 16th 2015 at 10:14:18 AM

Gag orders!? Didn't you pay attention? Penalizing stuff and criminal stuff to the criminal thread!

You criminal

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
BonsaiForest Since: Jan, 2001
#100868: Sep 16th 2015 at 10:39:11 AM

If that spinoff thread gets created, I'd love to see a link to it posted here, since I was finding that discussion very interesting.

Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#100869: Sep 16th 2015 at 11:06:47 AM

We've got a crime thread haven't we? Would that not be an appropriate place to move this?

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#100870: Sep 16th 2015 at 11:11:52 AM

The topic grew organically out of a gun rights conversation, which is also technically supposed to go elsewhere. Despite being important political subjects, I suggest we refocus on other things.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
BonsaiForest Since: Jan, 2001
#100871: Sep 16th 2015 at 11:17:00 AM

Would this be appropriate? Mass Incarceration is the New Welfare. It's not about criminal justice specifically so much as it's about how mass arrests seem to be a way of avoiding having to fix actual problems at their root.

Mass incarceration is not just (or even mainly) a response to crime, but rather a perverse form of social spending that uses state power to address a host of social problems at the back end, from poverty to drug addiction to misbehavior in school. These are problems that voters, taxpayers, and politicians—especially white voters, taxpayers, and politicians—seem unwilling to address in any other way. And even as this spending exacts a toll on those it targets, it confers economic benefits on others, creating employment in white rural areas, an enormous government-sponsored market in prison supplies, and cheap labor for businesses.

Parable Since: Aug, 2009
#100872: Sep 16th 2015 at 11:17:38 AM

Here's another thing: Vice President Biden speaks out against Trump.

Vice President Joe Biden lashed out at Republican front-runner Donald Trump on immigration Tuesday, accusing him of reverting to "xenophobia" to garner support in the 2016 election.

Biden, who is weighing a late entry into the Democratic presidential primary, called Trump's message "sick" and predicted it "will not prevail."

"This will pass — the Trump stuff and that stuff that you're hearing on the other team," Biden said at a Hispanic Heritage Month event at his residence in Washington.

Biden has repeatedly implied he doesn't have the emotional energy to be president after his son's death, but supporters have continued to press the VP enter the race. At events he is often greeted by cries of "Run, Joe, Run!" and "Give it a go, Joe!"

LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#100873: Sep 16th 2015 at 11:18:37 AM

[up][up]It's got a name you know. The Prison Industrial Complex.

Oh really when?
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#100874: Sep 16th 2015 at 11:19:48 AM

Pfft. I'm not excited about Biden's entry. What does he have to offer in terms of a message, a compelling political narrative? Sanders certainly has one. Clinton, less so. Biden seems to offer an honest face and a folksy demeanor. "You can trust old Joe." That works for some people but I doubt he'll be able to create a groundswell of popular enthusiasm with it.

Edit: The prison-industrial complex, also known as the school-to-prison pipeline, is a deep, deep national shame. It must be remembered that its primary motive is to deny minorities economic opportunities and political franchise.

edited 16th Sep '15 11:21:24 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#100875: Sep 16th 2015 at 11:20:48 AM

He's doing really well in the category of Not Being Donald Trump, so there's that.

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.

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