Political Reality in 2019...

[alexava 6,973]

https://www.al.com/news/birmingham/2019/01/2-birmingham-police-officers-and-suspect-shot-outside-downtown-club.html

these guys here were just petty theives till they weren’t. 

[NorthGATiger 1,801]

Just now, alexava said:

The answer to your first sentence is pretty much zero. The rest of your post I’m not following. 

Im tough on crime. I can give some slack on a mistake or two. 

The rest of my post was describing how people choose which laws they think are okay to break and should not result in punishment.  The answer most have on here on how to lower the incarceration in the US is to make drugs legal.  Ask yourself why that is.  Who benefits from making drugs legal?  Our children?  Our society?  Does our country become a better more productive place?  No.  It benefits a society and culture of people who currently break the laws and are incarcerated at a high rate.  Any monetary gain that the government saves from not building more jails or arresting more people would be exponentially compounded with the need to support our lowest denominator.  Hell, let's just go ahead and tax 75% of our income and be done with it so that we can support  a whole generation of people who do drugs legally.    

[NorthGATiger 1,801]

9 minutes ago, alexava said:

https://www.al.com/news/birmingham/2019/01/2-birmingham-police-officers-and-suspect-shot-outside-downtown-club.html

these guys here were just petty theives till they weren’t. 

Yes.  We should not punish these young men.  They will just have their lives altered due to one bad mistake.  They probably can't afford a good attorney and the horrible broken justice system will just ruin their lives.  They were just young and made a bad mistake.

[alexava 6,973]

2 minutes ago, NorthGATiger said:

The rest of my post was describing how people choose which laws they think are okay to break and should not result in punishment.  The answer most have on here on how to lower the incarceration in the US is to make drugs legal.  Ask yourself why that is.  Who benefits from making drugs legal?  Our children?  Our society?  Does our country become a better more productive place?  No.  It benefits a society and culture of people who currently break the laws and are incarcerated at a high rate.  Any monetary gain that the government saves from not building more jails or arresting more people would be exponentially compounded with the need to support our lowest denominator.  Hell, let's just go ahead and tax 75% of our income and be done with it so that we can support  a whole generation of people who do drugs legally.    

Ok I get it and agree. 

[DKW 86 7,419]

This thread just went into the abyss of stupid....

[Proud Tiger 4,261]

5 minutes ago, DKW 86 said:

This thread just went into the abyss of stupid....

It is not alone.

[alexava 6,973]

1 hour ago, DKW 86 said:

This thread just went into the abyss of stupid....

That’s where it started. 

[homersapien 11,371]

18 hours ago, DKW 86 said:

What if the learning process, no matter how mild, includes a near-ruinous trip to jail?

I think he must have been referring to rich white kids.

[homersapien 11,371]

On 1/12/2019 at 10:51 AM, NorthGATiger said:

Thats the spirit.  Lets all drop our standard of living and morals to meet the competence of the 20% of F'd up people in this country.  Drugs are sooooo goood you know.  Now I know why you are arguing with me here.

Dumb post.  Second sentence makes no sense.

Drugs aren't "good" (including alcohol).

I don't even know why I am arguing with you.  It's futile.

[homersapien 11,371]

1 hour ago, alexava said:

That’s where it started. 

You don't find anything concerning about the US incarceration rate?

[alexava 6,973]

When I start seeing people in prison who don’t need to be at an alarming rate. Maybe I’ll be concerned. I see exactly the opposite. I’m going on personal, family and friends experience who have decades in Law Enforcement and both prosecutorial and defense careers. 

[homersapien 11,371]

20 minutes ago, alexava said:

When I start seeing people in prison who don’t need to be at an alarming rate. Maybe I’ll be concerned. I see exactly the opposite. I’m going on personal, family and friends experience who have decades in Law Enforcement and both prosecutorial and defense careers. 

It's not a good idea to base national policy on personal experience which tend to be emotional.  I respectfully suggest you acknowledge your bias and try to look at the big picture as revealed by the statistics.

[alexava 6,973]

22 minutes ago, homersapien said:

It's not a good idea to base national policy on personal experience which tend to be emotional.  I respectfully suggest you acknowledge your bias and try to look at the big picture as revealed by the statistics.

As I have repeatedly asked those on the other side to look deeper into these statistics. They are being pushed without being understood. Or being interpreted the way one wants to see them. 

[DKW 86 7,419]

2 hours ago, alexava said:

When I start seeing people in prison who don’t need to be at an alarming rate. Maybe I’ll be concerned. I see exactly the opposite. I’m going on personal, family and friends experience who have decades in Law Enforcement and both prosecutorial and defense careers. 

[DKW 86 7,419]

3 hours ago, alexava said:

That’s where it started. 

Only when you showed up...

[NorthGATiger 1,801]

12 hours ago, DKW 86 said:

Oooh look!  Its DKW, I Can't comprehend, and Homer.

[DKW 86 7,419]

I had an employee arrested by HPD a while back. He was nowhere near the crime scene at the time and we told the police that. We, at least three professional business people, told the police we knew it was not him because he was on his way to work at the time and he came in early and we knew he did not have time to be involved in any crime.  He and his fiance worked for us and they were the best people around. They arrested him for answering the description anyway. Want to guess the description? YBM. He is why I use that term. He was guilty of nothing but went thru the drama of a bogus arrest because he was guilty of being YBM The description said the kid was in a red hoodie. My employee was not wearing a red hoodie that day. It did not matter, he was YBM< and arrested anyway.

I know what you are saying. I worked in a Rescue Mission as part of my work with my church. I understand that often, you have to commit 3 crimes to get one to stick and get consequences. But there are just as many,  i say more, times when the arrested is guilty of nothing more than being arrested for being black. I am no BLM advocate. I just live in reality.

[johnnyAU 3,630]

4 minutes ago, DKW 86 said:

I had an employee arrested by HPD a while back. He was nowhere near the crime scene at the time and we told the police that. We, at least three professional business people, told the police we knew it was not him because he was on his way to work at the time and he came in early and we knew he did not have time to be involved in any crime.  He and his fiance worked for us and they were the best people around. They arrested him for answering the description anyway. Want to guess the description? YBM. He is why I use that term. He was guilty of nothing but went thru the drama of a bogus arrest because he was guilty of being YBM The description said the kid was in a red hoodie. My employee was not wearing a red hoodie that day. It did not matter, he was YBM< and arrested anyway.

I know what you are saying. I worked in a Rescue Mission as part of my work with my church. I understand that often, you have to commit 3 crimes to get one to stick and get consequences. But there are just as many,  i say more, times when the arrested is guilty of nothing more than being arrested for being black. I am no BLM advocate. I just live in reality.

Reminds me of what recently happened with the shooting of the Jazmine Barnes.  It was dubbed a hate crime and an OWM was arrested because he fit the description and the scene. There was plenty of outrage at the racial injustice, until it was later found that it indeed was a pair of YBM instead.  

[homersapien 11,371]

2 hours ago, johnnyAU said:

Reminds me of what recently happened with the shooting of the Jazmine Barnes.  It was dubbed a hate crime and an OWM was arrested because he fit the description and the scene. There was plenty of outrage at the racial injustice, until it was later found that it indeed was a pair of YBM instead.  

One mistaken incident hardly erases 400 years of racial tradition.

 

 

[Mims44 1,869]

22 hours ago, NorthGATiger said:

The rest of my post was describing how people choose which laws they think are okay to break and should not result in punishment.  The answer most have on here on how to lower the incarceration in the US is to make drugs legal.  Ask yourself why that is.  Who benefits from making drugs legal?  Our children?  Our society?  Does our country become a better more productive place?  No.  It benefits a society and culture of people who currently break the laws and are incarcerated at a high rate.  Any monetary gain that the government saves from not building more jails or arresting more people would be exponentially compounded with the need to support our lowest denominator.  Hell, let's just go ahead and tax 75% of our income and be done with it so that we can support  a whole generation of people who do drugs legally.    

That's an oddly weird way of looking at what should or should not be crimes.

In your viewpoint the only legal actions people should be allowed to do are those that benefit society, productivity, or "the children"?

 

You could take your exact same argument and apply it to alcohol during prohibition, and it would be just as antithetical to reason as when you apply it to marijuana.

[NorthGATiger 1,801]

3 hours ago, Mims44 said:

That's an oddly weird way of looking at what should or should not be crimes.

In your viewpoint the only legal actions people should be allowed to do are those that benefit society, productivity, or "the children"?

 

You could take your exact same argument and apply it to alcohol during prohibition, and it would be just as antithetical to reason as when you apply it to marijuana.

Marijuana is just an example.  What other small crimes are committed that need to be overlooked so that we don't have to "incarcerate" so many people?  If people think the rate is just too high and we need to start "giving youth a second chance" what crimes do you suggest we forgive?

[Mims44 1,869]

56 minutes ago, NorthGATiger said:

Marijuana is just an example.  What other small crimes are committed that need to be overlooked so that we don't have to "incarcerate" so many people?  If people think the rate is just too high and we need to start "giving youth a second chance" what crimes do you suggest we forgive?

The first cut off would be, "Do they harm another person or another persons property"

. If Bill next door smokes weed, smokes tobacco, drinks a beer, puts in a chew. That does not harm me or my property.

I would be against Bill being thrown in prison for any of those things.

[NorthGATiger 1,801]

6 minutes ago, Mims44 said:

The first cut off would be, "Do they harm another person or another persons property"

. If Bill next door smokes weed, smokes tobacco, drinks a beer, puts in a chew. That does not harm me or my property.

I would be against Bill being thrown in prison for any of those things.

So doing illegal drugs should be okay.  Are other illegal drugs okay as well?  Beer and tobacco are not illegal.  What about trying to sell marijuana?  We are back to the marijuana argument because a certain segment of society thinks it is okay to break that law.  Take drugs out of the equation and tell me which laws need to be allowed to be broken so that our prisons are not full of poor innocent youth who just made a bad choice.

[AUDub 11,147]

On 1/13/2019 at 11:00 AM, alexava said:

https://www.al.com/news/birmingham/2019/01/2-birmingham-police-officers-and-suspect-shot-outside-downtown-club.html

these guys here were just petty theives till they weren’t. 

My best friend was very close with this sergeant. Same precinct. Be careful what you use as an example. 

[alexava 6,973]

5 minutes ago, AUDub said:

My best friend was very close with this sergeant. Same precinct. Be careful what you use as an example. 

Nothing but respect for the Sargent from me.