Justice, American Style...
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Posted on Apr 23, 2002 06:51 am
dbmasters
Administrator Since: Apr 03, 2002
OK, collapse you asked, so I started a new thread, because, well, it IS a new topic...
In dB World would be easy...two laws, don't hurt anyone and don't steal their stuff...screw all the other crap, drive 55, wear a seat belt, if you are 0.8 your not drunk but if you are 1.0 you are, don't do drugs, bike with traffic walk against it...blah, blah, blah, they are all for the same thing, to keep you from hurting others or yourself...screw those laws, if ya wanna drive at 1.0 blood/alchohol go ahead, but God save you if you hurt someone while doing it, because you are being punished...if you hurt yourself, well, then you are just frickin stupid, and dB's World has no law against being an idiot...
If you kill someone, we kill you, if you hurt or steal you go to jail, I don't mean 30 days on work release, I MEAN JAIL!
The US judicial system always blames something else for people's mistakes, it's time people start to own responsibility for their own actions. No more of this "I was insane at the time" and "My father abused me when I was young" and "I wasn't taught right from wrong"...tough crap...you're going to jail.
ANyway, that is my take on justice in America, I think the system is f***ed up now, nobody gets punished for anything, people get, what, two years for murder anymore if it isn't high-profile, and if you are OJ, well, then you just go free...this is a rediculas judical system, it needs some serious work. The jails are over crowded because people are in Jail for smaking a joint or selling drugs? so frickin what? If they are selling to kids, ya, string 'em ep, if they want to curb the issue, you treat it like booze and regulate and tax it.
Since the catalyst for this whole topic was drugs (from the Layne Staley thread), I do know the pot plant in particular has uses that would really help everyone, but beaurocratic BS is preventing it, it helps everyone from terminally ill patients to saving trees and oil, but no, people need something to blame for all the bad in the world, right now it's drugs, so mankind as a whole has to suffer because that makes us unable to reap the good things that it can bring as well...
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Apr 23, 2002 01:52 pm not bad db.. you libertarian you =P
heres my stance on the justice system.
remove the power from judges and abolish juries (in most cases)
reason being, even though it should be equal and fair, its not. if you are black and you kill a white person, you will go to prison forever and possibly face the death penalty. if your white and kill anyone, you get off in 3-5 years. sentencing should be done from a chart with a list of crimes on one side and a standard sentence on the other. and there will be no appeals process unless there is dna proof that you are innocent.
we need harsher punishments for crime. look at model countries like singapore, if you spit on the sidewalk they cane your ***. if you steal, you lose a hand. its going to get real easy to spot the dumb criminals *grin*
i approve of the 3 strike law but only for certain crimes. if you commit three felonies, you should be locked up for good.
in my opinion, if you commit a misdemeanor, you should just have it marked on your file and fined heavily. they shouldnt bother with the rest of the process.. because its taking up our time, our tax dollars, and our jail space. 2 misdemeanors of the same offense should equal a felony.
i approve of the privatization of controlled substances. people should be able to get their license from the fda to sell drugs (like they do for alcohol and gasoline, etc.) and then the fda should approve the drugs to make sure that they are clean and that some users arent shooting up drano etc. the gov would make a ton of money, the black market would disappear for drugs, neighborhoods would become safer.. its a win-win solution.
these are just some of my ideas for reform.. some view it as radical.. i see it as common sense. ill post more as i think about this topic =)
Apr 23, 2002 02:12 pm " if you are black and you kill a white person, you will go to prison forever and possibly face the death penalty." - Not if you are OJ Simpson...
As a whole I understand, if not agree with most of your arguments, the three strike thing I reluctantly agree with, since I have two from my younger years it scares me, but, yes, it is good...
I like juries better than judges, because at least juries put the fate in a group of people instead of one, possibly jaded, prejudice, argy old person...that's scary...
as far as the rest, I think it goes back to the parents, parents today expect the schools and day cares to raise their children, then, in turn we take away a teachers right to much disiplinary action, which compounds the problem.
Curbing the crime problem starts with the family...
and, good call, I generally do vote libertarian :-)
Apr 23, 2002 02:21 pm yea i just assumed that anyone with money would get off free =P
personally id like to see the wealthy get the same court appointed attornies
and its ok db, i vote libertarian as well. i know my own kind when i see them =)
everyone else, if you are curious on what the lp party supports, check it out www.lp.org/
and take their short political quiz at www.lp.org/quiz/
pretty accurate and at the very least, its interesting
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Apr 24, 2002 03:23 pm Ok, so now we are fullfilling the all thing's to all people spot. This is good. I will comment now on dB's parenting issue.
He can tell you as he has seen the way I am bringing up my son's. I do not hide anything from them, they always have and always will be exposed to the real world (and I ain't talkin the MTV version either).
They have been with me to every facet of this industry and they have met the widest variety of people you can imagine. They have a vocabulary that would make a construction worker blush, but they also know when and in what company they are allowed to use it.
They know what drug's are and they can spot when their older brother or anyone for that matter are stoned, and to what degree. They have seen me liquored up a bit, and most of my fiend's.
They have been shown that there is a line you must not cross, or you will be respnsible for your own fate. Most of their friend's parent's are affriad to let their children hang here. But once they meet my son's and myself, they realize that we are not differant, and my boy'z are just that, boy's. They just happen to have a very open opinion on the world and what happen's around them.
Just to set the record straight, I am very open with my children, but we do have the straight thing's in our live's. We are member's of a Lutheran church, and participate heavily in that community. I am a ScoutMaster and Cubmaster, and both my younger son's are in Scouting.
They have learned not to be judgemental, although I have been guilty of that more often then not. They do not look down upon any type of music, my 9 year old enjoy's classical music as well as TOOL and has even been caught with some of my Jazz collection in his CD player.
I guess anyone of my son's, and there are 4 of them, could end up a serial killer, but I highly doubt it. The younger 2 watch out for the older 2 and keep me posted as to any wierd going's on. So to make a point.
Parent's need to not hide the world from their kid's they need to plunge them head first into it and let them experiance it fully, every bad word, every bad picture, (the 12 year old get's busted watching CinnaMax frequantly) every smell, every taste. Let them be your friend as well as your child. But let them know most of all the differance between right and wrong, don't just tell them it is wrong , TELL THEM WHY.
MSHARCMember
Since: Apr 05, 2002
Apr 24, 2002 03:46 pm Since I was a criminal justice major in college, this is an area that I feel I should jump in the discussion on. First, I do think, believe it or not, that drugs, at least maybe marijuana, should be legalized. As it is, the penalty for it is more a pain in the *** than it is a deterrent. That was supposed to be one of the main arguments for having laws in the first place. Fact is that almost every criminal that you talk to in jail didn't think they would get caught. There is also a saying that basically goes, "if they weren't stupid, we probably wouldn't catch them." It's true, let me tell you. If someone would just do drugs in the privacy of their own home, then the problems wouldn't be that bad. The only problem with legalizing drugs however, is that look at the problem we have with cigarettes. I happen to smoke cigarettes, less thank god, but I still do. But, the wholwe of society ends up paying, literally, for smokers. They tax the hell out of cigarettes, let me tell you. Without tax, a pack of cigs that cost anywhere from $2.50-3.50 a pack sells for under a dollar, that's a lot of tax, yet there is still problems getting health care. The fact is that the more people breed, it seems that the more stupid people we have in the world, and especially the U.S. If the average person could control their substance use like the majority of people do with alcohol, then there wouldn't be as much of a problem, and there are still people driving drunk all the time. Causing accidents and killing innocent people. I think dB hit the nail on the head in a way to talk about teachers not being able to discipline kids and it starts in the house. More to my point, people expect the government to raise their kids! Rather than parents stepping in and doing something, they call the cops. I kid you not that I ahve seen parents call the cops because their ten year old will not listen to them. I don't think the child abuse should be ignored, but parents need to take action. If I had a problem at school, you better be certain that I was gonna get an a$$ whoopin or something far worse when I got home. This same attitude is reflected in a lot of laws and other policies that are made. Society expects that the government should hold their hand, and the fact is its the stupid people, and let me tell you, there are far more than anyone thinks. I know, I have seen them first hand. Most likely, we are reasonably intelligent people and we hang out with reasonably intelligent people as well, but its the stupid people that need laws to govern their every action. Also, while legalizing drugs may reduce the black market, you'll never elminate it simply because if you tax drugs, then the market will still exisit to sell them at a lower price. I forsee that pot will probably become semi-legal in the next ten to 15 years, if nothing else just because it does clog the justice system and the effects are probably no worse than alcohol. As for three strikes, I think that it is a good idea, but gettin rid of juries I think would only serve to fuel the public's paranoia of the government and racial prejudice. While black people may be getting stiffer sentences than white people, I would have to agree that statistics would reflect that as well, it is largely an econmical problem. There are more crimes committed by black people. This would be true if economic situations were reversed. Almsot any time that you have a poorer class of people, the more that groups commits crimes. The term "patty wagon" came from the days when the Irish were the lower class and committed more crimes, hence the name. It is a matter of education, not ebonics, and letting the lower economic class get out of the large disproportion that they are currently in. There seems to be a very large departure from the days of Martin Luther King and a message of equality has turned into a seperation of whites and blacks, and it is almost reverse discrimination. When I worked abroad, I had friends from almost every country, and I can tell you that almost no other country has the racial relation problems that the states has. I lived in Haiti where I was a marshmellow in a sea of hot choclate, adn I never felt as threatened as when I venture into a bad part of town where there is more black than white. I'm not racist, but I can say I felt more welcomed in other countries with a balck majority than I do among my own country. Its hard to explain, but they didn't treat me like I was the enemy just because I was white. Not to say that these countries are perfect, far from it, but it a noticeable difference.
For all the problems that we have though, I think its fair to say that we are one fo the est countries in the world. With all our problems we should never give up trying to make it better, but at the same time I think we should realize that we are a great country adn we are free. And that means a lot.
Marc (da Sharc)
Apr 24, 2002 09:57 pm Very well stated Msharc, I agree with you, except that the black market should sell pot cheaper than the gov't...I don't know for sure, but I am guessing that pot could be produced and packaged for about the same money as cigarettes (maybe a little more because of the sensitivity of the plant itself) therefore selling a pack of 20 joints for, what $4.00 a pack maybe, and last I checked (which, in all fairness was a long time ago) a 20 joint pack of pot would cost MUCH more than that...shipping it illegally would probably be less hazardous so they could drop their prices some, but I doubt that much...
And I liked your crack "if they weren't stupid, we probably wouldn't catch them.", because during the few days I sat in jail as a younger man it really made me laugh because I have never met so many innocent people as I did there, nobody in there did what they were sitting for...it still makes me laugh thinking about...
Back to the legalize or not thing, removing, or severly lessening gang's profitablity with the legalization of drugs would bring many street gangs down to nothing, because that is all many of them have, they keep members due to addiction or intimidation, if they don't have that attachment it will be harder to intimidate because they don't have that carrot to dangle in front of people...know what I mean...I dunno, just my two cents...
Apr 24, 2002 11:41 pm i dont see how a removal of a judges absolute power and the jury would create paranoia... it would all be done from a standard list where they wouldnt have to make a decision, just look down the list, find the crime, read the sentence.
this would remove the prejudice issue from sentencing.
noize, i applaud you for your raising of your children. i fully plan on doing the same as far as things being out in the open. i think itll give them enough freedom to make up their own minds on things and build a stronger bond with trust hehe.
db. right about now is when a quote feature would be nice hehehe =P
Apr 25, 2002 05:29 am Well, about parenting, I don't really think kids need to be hit with the real world and make any decisions based on it until they are old enough to do so. Right now my oldest daughter is three and a half years old and I don't see how exposing her to the fact daddy has done this and done that will help anything, if she asks as she grows, well, that's one thing but all that would happen right now as it would come out her mouth to someone like her preschool teacher that daddy used to smoke pot or something easy really frickin cute like that :-)
