Are you serious or is this a bit of tongue in cheek?

Okay so what do you replace politics with? It's all well and good to say "all politicians are after their own agenda" or "politics is a twisted game" but it is quite another thing altogether to suggest something to replace politics. So what's your suggestion or is the point not to think about a better way of doing things but to just blast it all as sucking?

Okay and what are your suggestions?

I have known people who went to prison and that didn't work out so great either. I can offer you any number of examples where people went to prison and were put to death and then, later on, it was discovered that the person was innocent. How well did THAT work out?

Does that include the white collar criminals who, for instance, crash the economy 100 million dollars a year still wasn't enough money?

Well, if you love that sheriff then you would be positively giddy with glee over the conditions in Soviet gulags. Say what you will about the Soviet Union, they knew how to build a prison. Given your two statements on crime and criminals, you would've loved it. A non-trivial portion (up to half by some accounts) of prisoners never even saw a trial, they were arrested, put on a train to Siberia and into the gulag they went. None of that messy mucking about with rights of the accused, trial by jury, evidence, reasonable doubt--the Soviets didn't have any truck with that, no ma'am. If you were going to go to prison, you were going to go to prison and unless you were the child of a Politburo member any trial you got was fair only in the sense that anyone else who *also* wasn't an elite would have much the same fate as you. Once in the gulags the most common causes of death were disease, starvation and being worked, quite literally, to death. That sound about the way you think it should be done.

Put them in tents in Arizona, make them work hard without adequate food, water or sanitation and let nature take its course. Sound about what you're envisioning?

So based upon your love of Mr. Arpaio, I can surmise what kind of state you would like. You do realize, though, that any state that sustains the kind of prison system you describe either isn't a constitutional republic or is in the process of not being one any longer? It is like empire, you can have an empire or you can have a republic but you can't have both. Likewise, you can have an republic or you can have a prison system that Stalin would be proud of but you can't have a gulag system AND remain a republic. The logic here is straightforward. So let's say that we get the kind of prison you and Mr. Arpaio think is appropriate. Let us also say that there are people, yours truly included, who might think that such a legal system was uncomfortably close to the Soviet one and had some strong words for it. Is it beyond imagination that some sheriff might decide to pick up some protestors as they leave? Might it be the case that, since we've thrown out all the legal protections given the accused because they frustrate you, that they lock these people up on trumped-up charges? Might it be possible that others will protest the arrest of these political prisoners? How many times do you think it takes before people get the message "don't speak up about the legal system or else the cops will come get you"?

Starting to sound familiar? I'm not going to pull a Godwin violation and say that what you are describing sounds uncomfortably like Nazism because it doesn't. I AM going to say that what you are describing sounds uncomfortably like the kinds of things that totalitarian states do. Is that what you want, a non-democratic state? Given your statement about politics, perhaps you do. Say what you will about totalitarian states, the politics are fairly straightforward and easy to understand--support the dictates of the Leader or else.

Cheers
Aj

After this long in these communities, do you really need to ask that question, my friend?

Cheers
Aj

How long?
 

I wonder how long it will take for Americans to decide that being a constitutional republic is just too demanding and that perhaps, we should have a less open, less republican form of government and go for something with a lot less emphasis on messy legal niceties like the rights of citizens, avoidance of cruel or unusual punishment, or social cohesion. I ponder this because in the last couple of decades I've seen a lot of anti-republican talk and it appears to be increasing.

Consider that non-trivial numbers of citizens now think that trial by jury, the accused having rights, the police having to follow rules, warrants for searches and prisons that are not concentration camps are undesirable things. Consider that non-trivial numbers of citizens believe that the First Amendment, particularly the parts of freedom of conscience (religion), does not apply to Muslims. Consider that non-trivial numbers of citizens believe that Article VI, Section III of the Constitution which states, in part, "..no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States" does not apply to Muslims and may not apply to atheists either. Consider that non-trivial numbers of citizens believe that torture is acceptable. Lastly, consider that vast numbers, perhaps even majority given the way we dialog about politics, think that they get to have their own facts and that facts and opinions are synonymous (they aren't).

Now, it may be the case that it all adds up to nothing at all but if *I* were either a Muslim or Hispanic I would probably have one eye on the exits at this point. Any one of those items taken in isolation would be disconcerting, all of them taken together and then considered in the light that one major party espouses ALL of the above and it doesn't look good.

Cheers
Aj

laughin.......I know I know.......but in the spirit of community building I thought I would ask...

it does appear she has been drinking :koolaid:

SCOTUS is at it again:

Wal-Mart wins Supreme Court sex-bias ruling

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110620/...almart_lawsuit

It's funny because every few days I see or read some quote or hear someone on the news espousing this or that position and I think "oh, so THAT is what the death of a republic sounds like". The really sad thing is if we lose our republic, we will have done this to ourselves--slowly, surely, incrementally we have inflicted the many wounds our country is suffering on ourselves. As tempting as it might be to blame the Arabs, or the Muslims, or the Japanese, or the Chinese, or Latinos or the French, this is largely a nightmare of our own making.

No Arab convinced Americans that trial by jury, rights of the accused, right to be informed of your rights, right to face your accusers, or the right of habeus corpus was an inconvenience or stupid or a waste of time and taxpayer money. WE did that. In not remembering WHY the cops have to read you your Miranda rights, we decided that it was just another example of our 'coddling' criminals by telling them that they have the right to remain silent in the face of police questioning.

No Muslim convinced Americans that cruel and inhumane punishment is a sign of barbarism and that torture is both cruel and inhumane.

No Japanese convinced Americans that it would be better to slay a thousand innocents, wrongly accused, than to allow a single guilty man walk free instead of what had traditionally been the idea upheld in this country that better a thousand guilty men walk free than that a single innocent man be killed in the name of justice.

No Chinese convinced Americans that our prisons should be places that would be very recognizable to people in the Soviet Union or should put one in mind of a medieval jail.

No Frenchman convinced Americans that things like public education, prisons or any of a number of other pieces of societal infrastructure would be better provided by corporations.

No, the worst things facing our nation, the things that keep me up at night, are almost all self-inflicted.

Cheers
Aj

GoddessJess:

That "guy" in Arizona makes women give birth shackled to a hospital bed. His prisoners have died of the heat exposure, after requesting shade or water or after collapsing and being ignored. He supports racial profiling and his own people were recently caught smuggling drugs and people for Mexican drug cartel. If you care about women, or people at all--You'll educate yourself and rethink your support of Joe Arpaio.

Much more information found by googling phoenix new times sheriff joe (the new times is the local indie paper).

[QUOTE=dreadgeek;362280]It's funny because every few days I see or read some quote or hear someone on the news espousing this or that position and I think "oh, so THAT is what the death of a republic sounds like". The really sad thing is if we lose our republic, we will have done this to ourselves--slowly, surely, incrementally we have inflicted the many wounds our country is suffering on ourselves.

+1 Correct.
Seems like we are acting like romans just before the fall. . Sometimes I see the futility of it all and just say f*** it.

Having a sheriff like Arpaio seems like a fantastic idea--right up to the point where it actually exists. I understand the emotional catharsis of the sentiment "yeah! screw those criminals! They all deserve it, dying of heat exhaustion is too good for 'em!" Yet, that's all it is good for--emotional catharsis. From the moment I heard of Arpaio I knew he would become a folk hero because, as a nation, we are in love with bully figures. All Arpaio is is a bully with a badge and license to use deadly force. I wonder how many people who look at Arpaio as a hero would like to spend time in a Soviet-era gulag. I ask because what Arpaio is doing is constrained ONLY by the Constitution--imagine, if you will, what this man would do if there weren't that messy, messy, document standing in the way of 'good ol' fashioned brutality'.

I think that these types of characters are appealing if one cannot imagine oneself being on the business end of their nightstick. As a black woman I *can* imagine what would happen to me in Arpaio's district. One of his deputies might decide that I don't 'look' American enough and haul me in. I might be locked up and, if some Americans had their way, that would be all she wrote for me. No trial, if the cops pulled me over then I must've done *something*. No chance to defend myself--that's just a waste of time and money. No evidence need be presented--the cop said I did X so I must have done it. And if it turns out that they got the wrong woman but I've already died while wearing one of Arpaio's pink jumpsuits well, people are just so many eggs that one might have to break in order to make omelets.

Utopians--whether they are of the left or the right--create truly terrifying scenarios whether they realize it or not. The people who admire Arpaio and wish that our criminal justice system were informed by his methods are utopians.

Cheers
Aj

[quote=popcorninthesofa;362291]I understand the sentiment. What pulls me back is I take a look at my granddaughter and realize that she deserves better than a nation that decided that of all the possible models of criminal justice to use, a Soviet-style gulag would be best. My little princess deserves much, much better than that.

Cheers
Aj

Can we just declare ourselves a corporate theocracy and get it over with? Please? The suspense is killing me!

Cheers
Aj

Now, here is a blog that represents the worst of the worst in the homophobic poliotical realm- And this article is centered on the B-F dynamic specifically!

http://baptistsforbrown2008.wordpres...mme-sodomites/

At first I was laughing at the shear stupidity of this and then my stomach started turning and the laughing stopped. :annoyed:

Andrea

Oh dear. I have no words.

Awful, isn't it.

I was tempted to put this in the :| thread cuz it made me go... :blink:

Exactly what is an American? I mean, I'm contemplating making the USA my new adoptive home but if I become an American and don't count, why would I?

They misquoted their own Bible, poor ignorant Baptists. How convenient that they left out liars and slanderers. How come liars can get married in a church, and queers can't? I don't get it.