DVSentinel
DP Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2011
- Messages
- 5,647
- Reaction score
- 1,579
- Location
- The Republic of Texas.
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Other
But in practice, it's often not. Most of the people in prison aren't bad people, they're just stupid.
Ah, so you admit that most of them are liberals/socialist!!!
Of course they are stupid, they are criminals. But being stupid doesn't give them any excuse to escape paying for what they have done. And if it was a serious enough crime to rate a felony conviction, then let them lose their right to vote, own guns, etc. They have demonstrated the inability to abide by the common laws of the land and will forever be under suspicion that they may do so again. If they want the right to vote, fine, come up with some measurable means that proves that they will never commit crimes again. Until you can prove that all of them will become law abiding, responsible citizens, then all of them lose certain rights, period.
Of course not. If being locked in a cage and subjected to state-sanctioned rape doesn't deter crime, then taking away voting rights certainly won't.
State-sanctioned rape? Really, there are laws against it, even in prison. Of course any prisoner who is dumb enough to actually try to file charges would probably find him/herself subject to much worse. But, the state does not "sanction" it, they just have no viable way to prevent it.
And why is that a problem? If residents of the state are dissatisfied with their living conditions, it's perfectly legitimate to petition their government to do something about it. That's no different than soldiers voting for candidates who support higher military pay, or unemployed voting for candidates who they think will bring more jobs to their state, or feminists voting for candidates who they think defends women's rights. Everyone has their own issues that they care about, the incarcerated are no different.
Except that the incarcerated are criminals who have committed crimes against other citizens. Incarceration is just one means of punishment, and it is supposed to be that, punishment. If you don't like what happens to you in prison, then don't do something that gets you tossed in there. Prisons should run a lot differently than they are currently. Military prisons have the right of it, discipline, regimented rutines and hard labor. No cable television, no gym stocked like the local health club and they should only be fed a vitamin/protein fortified tasteless gruel.
In fact, prisoners probably have MORE at stake than anyone else, since the government has a much bigger involvement in their lives than in the lives of the average citizen. The states that incarcerate huge numbers of their citizens in grotesque conditions (e.g. California and Texas) would have to answer to a lot of angry voters, as they should.
They wouldn't have anything at stake if they were not criminals. As far as "grotesque conditions", really, get real. Our prisons are too soft and too comfortable with the prisoners having too many "rights", privileges and benefits now. Too many people cosider the rights and "humane treatment" of the prisoner after convition and don't bother to think of what the victims go through or went through. Frankly, we don't employ the death penalty near enough. Commit pre-meditated murder or kill someone in the commision of another felony, take them out back and double-tap a .22 into the back of their heads. Commit forcible rape, same. Sell or give drugs to minors, same. Commit sexual crimes against a minor, same.
The fact that YOU might disagree with how (you assume) they would vote is not a valid reason to deny them the right to vote.
No, I wouldn't deny them based upon how I think they would vote, I would deny them based upon the fact that they are convicted criminals, a group in our society that I have absolutely no love or pity for. Once again, if you don't like losing your right to vote, fine, don't become a criminal. But now that you mentioned it, what the hell, the basis of liberalism/socialism is to steal from the self-reliant productive citizens to give to the lazy non-productive ones, perhaps liberalism/socialism should be a crime also, since their philisophy is just a bunch of nonsense to justify theft. Heck, I would even vote to make it a capital crime, but then I could see where some wouldn't want to go that far.