That's not what I said. I said that there's no reason to isolate people unless they harm society in such a way that they NEED to be isolated...and the "inspiring fear in people on the street" test is usually a good (although not perfect) measure of this.
By saying what you have said above, you are actually acknowledging that it is a
terrible measure. Not good, and certainly not perfect, but terrible.
So why have you arbitrarily decided to mislabel it as a good measure despite the fact that your own words belie it's flaws and failures as a measure?
A highly intelligent response.
You argued that any sentence other than prison meant that he was "getting away with it."
Instead of making up lies and putting them in my mouth, please use the words I actually used.
The same reasoning could be applied to ANY crime and calls for the harshest punishment possible.
False. Nothing about harshness was involved. As I have said, you have abandoned logic in lieu of emotional drivel.
Why do alternate sentences mean that he's "getting away with it"?
Because he will employ his connections to escape punishment, as has been done multiple times in the past with situations such as this.
The entire US criminal justice system is filled with human rights violations.
You seem to be having a major problem understanding the simple, very easy to understand fact of "Just because you can say something is a human rights violation, does not mean it is
actually a human rights violation.
To explain:
Let's start with the government-sanctioned sexual slavery.
this is simply you calling something a human rights violation. It is not supported by
anything intelligent. It is simply your
claim, which you falsely portray as a fact. You ar enot so special that your opinions become hard facts simply by the power of your wishing.
Then there's the physical isolation from friends and family, of individuals who don't need to be locked up for anyone else's protection.
Again, this is a statement, not an argument. You are not so special that your opinions are hard facts.
And then there's the overall incarceration rate itself, which is by far the highest in the world.
Do you see the trend now? Nothing you have said was anything but a statement of your
opinion as though it is fact. You've
proven my point about your abandonment of all logic and reason in favor of pure emotional drivel with this scree. you don't provide a logical argument in any way shape or form. You simply make an emotionally charged claim without a single shred of logical support and expect it to be taken seriously, which it certainly does not deserve due to the lack of any effort on your part to make a case for your opinion.
The US is worse in this regard than China or Iran.
What does this nonense even mean? Seroiusly? Worse is such a subjective term that I can say
anything prior to the sentence and it works.
For example: The US is worse for allowing people to vote in democratic elections than both China and Iran as well.
The US is worse for treating women as equals than china and Iran.
The only thing that matters in these statements is my
subjective view of what worse means in these cases. Not only have you arrogantly assumed that your opinions are facts, but youve' arrogantly implied that they are universal with this nonsensical "support" of your positions.
Not to mention the fact that the statement is, in and of itself, a
massive logical fallacy. Just because the US is "worse" (whatever
that means) than China and Iran on those issues (in your opinion) does not support the argument that they are Human rights violations.
Like I said, your entire argument is devoid of
any logic. Just because you will "yawn" in response to that fact being pointed out to you doesn't mean it is not accurate.
Who says that they'll be able to continue that behavior in the absence of isolation? House arrest and ankle bracelets can track where he goes. Restrictions on his finances and employment can track his money. And he already lost his governorship, which means that the potential to abuse the public trust has been reduced.
The issue comes from who is doing the tracking. His political connections make this approach one that has too much potential for failure. Such an approach would be more appropriate in different circumstances.
If the judge tells him to show up at Place X at Time Y, there isn't much room for that sort of thing.
Ah, I take it that you are entirely ignorant of how community service works, then.
And in any case community service is only one of many options available, including the ones I have already mentioned.
But all of the options you have listed have the same problems.
He was convicted of federal crimes, so his location doesn't really matter because he isn't going through the Illinois justice system anyway.
As a governor, it is reasonable to assume that his connections extend beyond Illinois, though.
What makes you think the government is so great at administering prisons and nothing else? What is the distinction?
I
don't think it is any better at administering prisons. I simply think that prison adds a layer of isolation which is necessary in this case that cannot be achieved otherwise.
House arrest and ankle bracelets have been used for years.
And they work in a great many cases. You seem to be dead set on extrapolating the specific argument I am making into a general argument about sentencing, which is another type of logical fallacy. while your argument may be so simplistic as a one-size-fits all argument, mine is not.
You can remove his ability to commit these types of crimes without the cage.
Thus far, nothing has been presented which indicates that statement is anything more than an unfounded opinion of yours with regard to this case.
OK, let's assume he wants to go right back to corruption, which is certainly a possibility: What does a man with no money, no political power, with a toxic reputation in his state, and who is confined to his house under constant supervision have to offer a potential crooked business partner?
Connections. Most of what makes a criminal of this type effective is his network of associates, both legitimate and illegitimate.
And your assumption that he has
no political power is not entirely accurate. Political power is not simply a product of an office, it is a product of the ability to
persuade those in office. He still has political power.
By isolating him, you add an extra layer of protection between him and his associates.
Note that I didn't say anything about the length of his sentence, just the nature of it.
The nature dictates the length of potential efficacy. After time, those who monitor him will become lax. It's human nature. A span of over 2 years of true diligence would be unlikely, even assuming that corruption was
not a factor.
Visit a prison some time, even if it's just for a couple hours. The conditions in there are barbaric.
Before you make such assumptions in the future, perhaps you should be aware that I have, myself, spent some time incarcerated in the past (If you don't have bail, you have to sit in jail until your court date even if you are innocent).
Cook county jail is actually
far worse than most minimum/medium security federal prisons.
Now that we have
that out of the way, where do you get the impression that your
opinion about incarceration being a human rights violation trumps my first-hand experiences with incarceration, when I was innocent no less, which leads me to the conclusion that your opinion is a false one?
We're both operating from an opinion here, but at least mine has the benefit of being driven by logic and experience rather than emotion.
What argument can you
actually present which trumps my experiences?
This goes back to my point about summarily executing traffic offenders, which you dismissed as "emotional drivel."
Aside from the fact that this emotional drivel, when used before, ignored my actual argument in order to create a false general argument, the part I have bolded here is a major factor in it's status as emotional drivel. It presents the false premise that all actions that are a violation of the law have an equal status as being detrimental to society as a whole AND that all actions which are detrimental to society as a whole are equally detrimental.
Presumably most of the people in prison WILL be released at some point, unless you favor executions and/or life sentences for a much wider range of crimes than such sentences are currently permissible. So it's better to prepare for that eventuality.
Yes. If you were being honest before, you would have acknowledged how
that argument is a potential fix for the detriment to society presented by recidivism for serious crimes.
But, as I said, such an argument would be like your own in the sense that it is devoid of any actual logic and is focused entirely on emotion.
Prison reform IS sentencing reform. Spending a few years in a work camp is a fundamentally different type of punishment than spending a few years in a sodomy cage.
False. Using more emotional nonsense (bolded so that you can actually see it) to support a false claim does nothing to make the claim less false.
The sentence of 3 years in
prison is a sentence of 3 years in
prison, regardless of the design of the
prison where said sentence is carried out.
Sentencing reform would be about changing potential sentences for certain crimes that used to carry prison terms to things like house arrest or community service.
While sentencing reform
is something that I agree should occur, evidence related to recidivism and prison sentences is
not the driving force for a logical argument supporting such reform. The evidence which supports such reform is actually related to the threat to society posed by certain crimes and an understanding of the particular individual who has committed said crime's overall threat to society at large and how to prevent them form posing a threat to society.
