Biden Losing It

[Fireball]

Are executioners sworn police officers?

[Irreligious Atheist]

-and seeing as how it's a debasement problem...should we further debase those people by officially unpersoning them?  Beyond that, if you contend that poverty is a factor, that would suggest a pretty straightforward solution.  If poverty is a factor, it's not at all like gravity, just how things are, unsolvable.

No, by the time their pyschological mindset is in place (probably early to mid teens), then they are already corrupted.

The solution for the issue of debasement due to poverty and drug use is wealth and reduced drug dependence on drugs.  Children need to grow up in a certain environment if they are going to function properly as adults.

I'm more interested in getting people to that state, so that they don't NEED to vote from prison, than I am about the rights of prisoners to vote.

I'm sorry, but this does sound an awful lot like the abortion argument from conservatives. "I want to give them abstinence training, and if that fails they better not be stupid enough not to use protection, and if everyone learns to just stop being stupid, then no one will need the right to abort." That's just not how life works. Shit happens. People get pregnant.

[Irreligious Atheist]

Sorry, bruh. Nudger hit me with the "das raciss" accusations out of nowhere, so I had to point out his hypocrisy by showing that I actually care more for criminals than he does, as I want the worst of the worst to have voting rights, and he wants an old lady who walked into the Capitol on January 6th to be shot on the spot or shipped to gitmo, once again, showing Nudge only cares about a certain type of criminal.

[The Grand Nudger]

I suppose we'd just have to hope, in this hypothetical world where prisoners have no vote, that a large portion of the other people that would be needed to vote with benny to create such a society where they never ended up in prison to begin with....wait for it....weren't in prison.

[The Grand Nudger]

Sorry, bruh. Nudger hit me with the "das raciss" accusations out of nowhere, 

Uh huh...still waiting to see your cv for comparison, Mr Obviously Unqualified Diversity Hire. 

[bennyboy]

No, by the time their pyschological mindset is in place (probably early to mid teens), then they are already corrupted.

The solution for the issue of debasement due to poverty and drug use is wealth and reduced drug dependence on drugs.  Children need to grow up in a certain environment if they are going to function properly as adults.

I'm more interested in getting people to that state, so that they don't NEED to vote from prison, than I am about the rights of prisoners to vote.

I'm sorry, but this does sound an awful lot like the abortion argument from conservatives. "I want to give them abstinence training, and if that fails they better not be stupid enough not to use protection, and if everyone learns to just stop being stupid, then no one will need the right to abort." That's just not how life works. Shit happens. People get pregnant.

In this case, that's a poor analogy.  I'm talking about day care for single moms, prison release with financial incentives, low-interest loans for entrepreneurship, financial support for couples who get married and stay together, and so on. We spend an ungodly amount of money on criminals.  Better to spend at least some of it on circumstances that minimize criminality than to spend it on prisons, no?

Once someone's (metaphorical) soul has been demeaned by an unpleasant upbringing, things are unlikely to take a turn for the better. There are just enough people who DO drag themselves up by their own bootstraps to let moralists point fingers-- "That guy did it, why couldn't you?"

I think you and I are much more on the same page than you think we are right now.

[The Grand Nudger]

You know, there's a way to spend less money on Those People. Stop throwing so many of Them in jail.

[bennyboy]

I suppose we'd just have to hope, in this hypothetical world where prisoners have no vote, that a large portion of the other people that would be needed to vote with benny to create such a society where they never ended up in prison to begin with....wait for it....weren't in prison.

Two things about that:
1) I'm not convinced prisoners would vote for their best interests.  Americans, especially uneducated poor ones, have a painfully poor track record in that regard.
2) In patting ourselves on the back about how racist we're not (by letting a guy stuck in jail for life vote, say), we forget to actually solve the real problems-- financial poverty, rampant drug use, broken families, etc.

What's the point of giving a guy a choice between two parties who will NOT help his children or their now-single mom?

[bennyboy]

You know, there's a way to spend less money on Those People.  Stop throwing so many of Them in jail.

That's what I'm saying, dude.  A prisoner costs a lot of money-- a damned lot.  How many hours of daycare for single moms, drug treatment programs, school upgrades and so on could you afford if you just released 3-strikes prisoners for things that aren't felonies anymore, like marijuana possession or even small-scale distributing?

Or what if we actually INVESTED tax payer dollars, heavily, in those things today, knowing that 20 years from now, there should be fewer criminals to imprison? For every child who doesn't end up in prison, that's one more adult we don't need to blah blah blah about social contracts and so on.

[The Grand Nudger]

You know who would absolutely be a natural voter for any plan like that? The single mom currently sitting in jail. Or maybe the dad sitting in jail..thinking of his wife, who we turned into a single mom.