I welcome more Republicans being elected in 2022. However, what do we expect the outcomes to be? Will they protect us from lockdowns if another virus sweeps through the world? Will they protect us from mask and vaccine mandates? Will they remove CRT and grooming from our schools? Will they punish woke corporations for pushing Marxism on our society? Will they set up an ordered situation on the border? Will they put plans together to make our schools and public spaces more secure without taking away guns or enacting red flag laws? Will they stop printing trillions of dollars every year in stimulus? Will CUT federal and state spending? Will they cut taxes? Will they end US involvement in wars around the world? Will they seek truly free trade? Will they reform police departments to bring more accountability to bad actors? Will reform the legal system so that non-violent offenders don't have to spend time in jail? I know several of these things some Republican voters aren't interested in, but I think these are the issues that are the most important for the working and middle classes.
i rail on DJT frequently but there are a couple of things I hope the GOP takes away from his tenure. our recent GOP leadership has tucked tail and ran in the past when MSM tried to cast them as racist/sexist/xxxx-ist. I think DJT had several good accomplishments but the two that I think stand above all else are (1) Remain in Mexico as a border policy. It finally threaded the needle between allowing legit asylum cases and not allowing "anchorization" just because the illegal immigrants made it physically across the border (2) standing up to MSM. Hard to sometimes tell if the old GOP caved because they didn't really believe in conservatism or whether they were afraid of being cast as the "evil white men" but at least we can see now that standing up forcefully to MSM crap is not the party killer it was believed to be in the past.
Not only is standing up to the MSM not a party killer, if you do it the way DeSantis has managed several times, it becomes a huge rallying point for your supporters. Trump showed the blueprint (actually Limbaugh did, but he was never in politics), but Trump is famously inelegant, and often downright crass, which only gives the opposition their own fodder to fire back with. DeSantis is just as pugilistic, but he also makes less of a target of himself for returning fire.
They are stuck in the past. They were and are believers in establishment politics. They believe the media has real political power, and for a long time, it did. If the media framed you as a big racist, it stuck, and there was little you could do to shake it. That's why they tucked their tails and ran. However, for the last 10 - 20 years, the media has decided that maintaining its partisan agenda is more important than keeping its credibility, and people have figured that out. As a result, the media demonizing a Republican is no longer a career-killer. People expect it and view them as the partisan actors that they are.
why shouldn't non violent offenders spend time locked up? If some ahole breaks into my garage and steals tools or steals the contents of my vehicle or writes hot checks to a business or passes counterfeit currency, why not lock the pos up for a decade? He/she committed ten crimes for every one that resulted in arrest. It would save money to leave them in stir. Same for drug dealers. This bias in favor of non violent offenders is misguided. After the second arrest rehab is a waste of time---they already know what they are doing is wrong or self destructive.
Yep...even in the mid-80's, I had inmates who would tell me they didn't do what GOT them to prison, but there were plenty of other offenses for which they deserved time. And the drug-addled will readily admit that programming does not work until the individual has made the decision that they are sick and tired of being sick and tired. This was one of the reasons that State Jail failed so miserably beyond the underfunded mandate on programming...the felons did not WANT treatment and would OFTEN ask the court to forego the probation with the treatment tail and just give them their 180 days or whatever other term up to the two-year cap...that way they knew when they could go out and get their next fix.
I think a lot of people confuse "non-violent" with "drug" or otherwise "victimless" criminals. They don't realize that you can be "non-violent" and still hurt people badly.
I'm with you here. Crimes against person and property should be punishable by jailing. All the way. This is where I am not on board. Drugs are immoral and damaging. But I believe in natural rights: life, liberty, property. Individuals have the right to ruin their lives with drugs. I don't suggest drug use. I wouldn't accept in my family or church. But I would rather deal with drug abuse with the family and churches. The government shouldn't have a say in it. Not everything that is wrong should have force/violence applied to it. I would say divorce, sexual impurity before marriage, adultery, dead beat dads are all bigger problems than drug abuse in society. We don't apply jail to adulterers and sexual immorality. I would consider jailing dads who don't support their children. But even then in jail the father isn't supporting the children or spending time with them. We as a society should reconsider what crimes we apply violence to (I include jail in that) and what crimes we handle with non-government organizations.
Okay. But to be logically consistent you would have to treat casinos and gambling the same way. Lives are ruined due to gambling addictions similarly to drug addictions. Or you could separate out crimes from vices. Crimes involve the violation of natural rights. Vice involve an individual carrying out their natural rights in a bad way. One should be punished with violence/jail. The other is a punishment in itself. The goal should be to redirect that person's habits. If they persistently refuse help they can die in a gutter like they still do today in many cases.
I'm not lumping these together or saying what's consistent or not. I'm just saying that I think there's significant public support to go lighter on drug offenders and people who commit victimless crimes, and I think many people get confused when they hear the term "nonviolent offender." I think many of them immediately think we're talking about the guy caught with a little weed at the Willie Nelson concert and don't realize that we're also talking about people who defraud and steal (pretty bad apples whose crimes definitely aren't "victimless").
Those are the same people that think our prisons are filled with people who just got caught with a little pot at a concert. Third-degree felony weight in Texas does not even start until you get caught with at least five POUNDS of the stuff...and I can assure you, THAT is not a weight consistent with personal consumption at a concert. DWI is another one that doesn't get you to prison the first time...or the second time...or even often the third time. The felony rodeo starts up with the third one under normal circumstances, but judges lean towards probation even on the third and fourth DWI convictions. Things change when someone gets hurt or killed as a result of the drunk driving, but those are also not charged as a DWI. Further, those drug offenders are often the same ones who go on committing property crimes to fund their drug habits. And I can assure you that, coming out to find your catalytic converter has been stolen or your car is on blocks or your dash has a big gaping hole in it to go with the smashed window will leave you very much feeling like a victim. One truism that I have seen through the years, perhaps even more accurate than the reality that most attorneys and judges have no clue what prison is really all about or how the Board of Pardons and Paroles makes decisions on who to release, is that the masses and the mainstream media have no clue about the offenses which will actually send someone to PRISON. The left puts on one hell of a rose-colored glasses act about how so many innocent people are in prison who should not be there...and the masses are too stupid to know differently so they lap it up, which gets you Commifornia or Chicago or New York or even Harris or Travis County.
Looks like David McCormick has conceded to Dr. Oz in the Pennsylvania Senate race. I don't think either one of these guys was particularly impressive.
Okay. Well I'm not talking about people I don't think are as intelligent as me. I am talking the concepts we should use to distinguish between those who violate natural rights and those who don't. I'm an engineer. According to my training in problem solving it should be simple to write laws to make those distinctions clearly. But I find lawyers don't think in ways that solve problems. Just my experience, literally multiple days this week.
I guess I don't care? Are sellers more guilty than consumers? If the transaction involves an adult choosing to buy a product I don't think locking them in cages is the answer. Is it moral? No. Is it productive? No. We should do what we can to decrease in drug abuse. It is destructive. But applying violence to the issue doesn't help. We have empirical data that proves my point. Reducing vice in our society is the realm of families and churches. Progressive ideology does not agree. Progressives think the State is God on Earth and should be employed to solve all cultural problems.
DWI is a specific case that puts other people's lives in danger. We can and should absolutely use force to take these people off the roads.
Again you are talking about property crimes. Those should be punished with jail or restitution. Natural rights protect life, liberty and property, and they should protected with force.
. . . as intelligent as I. Sorry, couldn't resist. Lol. That's fine. I was just commenting on huis's reference to nonviolent offenders to explain how something people tend to support (lenience for non-dangerous people) is exploited to push something they don't support (lenience for true bad apples who aren't classified as "violent"). It's a political/stupidity problem. But we can talk about your issue as well. I mostly agree. I'm not a fan of the drug war, especially at the federal level. Too much downside with no upside. As bad as drugs are for society, I think the presence of criminal penalties does little to stop drug use. Let's be honest. Most of us don't do drugs and don't bang hookers because it's wrong and frankly undesirable, not because it's illegal. Furthermore, by creating a black market for drugs, the laws encourage actual violence. We'd be better off letting families, churches, charities, and frankly the normal consequences of life address the problem. Finally, I think most Americans would be horrified at the lengths the federal courts have gone to narrow the Constitution's protections of individual liberties to fight the drug war. I'll never forget the Supreme Court cases (mostly from the 1980s) I read in Criminal Procedure class that just gutted the Fourth Amendment in the name of the War on Drugs. It's disgusting, especially considering that this came almost entirely from the Right. You're giving the politicians too much of a pass. It's not a "lawyer thing." The guys who draft legislation can make the distinctions you're talking about (even if they are the gay porn actors of the legal profession). It's not hard, but they can't just write whatever they want. If the members carrying the bills (many of whom aren't very bright but think they are) don't want the distinctions made, they're not going to be made.
You 1) don't realize how few of those individuals ARE in prison and 2) that when they DO get there, it was not typically their first dance in the criminal justice rodeo. MOST who got to prison for 5+ pounds had prior history OR failed the gift of a deferred adjudication that they had been given. The reality is that most of those who are a one-time mule are generally afforded a chance to avoid conviction. If they cannot follow some simple rules, then the conviction is upon THEM and them ALONE. A transaction which is a violation of the law DESERVES some manner of consequence. And when you do nothing, you get open-air trade outside of schools like was going on in the PNW and in Commiefornia. I find that wholly UNacceptable.
I would say change the laws I guess. If that is their only crime, even if guilty of it multiple times, I don't think they should be in jail. They should ridiculed, criticized, and debated out of the lifestyle.
They have to be capable of feeling shame for ridicule or criticism to work...they aren't. All they are doing is further inflicting harm and additional costs upon youth and society as a whole through their acts of theft and other conduct to support their drug habit.
The problem is that virtually everybody stands with Ukraine, and when inflation and gas prices are out of control, nobody's going to care about January 6.
I don’t stand with Ukraine. It is the poorest and most corrupt country in Europe of significant size. If Ukraine wants to send their folks to death as cannon folder, so be it. It’s Iran-Iraq all over again. We should be pushing diplomacy as equally hard as sending weapons.
I am with you. I don't wish them ill either. They are victims of big power politics and caught in the middle of a horrible situation. You are correct on the only way out for them.
To my knowledge, you guys aren't running for Congress. Generally speaking, Republican candidates are supportive of Ukraine, especially in swing districts where it matters. Lol. That's a little like saying the Poles sent their folks to their deaths as canon fodder in 1939. They were invaded, so I'm not sure what choice they have.
Read this. They have little choice. Peoples’ view on the matter is mostly based on propaganda. Would We Do Better? Hubris and Validation in Ukraine - War on the Rocks
