Allow me a moment of pretentious aggrandizing:
I think ciminals (have been,) are, and will be the new slaves. You need more slaves? Change the definition of “criminal” to include more people, and push the agenda that “criminals” are the other. Makes enslavement easy for people to justify. I’m damn glad I’m not one of those people*.
[edit for clarity]*I’m glad I’m not one who would justify inhumanity to a “criminal.”
i can see that happening too.
people already carry huge negative attitudes towards ex-cons.
all it would really take is a minor shift in the general consensus of “paying your debt to society”. and the three strikes your out rule would easy (and with no death penalty!) translate into lifetime survitute. hell, those people would be totally expendible, they could be the ones to scrub the clean rooms of the nuclear plants we will need in the near future.
um, yeah, scary. glad i’m not on the “criminal” list too. 😐
Well, by “one of those people,” I meant those who think it’s ok to think less of someone because they have been encarcerated – the kind of people who can think that people deserve to be treated without compassion or humanity because of any (however rationalized) reason.
All it takes is a shifting of the culture to make you a criminal.
oh well, i figured the fact that you don’t think that way was a given.
Sir, I find that downright criminal!
We need a constitutional amendment!
I think it’s especially disturbing that some felons lose their civil rights (can’t vote, etc). Basically, you are saying they are not full citizens. They are LEGALLY a catagory of “Other.” Maybe we should just go all the way and make ex-convicts 3/5 of a person.
Thanks! 😉
But remember it’s very possible to change the laws so that you are a criminal. I can think of new law that would make 10 percent of the population criminals.
All it takes is a shifting of the culture to make you a criminal
Same applies to definitions of mental illness. Focault.
I was a bit vague, I’m glad I’m not one to deny compassion to a ‘criminal’. See 1st comment. I’ll clarify it in an edit.
Bingo.
Oh, How droll, eh, what old bean?
The shocking thing is that people can rationalize this behavior. They just don’t get it.
Oh, but they are “bad” people! Child molesters should have their dicks cut off! Murders should be killed! Brown people should be underpaid!
Let me add (I’ve suggested this before), that infidelity–especially in males–shall be the next behavior identified as a mental illness, treatable with vasopressin and oxytocin re-uptake inhibitors or the like.
This will further shift the popular mind’s perspective such that any kind of behavior that has a negative consequence for someone will not be seen as a character flaw–not that I necessarily think infidelity is a character flaw but it is such in the popular mind–but rather as an illness, treatable with psycho-active drugs. This will further magnify that question that plagues Westerners: Who am I? Not to mention further diminish individual accountability, sense of ownership of our “bad” as well as our “good” behaviors. I can’t wait!
What I find even more disturbing is the ugly hypocritical monsters we turn ourselves into.
Unless of course you’ve been convicted of a motoring offence such as speeding or red-light-jumping, in which case you’re not actually a criminal and the police should go and catch some of the real criminals instead of persecuting respectable citizens, and you’re fully supportive of making real criminals wear orange jumpsuits in chain gangs and humiliate them in public and force them to break rocks provided you can go on being a law-abiding citizen who just happens to break some silly rules that are there for other people to obey.
Surely you mean infidelity in other people?
I think that’s the twisted morality we find abhorrent.