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think positive 
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Location: somewhere
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Has any one seen the short film The Penelty? I actually taped it for hubby, but after pulling temporary fencing down, shovell8ng excess dirt, putting the fence back up and cleaning up from 7.30 til 12.30, I sat down and watched it, nothing else on at 3!
Very thought provoking. A family who’s daughter/sister was killed, and 4 years through the courts and campaigning until a new prosecutor accepted the killers plea in exchange for life without parole, and the utter torture the family went through with court date after court date.
The guy who did 15 years on death row for a crime he didn’t commit, (scary how many DNA has cleared), just can’t imagine,
And a guy who tries to save the death row inmates in Ohio. (Though I admit the story of the killer gasping and choking for 26 min didn’t get to me, it’s nothing compared with what he inflicted on his victim).
Interesting that there are now only 5 states actively enforcing the death penelty. So many questions, so many for and against. I can see where the family and especially the mother was coming from, thou I don’t think I’d be that forgiving.
Funny compare this to Aust lenient judges, you know I don’t care what happened to that piece of crap that beat up the ambos in her child hood, and trying to reform herself? Not much remorse in her after court photo. She should have been locked up, end of story. But I’d spare her the death penalty! Community service doesn’t cut it
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You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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^ the death penalty, executed with appropriate dispatch (none of this 15-year nonsense) on the conclusion of a properly constituted trial for heinous crimes of violence, serves a vital function in making vicious criminals (and even the less vicious) fear the ultimate majesty of the law. Its abolition was the start of the rot.
I once agreed with abolition, on the grounds that the legal process can make mistakes, and the execution of an innocent was unconscionable. That makes perfect sense until you grasp the fact that, in England, 30 people were killed by convicted murderers between 2000-2010. That’s three death penalties per annum of (presumably) innocent citizens, to avoid a very, very occasional miscarriage of justice. No doubt the lawyers and judges and liberal politicians sleep very soundly in their beds, pleased that they have not personally aided the deaths of hardened criminals !
It is often stated that the death penalty is uncivilized. I consider vicious, violent crime against innocent citizens far more uncivilized. When the ultimate sanction is eventually reinstated, under a proper and due process of customary law, our society will really be starting the long trek back to being civilized again.
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Two more flags before I die! |
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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think positive
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Location: somewhere
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| Mugwump wrote: | ^ the death penalty, executed with appropriate dispatch (none of this 15-year nonsense) on the conclusion of a properly constituted trial for heinous crimes of violence, serves a vital function in making vicious criminals (and even the less vicious) fear the ultimate majesty of the law. Its abolition was the start of the rot.
I once agreed with abolition, on the grounds that the legal process can make mistakes, and the execution of an innocent was unconscionable. That makes perfect sense until you grasp the fact that, in England, 30 people were killed by convicted murderers between 2000-2010. That’s three death penalties per annum of (presumably) innocent citizens, to avoid a very, very occasional miscarriage of justice. No doubt the lawyers and judges and liberal politicians sleep very soundly in their beds, pleased that they have not personally aided the deaths of hardened criminals !
It is often stated that the death penalty is uncivilized. I consider vicious, violent crime against innocent citizens far more uncivilized. When the ultimate sanction is eventually reinstated, under a proper and due process of customary law, our society will really be starting the long trek back to being civilized again. |
I used to feel that way. But as Mandy once said, I watched a couple of docos on it. It’s not so much for the sake of the criminal, although another I haven’t seen yet talks of the frightening reality of mistaken identity especially before advances in DNA testing, but for the sake of the victims. The woman in the one above said she didn’t just lose her daughter, she lost her other 2 children, and every court appearance just made it worse. They wanted it over, they wanted to grieve in peace, they don’t want the shock of seeing it on the 6 o’clock news over and over. And even if it was a quicker process, it won’t bring their daughter back.
I’m starting to wonder if it’s even possible to get civilisation back on the right track. Where do you start when right at the top of the law makers and decision makers is full of $£$%^%%$ crooks?
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You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
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think positive
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Location: somewhere
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Also, the threat of the death penalty doesn’t seem to be much of a deterrent. The woman in the story lives in one of the worst crime areas in Florida, and the 5 active states the talk of, are all down south, in high crime areas.
What is the main cause of the high criminality rate? Drugs, being poor, mental illness, lack of education, lack of parenting, or do they all roll together for a perfect storm?
I’ve also been watching a show where an adult goes back to schoolundercover, and it’s scary. Technology, social media have a lot to answer for, but for me the real problem is lack of self esteem, lack of parenting, lack of respect for others mainly but also self respect, lack of manners, lack of empathy. And you don’t have to go to the US to see it, just go to the local shopping centre.
Who goes to the mall in their pjs? At any time of day, have some pride! Fair enough if your ferrying kids to the doc in their pjs, but that’s it! People are glued to their phone and not raising their children, ignoring the people they are with and caught up with the make believe that is social media at its worst.
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You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
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Skids 
Quitting drinking will be one of the best choices you make in your life.
Joined: 11 Sep 2007
Location: Joined 3/6/02 . Member #175
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Illinois’ governor wants to bring back the death penalty. Does his proposal have a chance?
“We believe criminals who kill our police should get the death penalty.” – President Donald Trump
What would the new proposal mean for Illinois?
Since 1976, Illinois has executed 12 prisoners, while 21 inmates have been exonerated while sitting on death row. Between 1999 and 2011, when the state repealed the death penalty, Illinois executed just one death row inmate.
Under Rauner’s proposal, which assigns the death penalty to offenders who “deliberately kill” police officers or two or more people, as many as 10 percent of murders statewide would be eligible for capital punishment, said Robert Dunham, the executive director at the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit which does not take a stance on the death penalty.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/illinois-governor-wants-to-bring-back-the-death-penalty-does-his-proposal-have-a-chance
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Don't count the days, make the days count. |
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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| think positive wrote: | Also, the threat of the death penalty doesn’t seem to be much of a deterrent. The woman in the story lives in one of the worst crime areas in Florida, and the 5 active states the talk of, are all down south, in high crime areas.
What is the main cause of the high criminality rate? Drugs, being poor, mental illness, lack of education, lack of parenting, or do they all roll together for a perfect storm?
I’ve also been watching a show where an adult goes back to schoolundercover, and it’s scary. Technology, social media have a lot to answer for, but for me the real problem is lack of self esteem, lack of parenting, lack of respect for others mainly but also self respect, lack of manners, lack of empathy. And you don’t have to go to the US to see it, just go to the local shopping centre.
Who goes to the mall in their pjs? At any time of day, have some pride! Fair enough if your ferrying kids to the doc in their pjs, but that’s it! People are glued to their phone and not raising their children, ignoring the people they are with and caught up with the make believe that is social media at its worst. |
That’s it, isn’t it ? We talk and talk about “respect” while a large and growing section of our society lose it year by year. Yet nobody seems to really care enough to ask hard questions about it, and follow the hard answers.
I don’t think it has much to do with phones, though - this decline was happening long before mobile phones. They have just added another bundle of wood to the bonfire. The big forces are family breakdown, the exalting of “freedom” rather than responsibility and duty, the glamorization and tolerance of drugs, and the refusal of those in authority to exercise it, ruthlessly if need be, on behalf of civil society.
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Two more flags before I die! |
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Dave The Man 
Joined: 01 Apr 2005
Location: Someville, Victoria, Australia
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The Men who Tried to Rape the 8 Year Old in Her Own Bed Deserves It
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I am Da Man |
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Skids
Quitting drinking will be one of the best choices you make in your life.
Joined: 11 Sep 2007
Location: Joined 3/6/02 . Member #175
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| Dave The Man wrote: | | The Men who Tried to Rape the 8 Year Old in Her Own Bed Deserves It |
100%
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Don't count the days, make the days count. |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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| Mugwump wrote: | | think positive wrote: | Also, the threat of the death penalty doesn’t seem to be much of a deterrent. The woman in the story lives in one of the worst crime areas in Florida, and the 5 active states the talk of, are all down south, in high crime areas.
What is the main cause of the high criminality rate? Drugs, being poor, mental illness, lack of education, lack of parenting, or do they all roll together for a perfect storm?
I’ve also been watching a show where an adult goes back to schoolundercover, and it’s scary. Technology, social media have a lot to answer for, but for me the real problem is lack of self esteem, lack of parenting, lack of respect for others mainly but also self respect, lack of manners, lack of empathy. And you don’t have to go to the US to see it, just go to the local shopping centre.
Who goes to the mall in their pjs? At any time of day, have some pride! Fair enough if your ferrying kids to the doc in their pjs, but that’s it! People are glued to their phone and not raising their children, ignoring the people they are with and caught up with the make believe that is social media at its worst. |
That’s it, isn’t it ? We talk and talk about “respect” while a large and growing section of our society lose it year by year. Yet nobody seems to really care enough to ask hard questions about it, and follow the hard answers. |
But what are you really seeing? A large and growing segment of the population losing respect "year-by-year", or:
The natural coordination challenges of large-scale, high-density urban societies?
A larger and more complex society which is doing fine in reality, but not according to an idealistic abstraction you have constructed?
A reflection of your current life stage and psychological engagement therewith?
Exaggerated fears which you have unintentionally primed through filtered information and experience?
An over-generalised sense of fear based on a relative decline of the nation/s you identify with?
Straw man problems which are part of a mental drama which, by mapping good and evil and your role in the story, makes you feel more righteous and in control?
A society whose infrastructure and expenditures haven't kept up with its growth and complexity?
Diminishing returns accompanying a high level of development which disappoint in the light of historical rates of improvement?
A society which is ten times better than you think because your mental ideal never actually existed, and can never exist?
A society which is ten times better than you think because you are heavily discounting its many improvements vis-a-vis actual social history?
A society which has accepted that social polarisation is inevitable and even preferable, and is reaping what it sows?
A distorted construct perpetuated by a segment of the population which is having difficulty coping with the inevitable complexity of high-density living in urban centres with high global interconnectedness?
A society which is unable to improve further because it keeps defining itself against failed states elsewhere, and whose arrogant sense of historical superiority has bred complacency and sloth?
A society struggling to collect sufficient taxes?
A society that won't pay for proper employment programs, proper law enforcement, and proper support and rehabilitation?
A society going through a one-time adjustment phase based on demographic dynamics which have created generational inequality?
A mix of these? Some of these? None of these?
I'm not convinced of the indispensability of your perception of what's going on. If it makes you feel any better, I'm definitely not convinced of my own constructions. One could speculate endlessly at this resolution, and construct all manner of plausible mental models.
_________________
In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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| pietillidie wrote: | | Mugwump wrote: | | think positive wrote: | Also, the threat of the death penalty doesn’t seem to be much of a deterrent. The woman in the story lives in one of the worst crime areas in Florida, and the 5 active states the talk of, are all down south, in high crime areas.
What is the main cause of the high criminality rate? Drugs, being poor, mental illness, lack of education, lack of parenting, or do they all roll together for a perfect storm?
I’ve also been watching a show where an adult goes back to schoolundercover, and it’s scary. Technology, social media have a lot to answer for, but for me the real problem is lack of self esteem, lack of parenting, lack of respect for others mainly but also self respect, lack of manners, lack of empathy. And you don’t have to go to the US to see it, just go to the local shopping centre.
Who goes to the mall in their pjs? At any time of day, have some pride! Fair enough if your ferrying kids to the doc in their pjs, but that’s it! People are glued to their phone and not raising their children, ignoring the people they are with and caught up with the make believe that is social media at its worst. |
That’s it, isn’t it ? We talk and talk about “respect” while a large and growing section of our society lose it year by year. Yet nobody seems to really care enough to ask hard questions about it, and follow the hard answers. |
But what are you really seeing? A large and growing segment of the population losing respect "year-by-year", or:
The natural coordination challenges of large-scale, high-density urban societies?
A larger and more complex society which is doing fine in reality, but not according to an idealistic abstraction you have constructed?
A reflection of your current life stage and psychological engagement therewith?
Exaggerated fears which you have unintentionally primed through filtered information and experience?
An over-generalised sense of fear based on a relative decline of the nation/s you identify with?
Straw man problems which are part of a mental drama which, by mapping good and evil and your role in the story, makes you feel more righteous and in control?
A society whose infrastructure and expenditures haven't kept up with its growth and complexity?
Diminishing returns accompanying a high level of development which disappoint in the light of historical rates of improvement?
A society which is ten times better than you think because your mental ideal never actually existed, and can never exist?
A society which is ten times better than you think because you are heavily discounting its many improvements vis-a-vis actual social history?
A society which has accepted that social polarisation is inevitable and even preferable, and is reaping what it sows?
A distorted construct perpetuated by a segment of the population which is having difficulty coping with the inevitable complexity of high-density living in urban centres with high global interconnectedness?
A society which is unable to improve further because it keeps defining itself against failed states elsewhere, and whose arrogant sense of historical superiority has bred complacency and sloth?
A society struggling to collect sufficient taxes?
A society that won't pay for proper employment programs, proper law enforcement, and proper support and rehabilitation?
A society going through a one-time adjustment phase based on demographic dynamics which have created generational inequality?
A mix of these? Some of these? None of these?
I'm not convinced of the indispensability of your perception of what's going on. If it makes you feel any better, I'm definitely not convinced of my own constructions. One could speculate endlessly at this resolution, and construct all manner of plausible mental models. |
I think i’ve explained what I am seeing many times. The dramatic increase in violent crime across the Western world since the 1960s is stark. It deserves an explanation. None of your above hypotheses, refutations, personalisations etc seem to plausibly explain the pronounced discontinuity in the data series post the 1960s (and, let’s face it, the practical lived experience -which is itself data -of people who lived through 1940-1960-1980-2010). What can explain it, as a historically coincident event, is the programme of radical liberalization undertaken in that era, which engendered a radical individualism that now plagues social life at nearly every level. It connects your uncollected taxes, absurd CEO pay, a murder rate that remains numerically static across decades despite dramatic advances in trauma management, it connects the obvious explosion in drug use, and much beside.
The charge of idealization is often made when one uses history to critique the present. It’s beyond obvious that critique of decline in some specific areas doesn’t imply approval of the totality of the past ; but for the record, again, there were clearly many grave injustices in the past that needed reform. That did not oblige us to choose this particular future. We chose it because Gramsci’s children decided to weaken the hegemonial bonds of family, tradition, nation, shared experience and civil society. By doing so, they could revel in their new, well-resourced freedoms, and enlarge the state which they hoped to control. Now, they rule at large over atomized and “liberated” individuals and referee (and surveille) class wars between squabbling economic, ethnic and sexual groups. Because the things torn away underlie human empathy, connectedness and continuity, the collapse of a genuinely civil society duly followed. And no, we’re really not dreaming this collapse. I suspect that even you see the evidence around you.
Pick over menus of optional narratives as much as you like above, it will not save you having to convincingly explain and expiate the mounting civil brutality, ignorance and failure registered, for the most part, on the bodies, minds and lives of the poor and vulnerable.
Of course none of us can claim certainty about causation in a complex social system. But an epistemological nihilism is the worst kind of conservatism : it still behooves us to come up with a plausible, fact-and-reason-based programme, using data, history, politics, technology, lived experience and human nature as our evidence. Too many lives are at stake to do otherwise.
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Two more flags before I die!
Last edited by Mugwump on Fri May 18, 2018 3:23 am; edited 6 times in total |
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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| Heh heh heh. |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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But that's not even a reliable statement about crime rates, let alone a coherent theory of society and its trajectory.
First, there's the problem of the definition, reporting, and recording of crimes over time, the implications of which could make any epoch look very different, depending on the parameters and assumptions being incorporated into the data set being used. The government is at pains to discuss this in its stats releases.
But, even at face value, the rate of most offences has dropped significantly in the UK from their peak in the mid-90s. This should make you feel better, not worse, if longer-term crime trends in the UK are the linchpin of your theory of society.
I have referenced this elsewhere: http://magpies.net/nick/bb/viewtopic.php?p=1785526&highlight=#1785526
The government's statistician agrees:
| The Government Statistician on 2017 numbers wrote: | Today’s figures show that, for most types of offence, the picture of crime has been fairly stable, with levels much lower than the peak seen in the mid-1990s. Eight in ten adults had not experienced any of the crimes asked about in our survey in the latest year.
However, we have seen an increase in the relatively rare, but "high-harm" violent offences such as homicide, knife crime and gun crime, a trend that has been emerging over the previous two years. We have also seen evidence that increases in some types of theft have continued, in particular vehicle-related theft and burglary. |
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/crimeinenglandandwales/yearendingdecember2017#statisticians-comment
So, again, you've got a longer-term trend over the last two decades which should make you feel much better about the world. Sure, there's a worrying recent uptick which warrants monitoring, but it's limited for now.
Many have of course blamed this uptick on reductions in government spending, and the impact of that on policing at a time when the police needed all the help they could get adjusting to changing social dynamics, from the role of social media in criminal provocation and coordination, to the rise in homelessness and its implications. But, who knows?
And if the present uptick is vexing, what does that say about interpreting historical crime rates?
Consider the scale and complexity of society now compared to that of past epochs. What if you're comparing demographic apples and oranges by contrasting 1940 to 1970, and on to 1995 and then 2017? What if these eras are marked by idiosyncratic interactions among changing population demographics, economics and policy? Combine this with the definition, reporting and recording problem, and the meaning of what is highly-contested data, if it can be accessed at all, becomes rooted in very specific times.
To invoke "the practical lived experience of people who lived through 1940-1960-1980-2010" as evidence of something, as if anyone has a handle on what the collective sum of that experience is or was, or as if it could ever be indicative of anything but the cognitive-emotional construction of memories, is to voluntarily enter the poststructuralist realm.
You also place enormous weight on this prone interpretation of crime data in the UK. Could it really be the trick to understanding society both now and over time? Does it really offer credence to even more contestable claims about "a programme of radical liberalization undertaken in that era, which ushered in a radical individualism that plagues social life at nearly every level"?
Your views, expressed here and in various rants on the ills of society and moral decline, are very thin on facts, and very thick on imagination. It's not humans aren't intelligent, it's that we're clutching at straws when it comes to macro social analysis. As soon as we start talking about "the world" and "society" we resort to silly or wishful stories which say more about our own emotional states than anything else.
Ducks don't do calculus very well. We don't do macro social analysis very well. This is not a matter of fashionable ideology; rather, it is a basic human constraint.
_________________
In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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ronrat
Joined: 22 May 2006
Location: Thailand
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Peoplw who go on public transport who fail to shower or use deodorant and the stand up next to you to ask the bus driver are we there. 2 crimes there, 3 if yoiu include my loss of sleep. 4 if you include the hideous Indian music they were playing.
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Annoying opposition supporters since 1967. |
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think positive
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Location: somewhere
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Well for mine society is in decline due to a spoilt brat entitled attitude. Me me me ,greed greed greed.
A generation who woke up to the realisation that what they copped as children is not how it’s supposed to be, and over compensated with their own children, and handed life to them on a platter. The battlers who realised that by pretending to battle even harder can get it easy by relying on welfare and the generosity of others.
Somebody famously said ask not what my country can do for me, but what can I do for my country?
I have one kid who would do anything for anyone, and another who’s first thought is ‘what’s in it for me?’. We are to blame. We brought this on.
And now hopefully a 63 year old paramedic might actually push through a bit of change. It’s time to say no.
It’s time for more ‘quiet’ carriages on public transport, it’s time to stop hand outs left right and centre, it’s time to stand up to the bullies and the judges, it’s time for accountability, and responsibility, the time for excuses is done.
30 sec kid, that’s all I wanted, 45 tops! She knows I’ll cool off by Monday when I have to pick her up from the station. I should make her walk. But I won’t. There you go, my fault.
I feel better now, Thankyou, gym time!
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You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
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