Concept of Guilt
We live in societies and due to the variations of thought processes present within the Human race we have made laws. Laws designed to protect us.
However the laws are based not on right and wrong, good and bad, but an amalgamation of communal ideals.
The "thou shalt and shalt nots" and things pushed strong enough for. These laws aren't solid and can be changed as needed (slavery good, slavery bad) even when against the "thou shalts" and the books they are found in (slavery good, slavery bad).
But what isn't taken into account is the why of the crime.
We have varying degrees of murder even down to the point of being incompetent to even stand trial, yet the "why" question isn't always asked. Nor is it taken into the process.
"I had a stroke and lost control of the car!" Would not result in the death penalty no matter how many lives are lost.
And culpability is taken into account.
"My pet Bangle tiger's cage was open causin' I hates my neighbor." Resulting in a long stay in prison.
We are supposedly an enlightened society yet people are punished harshly when extenuating circumstances exist all the time.
The drug addict stealing hubcaps, wallets or ATMs via whatever means is being punished for something medically and possibly psychologically out of their control. There isn't universal healthcare, there aren't enough treatment programs and psychological help centers and or practitioners aren't available.
They have no place to turn for help and their primary, overriding need put them in this situation.
So what do we do as an enlightened society?
We dehumanize them profoundly. We beat them to a pulp whether or not resisting. We incarcerate them knowing full well they are addicts and giving no medical or psychological attention to their obvious problem. Of course laughing as they go through days of withdrawals.
We dump them in prison. Again no attention paid to their addiction and what is prison?
Well in a "christian" nation it should be a place of rehabilitation. Where the wrong doer can be helped on a better path.
Unfortunately in the United States prison is a congested holding pen designed with the archaic belief that "make a situation as bad as we can the criminals won't return!"
So this addicted individual in need of help from the society they live in, who, yes did go against the law, needs not to be abused and shoved in a box.
This person needs to be helped so their need for drugs is quelled and they can return to our collective warm bosom.
These people and others around us with their needs which push up against or break our laws are in no way disposable. For some reason, we as a society see them all as bad and wrong. Period!
But life is not black and white. There is a reason why we all lean away from the "norm" in whatever way we need. Sometimes those needs push us too far away from the flock and if they result in crime then yes this must be stopped.
But treating those with a medical or physiological need by worse than throwing them away only shows that our society is not is desperately in the wrong.
Further, that need should never lead to permanent ostracization and that is what the legal system truly hands down.
To go through withdrawals or to try to manage a psychological condition without the medicine, legal or otherwise, you NEED in a holding pen where you are isolated, physically, mentally, emotionally and sexually brutalized is for lack of a better idiom "hell on earth".
These people are our family, just like all of us and it seems just fine to subject them to this state.
Drugs can be obtained in prison, for a price of course, so all we have done is to take them out of our neighborhoods and put them somewhere else where they continue to do the illegal activities that put them there.
So some time later, very often decades later, if they survive in any way intact, they are released. Their debt to society paid.
Any concept of humanity summarily beaten out of them by an enlightened society.
So now "post judgment" we welcome them back into society by not renting to them, not employing them no matter education or experience. Even families, like the loving society they live in, turn their backs on them.
So, no help, psychological, medical, familial, they re-offend, imagine that!
President trump says they should be killed off as a blight on society and everyone jumps up and down, yet execution is profoundly more humane.
In your eyes they are dead. Dead enough to put in the hell of jail to protect your hubcaps and capital. Dead enough to not give a modicum of help or care.
Shit, just put them out of their misery.
It would be more just than the current standard of justice.
Good luck out there
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Do you ever edit?
The American and also parts of the Australian systems of incarceration are now private industries. There is no, or very little rehabilitation offered any more. After a surge of humanity in the 80's and 90's in Australia we are reverting to longer sentences, no education, overcrowded harsh regimes in response to knee jerk political yelling from the right wing and their "Lora Norder' bandwagon.
It doesn't work.
I worked in the prisons for a while conducting drama classes as part of a psyche team . That was working in modifying behaviours as they acted out both scripted and impromptu scenes. It was so successful it was cancelled half way through its third year. No budget with the change of Govt to right wing.
The only specialist sex offender prison was closed down at the same time despite great results as it was deemed 'not punishment enough'. It was a converted school, it had a swimming pool maintained by the prisoners at their cost. All Prisons are now over capacity limiting the ability of the Corrections staff to control the environment and to enable opportunities for study as all the single cells are double and triple occupancy. Art programs are now non existent despite past success.
Compulsory cognitive study classes are now being taught (haphazardly) by officers without training or motivation, or worse chaplains, as there is no longer a budget for the psyche teams.
Efforts to provide rehabilitation, sex offender courses, education, art programs (even voluntary) are all shouted down by the rabid Lora Norders who fall over their drooling bottom lips to prove who is "tougher on crime"
Violence towards Officers and inmates is on an upward trend as is the incidences of recidivism.
One would think the right wing nut jobs have no idea of humanity or cant read statistics or both. They certainly have no idea of the economics that prove every dollar spent on rehabiliatation and after care is recovered twice over by reduced incarceration costs.
If there is one thing we learnt from the great Victorian reformers is that most offenders will not re offend if educated and given opportunities to learn think and behave in a manner that earns and accords to respect.
There will always be recidivists and those like serial pedophiles and rapists who are a danger to themselves and society and there is, without question an argument and necessity for maximum security prisons for those few.
I concur,
I also worked for a period of time in a prison doing art therapy with convict kids. They all simply were produced by their environment. Even those who mentally or physiologically were "predisposed" to offending were profoundly effected due to lack of familial care and mental/psychological help.
If you are religious then go with the "god shall judge" and give some aid and comfort those said to be your brothers and sisters. Those who are on the red side of the line, in a shortish period of time many people can reduce the drive towards your hubcaps and prisons are expensive, they don't work and they profoundly infringed with Freedom and Liberty. For those on the left, yes what I am saying means huge change and it will be costly initially, but it is a hill worth climbing.
Yes a little change would be nice but big change is what is needed.
Good luck out there
Another incohherrent disjointed rant. Ffs do try and learn the art of brevity at least.
Humans are fallible, so they produce imperfect laws. I'm not sure what else your rant is trying to say, or why.
Why is a "Bangle tiger"?
@ Sheldon
"Bangle Tigers" don't have stripes, they have jewellery. That's why they live in captivity as they make a loud rattling noise when they move in the wild. Also antelope don't like bling.
Sorry auto-correct Bengal tiger.
As to what and why it isn't the laws it is the concept behind the laws. This is an atheist forum and the laws that you abide are religious in nature. The punishment is inhuman, archaic and doesn't work at all except to treat people like you Sheldon who happen to take a misstep as a lifelong criminal.
Unemployable, no family, no concern. A biblical treatment and you an atheist or at least here are happily living your life under the umbrella of such a reality.
Why? What is there to be learned?
Human beings are fallible. But there is no justice even knowing that people are fallible.
This means they are stupid, don't work and as a whole need to be changed dramatically.
Because the status quo says it's so doesn't make it right.
Good luck out there
I'm sorry but I'm only prepared to read one rambling disjointed rant per day.
Perhaps you might state your point as briefly as possible, and what it is you're hoping to discuss, again with brevity in mind.
It seems to be an attack on the US criminal justice system? Try offering a brief summation of your main objections to it and saying why you think the laws need to be changed.
@Sheldon
Why is a "Bangle tiger"?
Because they’re afraid of ear piercing. Absolute pussies.
Pukc, the closest I can come to understanding your question, is with another question. Is what you are saying...is that you are frustrated with a monetarily bastardized secular humanistic system you live in? You could move to syria.
Guilt is a concept, yet everyone feels it for one reason or another. We consider people without remorse as monsters even though the ability no act without remorse is very useful and personally profitable. We revere compassion but compassion is never rewarded.
Some people even glorify those that have no guilt or the concept of guilt. Take the Trump supporters. Trump has no concept of right and wrong. His idea that anything he does is right no matter what that is. Anyone that exposes his guilt are wrong for doing so. The Trump people love it. We can only guess why.
Morals are a social concept and are dynamic as a result. They are subjective. Guilt is a result of what a society accepts or deplores as behavior. People naturally want to behave according to that social construct. When for whatever reason they don't, they usually feel guilty. Some actions are beyond an individuals control but that does not alleviate the feeling of guilt. With good reason. If I am starving and stealing food it is still a crime. I feel guilty for two distinct reasons. 1 for stealing the food in the first place, and 2 for being in that situation.
Those without guilt or remorse either don't define anything that they do as a crime or just don't care. It is difficult to ascertain why they can't or don't feel guilty. In Trump's case, it is because he is spoiled and self-entitled.
Great work mykcob4,
But I think with trump it is that he simply didn't get what he needed and continues to do so. He is in a cycle wherein his drive to compensate for what he couldn't get is limitless or at least as much as his money can buy.
His presidency is the result of perceived desires of the republican party to win over a want to put the best person in the job to hopefully benefit the country. They only saw blood, the win and let's not forget his opponents gender.
"Goddamn woman sure as shit ain't gonna tell me what to do" mentality.
So a Human, white male, with no concept of his place in society or life whose need again regrettably is completely directed towards "if I can just get, see or do X, Y or Z I will be happy" is in charge.
He has no respect so he has no allies in his fight. Everyone is dropping because his incorrect concept that whatever I say right now is how it is, period.
We are now in a situation where the only people between our "President" and some catastrophic knee-jerk play know if they say "no" they are gone, career, money and all.
I hate to be pessimistic but in one year and change the ease of life built to in the Obama years that allowed us to relax and watch some idiot firing other idiots on TV in the first place is going away.
America first and any nationalism negates our place in the Global society we need to be "ok" in. As does "god bless America". Does that not mean like us and screw everyone else?
A World view which is inclusive and cohesive should be the direction of a 21st century "number one in the World" country.
Guns are killing our kids in schools.
Drugs are killing them when they get home.
And zero attention is being paid to either problem other than the though that by calling it an "emergency" things will magically get better. And let's not forget the thoughts and prayers and all they good they have always done to help in the aftermath.
Sorry I got off on a rant, thanks for continuing the conversation.
Good luck out there
@wgusapukc
I am afraid to report the US criminal justice system is far worse than what you posted. Yes, it has been shown via study that: punishment after the fact is not very effective, and even is often counterproductive to reducing recidivism especially in current US for profit prison industry. I think most everyone knows by now the jails and prisons rarely reform people, but do frequently make people worse. But many people do not care, all they want is to not deal with "criminals" around them and the people they care about.
The entire criminal justice system is heavily slanted to greatly favor the rich, while being incredibly brutal and unfair against the poor/vulnerable. The system is slanted against minorities, especially black. It's recidivism rates have gone from bad to terrible, and cost have spiraled.
It is pretty funny to me how often folks in prison will go down the "I have found god" angle to try and impress early parole boards, and then, once out of prison, stop with the false pretenses about finding god almost instantly, and the parole board falls for it nearly every time despite looking for being tricked in this way. My guess it is so effective because religions themselves are all lies to begin with.
OMG - I can't read that. It's just too long. I feel so guilty!!!