For the last forty years we have been diligently working on the massive, long-term project of attempting to incarcerate a full one per cent of the total population of this country, by any means necessary. No other country has come close, or even tried to get close, to one per cent, but we're almost there. It is the craziest thing this country has ever done. The President, along with the entire establishment of both parties, are effectively for it. Ron Paul and Gary Johnson are against it. So, spot the crazy.
Posted by Dr. Frank at May 6, 2011 07:54 PM | TrackBackwhy does ron paul hate america? does he not think we deserve to be #1 at something?
Posted by: aaron at May 7, 2011 07:24 AMOn the other hand, locking up dangerous people seems to have done at least *something* to check the ridiculous crime spree of the 80s and 90s. I would personally prefer public hangings, but I don't think RP is calling for that.
Believe it or not, I'm neither a violent, nor hateful, nor crazy person. It's just that history has shown that this "works".
Note this complaint from Sherlock Holmes in "A Study in Scarlet":
“There are no crimes and no criminals in these days,” he said, querulously. “What is the use of having brains in our profession? I know well that I have it in me to make my name famous. No man lives or has ever lived who has brought the same amount of study and of natural talent to the detection of crime which I have done. And what is the result? There is no crime to detect, or at, most some bungling villany with a motive so transparent that even a Scotland Yard official can see through it.”
Once the people are conquered, criminal organization is considered futile and and you don't have any quasi-military warlords running amuck in your city, you can relax and enjoy the fruits of civilization. Unfortunately for civilization, in the 1960s our protestant millennial overlords at the Ford and Rockefeller foundations decided that they could turn their little brown brothers into warriors for righteousness (and could simultaneously break up Catholic ethnic voting blocks aka "machines", the main obstacle to "reformer"). Hence, the Black Panthers at Lenny Bernstein's and street gangs running NGO sponsored "jobs programs" on the government dime.
Posted by: josh at May 10, 2011 05:33 PMOf course, Josh, under our system, Sherlock Holmes would be serving consecutive life terms; a fair few of the Victorian authoritarians you admire (and I'm not saying I don't admire them too) would have needed another crew of authoritarians to round them up and hang them for their use of laudanum and indulgence in other recently-invented crimes.
Too many things are illegal, and the list grows exponentially. When we're locking up hippies and cancer patients and troubled teens and guys who can't figure out how to fill out the right customs forms, crime stats on how street violence relates to incarceration rates are inherently hard to interpret.
Posted by: Dr. Frank at May 10, 2011 06:14 PM