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[smjjames]

I told him the same thing Maximum Spin, and while the bit about Congress holding and managing the purse strings is in there, locking any sort of funding numbers in there sounds like a bad thing.

Also, prison systems as a necessity, wut?

[wierd]

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.


Basically:  You cant just dump your armed forces off on the citizenry, you have to provision them properly. In peacetime, that means you have to own up to keeping an active military yourself, stupid aristocrats.  In war time, the only support you can demand of this type is what actually has laws on the books to govern such support. Anything not explicitly mentioned in that law is not required, and should not be expected.

It was a serious problem for the ruling elite to raise up big standing armies to go "raw raw, our penis is the biggest!" to each other with (see for instance, some of the bullshit from NK) while failing to adequately feed, clothe, house, or otherwise see to the needs of that army. Instead, the citizenry was EXPECTED to make up for that shortcoming, because they were subjects of the crown, and thus essentially the king's property (and if he wills that you quarter half a battalion in your basement, then by jingo make it so!) All too often, this led to serious misconduct from said standing armies, because they could demand anything, and the people had no grounds to refuse. (this included such nasty things as rape.)

This little thing is kinda a big deal.  Imagine if Uncy Sam decided "Hey, you know that multi-trillion dollar war machine we shovel money into each year? Yeah-- let's force ordinary Americans to warehouse, feed, clothe, and otherwise pay for everything straight up, or they can go to jail. In fact, let's couple that with that fancy civil forfeiture stuff we like so much. Yeah, that's awesome-- GO US for saving the government money!"

Because as absurd as that sounds, there would be SOMEBODY who thinks that would be a swell idea.

[deathpunch578]

Also, prison systems as a necessity, wut?

I had a big reply typed out, but my computer crashed and I don't feel like typing it agian.
So what I ment by the prison system part was that prisons get no funding so to stay afloat they need to operate like a business (guess I should have explained that better. Also my personal opinion is that prison systems need to be rehabilitation instead of locking people in cells for x amount of years/months)

[MetalSlimeHunt]

All too often, this led to serious misconduct from said standing armies, because they could demand anything, and the people had no grounds to refuse. (this included such nasty things as rape.)

The Huguenots were basically subjected to genocide through quartering of "Dragonnades" (dragoons who were too violent to act in cohesion). It's a shockingly effective way to attack an entire population.

[deathpunch578]

I had no idea the quartering was you had to follow everything the soldiers said, I thought you were just forced to house, feed, and clothe them.

[wierd]

If they found you had something "Useful", they could commandeer it.

That included things like your pretty daughter, if they felt she could be useful as a spy in a brothel. Mostly though, it was things like "That iron working forge of yours is pretty nice. The king did not provide us with one. It's ours now. We don't care that you cant make a living without it Mr Blacksmith."

[MetalSlimeHunt]

It would depend upon the law (or "edict", if we're keeping to the times) in question. Regardless of what goes on parchment though, the soldiers are a group of armed young men with the backing of the state. How much do you think the law actually matters at that point?

[Jopax]

So kinda like what you have with cops and civil forfeiture now?

A bunch of armed guys going around seizing stuff like money and property for their own benefit while claiming it's furthering the fight against organized crime?

[wierd]

Pretty much.

"Oh, we need your inn to serve as our thrice removed auxiliary HQ. Nope, can't serve any guests there, gotta keep security! We gotta lodge reserves and whatnot there. Very important. Nope, sorry, we wont pay you for the loss of your establishment."

It caused all manner of economic harm, destroyed property, caused outright loss of property to the crown, and not a red cent was paid in reimbursement, and not two fucks were given about the impact it had on the communities thus instructed to "quarter".

Imagine civil forfeiture, on a city wide scale, where the residents of the city were expected to just eat the bill.

[sluissa]

Pretty much.

"Oh, we need your inn to serve as our thrice removed auxiliary HQ. Nope, can't serve any guests there, gotta keep security! We gotta lodge reserves and whatnot there. Very important. Nope, sorry, we wont pay you for the loss of your establishment."

It caused all manner of economic harm, destroyed property, caused outright loss of property to the crown, and not a red cent was paid in reimbursement, and not two fucks were given about the impact it had on the communities thus instructed to "quarter".

Imagine civil forfeiture, on a city wide scale, where the residents of the city were expected to just eat the bill.

It wasn't 100% the crown's fault it went that far though, if we're being honest. The crown was actually instructing the colonial governments to make sure the soldiers were properly taken care of. The governors could have build barracks and set aside food and taken care of the needs of soldiers and done so through taxes in a much less destructive manner. The colonial governments refused to do this. Thus the soldiers were left with basically "Ok, if you're not going to do this for us, we'll take care of ourselves." Near to the war, this method of thinking actually became codified by the crown, but by that time hostilities were already happening in isolated incidents, so the only thing surprising about it was how petty and vindictive the crown was being in their written law.

That's not to say it was right, nor am I saying it's a bad amendment to have in the constitution, but it wasn't necessary for things to get as bad as they did.

[Karnewarrior]

Also, prison systems as a necessity, wut?

I had a big reply typed out, but my computer crashed and I don't feel like typing it agian.
So what I ment by the prison system part was that prisons get no funding so to stay afloat they need to operate like a business (guess I should have explained that better. Also my personal opinion is that prison systems need to be rehabilitation instead of locking people in cells for x amount of years/months)

That's a terrible idea though; prisons already operate like businesses, and that means working the prisoners as what are effectively Indentured Servants. Which means the longer they stay locked up, the better it is for the prison.

I agree we need to focus on rehabilitation instead of punishment, because punishment is a retarded concept, especially when you look at who goes to prison in the first place; but I don't think extending even more rights to the prisons is at all the solution to the issue. We need to change people away from being angry at criminals to trying to understand and fix them.

And stop arresting people for stupid shit like marijuana and locking them up. It shouldn't be more societally questionable to scream "420 blaze it" in the public square than it is to scream "blood and soil" in the same place.

[wierd]

RE: For-Profit-Prisons


Do you have any idea how much prisoners pay to make a phone call?  Here's a hint, it's not 10 cents per minute. Why? LITERAL CAPTIVE MARKET.

[deathpunch578]

Also, prison systems as a necessity, wut?

I had a big reply typed out, but my computer crashed and I don't feel like typing it agian.
So what I ment by the prison system part was that prisons get no funding so to stay afloat they need to operate like a business (guess I should have explained that better. Also my personal opinion is that prison systems need to be rehabilitation instead of locking people in cells for x amount of years/months)

That's a terrible idea though; prisons already operate like businesses, and that means working the prisoners as what are effectively Indentured Servants. Which means the longer they stay locked up, the better it is for the prison.

I agree we need to focus on rehabilitation instead of punishment, because punishment is a retarded concept, especially when you look at who goes to prison in the first place; but I don't think extending even more rights to the prisons is at all the solution to the issue. We need to change people away from being angry at criminals to trying to understand and fix them.

And stop arresting people for stupid shit like marijuana and locking them up. It shouldn't be more societally questionable to scream "420 blaze it" in the public square than it is to scream "blood and soil" in the same place.

I said they need to get funding because they operate like a business, not the other way around.

[Maximum Spin]

I said they need to get funding because they operate like a business, not the other way around.

Prisons don't operate like businesses because of a lack of funding, though. They do it because they can, because people will let them, because "who cares about those criminals anyway". Give them more funding, and they'll just continue to extract every dime they can out of the prisoners while having your extra funding on top.

[sluissa]

Also, prison systems as a necessity, wut?

I had a big reply typed out, but my computer crashed and I don't feel like typing it agian.
So what I ment by the prison system part was that prisons get no funding so to stay afloat they need to operate like a business (guess I should have explained that better. Also my personal opinion is that prison systems need to be rehabilitation instead of locking people in cells for x amount of years/months)

That's a terrible idea though; prisons already operate like businesses, and that means working the prisoners as what are effectively Indentured Servants. Which means the longer they stay locked up, the better it is for the prison.

I agree we need to focus on rehabilitation instead of punishment, because punishment is a retarded concept, especially when you look at who goes to prison in the first place; but I don't think extending even more rights to the prisons is at all the solution to the issue. We need to change people away from being angry at criminals to trying to understand and fix them.

And stop arresting people for stupid shit like marijuana and locking them up. It shouldn't be more societally questionable to scream "420 blaze it" in the public square than it is to scream "blood and soil" in the same place.

I said they need to get funding because they operate like a business, not the other way around.

Idea being, I assume, that if they get funding they no longer have to operate like a business and can consider the rehabilitation methods instead of trying to turn a profit?

Just trying to clarify here.