Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[kaijyuu]

Punishment as a deterrent works just fine. The question is, how much punishment is needed before further punishment no longer really adds further deterrent?

From what I remember of those studies, adding additional jail time past ~9 months stopped having a meaningful effect. If you're willing to risk 3/4 a year of your life for something, then it's probably important enough that you're willing to risk it no matter what (or its a situation where you don't consider the risks; aka crime of passion). 8 months or 80 years both register as a really long time to be staring at a wall.


So yes, punishment as a deterrent works, it's just that you need far less punishment than most people realize. Sitting in a corner on "time out" worked as a deterrent for you as a kid despite it only lasting an hour, after all.

[Capntastic]

Nah, it has been proven to work.
It doesn't work very well, but it still works to some degree, although there are far better and more effective means to reduce criminal activity.

No actually it doesn't.

His brutal human rights abuses are ineffective, and this is fact.

So please, when you say 'it has been proven to work', what did you mean, exactly?  Further, let's propose a highly theoretical situation: how can you accept literal psychological and physical abuse, racism, and instilling terror into communities, even if it had been proven 'effective'?  Are you actually going to say that letting a sociopath tyrant abuse his authority to ruin people as he sees fit is alright if he 'gets the job done'?  Are you truly going to weigh crimes against another in that fashion?  Are you going to weigh theft and drug use and 'being brown skinned' against over one hundred million dollars worth of taxpayer money being misused, actual concentration camps, actual negligent deaths, actual racism, actual civil rights abuse, actual fraud, and actual psychological torture? Can you really judge him favorably in that scenario, even if he had reduced crime statistics?

Can you step back, and take that information in, and realize that he has done all of that and crime statistics in his jurisdiction have rocketed upwards?  That he has made his county a racially segregated zone?  That he has brought terror and sorrow to his community?

Can anyone honestly do that and not think that Joe Arpaio is nothing to be respected, and everything to be despised?

[kaijyuu]

Can anyone honestly do that and not think that Joe Arpaio is nothing to be respected, and everything to be despised?

I still think the pink boxers are awesome, despite being ridiculous and irrelevant.



Silly things aside, there's invariably something to be respected about him and something to be despised. You know, like everyone. I'll probably join you in calling him "evil," but assuming there's absolutely nothing good about the guy is plain presumptuous. Remember, half the things he's guilty of come from his own being presumptuous. Do stay away from absolutes.

[Frumple]

So yes, punishment as a deterrent works, it's just that you need far less punishment than most people realize. Sitting in a corner on "time out" worked as a deterrent for you as a kid despite it only lasting an hour, after all.

Color me facepalmed, that actually reminded me of that bit. Thanks!

What's good to take away is that th'hyper-punishment deterrent concept is basically broke, really, and that the stuff folks are actually trying to deter with it (The big crimes, which tend toward crimes of passion.) aren't really influenced by it.

Can anyone honestly do that and not think that Joe Arpaio is nothing to be respected, and everything to be despised?

If it's possible, I can't see how. Only possible out for someone supporting him would be to deny the veracity of the source material (and more importantly, what it cites), which, uh. I don't think you could, looking at it. Definitely not in the entirety, and even in part that info paints a pretty bad picture. Nasty bastard, that fellow.

Silly things aside, there's invariably something to be respected about him and something to be despised. You know, like everyone. I'll probably join you in calling him "evil," but assuming there's absolutely nothing good about the guy is plain presumptuous. Remember, half the things he's guilty of come from his own being presumptuous. Do stay away from absolutes.

Ehn, I kinda' feel for what you're saying, but living in a community of really nice (So long as you're the right color, right religion, right etc.) bigots leans me more toward from where Cap's coming from. Yeah, he's probably got some bits to him that's not rotten, but what's showing through is heavily tainting the rest of it and th'good innit outweighing the bad.

[Capntastic]

We're not talking about 'maybe he can write poems well' or something.  In his official capacity, he is indisputably altogether ineffective, violates human rights, and has shattered the community it was his responsibility to protect.

To defend him simply because he isn't as bad as he could be is ridiculous.   I've indicated his crimes against humanity and failures both in his career and as a person, and nothing more.  What would make you leap to his defense and say I'm being presumptuous?

[ECrownofFire]

Referring to punishment as deterrent, I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority of people who commit crimes don't think they're going to get caught in the first place, so they don't even consider the consequences if they do.

[kaijyuu]

We're not talking about 'maybe he can write poems well' or something.  In his official capacity, he is indisputably altogether ineffective, violates human rights, and has shattered the community it was his responsibility to protect.

You should probably specify that you're only making claims about his capacity at his job, then. I probably wouldn't be replying to you in such a manner if that were the case.

To defend him simply because he isn't as bad as he could be is ridiculous.

That has not been my reasoning at all. Any "defense" of him I'm doing is strictly toward that which is irrelevant to the crimes he has committed. I do NOT defend the concentration camps. I do NOT defend the racism. 

I've indicated his crimes against humanity and failures both in his career and as a person, and nothing more.

This is what I'm arguing about, because you absolutely have accused him of failures elsewhere by using absolute language.  That is why I "leap to his defense and accuse you of being presumptuous." Calling someone "altogether evil" leaves no room for anything else. That's what "altogether" means.



Really dude, I largely agree with you about the guy. I just find such attitudes dangerous. I feel that making assumptions about people's character beyond the evidence which you have is plain not justifiable in any case whatsoever. I will not argue about claiming he's bad at his job. I will not argue about him being a racist, or someone who does not respect human rights. It's claims about things beyond his crimes against humanity which I raise an eyebrow about. There are numerous ways prejudice of that sort can be abused and I don't care if it supports my viewpoint or not. In this case, I will be completely honest and say it strikes me as a dehumanization tactic. Maybe that's not the case, but it's the vibe I'm getting from you. That's why my pedantry about your word choice.

[Capntastic]

Well, if we're going to be calling each other out on minor technicalities- I can sort of understand the idea of being a pedant to keep the discussion intellectually pure, but you should be a bit more forgiving about when a man who's entire record is composed of abhorrent, unjustifiable, indefensible shit.
 
To say this is not dehumanizing him- it is merely stating truth.  There is no conceivable situation in which Joe Arpaio should be consulted about how a government should be run.

So yes, he is not 'pure evil' in the most technical sense, but it should be understood that he is in any other.

[RedKing]

Last I checked, Maricopa Joe wasn't on the ballot, so let's re-rail.

It's Iowa Caucus Day! For political junkies like me, this is like the first game of the season...we've seen (and taken part in) all the discussion of who's strong this season, who's weak, what sort of free agent moves have been made, but now it's time for the rubber to meet the road, and start recording some actual wins and losses.

For my part, here's my projected 1-2-3 finish for Iowa:

1. Ron Paul
2. Rick Santorum
3. Mitt Romney

Paul benefits from the caucus format, because he has a hardcore of enthusiastic supporters who will gladly tell you why he is the Second Coming until your ears fall off. People will wind up supporting Paul just to get their damn caucus meeting over with.

Santorum has been placing well in recent polls, because he's more or less lived there for the last year (100+ days in the state since the campaign pre-season began). He'll be the choice for the social conservatives, having put more ground game into the state than Bachmann or Perry, and committed far less publicly-noticed gaffes. And obviously he has supporters in Iowa who never use Google. xD

Romney will take third because not everybody in Iowa is insane.

[palsch]

ACLU civil liberties report card. (.pdf)

I would note that they are measuring Obama's achievements in the face of strong congressional and establishment opposition in a few of those areas (notably abortion and GTMO/detention). I'd have given him an extra point in each of those areas based on his efforts, although admittedly their rankings are accurate given the overall effects. I doubt that any of the other candidates would see greater success in those areas either way.

I do look forwards to a more expansive look at more areas of civil liberty significance. These are ones I'd expect Johnson and Paul to do better in; other than gay marriage they are all negative liberty areas where libertarian types should default to the right answer. Looking towards voting rights, gender/racial rights and other positive liberty areas I'd expect to see a distinct advantage to Obama, with maybe Johnson keeping pace.

[Zrk2]

For the lazy at total torch count (with ?s defaulting to 2) is as follows:

Bachmann: 0
Gingrich: 2
Huntsman: 14
Johnson: 21
Paul: 18
Perry: 2
Roemer: 7
Romney: 0
Sanotum: 0

Surprise, Johnson is okay and Paul is like him, only with a random hatred on reproductive rights and gays, sorta odd, that.

[Nadaka]

You missed Obama at 16 torches.

Crazy political question for everyone: Would you vote for Richard Stallman? Why? Why not?

[Aqizzar]

Last I checked, Maricopa Joe wasn't on the ballot, so let's re-rail.

Alright, thank you, that was getting a little ridiculous.

So anyway - some food for thought.  Super PACs who have either declared or been reasonably judged to be aligned with Mitt Romney have spent $17 Million on various advertising in Iowa, a state with about 1.2 million households.  And that's just Romney, a few others like Perry, Gingrich, and Paul combined are bringing it close to $30 Million total, but it says volumes that over half the ad-buying in the state is from Romney (and his PACs that he totally has nothing to do with) who swore early in the debates that he probably wouldn't even compete in Iowa because he was sure he wouldn't do well there anyway.

Commercials are on every channel at every hour, especially high-viewership stuff like news and sports.  Every residential phone in the state is ringing off the hook with recorded autodialers.  And some places like MediaMatters and such have calculated that about 85% of the negative campaign ads, i.e. the ones denouncing another candidate, are targeted at Newt Gingrich, who's perhaps understandable but laughably crying foul.  And of course, it's worth noting that probably 90% of the money being spent is from those new Super PACs, meaning they don't have to disclose who they are or where they get their money, and nobody believes there is genuinely no communication between S-PAC directors and the campaigns they're pushing for.  Of all the people in the world that opponents of the Citizens United decision could have gotten for an ally, you can now count in Gingrich.

Meanwhile, early turnout has been surprisingly low compared to previous years.  The Iowa Caucus isn't a pull-the-level ballot, everybody participating has to go to a location around the same time later in the day, but all the same it's a noteworthy.  Nobody has any reliable "exit" polling yet, so who knows why.

Also meanwhile, the Obama reelection campaign is out in full force in Iowa, even though he's literally the only name on the ballot.  Mostly, because they're using the primaries as training grounds for their Presidential campaign, in terms of building organizations of supporters to roust people to vote later on.  And to try (vainly) to put a lid on the inevitable Fox News story that low Democratic primary turnout (for a one-name ballot) means Democrats are disgusted with him or something.

[Zrk2]

Oh FOX news, sometimes I don't even know.

[RedKing]

Interesting bit about the Dems using Iowa as a dress rehearsal. There was a lot of buzz that they used North Carolina (particularly Wake County) as a dry run during the off-year elections last November, and I think there's some weight to that. Dems took the mayor's office by a crushing margin, and retook the school board in a clean sweep of 5 seats up for bid, including unseating the current chair. Although oddly, my wife (who is a granola-muncher blue Democrat) never got any kind of phone calls, mailers, etc. urging her to vote. Maybe it was only in targeted districts.