Why are Americans so crazy for absurdly long penal punishments?
Like. I understand your point but a lot of people really don't think that is punishment really
These people who are gambling with peoples lives and livelihoods just to get richer need to start going to jail.
Nothing will change until proper punishments are handed out that makes people reconsider being a greedy, selfish, morally reprehensible piece of shit.
The war on drugs sucked, but it was still mostly a war against dealers.
I just don't think it is accurate to say that people are getting super long sentences for possession anymore and I don't think it is right to use that as justification for longer sentences for other people.
#2: I completely agree.
three strikes laws still exist, it is still possible to push possession into felony territory. if there's a gun anywhere near the arrest you can probably tack on firearms charges, etc.
if you're reasonably white and middle class those extras will be ignored for a lighter sentence. if you're black or for whatever other reason they just don't like you then they'll tack those extras on and three strikes you.
there is a lot of "prosecutorial discretion" still, and if you dig into it hard enough that's a code word for racially biased prosecution. the fact that they we reasonable with you or your college buddies who got busted with some MDMA or something is not the same experience that lower income black people get.
That all said, for all of the negative PR Nixon has received over the years he was a rather progressive and surprisingly egalitarian executive who has been praised by Indian Country Today[2] and appears to have stuck pretty close to his quaker upbringings. I think a lot of people conflate Nixon and Regan - which is pretty ridiculous when you look at the policies those two presidents actually pursued during their terms... And even more folks are getting second hand vibes from Nixon's infamous presidential debate[3] which pitted a rather uncharismatic man against JFK and led to a pretty obvious outcome.
1. https://www.vox.com/2016/3/22/11278760/war-on-drugs-racism-n...
2. https://indiancountrytoday.com/archive/barack-obama-and-rich...
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9cdRpE4KKc Just FYI - if you've never seen this I'd suggest giving it a go sometime. Given recent politics it's almost fantastical to listen to two folks come into a debate focused on the issues and minimizing the ways they attacked each other.
We can be as cynical as we like about boomers and then going on to be Reagan voters, it doesn't change Nixon and Kissenger's status as unprosecuted war criminals.
I'm not overly familiar with Quaker orthodoxy, I'd be surprised if dropping bombs killing 500k Cambodians is consistent with it. Nixon wasn't all bad because no human is, even he who must not be named was kind to (some) children, we're told.
Not all bad can still be utterly horrific.
Hard to laud Nixon in my view, he was pretty clearly a racist man and was the originator of the "welfare queen" rhetoric (and the corresponding cuts in SNAP, etc.).
Because nothing ever happens to the rich when all you do is take a bit of their money away. They have so much that they will get it back merely for being wealthy, and as we just saw with the recent pardons, they won't even serve their entire sentence even when they're stealing the life savings of hundreds.
Your objection doesn't even make sense.
If I had a billion dollars and could get 2 billion dollars but I'd go to jail for 5 years, I would absolutely NOT do that thing.
Fines can mean something, if scaled correctly:
Here's my perspective.
I spent my childhood around kids from broken families, most of whom had parents in prison on long sentences for nonviolent drug charges. I saw lots of my friends lose their houses in the 00s. I entered a job market that treats just about everyone as disposable; unworthy of training, investment, benefits, time off, bathroom breaks, ppe, or a livable wage.
Wall sts focus on the short term has been like napalm on these issues and made fixing them political suicide. I don't say this lightly; wall st has enslaved America for profit.
>The Top 1% of Americans Have Taken $50 Trillion From the Bottom 90% [1]
The proletariat is showing their heads and nipping at the ankles of everyone. Some are misguided, but beating a hedge fund at their own game, trying to convince boomers that black lives matter enough to not be executed by police, or Medicare for All or forgiving student loan debt are all extremely well studied solutions to systemic issues in America that will not be meaningfully addressed until the root problems are addressed: money in politics, racism, trickle down economics, class inequality, asset inflation, health care, employee rights, war on drugs, etc, etc, etc.
This specific incident was a fluke of luck that required ridiculously overpaid bros in cushy hedge fund jobs to count past 100% while shorting gme/nok/AMC which is playing with the lives and livelihood of the people that work in each of those companies. Needless to say, but watching billionaires repeat '08 with gamestop, amc, and Nokia ruffled a lot of feathers. Gme especially brought out some whales with money to burn in the chase of infinite gains.
Maybe this was an elaborate psyop to manipulate people into doing things they wouldn't. If so, great job, if not, well maybe the fat cats on wall st and in Congress should come around my hood and experience the hopelessness for themselves, that's an open invitation for as long as this account is active for any billionaires or US politicians not already arguing against the same issues I am to come and walk in my shoes.
Hopefully this incident spurs some change in wall st and the culture there. Congress certainly doesn't have the courage to.
[0] http://www.darklyrics.com/lyrics/bloodforblood/outlawanthems... [1] https://time.com/5888024/50-trillion-income-inequality-ameri...