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And I know you would want that administrator to be more impartial than you as well. Unfortunately, the American justice system is blind to its own racism. The situation is far wo…
14 Apr 2012, 15:40
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13 Apr 2012, 13:57
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No, it's not. It's quite difficult sometimes. Yes, obviously. Black slavery functioned well into the 1930s in the state of Georgia. Lynchings occurred throughout the US until th…
12 Apr 2012, 21:23
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You read that correctly, Lee. But humane treatment of all humans is not just good for its effects. It's also good because of the effects of treating humans inhumanely.…
12 Apr 2012, 21:21
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No---it was satire and shame I asked about. I didn't realize this was a topic.…
12 Apr 2012, 20:27
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So you see that a harsh penal system is a trap, since it can be ratcheted up but never down. Worse than harshness in its pernicious effect on society, however---and yet harshness…
12 Apr 2012, 20:25
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As long as they get out of their cells daily and have some daily contact with humans, confinement under those circumstances is not inhumane. This doesn't require unsupervised acc…
12 Apr 2012, 20:16
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Good point. Let's build a justice system around that.…
12 Apr 2012, 20:12
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This makes no sense. This makes no sense either. Did someone express such a sentiment? Recently you asked someone if he read what you wrote. Did you read what I wrote?…
12 Apr 2012, 20:11
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That explains a lot about you, Antonio. Please excuse me from your "we," since I never saw it. I prefer reading about scientific and legal studies of issues rather than TV shows…
12 Apr 2012, 18:40
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The justification for war crimes and crimes against humanity is ALWAYS safety and security. There are cases on record where people subjected to extended solitary confinement try…
12 Apr 2012, 18:33
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Naturally I bow to your experience. But I assumed we were all thinking of max-security or supermax facilities where murderers would find themselves, and further, with the privati…
12 Apr 2012, 18:29
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What you are proposing is torture and is globally illegal. Such a person's situation is not as different from your own as you think, because if the state can torture him, it can …
12 Apr 2012, 17:35
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Probably. But I hope you're not arguing for harsher sentences just to make prison life easier for convicts---who have been "defined down" by that same logic to include people mor…
12 Apr 2012, 17:22
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Right. And then what? "Oops"? Hey, we're sorry you're insane now, but here's a bunch of money. There is no excuse for torture.…
12 Apr 2012, 16:39
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No. Extended solitary confinement is cruel and unusual and a violation of international law. It creates vegetables. What did we just discuss regarding lobotomies? It's the same t…
12 Apr 2012, 16:37
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OTOH, who could be in prison for life and NOT brutally murder (or want to) everyone he comes in contact with? Indeed, what more could you do to destroy his humanity?…
12 Apr 2012, 16:35
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I can only respond that human laws must always be made in the absence of divine inspiration, direction, and enforcement. Thus it not only must be but is.…
12 Apr 2012, 16:32
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I'd put lobotomies, including chemical ones, in the same indefensible class as amputations, castrations, sterilizations, and other mutilations: even /less/ defensible than execut…
12 Apr 2012, 12:12
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Exactly. Mob hits, drug kingpins, and serial killers make for great TV and film but do not represent crime patterns well. And don't even get me started on the parents and grandmo…
12 Apr 2012, 01:18
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Since you bring it up: that argument that the death penalty is cheaper than incarceration was debunked ages ago. I once believed it too. But the long years of incarceration PLUS …
12 Apr 2012, 01:12
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I think that somehow that rant provides a clue to Skip's origin. But I don't know what origin that is.…
12 Apr 2012, 00:01
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Yes!…
11 Apr 2012, 20:20
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Exactly. I did wonder if I should go back and add "As far as I can tell, a BETTER one." My point was that any legal system can happily lose its most regressive features and stil…
11 Apr 2012, 20:19
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You're just wayyy ahead of us, that's all.…
11 Apr 2012, 19:27
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I guess we're talking about different opponents, because although I know there are anti-immigrant politicians across Europe, we generally only hear about our own in the US. Here,…
11 Apr 2012, 19:25
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11 Apr 2012, 14:11
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Backing up a bit, I should note that whatever your perspective on Islam, fundy sharia in 22nd (or whatever) century Europe is still more plausible than time travel. And just to be…
11 Apr 2012, 13:35
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The Pilgrims overthrew their new government to recreate the oppression they suffered at home? I don't think so. If anything, they recreated the oppression THEY enacted at home. B…
11 Apr 2012, 12:32
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And that's the whole point of dystopian/apocalyptic/horror SF.…
11 Apr 2012, 12:30
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Ask him what---how he's going to bring about a revolution when he has a couple of dozen followers? That's a damn good question.…
11 Apr 2012, 12:29
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Because they'd probably have to stage a revolution to do so---a revolution which is not mentioned in HF. Whereas the bogeyman of today (or rather from a few years ago) is depicte…
11 Apr 2012, 11:49
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I almost posted the same response. A tiny and backward part of sharia is used as a bogeyman, whereas 99% of the time it's as dull as dishwater. And amputation is presented not as…
11 Apr 2012, 11:45
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I took it as an explanation of why Europe was not worth looking to for help. As a comparison, /The Hunger Games/ doesn't explain why the reader can forget about expecting interfe…
10 Apr 2012, 22:42
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What makes you think Wolfe either believes in a European sharia future or that a fear of such a future is political? I agree that the hand-amputation thing is insensitive. But ev…
10 Apr 2012, 11:43
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On the other hand, if a story featured people who befriend travelers on stormy nights, then sink their fangs into their necks, you wouldn't twitch. I had the same reaction initia…
10 Apr 2012, 11:32
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Sure, but what about an sf novel? I took the setting as a type of alternative universe, where many things went down just a bit differently from our own---basically the entire se…
10 Apr 2012, 01:41
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In the 1990s, a NAU was a favorite bogeyman of far-rightists, so the sense is clearly that it is not a right-wing /fantasy /but a right-wing /nightmare. /…
10 Apr 2012, 00:42
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Definitely! But none with time travel, certainly not as complicated as in LOST.…
06 Apr 2012, 22:21
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I always figured at least one of the writers, or Abrams himself, must have read BTNS. The mix of pulp mysteries with pulp SF, with multiple time leaps (if not loops), and the del…
06 Apr 2012, 19:17
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heh! Yeah, there were so many heavy-handed references my wife and I practically made a drinking game out of characters saying "take a leap of faith." Then again, we also played …
06 Apr 2012, 18:40
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05 Apr 2012, 16:07
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Just read the story, and of course Gerry's summary is almost verbatim. Assuming everything the wall says is literally true, the aliens are exactly as I described: presumably biol…
05 Apr 2012, 01:23
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That must have been before science fiction was able to afford editors. ;)…
04 Apr 2012, 18:03
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The Grave Secret is not a serious story, and yet is not so bad in some ways. Detailed, but clumsy. I'd be proud of it if it were mine, but I'd clean it up first. And it could be …
04 Apr 2012, 17:38
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I keep wondering whose blood that is, then.…
04 Apr 2012, 15:20
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Yes. I had read something about Abrams---turns out it was that his wife is Catholic. But those characters are in the OT and therefore are Christian ones as well---although in an…
04 Apr 2012, 14:27
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Never mind. Just never mind.…
04 Apr 2012, 13:18
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At least one was Jewish. Another was Catholic. I don't think Abrams is Jewish. Anyway, what difference would it make?…
04 Apr 2012, 12:55
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See, this is why more engineers need to be writers.…
04 Apr 2012, 12:26
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