This Week in Google Alerts: Home Fires

David Stockhoff · 12 Apr 2012, 21:23 · from 2012-April.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2012 17:23:53 -0400
Subject: (urth) This Week in Google Alerts: Home Fires
In-Reply-To: <4F873F2B.4080309 at gmail.com>
References: <SNT123-W45F61ACEF9D0190C4FF2FCCF3A0 at phx.gbl>
	<CAM0v-i5VqpS+P2FR-5dNUyFuoYM9aKQqsK0t6FvbhBELKfJw_g at mail.gmail.com>
	<4F8736E7.1030909 at gmail.com> <4F8737D3.5020805 at gmail.com>
	<4F873A41.4040700 at verizon.net> <4F873F2B.4080309 at gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4F8747E9.9050702 at verizon.net>

On 4/12/2012 4:46 PM, Ant?nio Marques wrote:
> David Stockhoff wrote:
>> On 4/12/2012 4:15 PM, Ant?nio Marques wrote:
>>> Ant?nio Marques wrote:
>>>> Why think that how a society treats its prisoners will filter down to
>>>> how people treat each other in general and not the reverse?
>>>
>>> (I'm ready to believe a harsh penal system will result in a more
>>> violent society, but not necessarily that a milder one will result in
>>> a less violent one.)
>>
>> 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 always bubbles up in
>> these discussions as though it were the only relevant dimension---is
>> arbitrariness.
>>
>> So it's not just a side note that black/poor men get imprisoned and
>> executed at a higher rate in the US compared with whites and the rich,
>> guilty and innocent alike.
>
> Is it really black/white or is poor/rich enough to describe it?

No, it's not.
>
>> It's the very core of how the system
>> /actually/ /works/. It's a failure that stains every state and every
>> branch of government.
>
> How can you live in such a country?

It's quite difficult sometimes.
>
>> Fortunately, it's no longer "fashionable" to not care about that.
>
> Was it ever?

Yes, obviously. Black slavery functioned well into the 1930s in the 
state of Georgia. Lynchings occurred throughout the US until the 1970s.

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