Alabama treats inmates like Victorian debtors at best, stray animals at worst

[Person Man]

So Cassius' brutal rejoinder to R2D2 consists of (1) a yogiism ("That isn't word, and you're using it wrong!"), (2) a tautology ("You are merely an individual!"), and (3) a demand that R2D2 produce a deity to legitimize his opinion?

Of course what he is trying to say is that "I don't want this either but this is how things are so it must be right".

[Grumpier Than Thou]

So Cassius' brutal rejoinder to R2D2 consists of (1) a yogiism ("That isn't word, and you're using it wrong!"), (2) a tautology ("You are merely an individual!"), and (3) a demand that R2D2 produce a deity to legitimize his opinion?

Don't forget the whole part about criminals being used for free labour and how that's necessary within the prison system.

[politicus]

So Cassius' brutal rejoinder to R2D2 consists of (1) a yogiism ("That isn't word, and you're using it wrong!"), (2) a tautology ("You are merely an individual!"), and (3) a demand that R2D2 produce a deity to legitimize his opinion?

+ implying that this criteria didn't apply to rich and powerful people, who are apparently the only ones allowed to make moral judgements.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

I know of an AL death row inmate who has it better than the poor shlubs arrested for shoplifting.  Ugh.

[Person Man]

So Cassius' brutal rejoinder to R2D2 consists of (1) a yogiism ("That isn't word, and you're using it wrong!"), (2) a tautology ("You are merely an individual!"), and (3) a demand that R2D2 produce a deity to legitimize his opinion?

+ implying that this criteria didn't apply to rich and powerful people, who are apparently the only ones allowed to make moral judgements.

Like I said, the powers that be are the powers that be because they are right, right?

[King]

Disturbing.

Also, this Alabama prison stuff is pretty bad, too.

[Cranberry]

So Cassius' brutal rejoinder to R2D2 consists of (1) a yogiism ("That isn't word, and you're using it wrong!"), (2) a tautology ("You are merely an individual!"), and (3) a demand that R2D2 produce a deity to legitimize his opinion?

+ implying that this criteria didn't apply to rich and powerful people, who are apparently the only ones allowed to make moral judgements.

I guess that is even more disturbing than his views on prisons. To imply that only rich and powerful people can claim what is moral or not.... I am sorry but this kind of thinking is what leads to fascism and tyranny and inhuman, misanthropic procedures... How can one get to such a worldview?

[dead0man]

Shoplifting and being late on a ticket don't warrant incarceration.

Not for first time offenses, no....but if you've been caught shoplifting 5 times?  Or being caught driving without insurance 3 times?  Eventually even non-violent crimes* need to be punished.


*and these are crimes, crimes against all of us.  Shoplifting costs us all a LOT of money every year, as do asshats that get in crashes without insurance.


(and I shouldn't have to say this, but to ward off the no doubt incoming strawman from one of my fans, obviously I don't think prisoners should be treated like garbage for going to jail for such crimes)

[Cassius]

So Cassius' brutal rejoinder to R2D2 consists of (1) a yogiism ("That isn't word, and you're using it wrong!"), (2) a tautology ("You are merely an individual!"), and (3) a demand that R2D2 produce a deity to legitimize his opinion?

+ implying that this criteria didn't apply to rich and powerful people, who are apparently the only ones allowed to make moral judgements.

I guess that is even more disturbing than his views on prisons. To imply that only rich and powerful people can claim what is moral or not.... I am sorry but this kind of thinking is what leads to fascism and tyranny and inhuman, misanthropic procedures... How can one get to such a worldview?

In the end, 'morality' is essentially worthless unless one has the power to back up moral pronouncements. Take Christianity for example; the reason as to why it is still taken (relatively) seriously as a moral belief system is because it has the support of lots of big and often very wealthy Churches (the Catholic Church is the obvious example); of course, in the past, there was far more state support of Christianity, which also helped. If Christianity was just some poverty-stricken cult on the fringes of society, then I doubt it would be taken seriously at all as a system of morality. My point is that in order for ideas and views on morality to be viable, they need to have powerful forces behind them, patrons, if you will. Nobody believes in the divine right of Kings anymore because nobody powerful advocates for it, whereas, in the 17th century, it was in essence the ideology of several monarchs and many were willing to fight and die for it.

To preach morality without the power to back up what you are preaching is like having a body without bones; utterly useless and a general waste of time for all concerned. I'm not so much arguing that the rich and powerful are the only people who can have ideas on morality, but they are the only people whose ideas matter very much in the grand scheme of things.

Take me, my 'moral views' are worthless; they may do fine in the context of kitchen table banter, but with regards to the workings of the government, those in high places etcetera, they are totally worthless and irrelevant. There is no point railing against the 'evils' of the state if one has no power to change anything, and so one might as well accept the current situation and attempt to rub along with it as best as one can. For most people, life is like crawling through a deep marsh; the very act of crawling through the accumulated muck and sh!t to tiresome to allow us to look up at the pale blue sky above us and think. Rather than stop and gaze, one might as well plough on through the marsh.

[memphis]

Christianity is taken seriously because there are over 1 billion Christians in the world. Nobody who isn't a Christian takes Christianity seriously except in the sense of realpolitik.

[Flake]

Christianity is taken seriously because there are over 1 billion Christians in the world. Nobody who isn't a Christian takes Christianity seriously except in the sense of realpolitik.

oh my god can you talk about something not related to christianity and how "awful it is" for once

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

"The state must punish criminals because the state must punish criminals." - Cassius

Cassius' posts are exposes of the worst kind of sophistry. He provides no justification for America's carceral state outside of its existence as a state. To Cassius, the existence of the state is only justified by the right of the strongest. Cassius has demonstrated that he does not believe in the validity of moral systems unless they are justified by coercive force or hegemonic rule, which is another indication that the position of his claim is founded upon the right of the strongest.

The right of the strongest is a principle that could justify any moral action in any circumstance. In otherwords, it is not a moral principle at all: it is sophistry. It is the kind of sophistry that has been employed to justify political imprisonment, the violation of civil liberties and mass murder.  Ironically, Cassius' argument may also be used to justify the expropriation of land, the beheading of aristocrats and the burning of churches.

[Cassius]

Gotcha, Thrasymachus.

I quite like Thrasymachus, so thank you .

"The state must punish criminals because the state must punish criminals." - Cassius

Cassius' posts are exposes of the worst kind of sophistry. He provides no justification for America's carceral state outside of its existence as a state. To Cassius, the existence of the state is only justified by the right of the strongest. Cassius has demonstrated that he does not believe in the validity of moral systems unless they are justified by coercive force or hegemonic rule, which is another indication that the position of his claim is founded upon the right of the strongest.

The right of the strongest is a principle that could justify any moral action in any circumstance. In otherwords, it is not a moral principle at all: it is sophistry. It is the kind of sophistry that has been employed to justify political imprisonment, the violation of civil liberties and mass murder.  Ironically, Cassius' argument may also be used to justify the expropriation of land, the beheading of aristocrats and the burning of churches.

You say that I engage in sophistry, yet, what evidence do you have to suggest that my argument is anymore false than your own?

Anyroad, that the state is the state and should be obeyed and respected if it flowers from a legitmiate source is but one argument in favour of America's carceral state. Punishments such as these have many purposes; to deter, to penalise those who do wrong, to enforce and assert the supremacy of the state. The existence of the state is not only justified by its power, but because of the functions that it peforms; to maintain law and order, to defend its borders and to assist its law-abiding citizens in their business. However, it can only do those things if it has power; a state stripped of its ability to coerce and to bribe is a fundamentally useless state.

I repeat, how can a system of morality be worthwhile if it has no power? The aim of morality, after all, is to lay down the laws by which we should live and to enforce those laws; a moral system without power can do neither of those things, because it does not possess two of the key means of persuading people to do things; the aforementioned coercion and bribery. It can still attempt to 'reason' with people, or to appeal to them on the grounds of other matters, such as being the 'kith and kin' of the target, but in the end both of these appeals seem (historically speaking) to be largely superfluous.

Thus, I stand by my point that morality requires a powerful patron in order to be enforceable and worthwhile. The very 'civil liberties' that you mention in your second paragraph do not exist by some form of natural law, they exist because of the state defining and handing down to the citizenry those civil liberties. I suppose that it could be argued that they come from God, but, as you are not religious (as far as I'm aware and correct me if I'm wrong), that argument is out of the window. So tell me, where do our 'rights' come from? Who or what is it that ensures we have those rights? More importantly, how does it ensure that we have those rights? For the concept of human rights is in of itself part of a system of morality, and I would ask you, how has that system become relevant?

[Slander and/or Libel]

I repeat, how can a system of morality be worthwhile if it has no power? The aim of morality, after all, is to lay down the laws by which we should live and to enforce those laws; a moral system without power can do neither of those things, because it does not possess two of the key means of persuading people to do things; the aforementioned coercion and bribery. It can still attempt to 'reason' with people, or to appeal to them on the grounds of other matters, such as being the 'kith and kin' of the target, but in the end both of these appeals seem (historically speaking) to be largely superfluous.

[/b]Thus, I stand by my point that morality requires a powerful patron in order to be enforceable and worthwhile.[/b] The very 'civil liberties' that you mention in your second paragraph do not exist by some form of natural law, they exist because of the state defining and handing down to the citizenry those civil liberties. I suppose that it could be argued that they come from God, but, as you are not religious (as far as I'm aware and correct me if I'm wrong), that argument is out of the window. So tell me, where do our 'rights' come from? Who or what is it that ensures we have those rights? More importantly, how does it ensure that we have those rights? For the concept of human rights is in of itself part of a system of morality, and I would ask you, how has that system become relevant?

You're conflating "morality" and "a system to enforce morality". They are two separate things. The worth of a system of morality is determined by its precepts, not by whether enough powerful people believe in it to force its mandates on others. As was said above, this argument means that as long as they had power, the Nazis practiced a perfectly worthwhile morality. Needless to say, most would disagree.

[Badger]

This is sickening.. What kind of monsters do things like that?

The American prison system practices amoralist treatment of inmates? No way.

Firstly, amoralist isn't a word, and secondly, even if it were it doesn't refer to what I think you are referring to. Secondly, who are you to judge what is immoral and what isn't. You are merely an individual and from what I can gather not exactly a hugely wealthy or powerful one either. I also recall that you are not religious, thus meaning that you have no Church, no God and no book to back up whatever definition of morality that you are peddling. You are also criticising the morality of the state, yet, again, you have no comparable source of weight to back up your claims to know what it is to be moral.

So, what would you do? The state has to signal its disapproval of the actions of criminals (in a way that is easy for everybody to understand), thus, naturally, prisons must be unpleasant places to be. Far from being a violation or dereliction of duty, these prisons are in fact performing to a tee the role that prisons should perform; that is, to be hard, nasty places of punishment and suffering for the inmates.

Although I wouldn't, myself, go in for withholding medical care from inmates, that is only because I am of the view that they should be farmed out to do hard labour for free, and, you know, crippled criminals aren't likely to perform such tasks particularly well. Nonetheless, I see nothing particularly immoral here, in fact, in my own flawed, worthless individual perspective, I see this treatment as being perfectly morally justifiable.

What the hell is wrong with you?

Well I've gleaned that the man is basically a Nazi, so I'm going to guess "everything".

Before we go any further down this line of, um... attack, let me just put forward a couple of point. I am not anti-Semitic. I am not anti-Slavic. I do not believe that the British people need 'living space'. I'm not very keen on the idea of placing one semi-competent man at the pinnacle of a vast, complex state, with pretty much absolute power. I do not believe that the disabled should be killed. I'm not amenable to the idea that women are basically baby factories. I also do not believe that there is such thing as a 'master race'.

Now that's out of the way, please inform me as to why I'm 'basically a Nazi'. Or we could just forget the whole thing .

you may not be a Nazi specifically, but you are absolutely, unapologetically, without an ounce of  hyperbole, an absolute Webster's definition of a fascist.

So yes, without a swastika, your philosophies and politics are still horrid to the core.

Congratulations on your re-election, Senator.

[Cassius]

This is sickening.. What kind of monsters do things like that?

The American prison system practices amoralist treatment of inmates? No way.

Firstly, amoralist isn't a word, and secondly, even if it were it doesn't refer to what I think you are referring to. Secondly, who are you to judge what is immoral and what isn't. You are merely an individual and from what I can gather not exactly a hugely wealthy or powerful one either. I also recall that you are not religious, thus meaning that you have no Church, no God and no book to back up whatever definition of morality that you are peddling. You are also criticising the morality of the state, yet, again, you have no comparable source of weight to back up your claims to know what it is to be moral.

So, what would you do? The state has to signal its disapproval of the actions of criminals (in a way that is easy for everybody to understand), thus, naturally, prisons must be unpleasant places to be. Far from being a violation or dereliction of duty, these prisons are in fact performing to a tee the role that prisons should perform; that is, to be hard, nasty places of punishment and suffering for the inmates.

Although I wouldn't, myself, go in for withholding medical care from inmates, that is only because I am of the view that they should be farmed out to do hard labour for free, and, you know, crippled criminals aren't likely to perform such tasks particularly well. Nonetheless, I see nothing particularly immoral here, in fact, in my own flawed, worthless individual perspective, I see this treatment as being perfectly morally justifiable.

What the hell is wrong with you?

Well I've gleaned that the man is basically a Nazi, so I'm going to guess "everything".

Before we go any further down this line of, um... attack, let me just put forward a couple of point. I am not anti-Semitic. I am not anti-Slavic. I do not believe that the British people need 'living space'. I'm not very keen on the idea of placing one semi-competent man at the pinnacle of a vast, complex state, with pretty much absolute power. I do not believe that the disabled should be killed. I'm not amenable to the idea that women are basically baby factories. I also do not believe that there is such thing as a 'master race'.

Now that's out of the way, please inform me as to why I'm 'basically a Nazi'. Or we could just forget the whole thing .

you may not be a Nazi specifically, but you are absolutely, unapologetically, without an ounce of  hyperbole, an absolute Webster's definition of a fascist.

So yes, without a swastika, your philosophies and politics are still horrid to the core.

Congratulations on your re-election, Senator.

Webster defines 'fascist' on these lines I believe;

'A political philosophy, movement or regime that exalts the nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralised, autocratic government headed by a dictatorial, severe economic and social regimentation and forcible suppression of opposition'

I don't believe in autocracy. I don't think it works, and I don't think its a good idea even idealistically. I don't believe in economic and social regimentation, nor do I believe in the forcible suppression of opposition. I'm not a fascist, Badger, just a good old Tory.

Anyway, please explain to me as to why my 'philosophies' and politics are horrid to the core. Don't hold back, I'm curious as to why you in particular think that.

[pbrower2a]

This is sickening.. What kind of monsters do things like that?

The American prison system practices amoralist treatment of inmates? No way.

Firstly, amoralist isn't a word, and secondly, even if it were it doesn't refer to what I think you are referring to. Secondly, who are you to judge what is immoral and what isn't. You are merely an individual and from what I can gather not exactly a hugely wealthy or powerful one either. I also recall that you are not religious, thus meaning that you have no Church, no God and no book to back up whatever definition of morality that you are peddling. You are also criticising the morality of the state, yet, again, you have no comparable source of weight to back up your claims to know what it is to be moral.

So, what would you do? The state has to signal its disapproval of the actions of criminals (in a way that is easy for everybody to understand), thus, naturally, prisons must be unpleasant places to be. Far from being a violation or dereliction of duty, these prisons are in fact performing to a tee the role that prisons should perform; that is, to be hard, nasty places of punishment and suffering for the inmates.

Although I wouldn't, myself, go in for withholding medical care from inmates, that is only because I am of the view that they should be farmed out to do hard labour for free, and, you know, crippled criminals aren't likely to perform such tasks particularly well. Nonetheless, I see nothing particularly immoral here, in fact, in my own flawed, worthless individual perspective, I see this treatment as being perfectly morally justifiable.

What the hell is wrong with you?

Well I've gleaned that the man is basically a Nazi, so I'm going to guess "everything".

Before we go any further down this line of, um... attack, let me just put forward a couple of point. I am not anti-Semitic. I am not anti-Slavic. I do not believe that the British people need 'living space'. I'm not very keen on the idea of placing one semi-competent man at the pinnacle of a vast, complex state, with pretty much absolute power. I do not believe that the disabled should be killed. I'm not amenable to the idea that women are basically baby factories. I also do not believe that there is such thing as a 'master race'.

Now that's out of the way, please inform me as to why I'm 'basically a Nazi'. Or we could just forget the whole thing .

You need not be a Nazi to stand for evil.

Brutal treatment of non-violent offenders is inexcusable. Non-violent offenders must be rehabilitated -- not convinced that our social order treats life as a triviality compared to a piece of recorded music. If we must coddle offenders to correct them -- maybe we undo the harm that people who should have coddled kids but instead neglected or abused them did. Part of the rehabilitation is learning the relative value of humanity and material objects. Prisons must be deterrents to criminal behavior, even if the deterrent is 'only' regimentation, dislocation, and deprivation.

Economic exploitation is itself brutality, and it ordinarily requires brutal methods of enforcement -- especially if people have nominal freedom. The farm-out system did nothing to improve the offender, and may have exposed the offender to abuse that the State was obliged to excuse and enforce.   

 

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

Christianity is taken seriously because there are over 1 billion Christians in the world. Nobody who isn't a Christian takes Christianity seriously except in the sense of realpolitik.

Wrong, memph.  You were right with the first bit.  There are a billion Christians so it is forced down everyone's throats as legitimate.  This is the nature of organized religion.  There are plenty of non-Christians who tell vocal atheists like me and you to calm down and leave the nice Jesus freaks alone.  I bet they wouldn't be singing the same tune if I were throwing out some crap about Tom Cruise and his cult.

As for Alabama... wow.  I guess this is what happens when you take cops, who are often horrible and bloodthirsty sadists, and actually put them in a unrestrained position were they can freely torture.  Oh, and now let's throw in the fact that this is in Alabama, and a WHITE guard is in charge of the administration of BLACK inmates.  We might as well outsource their prison term to North Korea. At least they can say they traveled.

[Badger]

This is sickening.. What kind of monsters do things like that?

The American prison system practices amoralist treatment of inmates? No way.

Firstly, amoralist isn't a word, and secondly, even if it were it doesn't refer to what I think you are referring to. Secondly, who are you to judge what is immoral and what isn't. You are merely an individual and from what I can gather not exactly a hugely wealthy or powerful one either. I also recall that you are not religious, thus meaning that you have no Church, no God and no book to back up whatever definition of morality that you are peddling. You are also criticising the morality of the state, yet, again, you have no comparable source of weight to back up your claims to know what it is to be moral.

So, what would you do? The state has to signal its disapproval of the actions of criminals (in a way that is easy for everybody to understand), thus, naturally, prisons must be unpleasant places to be. Far from being a violation or dereliction of duty, these prisons are in fact performing to a tee the role that prisons should perform; that is, to be hard, nasty places of punishment and suffering for the inmates.

Although I wouldn't, myself, go in for withholding medical care from inmates, that is only because I am of the view that they should be farmed out to do hard labour for free, and, you know, crippled criminals aren't likely to perform such tasks particularly well. Nonetheless, I see nothing particularly immoral here, in fact, in my own flawed, worthless individual perspective, I see this treatment as being perfectly morally justifiable.

What the hell is wrong with you?

Well I've gleaned that the man is basically a Nazi, so I'm going to guess "everything".

Before we go any further down this line of, um... attack, let me just put forward a couple of point. I am not anti-Semitic. I am not anti-Slavic. I do not believe that the British people need 'living space'. I'm not very keen on the idea of placing one semi-competent man at the pinnacle of a vast, complex state, with pretty much absolute power. I do not believe that the disabled should be killed. I'm not amenable to the idea that women are basically baby factories. I also do not believe that there is such thing as a 'master race'.

Now that's out of the way, please inform me as to why I'm 'basically a Nazi'. Or we could just forget the whole thing .

you may not be a Nazi specifically, but you are absolutely, unapologetically, without an ounce of  hyperbole, an absolute Webster's definition of a fascist.

So yes, without a swastika, your philosophies and politics are still horrid to the core.

Congratulations on your re-election, Senator.

Webster defines 'fascist' on these lines I believe;

'A political philosophy, movement or regime that exalts the nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralised, autocratic government headed by a dictatorial, severe economic and social regimentation and forcible suppression of opposition'

I don't believe in autocracy. I don't think it works, and I don't think its a good idea even idealistically. I don't believe in economic and social regimentation, nor do I believe in the forcible suppression of opposition. I'm not a fascist, Badger, just a good old Tory.

Anyway, please explain to me as to why my 'philosophies' and politics are horrid to the core. Don't hold back, I'm curious as to why you in particular think that.

Well, someone who posts "I do not believe that the British people need 'living space'. I'm not very keen on the idea of placing one semi-competent man at the pinnacle of a vast, complex state, with pretty much absolute power." is clearly fascist, and that's exactly how I  MIS-read your post. My apologies. I blame posting after a second double bourbon.

[Ebowed]

I keep reading worse and worse stories about how America is treating its prisoners like garbage.  The idea of simply having less prisoners is starting to become an idea that a lot of people like (when has the war on drugs been less popular?), but I feel like the idea that we should treat humans with dignity and respect is a ways further, and I'm confounded by it.

I read another story a few days ago about prisons in Texas handing their visitations 'security' over to private companies, where in-person visits are replaced with videos, and the prisoners are charged a dollar or higher per call.  The companies promote it as a way for inmates to stay in touch with relatives or friends further away from them, but when public prisons have expressed interest in the service, the companies always ask for (and occasionally get) a special restriction which limits all prison "visits" to the video calls only.  This allows the prison to save money on bodyguards while they also profit from the prisoners.  Common sense (and also studies) indicate that seeing somebody in person when you are kept in a state of isolation from wider society is probably healthy for you, but why should that stand in the way of the free market doing what it does best?

Although I find OP's story more chilling than that.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

I keep reading worse and worse stories about how America is treating its prisoners like garbage.  The idea of simply having less prisoners is starting to become an idea that a lot of people like (when has the war on drugs been less popular?), but I feel like the idea that we should treat humans with dignity and respect is a ways further, and I'm confounded by it.

I read another story a few days ago about prisons in Texas handing their visitations 'security' over to private companies, where in-person visits are replaced with videos, and the prisoners are charged a dollar or higher per call.  The companies promote it as a way for inmates to stay in touch with relatives or friends further away from them, but when public prisons have expressed interest in the service, the companies always ask for (and occasionally get) a special restriction which limits all prison "visits" to the video calls only.  This allows the prison to save money on bodyguards while they also profit from the prisoners.  Common sense (and also studies) indicate that seeing somebody in person when you are kept in a state of isolation from wider society is probably healthy for you, but why should that stand in the way of the free market doing what it does best?

Although I find OP's story more chilling than that.

Therein lies the problem.  We somehow thought it acceptable at some point to hand over our prisoners to for-profit tycoons.  Less prisoners = useless prisons = no funding = unhappy rich man : (  And we CAN'T have that! 

As for the conditions?  The typical rich man who wants to get involved in the for-profit prison venture is probably, ah hem... less than concerned with how criminals are treated.