I consider that whole fiasco a threat to the financial and national security of the USA - but you noticed not only were they not convicted, they were handed a check to give themselves new upgraded offices and fat bonuses.

@jondspen Yeah, I know. I m not happy that bad behavior was rewarded like that.

Do we have rooms enough for all CEOs? Yes. We probably do.

@KenChang That's pretty cynical of you to say all CEO's

@Biosteelman Yes. I am sure some are very fine people.

@KenChang goid one lol ,that would be some shade if I was a MAGA but since I'm not its just funny.

@Biosteelman @KenChang , I don't think it's fair to say all, but there is an aweful lot, especially in politics. Many corporations are using loopholes in the Tillman Act to make government a corporate welfare state for the wealthiest against the working poor. Some get government protections to prevent failure claiming all the jobs lost, as if no one would pick up in its place. Prison reform is needed due to corporate involvement, and drug reform, and healthcare reform, and job reform... They all have super wealthy people using their power and money to get more power and money.

Some millionaires and billionaires are good people. Maybe most, but like most Americans, they stay out of politics, or get demonized by the bad Oligarchs.

On the MAGA question, why is it if you have a criminal scheme to get into the White House, you can absolve yourself off your criminal scheme and get away with it? You can steal the highest seat in the country, then delcare a national emergency and when Congress votes, all you need is 1/3 to waiver and then you can veto their veto and end democracy. Trump showed us democracy can end in a week if we aren't careful. We can add Government reform to the list of reforms we need if we want this country great again.

@Antidronefreeman do you ever have any facts to base your accusations????? Obama didn't do enough, granted, but I would like to see your "facts." You so often spout bull shit, then run off to hide when confronted or throw some dust similar to how fundamentalists argue.

@Antidronefreeman I worked corrections during those years

I believe the majority are casualties of the war on drugs. Some countries are dealing with the problem using harm reduction policies. I really wish USA would adopt these.

Principles of Harm Reduction
Harm reduction is a set of practical strategies and ideas aimed at reducing negative consequences associated with drug use. Harm Reduction is also a movement for social justice built on a belief in, and respect for, the rights of people who use drugs.

Harm reduction incorporates a spectrum of strategies from safer use, to managed use to abstinence to meet drug users “where they’re at,” addressing conditions of use along with the use itself. Because harm reduction demands that interventions and policies designed to serve drug users reflect specific individual and community needs, there is no universal definition of or formula for implementing harm reduction.

However, HRC considers the following principles central to harm reduction practice.

Accepts, for better and or worse, that licit and illicit drug use is part of our world and chooses to work to minimize its harmful effects rather than simply ignore or condemn them.
Understands drug use as a complex, multi-faceted phenomenon that encompasses a continuum of behaviors from severe abuse to total abstinence, and acknowledges that some ways of using drugs are clearly safer than others.
Establishes quality of individual and community life and well-being–not necessarily cessation of all drug use–as the criteria for successful interventions and policies.
Calls for the non-judgmental, non-coercive provision of services and resources to people who use drugs and the communities in which they live in order to assist them in reducing attendant harm.
Ensures that drug users and those with a history of drug use routinely have a real voice in the creation of programs and policies designed to serve them.
Affirms drugs users themselves as the primary agents of reducing the harms of their drug use, and seeks to empower users to share information and support each other in strategies which meet their actual conditions of use.
Recognizes that the realities of poverty, class, racism, social isolation, past trauma, sex-based discrimination and other social inequalities affect both people’s vulnerability to and capacity for effectively dealing with drug-related harm.
Does not attempt to minimize or ignore the real and tragic harm and danger associated with licit and illicit drug use.

@JazznBlues YES! I've have said for years there is a certain percentage of the population that will use drugs legal or illegally. By making use legal you remove the glamour of the illicit drug trade that fuels many gangs. The stigma is reduced and help for people that want to deal with their drug problem is readily available. Until the profit motive is removed from illegal drugs our government and all levels of law enforcement will not change.

@silverotter11 Loved what you just said!

Law is not consistent with ethics, so it is quite unclear whether breaking a law in general is bad, neutral, good.

@htg44 I certainly don't disagree with your point...If an established law is broken guilt depends on 2 factors - Point of view and how much money you have. To my point though, good bad or indifferent, the cornerstone of written Law should be based, at least in part, on fairness to all parties (regardless) and established ethical standards by which we all should try to live. When the standard is allowed to break down through corrupt players (which is happening quite a bit lately) the result generally impacts minorities more. That is all I was saying. So even though I don't disagree with your point...I don't particularly think my point is wrong either. We live to engage another day.

For the most part, I agree. Living I a country where hard drugs have become the norm, I must respectfully disagree. When I see teenagers dressed worse than clowns and so neurotic that walking by their homes causes them to behave as though they were animals, and theft and violent crimes are committed over silly reasons, something needs to be done. I want to create an artist's garden here, but if I can't trust my bike to be safe on the back porch for 15 minutes in the middle of the day, there is a problem. (And I live in a decent neighborhood.)

It's a decent enough concept, but if they stole because they didn't have what they needed, it puts them back in the position they were in before.

In the past, prisons had a system to allow inmates to get an education while they served their sentences, but in today's for profit prisons and lobbying groups, this option has been taken from most inmates, probably in hopes that they'll return.

There's too much incentive to keep prisons occupied. If all the crime dried up and the prisons were left empty, I'd bet that they'd look to criminalize something else to fill them back up again.

@Holysocks, @Keita Yeah, I guess I am being idealistic. I guess I just figure there should be better ways to handle things than what is happening right now.

@Holysocks IMO it's a symptom you're referring to and not the root problem. Poverty is directly proportional to incarceration rates. I believe poverty, despair and hopelessness are more root causes of drug abuse. Kurzgesagt has a pretty good video showing the studies and the links.

@JazznBlues Whoa, thanks for that information. It totally makes sense.

@Meili idealism isn't bad as philosophy, but rarely are ideals met IRL. Reality has a way of screwing with most philosophical concepts. Don't lose out on thinking of ideals because of that, or we won't have any philosophy left. We get cynical when we stick to practicality.

PS: I love In a Nutshell, AKA Kurzgesagt.

@OwlInASack The trend toward oligarchy and wealth disparity have each been shamefully American phenomena. A lot of us here would love to change it.

until you get caught

@thinkwithme
Sociopaths never get caught.

@bigpawbullets mmm... Charles Manson?

@thinkwithme
Failed sociopath. But a fun guy, nevertheless.

@bigpawbullets thanks for the warning!

That truly is bullshit. It should be required that the jury understands that it has this power.

I've personally seen judges try to stop jury nullification. Sheep go along as though the judge was gawd. Despicable what this nation has become!

@Deanervin I remind people most everyone considers the top 3 underhanded, lying, despicable, two faced, worthless POS professions to be lawyers, politicians, and used car sales people. I then go on to explain that a judge is nothing more than a combination of two of these professions - a politician and a lawyer. Yet for SOME reason, people think these judges develop morals and ethics, just by putting on a black robe. Ridiculous...

@jondspen indeed it is!

@jondspen While I somewhat share in your view of my own profession (I regularly suffer from professional self-loathing, not unrelated to my sense of misanthropy), but the issue of the jury nullification isn't as simple as "Power to the People" as you seem to describe it.

"White defendants accused of crimes against blacks and other minorities have often been acquitted by all-white juries, especially in the South, even in the face of irrefutable evidence.[36]"

The wikipedia has somewhat of fuller description of what it has meant. [en.wikipedia.org]

The American jurisprudence has held a very ambivalent attitude toward it. I've always seen it as a vote of conscience, not a legal concept.

@KenChang I disagree - it is the only way the people have to balance the government power over them. People say elections do that, but the reality of the situation that someone is only worried about their job every 2, 4, or 6 years - doesn't allows much leverage by the people. Jury nullification is the only way the people have an active, everyday voice in the enforcement of the government directly. Legislators pass laws (many the people are not even aware of), the executive enforces them how they interpret, the judicial judges if the law is constitutional (typically rubber stamping the other branches in this regard since it's in their best collective interest to cover each others back to keep the power), and also judges if the law is just, should be enforced given the evidence, and passes sentencing. If the people were given the opportunity to find guilt, but negate the sentence, then I could agree more to your point. Since we can't, our only recourse is to send a message via we the people in a jury to the above branches, that we agree/disagree with enforcing a specific law.

And yes, I have read the wikipedia article on the matter several times in the past - but thank you for posting for others who may have not. Also, I could give a shit less about what American jurisprudence thinks about it. The Supreme Court has ruled in the past that slavery was legal - even in the face of the plain, simple, and direct words of The Constitution. I really don't respect the self serving opinion of the very system that first and foremost looks out for it's own interests (governmental power) over the freedom and liberties of the people. Look at the federal power creep that has occurred far beyond the scope of what The Constitution mandates. Of course they are going to try to castrate the peoples power to keep them in check.

I just can't get into the roving bands of warlords...

@thinkwithme

Google ANARCHY. Then google ANARCHISM.

There is a huge difference. Chaos isvwhat we have now.

@BryanLV whats the difference between government and organization of society? I get that it is suppose to be voluntary. So ok you have you group of volunteers that live happy and grow carrots. Cool. Then someone doesn't want to take part in your communal garden, cool, live and let live. Except this guy has some issues and we don't know why but he wants to destroy the garden, maybe eat the gardeners..Then what?

@thinkwithme

How is that scenario any different than what we have now?

Anarchism does not insure utopia and cannot solve all problems (although this one is easy). But in todays society im guessing you would call in men armed with guns to deal with a threat. Why can't that still happen in a voluntary society?

@BryanLV So you would call in armed men to deal with the cannibal that hates your carrot garden? Sounds like a use of force...Im not against you, I'm just trying to imagine how this plays out.

@thinkwithme

Isnt that what police are? I personally believe that an armed society is a polite society. Then there is the Non Aggression Principle, or NAP.

If this person is destroying property that does not belong to him, he is in violation of the NAP and should probably be restrained in some way.

@BryanLV so this is how I see anarchism defined "belief in the abolition of all government and the organization of society on a voluntary, cooperative basis without recourse to force or compulsion." I'm sure you have a fairer society in mind. My point is that it is only voluntary until there is a conflict with someone that doesnt want to partake. And restraining someone is talking about policing which may be fully necessary. It's also a branch of government. So the arguement it's better without govt doesnt work as a philosophy bc this is still govt..

@BryanLV anarchism seems to rest on the idea that the people of this group have a superior moral code, that they are less likely to be corrupt. is that true?

Anarchism does not seem to be the best solution. I propose Free-Market Ethicism with no taxes at all. Governmental expenses will tend to cause inflation, but Free-Market forces will counteract inflation. Read my article "Ethics and Truth in " on Academia on Research Gate.

@htg44

It seems like a reasonable middle ground. I will certainly read your article. But whats your problem with freedom and Laissez Faire?

Can you link your article, please?

@thinkwithme

No. It rests on the fact that all humans are fallable and corruptsble. If people are not capable of governing themselves, how can a human govern thousands or even millions of others?

The fact is that govts do not work, as we can see by history and the current state of things.

@thinkwithme

There is nothing to partake in except freedom. If you follow the NAP, you are fine, unlike today.

Policing is fine, but not as it is today. Its a bureaucracy that is not accountable to the people. Because a central govt is not doing it, does not mean the thing cannot and will not be done.

Protrection and fire companies, emt are all services a free market and a free people can and will provide, including building roads and infrastructure.

@BryanLV It's govt but simpler govt you seem to be talking about..If you police people then you have laws that they respond to being broken. Thats your judicial and leg branch. If it's just the law of as I see fit, you are bound to run into all kinds of arbitrary crazy. NAP is great but how many times do people go back and forth over who started it..It's perception. Some see saying fuck this as aggression. Some see someone leaning on that tree in their yard as aggression. Taking that water out of your well or that sandwich you had in the fridge and some say poverty is violence and one is aggressive hoarding all that food keeping it from hungry people.

@thinkwithme

Youre describing the current system. Not the one I propose.

Minarchism is a move in the right direction, too; which is just a tiny govt. Im all for having a continued dialogue. You seem genuinely interested in figuring out what these concepts are.

@thinkwithme , I'd be a just warlord. My government would be 1/2 voted in, and 1/2 lottery, with term limits. The Doomsday riders would be a vounteer army. ?

We don't know them all is correct - but a Hell of a lot of examples exist showing dozens if not hundreds of folks doing low level, non violent crime and getting life. If you have two misdemeanors a third one can be charged as a felony. California supreme court ruled against a guy on a third strike for stealing a video tape for his kid's Christmas present. Still locked up.

I always like to point out terms that should be oxymoronic but are not, like life sentence and death sentence, should be opposites but mean close to the same thing. lol

even if violent, an incidence of violence is not indicative of a habit of it. most people have a violent out burst or two through out life, giving the state the authority to imprison someone for life, that does not pose an immediate threat to the public is reprehensible.

[aclu.org]
I don't think they had to do anything violent. I think people are making money off of prisoners..

Read the article or look it up

@thinkwithme read the article but thanks for adding no value to a conversation

@Biosteelman I gave you a source. Not your secretary, but thanks for playing.

@Biosteelman I want to say that your question seems to lead away from the salient issue. Regardless of how one defines violent and the argument of varying definitions, stealing a jacket, smoking a crackpipe, stealing gas, are not crimes that should take someone's freedom for their natural life. This is severe discrimination against the poor, a hopeless view towards reform, and simply irreverant to the worth of an individual's life.

@thinkwithme see now your comment is worth a reply. I disagree repeated offenses of tricking old people out of their live savings, treason, selling drugs to kids repeatedly, child neglect, certain types of fraud, etc... or do you think if you steal something as long as you con them or do it without threat of violence is OK?
stealing a jacket...probably not
yelling at a cop but having 2 priors from decades ago nope.
showing consistently you're a Sociopath YES

A smart and clever lawyer would use a states statutory laws in cases of really old priors.

I disagree somewhat. Now granted, if a person was violent in the past, and continues to show violent tendencies - then yes, it should be considered. If a person has prior drug charges, I say why does that matter. No easy answer I know - lots of grey between the black and white.