Favorite recent post by the previous poster

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Nobody deserves or earns anything with politics

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Because longtime politicians are losing their crossover appeal and now only matching the partisan leans of their constituencies (a very common story in our current political era).

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AOC is right. Our nation's prisons are filled with non-violent offenders (serving absurdly long sentences who pose no harm to society on the whole. Additionally, many of these people face systemic barriers (finding work, housing, etc.) when leaving prison that causes them to recidivate. Rehabilitating these people should be a higher priority. Complete abolition of prison may not feasible, but our criminal justice system is definitely in need of reform.

A balanced system of Corrections has four (4) elements:  Incapacitation, Deterrance, Retribution/Restitution for victims, and Rehabilitation.  

I highlighted two (2) sentences here.  The last sentence is definitely true.

The first sentence is something I'm dubious of.  What do you consider "non-violent" offenders serving "absurdly long sentences"?  Now I do believe that there are people in prisons serving absurdly long sentences for their crimes, and I do believe (sadly) that there is racial bias in sentencing to some degree.  But I would like to see some stats showing large numbers of "non-violent" offenders in prisons coupled with what type of offenders these "non-violent" folks are.  

But the idea that prisons are full of non-violent offenders that shouldn't be incarcerated is ridiculous.  There are people in prison like Bernie Madoff; he's a non-violent offender.  There are people in prisons who have engaged in systematic economic crimes.  Is there not a point where incarceration is called for in order to deter other people from committing thefts, and especially thefts that reflect planning and sophistication?  And Drug Dealers; are they "non-violent"?  I really wish to see the stats on what percentage of incarcerated criminals are "non-violent" and I'm curious to see if people here (on all sides of the spectrum) would agree with that consensus.

The middle part of the paragraph is where the bulk of the work has to be for change.  Prison SHOULD be an experience where prisoners can come out more employable than others.  Now prison ought to be a place where a work ethic is developed, but prisoners ought to come out of prison with at least SOME marketable work skills.  But there also needs to be ways to reduce the impact of a felony criminal record, especially one that is decades old, and one where the person has not reoffended.  The idea that a criminal record ought to be forever is something that needs to be reexamined.  And people should not have to beg for this necessarily; there needs to be processes that make expungement of at least SOME criminal records an automatic thing at a certain point.  

Minimum-mandatory sentences and enhanced penalties ought to be dialed back significantly.  Juvenile records ought to disappear after a reasonable frame of time, and charging juveniles as adults should be something that ONLY a judge should decide; it should NEVER be a decision left solely to prosecutors (as it is in Florida).  

We can also dial back OVER-criminalization.  Reduce minor drug possession to misdemeanors.  Reduce a slew of felonies to misdemeanors that has been misdemeanors previously before tough-on-crime legislators decided to upgrade the penalties.  There are a slew of offenses that fall in this category.  Reduce any number of misdemeanors and low-level felonies to civil matters.  This can be done.  We have mass incarceration as a result of OVER-criminalization, and the bill for all of this is coming due.

But we do need to be real about this.  While many people who are currently incarcerated are over-punished, very few of them are victims.  The wrongly-convicted, yes, but most people who claim they plead to a charge for some reason other than being guilty are kidding themselves, and kidding us.  We do have a slew of people in America who are OK with stealing and with resolving disputes with violence.  Not all of these offenses merit years in prison, but the idea that they're misunderstood FFs is a fantasy that some cling to.  

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I had a dream 3 years ago were I was 5 again but I was in a basket with a wheel on top running across a wire. I’m also back in my old house or I should say outside is as the basket is taking me out of my old bedroom and outside. It’s pitch black out minus the street lights. The wire is attached on one end to my old room and I can’t see where the other half ends due to it being dark. I want to go back to my old room so I try to get out of the basket. I’m only 8 feet off the ground and I figure that shouldn’t be a problem. So I jump out of the basket but by 8 foot fall felt like 20 feet and I felt the wind pass over my face as I go front first to the ground but before I hit the ground I woke up