On 07 Nov 2013, at 23:12, meekerdb wrote:
On 11/6/2013 6:42 PM, Chris de Morsella wrote:
Either all humans enjoy human rights or none do.
Human rights are a human invention.
Human inventions are a human invention.
Bruno
As soon as a class of persons is created that are stripped of their
basic human rights society is on a slippery slope down into the
dark hell of totalitarianism.
Are you repeating the common political rhetoric that refers to
people who have been convicted of a crime as "criminals" as though
that defined a class, like "women" or "laborer"? I think that is a
pernicious view point; one which is used to justify an "us vs. them"
mentality and "the war on crime". There is no "criminal class",
there are just people who have committed crimes. I commit a crime
every day: exceeding the speed limit, and so do 90% of the other
people on the freeway.
Laws are passed with the idea and understanding that they will only
be selectively enforced. This is why it is disturbing to see the
proliferation of high-tech law enforcement: drones, GPS tracking,
eavesdropping, cameras. People realize that there are so many laws
and so many poorly crafted laws that if every violation of every law
was caught and prosecuted we'd all end up in jail.
And this is not due to some evil politicians plot. The same people
who routinely drive 80mph on the freeway, *want* the speed limit set
to 65 or 70, because those *other people* are driving too fast. The
same people who smoke cigarettes want marijuana to be illegal. If
you've ever been on a jury you know that most people are quick to
condemn any deviation from what they consider the norm. Being
liberal and tolerant doesn't come naturally.
This brings up the paradox of crime & punishment. Whenever a person
is punished by society in some way and their rights are restricted
this creates a risk. Now obviously some people need to be
imprisoned – not nearly as many as are in fact imprisoned, but some
people are violent anti-social and commit harm on others.
Suppose they're not anti-social and not violent. They just
defrauded a few million investors out of their retirement savings.
Should we just let them walk free...Oh, right, we do.
But once someone has paid their price and done their time if they
are then – as they are in this country – permanently stripped of
their civic rights (felons cannot vote – or own guns as well -- in
most states in the USA) it gets into the area of creating a sub-
human class of persons.
In the states I know about, a felon can petition to have their
voting rights reinstated.
Brent
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