Posted by Scott on March 7th, 2008 — Posted in Politics & Commentary
I just read an interesting post on Joejolly’s blog. In the post, he speculates that using Violence to Solve Problems may be contagious. Basically, he speculates that the Bush Administration’s aggressive military endeavors–namely the occupation of Iraq–set an example of using offensive violence for the American people. As a result, American citizens may tend to use violence to solve problems and get what they want in their personal lives.
I think he has a point. Common-sense psychology tells us that violence begets more violence.
After the example their government has set, I too wonder if many United States citizens will deal with each other personally in the way the Bush Administration has dealt with Iraq.
What do you think? When a government needlessly attacks and occupies others nations does that spur interpersonal violence back at home due to the example set?
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Posted by Scott on March 4th, 2008 — Posted in Politics & Commentary
Last week, I posted a link to a short article I wrote in which I argued that society does not need prisons.
Shortly after that, I came across a Washington Post article that reports that now more than one in 100 adults in the United States is in jail or prison. According to the article, the United States leads the world in both the number and percentage of residents it incarcerates.
I find it both absurd and sad that the United States throws so many people behind bars, especially considering that about 25% of the inmates have merely been charged with non-violent drug offenses.
I believe that prisons do not rehabilitate people. Prisons make people more dangerous. I bet that many non-violent drug offenders come out of jail as violent criminals.
Some United States citizens like to call their country the freest in the world. But I cannot believe that claim if the country incarcerates so many people.
Worse yet, consider all the resources wasted by stuffing people in jail for non-violent drug offenses and other victimless crimes. Those resources could have been put towards stopping victimization and violent crime such as rape and murder.
What do you think?
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Posted by Scott on February 29th, 2008 — Posted in Politics & Commentary
I have come to the conclusion that we do not need prisons. I wrote an article about it: Does Society Need Prisons?
Basically, my contention is that we can release anyone who does not have a psychological defect making them so dangerous to others as to warrant putting them in a medical asylum.
What do you think?
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Posted by Scott on February 20th, 2008 — Posted in Politics & Commentary
Today, I will post the following video about the genocide that happened in Nazi Germany:
What do you think of the video? If it interested you, then also check out a post I wrote about genocide: Lo taamod al dam reakha
Basically, I explained that fear causes people to stop caring about the lives of “the enemy,” and that causes the people to support the wars and genocides committed by their government. What do you think?
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Posted by Scott on January 29th, 2008 — Posted in Politics & Commentary
I watched the State of the Union Address earlier tonight.
While he did mention international terrorism and the wars, Bush did not even mention the domestic violent crime problem.
He leads the country into a needless war in Iraq that will cost trillions of dollars and has made us less safe. But he does not even mention the prevalence of violent crime at home.
Each year, 23 million acts of criminal victimization occur in the United States. It makes me angry that a man who calls himself President would not mention those in a so-called State of the Union Address.
Over 100,000 rapes take place in the United States each year. I would have made that one of the first talking points, but Bush did not even mention anything of the sort.
Like I said in my previous post, politicians ignore violent crime.
What do you think?
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Posted by Scott on January 21st, 2008 — Posted in Politics & Commentary
I wish you all a good Martin Luther King Day.
But I cannot stop myself from fearing that we let the mission die with the man. Years after Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his message of unity and non-violence, our society still allows violence.
We still let our government wage needless, expensive wars overseas. Domestically, violence and racism still plague the country. In the United States, nearly 100,000 women get raped each year, for example. The current murder rate in Philadelphia for black men rivals the murder rate in war-torn Iraq.
I believe we have the ability to stop violence and victimization, but we do not take the proper steps to stop it. As individuals, we use our time and money selfishly when we could use it to make a safer and more peaceful society. Politically, we let resources get put towards waging needless wars and enforcing victimless crimes when we could instead put those resources towards preventing violence and protecting people from victimization.
I hope we soon make the drastic changes to our society that King dreamed.
What do you think?
2 Comments »
Posted by Scott on December 18th, 2007 — Posted in Politics & Commentary
by Scott Hughes
Today I became an administrator of a group on Facebook about the Jewish Holocaust, which refers to when Germany’s National Socialist regime exterminated approximately 6 million European Jews. The group’s title quotes a Hebrew biblical commandment, “Lo taamod al dam reakha,” which means, “You shall not stand idly by the shedding of the blood of your fellow man.”
Of course, even as a nonreligious man, I like that commandment a lot. I hope many people follow it whether because their religion commands it or for more secular reasons.
However, standing idly by would help more than what we do now. We fund war and genocide. As the people of the world, we choose to help facilitate war and genocide as to preserve the routine of our personal lives. We not only fail to stand up for the victims and up to the victimizers, but we also help the victimizers so that they do not disrupt the relative tranquility of our day-to-day lives.
In Nazi Germany most people in Germany behaved like that. Throughout the Native American Holocaust most Americans have behaved like that. People have behaved like that during the recent Rwandan Genocide and now during the current racial conflicts in Darfur.
The vast majority of people in those regions and times behaved like the vast majority of us behave now. We let warmongers use fearmongering to get us to not only allow but also support war and genocide.
Politicians have their own corrupt, self-serving reasons for war and genocide. For the politicians, it generally comes down to money and power for themselves and their cronies–which consists broadly of the entire ruling class in any given society. Regardless, to get that profitable war, they use that fearmongering.
Fearfully, we start to view entire groups of people as simply the enemy. An entire nation’s people could become the enemy. An entire race of people could become the enemy. All the people that practice a certain religion could become the enemy.
When we view an entire group of people as simply the enemy, then we value their lives much less than we value whatever little safety we supposedly get by their destruction, defeat, or annihilation. As a result, we support the annihilation of the enemy. We allow war and genocide and we help facilitate war and genocide. We choose to fund governments that wage war on the enemy.
Countless examples exist. Many Americans cared little about the lives of the over 200,000 Japanese civilians murdered by the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki because the Americans saw the Japanese as simply the enemy. They felt the same way about the Japanese-Americans shoved in concentration camps in the United States. Many people of various Middle Eastern nations felt the same way about the thousands of American civilians murdered in the 9/11 attacks. The Nationalist Germans felt the same way about the Jews and Germany’s other “enemies” during the Second World War. Many non-Jewish Palestinians feel that way about all the Jewish Israelis, and many Jewish Israelis feel that way about about the non-Jewish Palestinians.
In contrast, the free-thinkers in any society may not fall for the oversimplifying rhetoric of the fearmongering warmongers. Additionally, those free-thinkers may recognize and dislike the brutality and inhumanity of war and genocide. However, even the free-thinkers generally behave selfishly and shortsightedly. Even the free-thinkers among us generally offer little more than idle indignation. Like most everyone else, even the free-thinkers choose to protect the tranquility of their own lives rather than the safety of the victims of war and genocide. For example, to keep the routine of their day-to-day lives, even the free-thinkers usually pay taxes to warmongering and genocidal governments.
I would love to see the day most of us, regardless of our religious beliefs, followed the commandment, lo taamod al dam reakha. But first, at the very least, we could stop supporting the bloodshed of civilians. At the very least, we could stop supporting war, terrorism, and genocide. We could stop thinking of whole groups of people as the enemy. We could try to give up fear and shortsighted selfishness, and bravely make our personal decisions based on higher ideals such as humanity, peace and love.
What do you think? Please post a comment.
5 Comments »
Posted by Scott on November 26th, 2007 — Posted in Politics & Commentary
Have you noticed how little attention violent crime has received in national political campaigns?
Presidential candidates seem to only give attention to one very specific type of violent crime: terrorism. However, more people in the United States die from regular old murder than from terrorist attacks.
If these politicians truly want to protect us, then they also need to protect us from domestic murder, rape, assault, vandalism, and theft.
Personally, I think we can only put a stop to violence and victimization by doing it ourselves. The government will not solve this problem. Politicians talk about headline stories to get elected, but they never bother to actually solve the problems that plague the general population on a day-to-day basis.
Nonetheless, you can consider writing your representatives to tell them that you want them to spend more time working on reducing violent crime. Do not rely on them, but encourage them to address these issues.
What do you think?
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Posted by Scott on November 13th, 2007 — Posted in Politics & Commentary
The Associated Press reported today about the hidden costs of war. I include an excerpt:
The economic costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are estimated to total $1.6 trillion — roughly double the amount the White House has requested thus far, according to a new report by Democrats on Congress’ Joint Economic Committee.
The report, released Tuesday, attempted to put a price tag on the two conflicts, including “hidden” costs such as interest payments on the money borrowed to pay for the wars, lost investment, the expense of long-term health care for injured veterans and the cost of oil market disruptions.
The $1.6 trillion figure, for the period from 2002 to 2008, translates into a cost of $20,900 for a family of four, the report said. The Bush administration has requested $804 billion for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined, the report stated.
For the Iraq war only, total economic costs were estimated at $1.3 trillion for the period from 2002 to 2008. That would cost a family of four $16,500, the report said.
The war in Iraq has cost the United States $1.3 trillion! I cannot believe the United States people let this happen. Of course, with so much money involved, it is no surprise that the interests of the people have been disregarded. When the tax-payers lose $1.3 trillion, that means a lot of corporations, lobbyists, and politicians make a lot of money.
The war in Iraq has made the people in the United States less safe by increasing anti-Americanism and over-stretching the military.
All that money could have been put towards actually protecting the people of the United States. Imagine if the government had instead put the $1.3 trillion towards preventing rape, murder, theft, and other forms of violence and victimization. Better yet, the money could have been refunded to the taxpayers. The taxpayers could have then used their own money to spend it on what they think they need most–be it personal security or something else. Imagine if each family had $16,500 more to spend on personal security.
What do you think?
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Posted by Scott on November 11th, 2007 — Posted in Politics & Commentary
Most of us want to live in a society without rape, murder, theft, vandalism and other forms of victimization and violent crime. Why don’t we do more to stop the violence and victimization? A lack of funding may explain a large part of it.
I suggest the following to increase funding for the prevention of victimization and violent crime:
1. Legalize drugs and other victimless crimes! The United States spends over $50 billion per year on the war on drugs. This accounts for millions of expensive arrests of non-violent druggies. It accounts for hundreds of thousands of inmates, who it takes a lot of money to jail–let alone the limited space in the overcrowded jails that would be better used for victimizers and violent criminals. Legalizing drugs would not only save the money spent chasing down, arresting, trying, and jailing non-violent druggies, but it would also allow us to heavily tax drugs. We could use the hundreds of billions of dollars gained from taxing drugs per year to prevent victimization and violent crime.
2. Make convicts pay the bill! Why do we make tax-payers pay for all of the costs associated with fighting crime? I suggest we make the convicts pay for the costs associated with the crime they have been convicted of committing. A court of law has determined that there is sufficient proof that they are guilty. That makes them liable. After being convicted of a crime, let’s give the convict a bill for all the costs of their crime, including the costs of investigating the crime, arresting the convict, trying the convict, jailing the convict and rehabilitating the convict. Seize all the convicts assets to pay the bill, and garnish his future wages until it has been paid.
3. End the war! The occupation in Iraq is an extremely expensive endeavor. It’s making the U.S. people less safe by over-stretching the military and increasing anti-Americanism. Estimates say the war will end up costing over $1 trillion. That’s a lot of money! That’s a lot of money that could be put towards actually protecting U.S. people. That’s a lot of money that could be put towards preventing murder, rape, theft, and other forms of victimization and violent crime.
What do you think? What ways do you suggest we fund security?
2 Comments »
Posted by Scott on October 24th, 2007 — Posted in Politics & Commentary
I recently posted about how I (and every other driver passing through) had been stopped and pestered at a DUI checkpoint. While I was not that bothered by the unwarranted inconvenience, I speculated that it seems indicative of a police state and unconstitutional.
Today, I read an article that confirmed my suspicions about DUI checkpoints. In the article, James Bovard recounts the history of DUI checkpoints and shows how they violate people’s right to unreasonable search and seizure, because they are not based on any type of individualized suspicion. The first three sentences of his article sum it up nicely:
Tens of thousands of innocent Americans are stopped each month at police checkpoints that treat every driver as a criminal. These checkpoints, supposedly started to target drunk drivers, have expanded to give police more intrusive power over citizens in many areas.
The demonization of alcohol is leading to a growing nullification of the constitutional rights of anyone suspected of drinking – or anyone who might have had a drink anytime recently.
By ignoring probable cause and stopping everyone, DUI checkpoints treat people as guilty until proven innocent and stand against the Fourth Amendment and the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
I want to protect people from drunk drivers, just like I want to protect people from rapists, murders, vandals and thieves. However, I also want to protect people from police states, because police states systematically victimize innocent people.
Even though police states and authoritarian procedures are often supposedly made to fix certain problems (such as drunk driving), they usually end up being counterproductive, especially because power corrupts and police states abuse their power.
In analogy, I adamantly oppose murder, but I do not want police to be allowed to go around forcing their way into anyone’s house they please to try and find anyone who may have committed a murder. To search someone, these police need probable cause and reasonable suspicion that that specific person has committed or is planning to commit a certain crime.
To me, the question is not how bad drunk driving is. The question is whether or not we want a police state, meaning a place where anyone and everyone can be stopped and searched without any reasonable suspicion that they have committed a crime and without probable cause.
What do you think?
3 Comments »
Posted by Scott on October 10th, 2007 — Posted in Politics & Commentary
A Philadelphia newspaper recently reported that U.S. Senator Bob Casey (D-Pa.), U.S. Rep. Allyson Schwartz (D-Philadelphia) and Democrat mayoral candidate Michael Nutter talked about the need for strong federal funding for crime-fighting efforts for the city in North Philadelphia yesterday.
I disagree. I do not think the government needs more funding for crime-fighting. Instead, they simply need to focus their resources more sensibly.
The federal government as well as local governments waste massive amounts of money enforcing authoritarian drug laws. For example, 25% of the United States inmate population are in on non-violent drug charges, and unsurprisingly jails and prisons complain of overcrowding and insufficient funding and resources to manage the huge inmate population. As another example, marijuana prohibition costs the United States $41 billion per year.
Like I already said, the crime-fighting efforts do not need more funding. They need to use the funds they already have to actually protect people from victimization. They need to use the funds to protect innocent people from rapists, murderers, thieves, and other victimizers. They need to do that rather than waste resources bothering innocuous people solely over drug offenses and other victimless crimes such as prostitution.
Imagine how many rapists we could stop with that $42 billion wasted every year on marijuana prohibition.
What do you think?
2 Comments »
