"So what do you suggest?"
I have no problem in making criminals answerable to the law Mike, as long as any punishment they receive is overwhelmingly biased towards deterring them from re-offending - where preventing one from voting lies in the grand scheme of things is completely beyond me. That seems like totally and formally alienating him or her from the society we would wish them to be law-abiding members of. Unless our prisons become places of reform, they serve as little more than acts of vengeance guaranteed to produce hardened malcontents armed with skills developed and honed in the very prisons they have been incarcerated in.
I find discussions like this extremely hypocritical, as they are invariably focused on punishing criminals and completely ignore the the behaviour of CRIMINALS.
Last night I watched a CRIMINAL on television; he was emerging from an enquiry into his behaviour, which has led to many thousands of deaths in an illegal war entered into against the wishes of the vast majority of the people who elected him into office. Not only did he refuse to acknowledge his CRIMES, but it is quite likely that he will never have to face legal charges for them.
Over the last few years I have watched with growing anger while it has been revealed that many politicians are in fact CRIMINALS who have systematically defrauded the taxpayer in order to build palaces for their ducks and claim expenses for the upkeep of non-existant residences. Had they been criminals they would have had to face the full force of the law; but as they are merely CRIMINALS, they will never have to answer for CRIMES that have taken millions from the health and education services, and have lowered the standards of living of us proles, who, had we been guilty of similar practices, would be viewing the world through the bars of a prison cell.
Need I go on?
The irony of it all is, of course, that the very CRIMINALS I have just mentioned all play a part in making the laws that they appear to consider themselves above.
Jim Carroll