A plea for Civility

It is entirely possible to call each other leftwing femminazi ecofreaks or rightwing, racist, greedhead assholes without coming right out and saying it. Most here are performers, creative types and fairly literate. A little style would be appreciated. Its much more fun to use nice language to call someone names, as it usually takes them a few minutes to figure out they've been deeply insulted. I've found there's nothing more self-satisfying than a delayed action insult.

Mav

ALL violent crimes are HATE CRIMES!!!

Technically true. There are already varying degrees of intent used to persecute violent crimes. Adding the "Hate Crimes" category is an expansion and refining of intent. As a pragmatic matter, does it much matter if the violent crime was premeditated? If a murder was for financial gain, is that better or worse than a murder because someone was gay or a minority? Or a communist. Or a Rommani. Or a Jew? Evil they all are. Some have more widespread implications for society.

The federal sentencing guidelines already gives plenty of lattitude to "throw the book" at violent criminals, but liberal judges get all touchy feely and end up letting criminals get away with murder. Those judges need to GET OUT!

I would suggest you consider the fact that in this country, our justice system combines justice under the law with the idea of equity. There are abuses. If we throw out the judges who are to lenient, what about the other extreme?

If "Hate Crimes" legislation is to be taken seriously, what happens to the argument when the new justice department starts prosecuting the black on white crimes as mandated by the non-sensical and convoluted legislation? Many more black on white crimes occur every year than the reverse.

I believe that black on black crime is even more prevalent. But either way, that doesn't make them hate motivated. What happens when the new justice department continues what the old ones did, disparate prosecution based on race? Think they won't? My favorite is crack versus cocaine possession. And it doesn't seem to matter whether the DA's in question are liberal or conservative.

Well then how did they get elected?

At least one of them got elected by vote of the Supreme Court. Perhaps some got elected through the judicious use of fear tactics? Some because of their positions on various social issues. Very few because they had anything much to offer in the way of getting to the root of the problem....beyond building more jails.

The GOP (which represents the private sector) should do everything it can to educate the public about all things financial, the dems (who represent the public sector) NEVER WILL

What a curious statement. The GOP doesn't represent the public sector? I thought they claimed to represent all the people, which was one of the keystone principals of W's administration. So we're back to "What's good for General Bullmouse is good for the USA"?

If Koreans and other Asian entrepreneurs can proliferate in the inner city areas, so can the blacks. Instead, there has been an attitude of "racial" hated and jealousy, no white devils involved!!!

Clearly, a lot of minorities proliferate in the inner city. A lot of businesses do to, large numbers of them marked by outrageous price gouging, credit schemes and the like. Run by all races. Victimizing the poor.

Blacks are the fastest growing segment of the middle class. As more and more professional atheletes, entertainers and other members of any high paying profession begin to see the government's unreasonable confiscation of half of their hard earned income, their thinking is going to shift.

I doubt if professional athletes and entertainers could be considered middle class. And question your statistics. And if true, they are the fastest growing segment of a shrinking middle class.

Given that the cycle of violent crime and welfare dependency is fueled by an unlimited supply of children who unfortunately grow out of these circumstances, and that Queasy's actions speak louder than his words....

Given? By who, pray tell. The last I saw (and it has been several years), the average number of children for a family (usually single parent) on welfare was 2.1. About the same for non-welfare families (that was 2.3). While a nice, neat simple answer that explains away a very complex problem might be comforting to some, it does nothing to address root causes or solve anything. It offers the solace of style over substance.

he wants to perpetuate the black underclass just to guarantee the "sacred" (and corrupt) "black civil rights" industry, finding inequity where none exists, and creating phoney rhetoric to keep people divided.

Do you feel there is truly equality of opportunity?

Hopefully this insidious institution (the racebaiting NAACP) will fade away, it has served its purpose.

What about the significant number of other civil rights groups? Is there truly no prejudice left. Just what is artificially created by The Rainbow Coalition and NAACP (who represent 10% or so of blacks). I do partially agree that the NAACP takes its self defined role as savior a little too seriously and it's agenda has become distant from the root problems.

I would agree that the GOP and Infume are worlds apart on lots of issues (gimmee vs. responsibility) The people he "serves" are welcome to become educated and productive Americans and to join the party. To say they can't do it is to call them STUPID!

To say there are still not structural (political, social and economic) obstacles to their becoming such is also stupid.

We all know that's just not true. (Don't we?)

No. We don't. You may wish it was so. It would be comforting if it was. It would mean that it could all go away an we wouldn't have to deal with it. Could happily declare that the symptom is a cause and fell very self-satisfied. By the way, there is only one race......HUMAN!

For an alternate opinion on this try the usenet. I suggest alt.alien.abduction. :-) Or this thread on mudcat BS: We are not (well maybe Alone

in another post, these choice tidbits.

That is your right, but centuries of societies conducting experimentation with family arrangements have brought us to the current status of the desirability of the nuclear family.

Actually, it was the extended family that proved desirable and most viable. S the study you later cite implies.

Recent studies have shown most criminals and other whack jobs emerge from dysfunctional and broken households but largely from single parent "families" where no father is present to enforce dicipline and teach right from wrong.

It's a little like the old marijuana-heroin link from the 60's. 90% of all heroin users reported that they began by smoking pot. However, only 8% of all marijuana users reported that they had used heroin, a very different thing.

In my part of Florida, 85% of all serious juvenile crime (defined as crime that, for an adult, would be a felony) is committed by children from single parent homes. However, of all single parent families, 18% have juveniles that commit a felony (On average. Rates vary by socio-economic groups).

Which would seem to indicate the existence of other factors. In logic, it would be the error of composition

And then he said......

I think they were referring to torture and drawing an quartering here, not overcrowding.

As they are long dead, it matters what the courts and society today define as such.

I will not disagree, but the end result of releasing these violent anti-social predators back onto the streets is illogical because it is cruel and unusual punishment to the general public who deserve protection from them. I'd like to see them exported. (This is a Gene Burns concept)

To bad for him that the Constitution doesn't seem to agree.

ip violent repeat offenders and murders of their Constitutional rights, since they've proven that they don't wish to participate in civilized society, and "farm them out" with a one time payment (say $25,000) to penal systems of third world countries. This could defuse some of the controversy over capital punishment. You might think twice about raping someone if you knew you might be moving to SYRIA!

Or not. The use of punishment as a deterrent seems to be be linked to the nature of the crime, having less impact of most violent crimes because they are generally acts of passion and deterrence assumes some level of rationality.

So far, building more prisons, mandatory sentencing and the like hasn't seemed to stem the tide. Could it be that there are underlying causes that could be corrected to reduce the number of crimes?

And in another post

The study covers much of what we already knew and more. It shows the destructive effects of your philosophy on a class of people. If you want to talk about victims, READ IT!

The study also drew no conclusions. It was a fairly straight forward statistical analysis. The reporter tossed in several other "studies" that theorized about causes. I stress the "theory". And refer back to the discussion on juvenile crime.

Next

I think I covered that but just let me add......I HATE AUTHORITARIANISM and BIG GOVERNMENT!!!

What about big business????

She not Reno, ordered the raid on WACO.....FOR THE CHILDREN!!!

Huh. A new one? Where did that come from? And still doesn't justify the name calling.

By the way, lots of New Yorkers are questioning their choice for Senate, I'd say she may well face 6 years of defending emerging details from her and bubba's (nothing big about him) reign of terror in the White House. This should be good. Unless of course they can un-elect her.

But then a lot of high level Republican strategists are very worried about Jeb and Republicans in general in Florida next year.

Neither statement having any great or profound meaning. Or signifying much of anything.

Been busy, haven't you?

Go to www.junkscience.com for a global warming update.

There is a reason they call it "junkscience.com" Just not the reason you imply or they would like you to believe

Strangely, the IPCC report that involved something on the order of 60 scientists (all well respected), think that (for some reason) the mtl is up. "JunkScience" quotes one scientist who says it isn't.

And what about the 1000 year ice core samples taken from glaciers around the globe that show a warming trend? Which may be a natural cyclical variances, may be due to greenhouses gases. May be a short term blip. Time will tell. Fortunately I have land in the North Carolina mountains, just in case.

Which isn't to say he's wrong. I'll prefer not to leap quite yet. The debate his highly technical and will be fought out in peer-reviewed journals.

Journalists will mis-report it. Politicians will miss-interpret it and "junkscience.com will report it as proving....something.

Regards

John

I am off to Tallahassee for a Block Grant meeting Monday afternoon. Usually, I can't get the office laptop to connect to the internet on the road so somehow, you'll have to survive without me. And I without you.