Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Juice]

A measurable positive undertaking which will aid in decreasing the necessity of prisons have to with family values and the impact which single family households have on children.

Studies show that children in homes without a father are more likely to have behavioral problems at an early age which requires legal intervention of those the vast majority end up in prison at some early point in thier lives.

Advocating for traditional families has been proven to have a positive affect on children in keeping them out of trouble and out of prison.

This of course has a double impact on minority families where it is almost a right of passage to become a parent at ever decreasing ages.

While it may not be possible to totally eliminate the need for prisons it may be much more worthy to advance the concepts and worth of traditional families to help bring the prison population to the accepted norm of violent criminals rather than just an excuse to provide some poor youngster with a Dad..

[Billy]

Gentlemen, the issue at hand is what should be done with, or to, the prison system...

I'm a chick.

How about "freedom to roam" or "right to roam" as is being developed in some European countries to legally deconstruct land enclosure. Has parallels to the enclosure of people and obviously roaming glaciers and forests is not compatible with the 'cell' system.

A measurable positive undertaking which will aid in decreasing the necessity of prisons have to with family values and the impact which single family households have on children.

Studies show that children in homes without a father are more likely to have behavioral problems at an early age which requires legal intervention of those the vast majority end up in prison at some early point in thier lives.

This is some amazing stuff; I do not wish to disagree or agree per say; what I just wish to point out is how educational for me this is: I have been reading Riech's The Mass Psychology of Fascism this week; the last chapter I read was actually about the corner-stone role of the family in fascism, so it's interesting you bring it up in this context.

EDIT:
Better to spell this out on second thought. Juice, you are appealing to an extrinsicy, a contingent out-side. A person who grows up in a war-zone can come out of it as a deeply happy adult. A person with a 'good' upbringing can come out of it a deeply unhappy adult.

You asked earlier, what is fascism? Fascism is essentially not being true to the Islamic maxim: 'Submit only to Allah!' (God.) Or the American form: 'Each according to the dictates of his own consience' (Rockwell.) The will is the cause and source of everything. Nothing happens of which you are not the responsible agent. People do stand up under torture! The will is the only source of action: your mother and your father statistics have nothing to do with it. That is what fascism is: bowing to Satan: Satan always gives you a choice. Fascism is all the shadows in Plato's cave: bureaucracy, money, psychological repression, but most of all: fascism is fear.

[wanabe]

Billy,
If that is in fact the case, I apologize my lady.

So you think that people should be allowed to go where ever they want, I agree with that. In what way do you relate that to prison?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Juice,
What is a traditional family?

Ironically enough the only people I know who have kids are 'white'(non-minority).

Juice: "While it may not be possible to totally eliminate the need for prisons it may be much more worthy to advance the concepts and worth of traditional families to help bring the prison population to the accepted norm of violent criminals rather[In what way do you mean to relate these two ideas?] than just an excuse to provide some poor youngster with a Dad.."

[Billy]

Billy,
If that is in fact the case, I apologize my lady.

So you think that people should be allowed to go where ever they want, I agree with that. In what way do you relate that to prison?

For example, if someone is separated from society for a time, is it required to keep them in a small room? There is much rough unoccupied land where prisoners could "roam". If every human has a right to roam, like everyone has a right to free-speech or a right to water or food, that would be the prisoners ticket out the gates. Hiking might not be for everyone but I'd bet many prisoners would prefer tropical islands to a cement cell. Old ideas like banishment and exhile could be revived with modern applications?

But this is only one of many hundreds of lines that will become a flow of an 'official narrative' that will put prisons in the class of other spooky but ancient torture machines like the wheel or the drowning-pit.

Just an idea: Do we need to destroy the family as Plato proposed? For sex-economy, isn't the family the homunculus for the sado-masochistic paradox of the child who is loved and also punished by the mother and father? Isn't this duplicity, this dualism of a loving punisher: the righteous prosecutor or police officer, germinated in the repressionary sexual dynamics of the family where the child is slapped away from the breast, incest is taboo, etc? The original polymorphous perversity of the youth that best grow a non-fascist mature personality can not be planted in the sterility of family?

[wanabe]

Most people don't know the first thing about wilderness survival so that may well be a death sentence.

Is there enough livable space for 10 million people(using your figures, lets say 2.5 million per 'continent')? (That's roughly the population of Los Angeles, to live in a density that will not negatively effect them or the environment.)

What is to stop them from roaming back to the cities?

I'm not sure that exile will work in these days.

[Juice]

In this case the reference to family is not directed towards any racial or nationalistic agenda, which fascism promotes, but to the role a mother and father, working together, to raise children in a positive atmosphere under rules and guidelines which promote education and community have has an influencing force to the growth of children by encouraging, through careful administrations of love and protection, for them to become successful, achieving and law abiding members of society. To that end nurturing parents provide their children freedom through the formation of stability. A stable home, financial stability, mobility and most of all a genuine ability to listen, guide and address concerns. Most important is the ability of a sound family atmosphere to provide children with the means to be themselves and challenge eachother to be tolerant of any ideal without fear of repression.

By no means does this mean that a nurturing family structure should be without rules but those rules should be directed to the promotion of equal, free and peaceful coexistence as would be expected in any place where more than one person should survive themself. In this way do children go forth into the world recognizing that others have just as much a place in this world as they do and in that respect do individuals live in peace.

While we all contain a rebellious spirit to some extent and degree it is hardly commendable that such energies be wasted on fruitless enterprises that seem to commandeer only a single mind with a single mindset. It is always more beneficial that some reasonable arbitration be exercised in order to find a peaceful and mutual understanding. These are the products of a civil society and best taught in a family where a mother and father, man and woman have equal footing, equal import and equal understanding which children readily grasp as part of a social contract.

It often turns out that those with the most commendable aims are most apt to fall pry to corruption and influence. I find this to be the effect of self importance and selfishness. A family which promotes the value of each individual as an important and significant part of the unit then displays a willingness to foster better ideas and accepting that each person earns his or her right to be included by example as both a leader contributor and when necessary to follow. This promotes acceptance of roles which promote the general welfare.

Those who feel oppressed are generally oppressed out of weakness and this weakness is developed from a lack of a proper family basis and feel that they must struggle alone. A family who looks to the welfare of each member through willing sacrifices of the parents for the children promotes the idea of responsibility for even the weakest among us.

When their are those who prey on the weakest through criminal acts of exploitation and victimization, since we must accept that prisons are full of physically superior men and woman who have done so, then we see the need of those who were without the protections offered through family to feel the need to want to victimize.

We see the results of fascist victimization in the powerful film, "American History X" a stark contrast to the almost congenial but profoundly similar, "Guess Whose Coming to Dinner". Of note are the racial contrasts between both intolerant parents one light-skinned American father in "X", and the dark-skinned American father in "Dinner". One ending in death (a repeat) and the other ending in Denmark (No Place for that kind of love in American, Right!).We, unfortunately, see this in society today where individuals are not noted for thier individual qualities and characteristics but what their ethnicity requires them to be to the demonization of one and the victimization of the other. Both with a turn for the other at some point. A sort of circular reclassification. Mud and water, light air or the thinness and thickness of fog. "Beware" warned the sign, "Tomorrow They May Come For You".

As MLK entreated us to begin, let no man be judged by the color of his skin but by the content of his character.

If freedom must be replaced then it will be replaced by death, and only to the strong.

wannabe-A traditional family is important, particularly when boys see their father treating their mother with dignity and respect and when they see a mother treating the father like a man and not like a boy. All men are boys at heart. At least when Mama's not looking. I have a GI JOE collection in glass cases. Oh Well!

[Billy]

Is there enough livable space for 10 million people(using your figures, lets say 2.5 million per 'continent')? (That's roughly the population of Los Angeles, to live in a density that will not negatively effect them or the environment.)

Hey, it's just brain storming.

What is to stop them from roaming back to the cities?

I'm not sure that exile will work in these days.

I bet many countries might be interested in petty criminals. If for example Angola might accept some of the millions of American prisoners? A sort of political prisoner swap. Perhaps even countries like Denmark would accept 'prison-refugees' from especially US jails where there are said to be 3 Million prisoners?

"American History X"

Thanks for the movie suggestion; I'm gonna illegaly download this right now and smoke a joint.

Everything you say about 'family values' is just classic fascism. Google for "Hitler family value" or "fascism family" or somesuch. I don't think you 'get' how outrageous the things you're saying are.

Simply:

What if someone don't have a family?

[Juice]

Let me get this straight: If someone promotes and encourages freedom, he is a fascist? If someone recognizes the rights of others, he is fascist? If someone is tolerant of other peoples ideas and expressions, he is fascist? If someone says a person should be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin, he is fascist? If someone believes that people should live in peaceful coexistence, he is fascist?

If someone believes that these ideas can be fostered in a traditional family, he is fascist?

If I say that many individuals in prison are there by forcing physical fascism and prey on the weak, then he is fascist?

Do I understand you correctly?

Would you let Berny Madoff, Bernard Kerik, Plaxico Buress out of prison?

I don't believe saying you are illegally smoking a joint or saying that you are doing something illegal on the internet has anything to do with philosophy.

[Belinda]

If Billy's contention is true, and modern machinery of prisons, solicitors etc. is no better fo society than the old retribution systems of long ago,then how can the modern system of criminal justice be improved?

I suggest two methods:

1. Put money and energy into the criminal justice system until the prisons are run entirely as retraining establishments.

2. Put money and energy into alleviating poverty until no person has to be hungry, unsheltered, unclothed, uneducated(including leisure facilities), and deprived of adequate health care.

The contention that release when some officials deem you to be a reformed character,I agree is dangerous for the maintenance of human rights, for the reasons Billy explained. True, early release saves money, and in the interest of reducing the evil effects of imprisonment such as education into crime, victim mentality,brutality, and drug taking early release is desirable. But if were prisons to be improved to the extent that they were absolutely for re-education and not for retribution or deterrence,then the fixed term sentence except in the cases of unsafe convictions, would tend to help prisoners to feel that they were aiming at some desirable outcome, even in the early days of their sentences when they were unable to understand the mainstream culture outside.

************************************************** *********
#46 Juice

Studies show that children in homes without a father are more likely to have behavioral problems at an early age which requires legal intervention of those the vast majority end up in prison at some early point in thier lives.

The cause of children's parental deprivation may be that the mother is overworked, undereducated, in bad health, or has too many children.Or that the father or mother or both are bad or abusive parents. The cause of male parental deprivation is not necessarily as simple as that there is no father present.

Moreover, we need to know about any study that controls for the correlation with absence of the father. Are there studies that show positive or negative correlations with maternal absence, or with a present but abusive father or with poverty?

Parenting is now being taught to school children and a very good thing too. Future parents need to have responsible and kind attitudes taught, instead of this inportant bit of education being up to the luck of having the sort of parents that can teach it.

Education and alleviation of poverty both need public money and commitment, not market forces.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

The problem of absent fathers is major. It may not be as much of an issue in the case of a literal sperm donor, but that's beside the point because in most cases the father leaves or dies after a few years--usually calling or checking in every now and then just enough to remind his child that he doesn't care much about them. Anecdotally, I've seen the massive, deep emotional damage done to a person now an adult whose father abandoned them and only checked in a few times in their life. Being abandoned by a parent after birth is traumatizing, I think. I can't imagine anyone would seek to deny this problem, and I think we can all agree that if more parents particularly fathers took care of their children rather than abandoning them that we'd have less violent crime and thus less potential prisoners. Thanks for pointing this out, Juice.

As explained in the OP and my followup posts, I do not think society needs prisons, and I do not want prisons. I prefer the vast majority of nonviolent, non-dangerous people (e.g. nonviolent marijuana users) to be released and the rest to be incarcerated in treatment centers run by doctors and professional educators as opposed to punishment centers called prisons.

However, for those who want prisons or think they are "needed" for some goal which I do not want to be achieved (such as getting revenge instead of merely preventing victimization and protecting the public), then they would agree that the supposed need/want for prisons could be reduced by reducing the overall amount of dangerous people via agreeable methods of crime prevention and violence prevention, such as making fathers take care of their children. Even if some among us think prisons are desirable or "necessary," we can all agree that we would be better off preventing victimization through various methods including not only preventing abandonment by fathers but also by other means such as reducing poverty, teaching conflict resolution in schools, promoting self-defense education and stepping up enforcement of violent crime.

***

Billy suggested banishment from the community as an alternative to prison. This may work well with my first two categories of people--nonviolent non-victimizers and incidental criminals--in smaller communities. But I do not think it would work for most people in the third category--those who are psychologically more prone to victimize others such as a serial rapist. I think we need to restrain these people somehow (e.g. in a humane compassionately-run insane asylum or some other humane but guarded treatment facility). But I do not think we need to punish them with prison for revenge, and unless we plan on keeping them locked up for life it is self-destructive of us to not give them treatment.

I think banishment is already used in many cases where it would be a workable, safe choice. Eviction of those who break the rules from a condo communities is banishment. Some countries currently banish corrupt politicians. When a town or state issues a fine against a small-time criminal who isn't as dangerous as a serial rapist, the person can just leave the town or state without paying the fine and never return. You won't get extradited or hunted down in the forest for a parking ticket. Generally, one will, thankfully, not be allowed to roam freely in the forest or some other community for rape or murder.

For those people who aren't so unsafe that they need to be restrained, there are many alternatives to deal with them including not only banishment or complete allowance, but also fines, community service, taxes, civil justice, public criminal records, conditional release, etc.

[athena]

First of all, I believe the whole question is fallacious.
There is no such entity as "society" that exists in any intelligent manner which can have a need. Only individual people can have a need. There may be a common need among every single individual, for example, breathing oxygen, drinking water and eating food.

If you are asking whether there is a universal common need among every single person for prisons, the answer is clearly negative. This negation can be demonstrated different ways:
1) find one non-prisoner who does not want prisons
2) find one prisoner who wants out of prison
3) find one geographical area that does not have prisons yet still contains a population

Wow, I don't think a statement could be more wrong than to say societies do not have needs. Democracy is a social organization that has made our standard of living possible, and only when democracy is understood can the people manifest it. It follows a democratic society must be an educated society.

Not all cultures have prisons. Historically prisons have been used for power, by cultures that are divided between powerful and those who do not have power. The bigger picture needs to evaluate the social organization that makes prisons a reality or makes them non existent.

I think some form of prison will always be necessary, but the first line of social defense is education. Only highly moral people can have liberty, and education for good moral judgment is essential to manifesting a highly moral society.

I think our debate about evolution is essential to all other questions of moral decisions. We need to base our moral decisions on science, and doing so can reduce all forms of crime, and make our justice system more just.

It would be great if we could mothers be good mothers and make fathers be good fathers, but this is not something that can be achieved by making a law that it is be so. We can make it law that a father or mother spend a required amount of time with a child, but this does not mean the out come of that time spent together will be good.

[Billy]

Not all cultures have prisons. Historically prisons have been used for power, by cultures that are divided between powerful and those who do not have power. The bigger picture needs to evaluate the social organization that makes prisons a reality or makes them non existent.

What you say is correct.

Jacques Ellul said, "if technology can, it must". Prison only became technologically possible after the invention of brick and mortar and cement. Chains did not exist before iron. Modern hand-cuffs were impossible before advancements in tool and die. Prison as punishment came into being with the state. Prior to the 'doing time system' which only became cognitively possible with capitalism, prisons were holding centers for torture or execution. The modern legal system could not exist without mandatory-public-education and mass media: propaganda is necessary to create the citizens who irrationally and paradoxically love and also fear the system. If not for the manufacture of a fascistic subconscious: the sado-masochistic desire to simultaneously punish and also be punished, there could be no modern prison system.

What this means is, there are many many levels to attack the problem of prisons on. We can attack the actual prison walls, we can attack the media who reinforce this internal War of Terror, we can attack the sado-masochistic fascistic psychology that generates and perpetuates criminal law, and so on and so on. What are we going to do with killers and rapists? is in-the-box thinking unworthy of a creative human race who has landed on the Moon, abolished slavery, cured Polio, etc, etc.

I think some form of prison will always be necessary, but the first line of social defense is education. Only highly moral people can have liberty, and education for good moral judgment is essential to manifesting a highly moral society.

While I agree that a perverse psychology underlies the prison-system, we will be waiting for Doomsday if we have to enlighten everyone before taking action. Anti-racism and women's equality have both gone ahead in a World that is still predominantly sexist and racist.

I think our debate about evolution is essential to all other questions of moral decisions. We need to base our moral decisions on science, and doing so can reduce all forms of crime, and make our justice system more just.

Scientism is a form of fascism. How about we base our moral decisions on our consciences?

The problem of absent fathers is major. It may not be as much of an issue in the case of a literal sperm donor, but that's beside the point because in most cases the father leaves or dies after a few years--usually calling or checking in every now and then just enough to remind his child that he doesn't care much about them. Anecdotally, I've seen the massive, deep emotional damage done to a person now an adult whose father abandoned them and only checked in a few times in their life. Being abandoned by a parent after birth is traumatizing, I think. I can't imagine anyone would seek to deny this problem, and I think we can all agree that if more parents particularly fathers took care of their children rather than abandoning them that we'd have less violent crime and thus less potential prisoners.

Over-all I agree with your analysis, however on this point I can not follow.

Many people have no mother and father. Millions of war-children are in this situation: their parents have been killed, or with the family home gone and no phone-books, it is impossible for family ever to be reunited. The idea that these millions of people all over the world are now doomed forever to a life of crime is absurd. A little research easily reveals that very many orphans have become good people in their adult lives.

Blaming someone's parents, or lack there of, can not sit well with people who believe in freedom and responsibility.

I suggest two methods:

1. Put money and energy into the criminal justice system until the prisons are run entirely as retraining establishments.

2. Put money and energy into alleviating poverty until no person has to be hungry, unsheltered, unclothed, uneducated(including leisure facilities), and deprived of adequate health care.

Sure. And there are a hundred more ideas to come.

I would just not worry too much about the money however, 1. law and order budgets are already so massive in developed countries that even a diet of caviar and lodging in five-star hotels would not have much of an effect. And 2., a person's life is not on the same worth scale as money is.

If someone believes that these ideas can be fostered in a traditional family, he is fascist?

Do I understand you correctly?

Yes. Now let's go back and look at some of the things you wrote:

the role a mother and father,

Let's do some reading, you'll have to google for the source as I can not post links yet, (hmm... fascism?),

• "During World War II German occupation of France, the moto of "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" was replaced on the Nazi’s puppet Vichy regime's new coins with the phrase, "Work, Family, Fatherland.""
• "the ideal right wing ideological family structure for breeding "values" and "traditions" is a strictly authoritarian family, in which children are brought up with a "natural" respect for the father and, as they grow older, unquestioningly extend their respect and obedience to other authorities in society as well as pass the ideology on to their children."
• "check list for Fascism"
  ...
  3) "Family values" are used as a propaganda and brainwashing devise to reinforce absolute Hierarchy within the society.
  
  Within the family father is boss, within the society the father of the State is boss, within the universe God-the-father is boss. Society and its sub-groups are "family" to its members and this is used to oppress criticism of "the family."
  
  Good children don't criticize their parents in time of family crisis so family crises are created when criticism gets too loud. This is clearly seen when the President starts a military action and it is a taboo to criticize the President's actions or motivations."
• From Reich:
  "...the family cannot be considered the basis of the authoritarian state, only as one of the most important institutions which support it. It is, however, its central reactionary germ cell, the most important place of reproduction of the reactionary and conservative individual. Being itself caused by the authoritarian system, the family becomes the most important institution for its conservation."
• From Foucault:
  "...a structure forming a microcosm where all the great, massive structures of bourgeois society and its values had their own symbol: the relationship between Family and Children structured around the theme of paternal authority; the relationship between Fault and Punishment around the theme of immediate justice; and the links between Madness and Disorder around the theme of social and moral order."

the formation of stability.

Reactionary. Change is inevitable. "All things are flowing."

By no means does this mean that a nurturing family structure should be without rules

Rules are the corner-stone of authoritarianism. Humans made rules: they are beneath us. This is why Islam says: "Submit only to Allah!" Submission to social rules and laws is against God.

in peace.

Do as I say, not as I do? I thought you were a professional killer for the US war machine, or am I projecting that?

social contract.

Contract law is a simulacra.

This promotes acceptance of roles which promote the general welfare.

Do we need to destroy the family as Plato proposed? For sex-economy, isn't the family the homunculus for the sado-masochistic paradox of the child who is loved and also punished by the mother and father? Isn't this duplicity, this dualism of a loving punisher: the righteous prosecutor or police officer, germinated in the repressionary sexual dynamics of the family where the child is slapped away from the breast, incest is taboo, etc? The original polymorphous perversity of the youth that best grow a non-fascist mature personality can not be planted in the sterility of family?

Those who feel oppressed are generally oppressed out of weakness and this and this weakness is developed from a lack of a proper family basis

The weak deserve to be oppressed by the strong? Do you take this stuff right out of Mein Kampf? The Nazi Uber Menschen, the "blond beast"? What are you saying!?

We see the results of fascist victimization in the powerful film, "American History X"

Ugg. I watch the first half; couldn't stomach the rest, the American propaganda is thick like butter.

unfortunately, see this in society today where individuals are not noted for their individual qualities and characteristics but what their ethnicity requires them to be to the demonization of one and the victimization of the other.

Do you think that "felon" and "criminal" might actually be similar irrational prejudiced and stereotypical categories?

As MLK entreated us to begin, let no man be judged by the color of his skin but by the content of his character.

I pilgrimaged to MLK's house, so don't be defiling his name!

[Juice]

I believe that the "fascist" label is a projection from the post modern antiestableshment leftist ideologue. More a brute anarchism and counter enlightenment agency, driven through the impetus of fantasy to frame a desire for reciprocal force formed of an innate hostility to reason and democracy evidenced by the willingness to lose psychopaths on the world who will hopefully be ready to combat, through violence, industry, government and capitalism.

The "new fascist" thinking of ecology (Ecofascism), wealth redistribution (economic justice), racism (social justice), sexism (gay+lesbian fascism), theism (anti-religion fascism), militarism (anti-authority, guns are bigger), all anti-freedom, for some, again the sign warns, "when will they come for you". Are nothing more than anti-civilization control manipulators ready to usher in a post apocalyptic "1984", "Beyond Thunderdome" cyberpunk anti-reality.

Some people belong in prison (isolation), and maybe even under it, not just for crimes they committed but because of the mind, or rather the identity. The thing which would would go against its meaning and its being that would convince itself to willfully put the body in a place (hell) where it doesn't have to go, beyond the faculty of reason, gifted to provide a difference between animals and man. The mind trespasses upon its own ability to reason. Tearing down the physical walls of a prison will do nothing for the mind that puts itself in that place with forethought, by irrational actions. Walls, chains, injustice does nothing to the mind that is free, willed and conscious.

Prison isn't a place, it's a mind, the wasted land of the mind. You want to close prisons, change the minds.

[Billy]

I believe that the "fascist" label is a projection from the post modern antiestableshment leftist ideologue. More a brute anarchism and counter enlightenment agency, driven through the impetus of fantasy to frame a desire for reciprocal force formed of an innate hostility to reason and democracy evidenced by the willingness to lose psychopaths on the world who will hopefully be ready to combat, through violence, industry, government and capitalism.

The "new fascist" thinking of ecology (Ecofascism), wealth redistribution (economic justice), racism (social justice), sexism (gay+lesbian fascism), theism (anti-religion fascism), militarism (anti-authority, guns are bigger), all anti-freedom, for some, again the sign warns, "when will they come for you". Are nothing more than anti-civilization control manipulators ready to usher in a post apocalyptic "1984", "Beyond Thunderdome" cyberpunk anti-reality.

Interesting. You present a charicature of fascism: the extreme-reactionary stands for every repressive-oppressive mechanism of exploitation the system has. Out of curiosity, are you also for the New Men's movement; I ask because you fail to mention anti-feminism and I would assume you are a misogynist right?

Another point that you missed is education. You forgot to be pro-compulsory education. School is an important weapon in the state's arsenal. School is prison, and an indoctrination center to train worker-class and manager-class robots. Home school should be on any good sheeple's list of enemies.

Let's digress and talk about the system. Why did Mao say that "all reactionaries are paper-tigers"? Because the reactionary clings to imaginary things. In sexuality, for example, the reactionary crystallizes some orientation of individuals, then this image, which could be monogamy in your case, (but there are different 'grand narratives' from one culture to another), this archetype, which is really only a fetish object of the original polymorphous perversity, becomes the debt, the authority, that the reactionary desires to reproduce. It's okay to be gay. Incest is okay and so is pedophilia. You can even do oral-sex on the president of the United States!

Paper is fake. For economics, Islamic culture invented the check because metaphysically Islam had discovered that there is no extrinsic or further motivation than God: not the imaginary worth of money, not anything past: God is merciful, amnesiac even. The Prophet peace be upon him, smashed the idols of the Pagans. Islam prohibits discrimination against women. Very importantly: Islam prohibited representational art. Islam expresses the Post-Modern exhaustion with fakes.

It's all just made up: social norms, morality, reality. They were only fooling. Did you think Descartes was joking when he said everything was doubtful? America is a unicorn. Civilization has no glorious purpose: that is smoke and mirrors, civilization is an exploitation machine and nothing more. Prisons are a cog in the machine.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Please note, the discussion is not about fascism but about prisons and whether society needs them and whether or not it would be desirable to abolish them. Do not digress.

The topic of why people support fascism is interesting. Create a new thread if you wish to discuss it. It is off-topic in this thread.

Surely nobody here is supporting fascism. If someone is supporting a policy which one of us thinks is tantamount to fascism, then that one of us needs to explain to that first person why the policy is tantamount to fascism not what is undesirable about fascism or why people support fascism. Those latter two would be straw-men arguments.

The problem of absent fathers is major. It may not be as much of an issue in the case of a literal sperm donor, but that's beside the point because in most cases the father leaves or dies after a few years--usually calling or checking in every now and then just enough to remind his child that he doesn't care much about them. Anecdotally, I've seen the massive, deep emotional damage done to a person now an adult whose father abandoned them and only checked in a few times in their life. Being abandoned by a parent after birth is traumatizing, I think. I can't imagine anyone would seek to deny this problem, and I think we can all agree that if more parents particularly fathers took care of their children rather than abandoning them that we'd have less violent crime and thus less potential prisoners.

Over-all I agree with your analysis, however on this point I can not follow.

Many people have no mother and father. Millions of war-children are in this situation: their parents have been killed, or with the family home gone and no phone-books, it is impossible for family ever to be reunited. The idea that these millions of people all over the world are now doomed forever to a life of crime is absurd. A little research easily reveals that very many orphans have become good people in their adult lives.

Of course, I never said that all children who had a parent die or abandon them will become criminals.

What I am saying and what I doubt anyone would argue is that if a parent dies or abandons their child, that will generally have a damaging effect on the child psychologically and often financially. Moreover, the child is much more likely to commit crime. I am sure statistics would show a causal relationship between fatherlessness and crime, meaning that by reducing fatherlessness we would be reducing the amount of crime and the number of 'dangerous people' needing to be locked up.

Of course, fatherlessness is not the only contributing factor to crime. Statistics can show that there are many other social problems--like poverty--that cause crime, and there are many social programs--like education--that prevent crime. Though we may disagree about what to do with the dangerous people (e.g. rapists, murderers, etc.), we can use those agreeable methods to reduce the number of dangerous people in the first place. But any specific issue that happens to prevent crime--fatherlessness, poverty, education, etc.--is not the issue at hand and can be discussed in a different thread.

Some people will still have pathologies, personality disorders or some psychological abnormality that leads to them victimizing others (e.g. serial raping, murdering, etc.). It seems that you, Billy, want us to just let these people go. I would definitely not support that, and almost nobody else would support it. We're not just going to let murders and rapists roam freely to murder and rape more people.

Nonetheless, I think sending those dangerous people to an inhumane 'prison' for a set period of time as revenge where they won't receive treatment is even more foolish and damaging to society. They often come out even more sick and dangerous than they went in. Of course, this would generally be the most preferable option for those who support revenge and want getting revenge to be the main goal of the "criminal justice" system. However, I do not think society needs to get revenge, especially since civil justice already forces financial restitution. I neither want the government to get revenge on people's behalf nor want it to legalize offensive violence committed by citizens on their own behalf. (The pros and cons of revenge can be discussed in the thread, How do you feel about vengeance?)

In contrast, let's consider those like me who want the goal of law enforcement, criminal courts and criminal sentencing to solely be the safety of society, i.e. protecting people from being victimized (e.g. raped, murdered, beat up and such). I think it is very clear that we can more effectively and efficiently achieve that by (1) not wasting resources incarcerating the non-dangerous people and by (2) putting the dangerous people into humane treatment facilities run by doctors and educational professionals where they will be restrained and/or isolated as much as necessary to prevent them from victimizing even more people and not releasing them until, if ever, they have been rehabilitated.