08-29-2022, 01:48 PM
I hope that Republicans on the whole can get dispirited over something that should be extremely distressing. People get very long prison terms for the theft and abuse of classified documents. Trump, should he be convicted and sentenced. will not be the first. The punishments are severe, as sentences for John Walker, Andrew Phillip Hansson, and Aldrich Ames show. Imprisonment is typically in ADX Florence, a Hell of sensory deprivation. Human contact is minimal. One gets food delivered through a slot. There is practically no contact even with fellow prisoners. Lights are on at all times, so the distinction between even day and night is meaningless. There is no TV to pass the time, although it is available for religious services (even that cannot be denied) and some "educational" programs, whatever those are. Reading or writing material? Lots of luck. You may have your religious holy book, but the complete works of William Shakespeare will not qualify. Freedom of religion is an absolute right even in the penal system.
I would commit suicide if facing a life sentence there. The only reason to not do so is the belief that one ends up in an even worse Hell for casting away the alleged gift of life even with pancreatic cancer or a sentence of a living death.
Democrats got the message early that Donald Trump is an idol with clay feet. More and more people are getting that message. This man has hurt his supporters with disgrace and personal ruin, which is rare for political leaders except with their most intimate and corrupt cronies.
This is not a time sympathetic to riots. Demonstrations happen often, and on occasion rioters use the demonstrations as pretexts for riots -- and get arrested for such. Say what you want about Black Lives Matter, but it makes clear that its focus is on police brutality and not on legitimate functions of law enforcement, including the suppression of crime. Black Lives Matters demonstrations can be assumed to be fully infiltrated by police, and those who bring video cameras to document police brutality have often ended up getting video of looting, assaults, and property damage; that video is often turned over to police or prosecutors. Excessive force by police is crime, of course, but so are looting, assaults, and property damage. The people who take videos of someone destroying a police car who came to protest excessive force by a police officer are ethically consistent in the position "do the crime and do the time".
America has very conservative attitudes toward crime of any kind. If you don't believe me, then just consider the last two-term President. He may have been a liberal on economic and cultural matters, but he cut no slack on crime. At some point Barack Obama found that in even the worst slums, crime was the result of people of bad character by local standards and not a response to economic hardship and deprivation. The worst neighborhoods might concentrate sociopathic and psychopathic types because such people who, if they do not latch onto the licit part of American economic life, become extreme losers. Salesclerks and domestic servants who make low, if legitimate, pay can be good and decent people. Muggers and dope dealers are not good people. Someone like Obama could learn the difference, which is good for survival -- and doing real good for people who follow the rules and still get treated badly. (Maybe we simply need to quit treating people who do the nastiest and lowest-paying licit work badly). In contrast to Trump, Obama is a law-and-order man without hypocrisy and without using the words as an insult to those who disagree with him.
I see America becoming even more hostile to offenders in the next few decades. I would not be surprised to see the Japanese model of incarceration for non-trivial offenders become the norm. Japan treats violent criminals like China treats political dissidents -- with mind control. Japan gets away with this because nobody can see a violent crime as a political offense. Rape, commit a robbery, molest a child, beat a spouse, deal drugs, steal a car, or set a fire and you will face a prison term that forces one to change one's core beliefs. The Japanese penal system is so harsh that the US Armed Forces warn Americans that the American military penal system is soft by contrast. The Japanese penal system changes the offender, so there is practically no recidivism. Bad habits can be difficult to break, but they are worth breaking.
I see support for Donald Trump eroding quickly. I question whether many people will do anything more than lone-wolf assaults upon established authority. Many people disillusioned with Trump will talk people out of doing something that can get a penal term. The longest penal terms ever issued for participate in the Capitol Putsch are beginning to be meted out, and the longest yet asked for is about seventeen years for someone who used a flagpole with a US Marine Corps banner as a weapon.
I would commit suicide if facing a life sentence there. The only reason to not do so is the belief that one ends up in an even worse Hell for casting away the alleged gift of life even with pancreatic cancer or a sentence of a living death.
Democrats got the message early that Donald Trump is an idol with clay feet. More and more people are getting that message. This man has hurt his supporters with disgrace and personal ruin, which is rare for political leaders except with their most intimate and corrupt cronies.
This is not a time sympathetic to riots. Demonstrations happen often, and on occasion rioters use the demonstrations as pretexts for riots -- and get arrested for such. Say what you want about Black Lives Matter, but it makes clear that its focus is on police brutality and not on legitimate functions of law enforcement, including the suppression of crime. Black Lives Matters demonstrations can be assumed to be fully infiltrated by police, and those who bring video cameras to document police brutality have often ended up getting video of looting, assaults, and property damage; that video is often turned over to police or prosecutors. Excessive force by police is crime, of course, but so are looting, assaults, and property damage. The people who take videos of someone destroying a police car who came to protest excessive force by a police officer are ethically consistent in the position "do the crime and do the time".
America has very conservative attitudes toward crime of any kind. If you don't believe me, then just consider the last two-term President. He may have been a liberal on economic and cultural matters, but he cut no slack on crime. At some point Barack Obama found that in even the worst slums, crime was the result of people of bad character by local standards and not a response to economic hardship and deprivation. The worst neighborhoods might concentrate sociopathic and psychopathic types because such people who, if they do not latch onto the licit part of American economic life, become extreme losers. Salesclerks and domestic servants who make low, if legitimate, pay can be good and decent people. Muggers and dope dealers are not good people. Someone like Obama could learn the difference, which is good for survival -- and doing real good for people who follow the rules and still get treated badly. (Maybe we simply need to quit treating people who do the nastiest and lowest-paying licit work badly). In contrast to Trump, Obama is a law-and-order man without hypocrisy and without using the words as an insult to those who disagree with him.
I see America becoming even more hostile to offenders in the next few decades. I would not be surprised to see the Japanese model of incarceration for non-trivial offenders become the norm. Japan treats violent criminals like China treats political dissidents -- with mind control. Japan gets away with this because nobody can see a violent crime as a political offense. Rape, commit a robbery, molest a child, beat a spouse, deal drugs, steal a car, or set a fire and you will face a prison term that forces one to change one's core beliefs. The Japanese penal system is so harsh that the US Armed Forces warn Americans that the American military penal system is soft by contrast. The Japanese penal system changes the offender, so there is practically no recidivism. Bad habits can be difficult to break, but they are worth breaking.
I see support for Donald Trump eroding quickly. I question whether many people will do anything more than lone-wolf assaults upon established authority. Many people disillusioned with Trump will talk people out of doing something that can get a penal term. The longest penal terms ever issued for participate in the Capitol Putsch are beginning to be meted out, and the longest yet asked for is about seventeen years for someone who used a flagpole with a US Marine Corps banner as a weapon.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.