I mentioned the U.S. prison population on the show Monday. We learn from the International Herald Tribune that
Nationwide, the prison population grew by 25,000 last year, bringing it to almost 1.6 million, after three decades of growth that has seen the prison population nearly triple. Another 723,000 people are in local jails.Reason Online asks whether we're locking up nonviolent offenders:
As James Q. Wilson himself has observed, imprisoning those people [nonviolent offenders] does not reduce the total number of drug dealers, since others quickly take their place. Worse, it leaves less prison space for the robbers, rapists, and murderers who represent a genuine threat to public safety.Finally, the late arch-conservative William F. Buckley's thoughts on marijuana laws:
With limited resources, politicians face an unavoidable but rarely acknowledged tradeoff between being tough on drugs and being tough on crime.
"Legal practices should be informed by realities," Buckley argued, citing 700,000 pot arrests each year, 87% of which involved only possession of small amounts. "This exercise in scrupulosity costs us $10-15 billion per year in direct expenditures alone."More than 1 in 100 U.S. adults are in prison (from the International Herald Tribune)
But would America ever rise up and demand a change in marijuana laws?
"It is happening, but ever so gradually. Two of every five Americans, according to a 2003 Zogby poll cited by Dr. Nadelmann, believe "the government should treat marijuana more or less the same way it treats alcohol: It should regulate it, control it, tax it, and make it illegal only for children". The Dutch do odd things, but here they teach us a lesson."
Americans: Stars in Bars (from Reason Online)
Collected Controversies of William F. Buckley (from 10 Zen Monkeys)
8 comments:
Jay,
You've put alot of effort into this blogsite, my friend, but you've got to change to a 'forum' type of format if you want to expand participation.
The bells and whistles with the you tube entries and clever posts are nice, but it's not going to increase interest. I don't want the site to wither on the vine.
Simple: Switch to a forum format, allow site visitors to start new topics, eliminate the need for alot of scrolling and jumping from one window to another, and cut out the 3-step sign-in. The YDR Forum Exchange seems about as easy to use as any I've seen.
By the way, it seems Gary has been taking a beating on that site from several of the York listeners. I'm not sure what heading it's under.......maybe 'local issues'?
The YDR Exchange uses IPB, forum software with which I am very familiar.
The problem is that doing a forum/blog integration can be done, but it will take some research and a lot of work on my part before it can happen.
Development is pretty fast-paced, so it's likely that a convenient solution (as opposed to what's available now) will be available soon.
As for the abuse being heaped upon Gary on that site, I can't speak for Gary, but I can tell you that some of the complaints over there are ... odd.
A frequent complaint on that site is that Gary hangs up on callers. I had the privilege of hosting the show this Monday (and co-hosting a couple other days) and that complaint puzzles me.
I mean, I've taken calls from people that want to filibuster whatever off-topic pet peeve is on their mind. And God forbid that I try to interrupt the filibuster and try to have a conversation.
I had to hang up on someone filibustering on Monday because I couldn't get a word in. I guess listeners should start posting nasty stuff about me?
Then there were complaints that he's a crypto-conservative and brings in like-minded people to guest host. I'll simply note that I didn't see any comments after Monday's show about how Gary allowed a libertarian-minded fella to host.
It seems to me that the complaints boil down to "I disagree with Gary on a variety of issues, therefore I will impute the worst possible interpretation to his behavior."
Works for some people, I guess, but I prefer to operate with the understanding that I can disagree with a person without imagining them to be an awful person.
The prison population is reflective of the inhumane treatment America has been teaching to its citizenry, and to the rest of the world for a very long time.
Nothing more clearly showed the disparity between true Christian action--("acting as Christ espoused, and would probably have done") and the American ethic than the shooting deaths in the Amish NickelMine schoolhouse. Their forgiveness to the family of the killer, their capacity to weep and console one another without resorting to vengeance completely flew over the heads of the spectating media: It was almost as if the event had lost its charge and the media couldn't find a handle on how to aggrandize it for mass consumption. Instead of focusing on the forgiveness, examining it as an alternative approach to social conflicts, the media fled the scene without further examination of the Amish behavior.
It didn't fit the paradigm.
It didn't create fuel for social resentment, hatred, payback, vendetta.
"We forgive you for what you have done to us."
Amazing how simple it was, how difficult for the average American to understand.
Putting people into jail isn't an action that creates forgiveness---if anything, it's just the opposite. Putting people into jail creates resentment, hatred, anger, payback. And if the jails were actually based on a rehabilitation ethic, I would not disagree with the forced timeout. But they're not.
They're based on meanness and cruelty.
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There is a real problem with the VFMS site, Jay, which Fred has correctly identified. It is NOT going to survive unless the shift to forum, IPB perhaps, context occurs. And ASAP.
You were very good as host.
Leo Cooper was very good as host today, what I was able to hear.
Joel is good because he's so learned on taxation, he's an education.
I do not like Charlie Gerow much at all, broken Republican record that he is, and the young Liberty University Christian Republican, Jeff whatever, who was on Wednesday, was as bad as they come. How is it that he's with the Commonwealth Foundation?--I thought they were more progressive in outlook... maybe I am wrong about that.
But I am biased on this.
I like honest and open-minded sorts.
Joel -- the tax guru -- was fantastic. I wasn't able to hear Leo today, which is a shame because I liked him a lot on the show a couple weeks ago.
I think I met him recently and if it is the same person, he's as nice in person as he is on-air.
I'm going to hijack this thread to try and get a message to Fred.
I'm hearing that the Obama campaign is looking for as many people as possible to volunteer in Lancaster You can find out more by calling their local office: (717)945-6510 .
That office is at:
240 Harrisburg Pike Lancaster PA 16603
Here's the schedule I've seen so far:
Saturday March 22, 2008
10:00 AM and 2:00PM Voter Reg Team Canvass on Town Squares and Neighborhoods.
Sunday March 23, 2008
2:00PM - 6:00PM Voter Reg Team Canvass on Town Squares and Neighborhoods
They are trying to get as many registrations completed as possible before the Monday deadline.
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You may now go back to regular programming
As far as the BLOG vs FORUM goes, YDR does it rather easily as they have a space at the top of the web page that takes you from one to another. It was that simple for them as they have BOTH a BLOG and FORUM rather easily integrated so it would seem.
JMO, I know it can be done, but a proper integration of the two is not easily done by one person with a day and night job who works almost every day of the week.
It's something I really want to do, but lacking a magic wand, it will not be ready to use five minutes from now.
In the meantime, everyone should go stock up on canned goods and munitions to better prepare for the Robot Monkey Apocalypse. I have important news on that subject that I'll post soon.
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