If the U.S. is such a free country...

Bradskii said:

Would you object to having those laws?

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I think I could deal with their laws.

ThatRobGuy said:

Eh, I don't know if that makes their approach to crime any more ethical...they're the same place that will cane you for petty vandalism and hit you with significant fines for things like littering. So everything's a trade-off. Since the topic of the thread is freedom, I don't know that citing a country that will give you a $1000 fine for spitting gum out improperly is the best example to use. (in fact, I think they even banned chewing gum for a while)

Plus, in terms of homicide rates, there are other nations that have more lax gun laws that are just as safe as the nations that many like to prop up.

For instance, Czech Republic has a homicide rate of 0.6, to put that in perspective, that's lower than Denmark, Finland, UK, France, Norway, Austria, New Zealand, Sweden, and Iceland. Yet, their gun laws are closer to ours than they are to any of the aforementioned countries.

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Freedom to spit gum in public places is a shabby
sort of freedom.
I kind of like freedom from such.

DamianWarS said:

you can use whatever adjective you wish to describe the state of mind but it's merely a cause and effect observation I'm stating despite my flippantness.

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"Opinion"

renniks said:

Again, I'm talking about the US. The cities with the strictest gun control have the most gun crime. And you didn't answer my question. When you say Gun laws are you talking about merely the right to possess guns or something else?

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As one would expect. You don't legislate against a problem you do not have.

Estrid said:

Freedom to spit gum in public places is a shabby
sort of freedom.
I kind of like freedom from such.

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Well sure, but banning it outright? (as they've done)

And if the topic is draconian punishment, things like caning and ridiculous fines are every bit as draconian as jailing given how petty some of the crimes are that can land you in jail or with fines exceeding $1000 in Singapore.

Bradskii said:

I just had a look at the Czech laws re guns and they seem very tight indeed. The requirements for owning a gun and what you can own etc covers a few wiki pages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_law_in_the_Czech_Republic

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They have stricter upstream requirements, but they don't ban AR-15's, and they can get a concealed carry permit just like people in the US can. And their permitting system is "shall issue", which means, in some ways, they're even more lax than some US states.

"the Czech gun legislation also permits a citizen to carry a concealed weapon for self-defense – 250,342 out of 307,372 legal gun owners have a concealed carry permit (31 Dec 2020).[4] The vast majority of Czech gun owners possess their firearms for protection, with hunting and sport shooting being less common.[5]

Throughout its 600-year history, Czech firearms legislation remained permissive, with the exception of periods of German Nazi occupation and Communist dictatorship. Today, ability to be legally armed is considered a symbol of liberty in the country, alongside freedom of speech and free elections.
"

Even form the link you posted, it shows a woman in a gun store in Prague shopping for the same kind of guns that we have available here.

ThatRobGuy said:

Well sure, but banning it outright? (as they've done)

And if the topic is draconian punishment, things like caning and ridiculous fines are every bit as draconian as jailing given how petty some of the crimes are that can land you in jail or with fines exceeding $1000 in Singapore.

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No problem for me, I just behave myself the way I normally
do.

How hard is that, to just be decent?

Estrid said:

No problem for me, I just behave myself the way I normally
do.

How hard is that, to just be decent?

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It's not hard for most of us, but rationalizing that sort of enforcement in Singapore is the same type of rationalization that people employ when they try to defend our criminal justice system.

"Don't want the $1000 fine and a caning?, don't throw your wrapper on the ground"
very closely resembles
"Don't want to get beaten by the cops?, quit mouthing off to them when you get pulled over"

Both are scenarios where the punishment is disproportionally more severe than the crime.

A person shouldn't be caned and have a week's wages taken for spitting on the sidewalk much like a person shouldn't be beaten and tasered for cussing at a police officer.

ThatRobGuy said:

It's not hard for most of us, but rationalizing that sort of enforcement in Singapore is the same type of rationalization that people employ when they try to defend our criminal justice system.

"Don't want the $1000 fine and a caning?, don't throw your wrapper on the ground"
very closely resembles
"Don't want to get beaten by the cops?, quit mouthing off to them when you get pulled over"

Both are scenarios where the punishment is disproportionally more severe than the crime.

A person shouldn't be caned and have a week's wages taken for spitting on the sidewalk much like a person shouldn't be beaten and tasered for cussing at a police officer.

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It works for Singapore, a really outstanding city,
very liveable.

Not like Chicago or or or.

pitabread said:

... why is it you guys have the highest incarceration rate in the world?

And especially when it comes to a lot of the supposed freedom loving Southern states (e.g. Texas) which have higher than average incarceration rate relative to the U.S. as a whole?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate

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Not sure why you named Texas for its not the highest. "The United States is the world leader in incarceration, despite the national incarceration rate being at its lowest in 20 years". This was as of 2021. One would think the lowest in 20 years is not that a good thing or not enough

pitabread said:

Then why do more liberal countries (e.g. Canada) have far lower prisoner populations (per capita)?

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Does Canada teach black folks that they are victims of the white patriarchy?

ThatRobGuy said:

Eh, I don't know if that makes their approach to crime any more ethical...they're the same place that will cane you for petty vandalism and hit you with significant fines for things like littering. So everything's a trade-off. Since the topic of the thread is freedom, I don't know that citing a country that will give you a $1000 fine for spitting gum out improperly is the best example to use. (in fact, I think they even banned chewing gum for a while)

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Here's the thing about those laws though. Singapore is a pristine city and the residents are proud of it (and they should be). I travelled there BRIEFLY. It's awesome.
Yes there rules are CRAZY heavy handed but guess what? They developed from a culture that prefers "order" to "chaos" (because true freedom is chaos). Are they reasonable? I'd argue some are not reasonable. But if the public at large supports the rules because they want their city to look like that, then they value the FREEDOM of a clean, ordered city.

In one of your previous posts you alluded to a "degrees of freedom" kinda concept and I agree. I think individuals and societies flourish when freedom "with fences" is the prevailing attitude. The unadulterated freedom that some/many Americans are pursuing with such rigor does NOT, I think, increase the quality of where you are living. In fact, I see it is a pretty juvenile understanding of "freedom".

Not only that, as a Christian it makes NO sense to me that they would pursue OR encourage unadulterated freedom given that God himself makes the case for "freedom with fences".

Oompa Loompa said:

Does Canada teach black folks that they are victims of the white patriarchy?

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Nope. But we recognize that First Nations people were significantly mistreated by our government and churches.

Also, could you give me a practical example of what a classroom lesson might look like to get that message across?

I haven't seen much in the way of teacher's work on this but if you have some ideas, I'd love to hear.

I found this lesson plan and found nothing overly worrisome about it:
https://werise-toolkit.org/en/system/tdf/pdf/tools/Case-Studies-on-Patriarchy.pdf?file=1&force=

rambot said:

Nope. But we recognize that First Nations people were significantly mistreated by our government and churches.

Also, could you give me a practical example of what a classroom lesson might look like to get that message across?

I haven't seen much in the way of teacher's work on this but if you have some ideas, I'd love to hear.

I found this lesson plan and found nothing overly worrisome about it:
https://werise-toolkit.org/en/system/tdf/pdf/tools/Case-Studies-on-Patriarchy.pdf?file=1&force=

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Indigenous Peoples' Day.

Oompa Loompa said:

Indigenous Peoples' Day.

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Nope.

National Truth and Reconciliation Day

renniks said:

Again, I'm talking about the US. The cities with the strictest gun control have the most gun crime. And you didn't answer my question. When you say Gun laws are you talking about merely the right to possess guns or something else?

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Taking a survey of how the US compares to the US is anecdotal and views the world in an American vacuum. It would be better to compare how other countries view firearms and what their stats are than measure American cities with American cities. Perhaps these cities in question have stricter gun laws as a reaction to higher crime rate not the inverse as your are suggesting.

What I mean by gun laws are about gun control like what firearms are banned or have restricted use or things like who can buy them and how easy is it to get them.

RDKirk said:

I'd say guns are the least thing going on here. Americans are near the top in virtually all methods of killing one another. The real question is: Why do Americans place such little value on human life? Even many of those who are too timid to kill anyone themselves gleefully encourage others to do it for them.

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love of guns and love of killing are perhaps the products of the same underlying values

ThatRobGuy said:

It's not hard for most of us, but rationalizing that sort of enforcement in Singapore is the same type of rationalization that people employ when they try to defend our criminal justice system.

"Don't want the $1000 fine and a caning?, don't throw your wrapper on the ground"
very closely resembles
"Don't want to get beaten by the cops?, quit mouthing off to them when you get pulled over"

Both are scenarios where the punishment is disproportionally more severe than the crime.

A person shouldn't be caned and have a week's wages taken for spitting on the sidewalk much like a person shouldn't be beaten and tasered for cussing at a police officer.

Click to expand...

Singapore is a city state where things like trash pile up is a far greater concern than a nation with a huge expanse of land at their disposal. it's also a eastern cultural way of shaming the visible. I've lived there for a short while and it's quite a pleasant place to live.

The punishments in questions are clear and official so you know when you throw trash on the sidewalk and you get caught by the police you get a fine (and if your don't get caught by the police someone will probably yell at you) whereas if you mouth off to cops in the US what happens next and who gets tried in court is not that clear or official. To be honest althought both seem exterme I would much prefer the former but I'm not in the habit of throwing thrash on the ground or mouthing off cops so I think I would get along in both systems.

pitabread said:

... why is it you guys have the highest incarceration rate in the world?

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Crime.

And especially when it comes to a lot of the supposed freedom loving Southern states (e.g. Texas) which have higher than average incarceration rate relative to the U.S. as a whole?

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See above.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate

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It's the crime rate. I doubt you're arguing that criminals should go free....so your question is better framed as "why is the crime rate so high?"

There's a bunch of reasons for that, so realistically it's not a question with one answer. To put things in perspective though....

Back around 2013, 2014, 2015....El Salvador was frequently described as the most dangerous nation in the world that wasn't at war. Although the murder rate has gone up and down...in 2015 it was really bad, they had something like 85 murders per 100k people.

In East St Louis....the murder rate was 96 in 2019 (couldn't find the 2015 numbers) I'd like to tell you that's an anomaly, but that doesn't appear to be the case. In Baltimore it's 55 in 2015. Even if we include the larger part of St Louis....it's still in the mid 60s. Albuquerque is around 15-20. Stockton California is anywhere from 10-20. Detroit, Memphis, New York, Chicago....and many more cities have murder rates anywhere from double to quadruple the national average.

If we just looked at the most violent parts of these cities....like east St Louis or southside Chicago....we'd be looking at some of the most deadly places in the world that aren't at war. The average murder rate of the US is 5 per 100k people. That's still higher than most modern western nations, but it's not ridiculous. That makes it difficult IMO for the average American to understand just how bad some of these places have become.

The other major obstacle is the political/racial component. The racial demographics of these places makes it hard to hold a serious discussion about. Democrats will overemphasize and become outraged by the dozen or so possible murders by police every year...but every time someone tries to discuss the thousands of black on black murders in these places across the nation, they get called a racist or bigot or get accused of trying to distract from the "real issue". In a way, it makes sense because Democrats want to be seen by these communities as defending them from bigotry and racism because they want their votes. In another way though, it's a shame because I don't think we can realistically solve these problems without discussing who they are affecting and their causes...

Causes are complicated and there's no one answer. I think the biggest factor is the creation of the modern criminal gang that took shape in the late 70s and early 80s, and then spread across the nation in the 90s. Sure, things like poverty and population density or the decline of opportunities and proliferation of drugs in these communities also played a part. Those factors are trickier though...because there's also plenty of examples of dense poor populations that have high illegal drug use that don't have the same degree of violence and murder.

Gang culture seems to be the link that takes these other factors and multiplies them to an obscene level. It seems like it creates a level of legitimacy or acceptance to criminal activity that doesn't necessarily exist in other poor, densely populated, drug infested areas.

I know that murder isn't everything when it comes to the prison system. The murder rate does tend to reflect the scope of violent crime in an area though. Violent crime is different from nonviolent crimes...because the prison population tends to stay in prison. Those who committed murder, attempted murder, and assault with a deadly weapon 5 years ago are still in prison today....and will be for many more years. They have a multiplicative effect on crime...they destroy not only their families but the families of their victims and keep the population of a cycle of incarceration.

The problem is, in my opinion, gang culture and it's effects. The same problem happened across the US in the early to mid 1900s...and while prohibition certainly was a big factor in that, it continued well past prohibition because amongst Italians and certainly Sicilians, there was a gang culture.

A culture that created a sense of legitimacy of crime and a level of respect for criminals. In the 80s modern gang culture took root in El Salvador when the illegal El Salvadorans who imitated the gang cultures of the Crips and Bloods of California were deported back to El Salvador.

The gang culture that gives respect and legitimizes the sort of crime that should be shameful and abhorrent needs to change to really solve this issue. If that happens, I think a genuine decrease in the prison population would follow.

Brihaha said:

Many prisons in America are for profit businesses. Elites have always exploited the poor here. Now white collar crime is worse than blue collar crimes. Because there seems to be no accountability for malfeasance any more in America. Personal responsibility has seemingly disappeared too.

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I disagree with the idea of privately owned prisons....but the idea that we are keeping a large prison system to maintain cheap or free labor is mostly nonsense.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_prison#2010s

Only about 8.5% of the prison population is housed in a private prison.

The whole myth seems to be created to support the larger myth that this is some evil racist nation of powerful white people oppressing non-whites. The 8.5% of prisoners in private prison doesn't really explain 91.5% of other prisoners. It's not some plan for racial oppression or love of cheap labor.