[lbo-talk] Prisons and The Left

John Thornton jthorn65 at sbcglobal.net
Tue Apr 7 19:35:11 PDT 2009


Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> On Apr 7, 2009, at 7:36 PM, John Thornton wrote:
>
>> We are far too cavalier in imprisoning people in the US as is shown
>> by our astronomical incarceration rate.
>
> I'll agree with that. And our sentences are way too long. You can get
> 5 years for stealing a car; the guy who stole mine should get only 1.
> Drugs should get 0, obviously. But you're pretty cavalier about armed
> robbery. Holding up a 7-11 with a gun is pretty serious stuff. Mugging
> a person on the sidewalk with a knife is too.

Other than state that threatening to harm someone should not be included in the same category as actually harming someone what have I said that might be considered cavalier about robbery? If you don't want to believe that it takes a different mindset to actually harm someone than it does to merely threaten them that is certainly your right but you are not on firm ground in such disbelief. So now it's cavalier to imagine robbing someone is a different category of crime (or should be) than actually murdering them? Well then call me cavalier.

John Thornton



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