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 Ouze wrote:
I don't think I've ever seen the disparate factions of Dakka come together on a topic in such a cohesive manner before.

We're dakkanauts, not animals (except for Frazzled, he's a Weiner dog overlord)

whembly wrote:*meh*

I can be persuaded each way.

But, I think once you served the punishment, your voting rights should be restored.

I also agree with this.


be careful to watch out for the cracks and fissures that are no doubt opening in the earth now.

 cincydooley wrote:
Well that's Holder (how does he still have a job, btw??) being hyperbolic like he usually is.

I couldn't help but laugh when the article talks about the # of disenfranchised people and only singles out blacks, who surprisingly make up less than half of the total population.

They make up 40% of the prison population, while only making up less than 14% of the US population. Minorities are incarcerated at a much higher rate than non-minorities. Combine that with the fact that the US incarcerates people at a rate higher than any other country in the world and you can see how we might have a problem.

Serve your time, be done with it, get your rights back.

It's also different for each state... ie, in Missouri, you get it back after you serve your time+probabtion+parole.

I'd be just fine with that.


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 Breotan wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:
This isn't a thread about the EPA. Please try and stay on topic.

Oh, is he posting here? I put him on ignore after seeing him troll other threads.

Yes, he's one of only three posters I've put on ignore. Its very refreshing. Not as refreshing as singing the mantra of the 101 Holy Reasons Wiener Dogs are Superior, but its helpful.


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 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Dude, you are starting to act like a parody of me and the stupid things I say

Whats scary is that my daughter's hair now is even more purple then your avatar.


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 sebster wrote:
I wonder what the voter turnout for ex-felons is, in places where they have their right to vote given back to them? I'd guess it wouldn't be too high.

Still, I guess that doesn't matter much, the point is that once you've paid your debt, then you've paid your debt and you should once again have all the rights of a regular citizen.

Agreed. The more I think about it the less I can see a reason against it.

All of Dakka is in agreement?

This is certainly a historic day...

A red day, ere the dawn rises!

I'll disagree with it just because Holder said it.

 Frazzled wrote:


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 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Dude, you are starting to act like a parody of me and the stupid things I say

Whats scary is that my daughter's hair now is even more purple then your avatar.

She is (Im assuming from other posts I see you make) a Teen, I have seen them do stupider. Like piercing their eyelids.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:


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 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Dude, you are starting to act like a parody of me and the stupid things I say

Whats scary is that my daughter's hair now is even more purple then your avatar.

She is (Im assuming from other posts I see you make) a Teen, I have seen them do stupider. Like piercing their eyelids.

Even I think that that's stupid, and when it comes to odd piercings, that's saying something.

I definitely think for at least some crimes the right to vote should be restored after incarceration and probation are up. Some crimes I'm not so sure about. 1st degree murder I feel like should maybe warrant the right being removed permanently.

But for most felons, definitely. Like, in VA, the 3rd petty larceny is a felony, so there are a ton of totally destitute people stealing underwear and shirts worth a grand total of about $10, getting thrown in jail for long stints because they did it 3 times. Should there be some punishment for theft? Sure. Should they lose their right to vote forever because of it? No, that's silly, $30 over 3 petty larcenies doesn't warrant that.

I'm a bit surprised it isn't considered cruel and unusual punishment.

Welcome back to society!

But you can't vote.

Once again, welcome back!

I'm all for prisoners having their voting rights removed while in prison, but why keep them from voting if they have served their sentences? More serious offenders will probably never get out, if they did their extra vote isn't really going to swing things in one direction or the other. Why give them something else to have a chip on their shoulder about?

 sebster wrote:
Still, I guess that doesn't matter much, the point is that once you've paid your debt, then you've paid your debt and you should once again have all the rights of a regular citizen.

Does that include allowing felons to purchase and posses firearms again?

I would think that once parole/probation is up, some should get that right back to. Right out of prison though a firearm can be indicative of a return to past behaviors that got them in trouble in the first place, and keeping it as a 'no no, show us you're ready to be in society again first' might be a decent policy.

 Medium of Death wrote:
if they did their extra vote isn't really going to swing things in one direction or the other.

More important is what it would say about society and the industrial prison complex if there WERE enough voting felons to alter the course of an election.

 LordofHats wrote:
I would think that once parole/probation is up, some should get that right back to. Right out of prison though a firearm can be indicative of a return to past behaviors that got them in trouble in the first place, and keeping it as a 'no no, show us you're ready to be in society again first' might be a decent policy.

I don't know if you can really be discretionary about it, or limit it to only "violent" criminals. I think legal firearm ownership should be more or less off the table if you're a felon.

I could be persuaded to allow felons to own full sized shotguns that would be used for sporting or hunting, however.

I think that would have to be relative to the crime. If it was violent, a felon should probably have their right to own a gun permanently revoked.

If it wasn't violent then it should be ok.

 cincydooley wrote:

I don't know if you can really be discretionary about it, or limit it to only "violent" criminals. I think legal firearm ownership should be more or less off the table if you're a felon.

I could be persuaded to allow felons to own full sized shotguns that would be used for sporting or hunting, however.

Not all felons commited violent crimes (not violent in the sense that anyone was physically hurt anyway). I'm more interested in rehabilitation. Parole is the point where we should be focusing on getting felons back into society as functional members. During that time, they should be kept away from anything that could lead them back to what got them in jail in the first place (guns, drugs, hookers, hell we might even want to keep hackers away from the internet!). But assuming they go through that period amicably and are successful, I'm not opposed to returning their rights in full.

The question is how to you propose this without looking soft of crime

You could simply reclassify all Felonies into Violent and Non-violent.

Then focus heavily on the fact that all Violent offenders will never be allowed to own guns.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
The question is how to you propose this without looking soft of crime

The "hard on crime" crowd is just another word for people who essentially dehumanize people who have done wrong (now, some of them certainly deserve the hard approach, but so many minor criminals become big ones because of how they're treated).

I just want a function system of imprisonment, punishment, and rehabilitation that isn't too soft or too hard which is probably a pipe dream but oh well.

 Grey Templar wrote:
You could simply reclassify all Felonies into Violent and Non-violent.

Then focus heavily on the fact that all Violent offenders will never be allowed to own guns.

Before we commit to that, I'd like to see some statistics of non-violent offenders becoming violent offenders.

 Ouze wrote:
I don't think I've ever seen the disparate factions of Dakka come together on a topic in such a cohesive manner before.

Hmmm, does that make this thread count as an echo chamber also?

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
I don't think I've ever seen the disparate factions of Dakka come together on a topic in such a cohesive manner before.

Hmmm, does that make this thread count as an echo chamber also?

By definition... yep.

 LordofHats wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
The question is how to you propose this without looking soft of crime

The "hard on crime" crowd is just another word for people who essentially dehumanize people who have done wrong (now, some of them certainly deserve the hard approach, but so many minor criminals become big ones because of how they're treated).

I just want a function system of imprisonment, punishment, and rehabilitation that isn't too soft or too hard which is probably a pipe dream but oh well.

Agreed. But the biggest problem is people will try to say you are being soft on crime. Many people who are "Hard on crime" Will my guess make up alot of votes. My family is demoratic but is still likely to vote against any of that. Just my observation.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
The question is how to you propose this without looking soft of crime

There is nothing "soft on crime" about the US, at all. We have more prisoners than any other country in the world, including China, which has a billion more people than we do.


I have no problem whatsoever with felons getting their voting rights back after they have done their time. I also have no problem with non-violent felons getting their firearm rights back after doing their time.

 Hordini wrote:

We have more prisoners than any other country in the world, including China, which has a billion more people than we do.

Which is funny as we used to claim we were better than the USSR because THEY had more prisoners than we did.

They discovered that, with enough vodka, you don't need prisons.

Is Soviet Russia, Vodka drinks you!

 daedalus wrote:

 Hordini wrote:

We have more prisoners than any other country in the world, including China, which has a billion more people than we do.

Which is funny as we used to claim we were better than the USSR because THEY had more prisoners than we did.

It's a pretty sad state of affairs, to be honest.

 Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:
Does that include allowing felons to purchase and posses firearms again?

I actually wondered if someone would respond with that...

And my answer is that most citizens who serve time should have their right to own a gun returned to them. If you do time for shoplifting, cheque fraud or anything like that then there's no justifiable reason for the state to ban you from owning a gun.

But if you did time for armed robbery or, like, shooting someone, then you should be considered the same as people who are banned from owning a gun for reasons of mental illness or the like - far too likely to commit violence with a firearm to be allowed one.


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 LordofHats wrote:
The "hard on crime" crowd is just another word for people who essentially dehumanize people who have done wrong (now, some of them certainly deserve the hard approach, but so many minor criminals become big ones because of how they're treated).

The weirdest thing about the 'hard on crime' thing is that they're aren't that many of them, and most of them are already committed in their votes. You actually don't win many votes directly with the strategy... and yet the strategy still works brilliantly because of some weird alpha male bs.

There was a lot of study done on the subject in Australia, after a very weird thing happened during the last execution in Australia. See, the state of Victoria was having an election at the time, and the execution was very unpopular (evidence he'd committed the crime was very weak). There was an election on, and so you'd think this high profile execution would cause some kind of problems for the Premier (what we call Governors), but he was surging up in the polls, and his surges were linked very closely to the intensity of coverage over the execution.

Lots of research since has found that even among people who are opposed to execution, they will like the person more on their other policies and respect them more overall. Even when seen as being too tough, people will be in awe of their manly willingness to kill people be a manly leader. It's that weird part of our tribal brains that makes us trust alpha males more.

You see a similar effect with war, people may oppose a war but they are likely to like the President more for doing... but this has a few caveats (the war has to be small enough that it isn't a major campaign issue, and you have to win and win quickly, so Panama yes, Iraq II no).