Monthly Archives: September 2004

I’m going to try again to state my positions in a way that hopefully will be clearer. My positions have not changed, so if you read this and get a different idea about my positions, you probably didn’t understand my first post. Now, in reality, my position is not segmentable; each part of what I believe cannot be separated from the other parts and still be effective or, in some cases, reasonable. If you read my position, then break it up into pieces to be examined separately – that is, each piece examined as though the others did not exist – you will certainly find that several parts don’t seem reasonable. So please, please, try to envision the entire thing at once, working together. I’ll try to begin at the beginning. I said “As I stated, I agree that there is a problem with the system, with the way that people are convicted and sentenced, and actually with the entire judicial branch. The issue of “rehabilitation” is a complex one without a clear or universal solution at this time – but it is one that I believe personally is the responsibility of the courts, not the prisons, to determine. In my opinion, if the court determines that someone may be rehabilitated and become a productive member of society, that court has no business sending that person to prison, but instead should put them forcibly if necessary into an appropriate rehabilitation program. Those sent to prisons should be those who have no clear chance for rehabilitation.” I thought this was clear from this statement, especially regarding the last sentence that, according to my opinions and beliefs, the only people who should ever be sent to prisons are those who have NO clear chance for rehabilitation. None. People who, when evaluated by…
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I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made. -Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd US President (1882-1945)…
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Nothing new here, a simple re-posting of some comments I made in the comments section of another post – for easy finding, you can find what I said here: …In the general election I’ll have a mail-in ballot, but I’ll just be voting for Democrats across the board… you know, so my vote “counts”. Because in prior years I’d vote for the Libertarian candidates… …As far as libertarianism goes, I am much more in alignment with the textbook ideal of libertarianism than with the actuality of libertarians that exist in the world, and even less aligned with those libertarians who organise and run for office. Which is why I did not re-register as a Libertarian when I changed my official address this year; the party does not reflect what they should, or me. My votes in previous elections for Libertarians were tied to my intention to vote “against” the two-party system. This time around I have something more important to vote “against”, and … depending on how the next 3 years go I may be forced to take action myself and organise the actual “against” party I have spoken of a few times before. More news as it develops. Oh, and feel free to tell me why I’m wrong… Now, Nanda had a response to this: “As for Libertarians…I’ve always associated them with: thrift store camouflage, gun catalogs, teenage angst, and webpages with black backgrounds and red text. Oh yeah, and long-winded defenses of their “philosophy” that really says nothing at all, other than how much free time Libertarians must have. You are the only person with Libertarian inclinations that I know of who does not fit this stereotype. I guess my mentality is that it doesn’t matter what the “ideal” or “theory” behind it is, because it’ll never come…
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Nothing new here, a simple re-posting of some comments I made in the comments section of another post – for easy finding, you can find what I said here: …In the general election I’ll have a mail-in ballot, but I’ll just be voting for Democrats across the board… you know, so my vote “counts”. Because in prior years I’d vote for the Libertarian candidates. And Arpaio. I always vote for Arpaio… …As far as Arpaio goes, I think I vote for him because I have never heard of him doing anything I thought was wrong, and I don’t know what someone else will do better. I believe that convicted criminals should be punished. I believe that while they are incarcerated (sp?), forcing criminals to do hard labor is reasonable, and that giving them comfortable living conditions is not required. I also believe that there are major problems with the entire judicial branch, and the process by which people become convicted and sentenced needs to be torn down and rethought from scratch. But as long as the people say this is the system they want for convicting criminals (by not even attempting to replace it or reform it in any significant way), ways must be found of dealing with those convicted appropriately. And as far as I can see, Arpaio does what he can… …Oh, and feel free to tell me why I’m wrong. Tell me Arpaio uses his position to … I don’t know … to rape schoolgirls or something, and perhaps I’ll have a reason to vote for someone else who presumably does not … rape schoolgirls… Now, Nanda had a response to this: “Here’s an ACLU article on a pending case against Arpaio. http://www.aclu.org/Prisons/Prisons.cfm?ID=14510&c=121 But perhaps the opinion of bleeding-heart commies holds no bearing. One problem with…
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Work today. Getting ready now. Eating, dressing, a lot of combing. Gotta make lunch. Work today, have to take tomorrow off. Then make it up later in the week. Because where I work, in order to have a holiday off you have to use part of your allotted PTO for the year, which I don’t have any of yet. But since most everyone else in the company is taking the day off I can’t come in and work, either. It’s pretty stupid, actually, considering the amount of supervision I personally actually need. Okay, lunch half made. Supposed to go vote Tuesday. Registered as independant, so I get my choice of party in the primary. Except I’m pretty sure I don’t know enough about the candidates to care. And I tried reading through the 100+ page guide to the candidates, but it wasn’t telling me anything usefull about them, either. In the general election I’ll have a mail-in ballot, but I’ll just be voting for Democrats across the board… you know, so my vote “counts”. Because in prior years I’d vote for the Libertarian candidates. And Arpaio. I always vote for Arpaio. But for me, I don’t think the primaries matter this time around. Anyway, gotta get going. I’ll try to have more to say later. But I’ll probably be ironing instead….
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