@3, good point but on CNN last night all they were talking about what a tweet from Trump. Seriously, no one is paying attention because no one is saying anything about the real crazy happening in DC. And guess what? The real crazy is what Congress is doing: Trump is just a distraction.
Awful, but when it comes to punishing typical teenage behavior, is this really any different from our misguided War on Drugs? Just throwin' it out there.
Meanwhile, stock valuation for Corecivic, Inc. (nee Corrections Corporation of America, NYSE: CXW), the largest private incarceration company in the U.S. https://www.google.com/search?q=correcti…">recorded a 1.15% increase today.
The more people with felony convictions, the fewer voters. Felony convictions strip people of the right to vote (depending on the state). It's all part of feeding for-profit prisons and reducing the eligible voter population.
@9: I kind of doubt it would even pass the first constitutional test it faces. Any attorney worth a damn would argue that this punishment is cruel and unusual for the crime committed, assuming we are talking about a minor sending another minor the material. Most circuit courts would likely agree on appeal.
@3: Actually the majority of the American people have consistently voted against the Republican Party for the last several elections. The Republicans are in power because of gerrymandering and ...in the case of two Republican Presidents (so far) ...a constitutional fluke.
Hmmmm. OK, a thought experiment:
(1) Long term, we need some kind of socialism. As we've seen recently, the economy runs great with less-than-full employment, so huge swaths of population need to be provided for WITHOUT needing to hold jobs. These people are not necessarily lazy...many are just unlucky, and there simply aren't jobs for everyone at a livable wage. That's the new normal. The Protestant Work Ethic has, at long last, failed us.
(2) Socialism (redistributing wealth to support those with insufficient income-generating potential) can take several forms, one of which is...wait for it...mass incarceration. If you put big chunks of the population in prison, and you provide room and board, you've got a kind of ruthless socialism going on.
(3) young people who aren't so culturally anchored in the old paradigm might make the adjustment to socialism more easily than older people who grew up believing that work was how you justified your place in society.
THEREFORE, it might make a kind of cruel, heartless, amoral economic sense to incarcerate teens in high numbers.
Tom @21, I predict that your thought experiment in imprisonment-socialism for teens would be very selectively implemented, specifically in ways that would continue to ensure a majority white voting population for many more decades, even as our nation's overall demographics are rapidly shifting away from that current reality. Convicted felons cannot vote in most states, even after completing their prison terms. Make no mistake, the Republican Party is actively planning and implementing countermeasures to deal with the demographic shifts that are already occurring in southwestern states. That is the real impetus behind the district gerrymandering (which has actually hurt mainstream Republicans over the short term by threatening them with election-year attacks from the right if they don't follow the program of the Tea Party radical fringe, but the GOP is playing the long game here), the voter ID challenges, the Wall, the immigration ban, and the attempts to push through totally idiotic and evil laws like this one.
So if a teen receives a sext from Anthony Weiner? House Bill is titled: H.R.1761 - Protecting Against Child Exploitation Act of 2017? Does this bill protect the teen or Anthony Weiner?
(Don't get me wrong: Resist, resist, resit.)
the House Bill is titled: H.R.1761 - Protecting Against Child Exploitation Act of 2017
(1) Long term, we need some kind of socialism. As we've seen recently, the economy runs great with less-than-full employment, so huge swaths of population need to be provided for WITHOUT needing to hold jobs. These people are not necessarily lazy...many are just unlucky, and there simply aren't jobs for everyone at a livable wage. That's the new normal. The Protestant Work Ethic has, at long last, failed us.
(2) Socialism (redistributing wealth to support those with insufficient income-generating potential) can take several forms, one of which is...wait for it...mass incarceration. If you put big chunks of the population in prison, and you provide room and board, you've got a kind of ruthless socialism going on.
(3) young people who aren't so culturally anchored in the old paradigm might make the adjustment to socialism more easily than older people who grew up believing that work was how you justified your place in society.
THEREFORE, it might make a kind of cruel, heartless, amoral economic sense to incarcerate teens in high numbers.
Discuss...
There! I've committed a crime Dave Reichert thinks is worth 15 years minimum.