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Main problems I see are one step deeper: - Too many equate "legal" with "moral" and defer to the authority of the state when it labels someone officially as a

Main problems I see are one step deeper: - Too many equate "legal" with "moral" and defer to the authority of the state when it labels someone officially as a "criminal," no matter the offense. This is a deep cultural problem, and I blame compulsory state schooling for exacerbating the issue of blindly trusting the government. Deference to arbitrary authority is drilled into our young minds over many formative years. Since public school is one of the main religions of America, I don't see this changing any time soon. - The cultural perception that justice means punishing the bad guy. Too many movies end with the villain getting killed, as if that solves the problem. If instead our culture thought of justice as making the victim whole, then entire classes of crimes would not exist, and a criminal who made restitution would be done with it. BIG NOTE HERE: people should still be able to judge whether to hire or not based on a person's history. No matter how much restitution the thief has made to past victims, for instance, a bank will probably not hire him and for good reason. - The state should have no say in whether someone is "rehabilitated." If you think for a minute how this would play out, you will realize that it opens the door to either huge abuses by the state or completely absurd outcomes. On the one hand, if you give discretion over a person's "fitness" to reenter society to a prison warden or state bureaucrat, then you allow for unlimited jail terms for those with politically incorrect views. If you try to encode into some regulation a rubric for whether someone is rehabilitated, it will utterly fail to encapsulate the nuance that is the human mind and will lead to gaming the system almost immediately.

ergothus 8y ago
> Too many equate "legal" with "moral" and defer to the authority of the state when it labels someone officially as a "criminal," no matter the offense. This is s huge point, and not just in drug convictions. If someone us poor and gets a warrant on the for unpaid parking fines, that is used in any public debate about them to show they are of low moral character. Reverse the issue and executives that settled charges without admitting fault are without sin, because obviously it was all legal. If the US wants to truly embrace the ideals of free speech, then we must also accept that there will be actions that are immoral but legal.
- maceurt 8y ago
  I think people are more against criminals, because they go against the rules of society. The norms and rules of society are more important and mean more than most of the actual crimes. Me stealing $5 from someone is not going to do much harm, but people will want to punished not for the crime necessarily, instead for breaking the rules that bind us together and make us civil. The only thing that separates savages from the civil are the laws and rules of a society, if you break those rules you are not just doing the moral harm in breaking the rule, but doing harm against the society as a whole.
  - cf498 8y ago
    The rules of society can be absolutely abhorrent. A savage act that is legal doesnt become anymore civilized by being the majority opinion of society.
  - zeroname 8y ago
    > The only thing that separates savages from the civil are the laws and rules of a society, if you break those rules you are not just doing the moral harm in breaking the rule, but doing harm against the society as a whole. Nonsense! You're making exactly the mistake of confusing laws with morals, but many laws are deeply immoral, even when they reflect the "rules and norms" of a society. Homosexuality used to be criminalized. Interracial sexual relations used to be criminalized. Contraception used to be criminalized. In all these case, that was based on the "rules and norms" of society. Has moving on from those "rules and norms" harmed our society? Have the individuals prosecuted under those laws harmed our society? I dare say no.
- antisthenes 8y ago
  This whole thing is nothing more than just world fallacy. Instead of looking at individual circumstances, people falsely assume (backwards logic) that bad things could have only happened to bad people (e.g. convictions) are dead set on revising their view of an event (well, if it happened, they must have deserved it!) > If the US wants to truly embrace the ideals of free speech, then we must also accept that there will be actions that are immoral but legal. And illegal, but moral.
clairity 8y ago
> 'Too many equate "legal" with "moral" and defer to the authority of the state when it labels someone officially as a "criminal," no matter the offense.' yes, people do take that mental shortcut from time to time, but it's because the legal system is supposed to reflect our collective moral code. when it doesn't, we should fix the legal code to match. but listening to the kavanaugh hearing yesterday, it looks like things will get worse before they get better. kavanaugh was unfortunately partisan in his rebuttal, but the appalling part is that no one--especially not politicians--is discussing partisanship as a legitimate reason for disqualification. no matter your politics, you do not want partisanship in the courts. > "I blame compulsory state schooling for exacerbating the issue of blindly trusting the government" this is too simplistically ideological. are you really completely against patriotism? while schools do contribute to teaching deference, it's because communities believe in living together harmoniously and benefit from such social norms. what we really need is to apply better incentives to the legal system, which has long been insulated from popular influence due to the danger of partisanship mentioned above. as in the current medical system, lawyers make more money from increased amounts of conflict and more complicated laws. we need to flip that around so that the legal system makes a living form simplifying the legal system and reducing conflict. and more to the point, we need to realize that there is no "law-abiding citizen". we all break the law from time to time and it doesn't mean we're all criminals. if anything, we need to address rampant cheating in schools, because that's disturbingly accepted shortcut to success. let's hold each other to a higher, more honorable standard.
- njarboe 8y ago
  "are you really completely against patriotism?" One of the founding principle of the American Republic was that the government is not the country. "We the people" and all that. Many would argue that to be a "true" American patriot one should be highly skeptical of government with skepticism increasing the farther removed it is from your local community.
  - clairity 8y ago
    but the government isn't something apart from ourselves. the government is us. the more we try to "other" it and give in to helplessness, the less effective we will be in controlling our collective destiny. skepticism is healthy, dogmatism, not so much. yes, let's keep federal power in check (because it's too tempting to abuse and degenerate into authoritarianism), but no, let's not live in fear of it either.
samstave 8y ago
This is why religion shouldnt ever be allowed in politics. Look at all the political scumbags constantly talking about morals and god while laying waste to the lives of fellow humans.

ergothus 8y ago

> Too many equate "legal" with "moral" and defer to the authority of the state when it labels someone officially as a "criminal," no matter the offense. This is s huge point, and not just in drug convictions. If someone us poor and gets a warrant on the for unpaid parking fines, that is used in any public debate about them to show they are of low moral character. Reverse the issue and executives that settled charges without admitting fault are without sin, because obviously it was all legal. If the US wants to truly embrace the ideals of free speech, then we must also accept that there will be actions that are immoral but legal.

maceurt 8y ago
I think people are more against criminals, because they go against the rules of society. The norms and rules of society are more important and mean more than most of the actual crimes. Me stealing $5 from someone is not going to do much harm, but people will want to punished not for the crime necessarily, instead for breaking the rules that bind us together and make us civil. The only thing that separates savages from the civil are the laws and rules of a society, if you break those rules you are not just doing the moral harm in breaking the rule, but doing harm against the society as a whole.
- cf498 8y ago
  The rules of society can be absolutely abhorrent. A savage act that is legal doesnt become anymore civilized by being the majority opinion of society.
- zeroname 8y ago
  > The only thing that separates savages from the civil are the laws and rules of a society, if you break those rules you are not just doing the moral harm in breaking the rule, but doing harm against the society as a whole. Nonsense! You're making exactly the mistake of confusing laws with morals, but many laws are deeply immoral, even when they reflect the "rules and norms" of a society. Homosexuality used to be criminalized. Interracial sexual relations used to be criminalized. Contraception used to be criminalized. In all these case, that was based on the "rules and norms" of society. Has moving on from those "rules and norms" harmed our society? Have the individuals prosecuted under those laws harmed our society? I dare say no.
antisthenes 8y ago
This whole thing is nothing more than just world fallacy. Instead of looking at individual circumstances, people falsely assume (backwards logic) that bad things could have only happened to bad people (e.g. convictions) are dead set on revising their view of an event (well, if it happened, they must have deserved it!) > If the US wants to truly embrace the ideals of free speech, then we must also accept that there will be actions that are immoral but legal. And illegal, but moral.

clairity 8y ago

> 'Too many equate "legal" with "moral" and defer to the authority of the state when it labels someone officially as a "criminal," no matter the offense.' yes, people do take that mental shortcut from time to time, but it's because the legal system is supposed to reflect our collective moral code. when it doesn't, we should fix the legal code to match. but listening to the kavanaugh hearing yesterday, it looks like things will get worse before they get better. kavanaugh was unfortunately partisan in his rebuttal, but the appalling part is that no one--especially not politicians--is discussing partisanship as a legitimate reason for disqualification. no matter your politics, you do not want partisanship in the courts. > "I blame compulsory state schooling for exacerbating the issue of blindly trusting the government" this is too simplistically ideological. are you really completely against patriotism? while schools do contribute to teaching deference, it's because communities believe in living together harmoniously and benefit from such social norms. what we really need is to apply better incentives to the legal system, which has long been insulated from popular influence due to the danger of partisanship mentioned above. as in the current medical system, lawyers make more money from increased amounts of conflict and more complicated laws. we need to flip that around so that the legal system makes a living form simplifying the legal system and reducing conflict. and more to the point, we need to realize that there is no "law-abiding citizen". we all break the law from time to time and it doesn't mean we're all criminals. if anything, we need to address rampant cheating in schools, because that's disturbingly accepted shortcut to success. let's hold each other to a higher, more honorable standard.

njarboe 8y ago
"are you really completely against patriotism?" One of the founding principle of the American Republic was that the government is not the country. "We the people" and all that. Many would argue that to be a "true" American patriot one should be highly skeptical of government with skepticism increasing the farther removed it is from your local community.
- clairity 8y ago
  but the government isn't something apart from ourselves. the government is us. the more we try to "other" it and give in to helplessness, the less effective we will be in controlling our collective destiny. skepticism is healthy, dogmatism, not so much. yes, let's keep federal power in check (because it's too tempting to abuse and degenerate into authoritarianism), but no, let's not live in fear of it either.

samstave 8y ago

This is why religion shouldnt ever be allowed in politics. Look at all the political scumbags constantly talking about morals and god while laying waste to the lives of fellow humans.