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Agreed. A conversation about our prison system is irrelevant. We're not locking people up in mass and forcing them to live in death camps. Our prison system is

by Wickk 15y ago

Agreed. A conversation about our prison system is irrelevant. We're not locking people up in mass and forcing them to live in death camps. Our prison system is far from perfect but it doesn't compare to what these people are going through.

schmittz 15y ago
While I agree that such a conversation is irrelevant to this post, I would say that in certain cases we are pretty close to locking people up en masse and forcing them to live in fairly abominable circumstances albeit not death camps.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
CWuestefeld 15y ago
As I see it, the difference is only in degree. In both cases, people are being denied their freedom and taken away from their families, for engaging in activities that hurt no one, not even themselves. It's certainly true that American prisons are better. But given the OP's definition: "enduring starvation, torture, and rape while performing hard labor", we do hit a couple of checkboxes. My understanding is that prison rape, with guards just looking the other way, is still a real problem in America. And take a look down at Guantanamo for (an admittedly small number of) people who are imprisoned and tortured "without legal recourse", as the OP says. So it's just a matter of degree. There's certainly a good deal of ground for comparison.
- jhamburger 15y ago
  In this case the degree is fairly important though. If we ignore degree completely we have most of the liberal democracies in the world lumped in with NK, Libya and Zimbabwe. Obviously lines must be drawn.
  - CWuestefeld 15y ago
    That just begs the question. Where must the line be drawn? Those disagreeing with my point seem to feel that the line should be right between us and whoever is more ruthless than us. But why do we automatically view ourselves on the correct side of that line? I've we're engaged, as a matter of policy, in activities that many or most Americans believe to be evil, doesn't that put the drawing of the line into question?
    - jhamburger 15y ago
      I'm not asserting that the US has a superior human rights record or that we don't engage in policy that could be seen as 'evil'. The argument being made here seems to be that we lack the moral high ground to criticize the NK regime. I've heard a similar argument used to counter the US criticisms of China's human rights record, and while I think it could be relevant in that case, we're talking about mass death camps here. This is a completely different animal. We don't need to be perfect citizens to condemn abhorrant policy like this.
    - lukeschlather 15y ago
      I don't really care to judge where the line belongs, but if we were to draw the line to include just one country, it would be North Korea as far as my moral compass is concerned. If we drew the line so it included the US, then we would also be including Russia, China, Mexico, and the vast majority of world nations. So yes, lets not go ranking countries by evilness - but North Korea is so beyond that that your equivocating is offensive.
      - CWuestefeld 15y ago
        If we drew the line so it included the US, then we would also be including Russia, China, Mexico, and the vast majority of world nations. It's not nearly so simple. If we drew the line according to what portion of our population we imprison, then the USA would be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with North Korea, with the rest of the world nearly an order of magnitude lower. Consider https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/world/americas/23iht-23prison.12253738.html https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/world/americas/23iht-23pr... The United States has, for instance, 2.3 million criminals behind bars, more than any other nation, ... China, which is four times more populous than the United States, is a distant second, with 1.6 million people in prison. ... The United States comes in first, too, ... in order of the incarceration rates. It has 751 people in prison or jail for every 100,000 in population. (If you count only adults, one in 100 Americans is locked up.) The only other major industrialized nation that even comes close is Russia, with 627 prisoners for every 100,000 people. The others have much lower rates. England's rate is 151; Germany's is 88; and Japan's is 63. The median among all nations is about 125, roughly a sixth of the American rate.

by Wickk 15y ago

schmittz 15y ago

While I agree that such a conversation is irrelevant to this post, I would say that in certain cases we are pretty close to locking people up en masse and forcing them to live in fairly abominable circumstances albeit not death camps.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

CWuestefeld 15y ago

As I see it, the difference is only in degree. In both cases, people are being denied their freedom and taken away from their families, for engaging in activities that hurt no one, not even themselves. It's certainly true that American prisons are better. But given the OP's definition: "enduring starvation, torture, and rape while performing hard labor", we do hit a couple of checkboxes. My understanding is that prison rape, with guards just looking the other way, is still a real problem in America. And take a look down at Guantanamo for (an admittedly small number of) people who are imprisoned and tortured "without legal recourse", as the OP says. So it's just a matter of degree. There's certainly a good deal of ground for comparison.

jhamburger 15y ago
In this case the degree is fairly important though. If we ignore degree completely we have most of the liberal democracies in the world lumped in with NK, Libya and Zimbabwe. Obviously lines must be drawn.
- CWuestefeld 15y ago
  That just begs the question. Where must the line be drawn? Those disagreeing with my point seem to feel that the line should be right between us and whoever is more ruthless than us. But why do we automatically view ourselves on the correct side of that line? I've we're engaged, as a matter of policy, in activities that many or most Americans believe to be evil, doesn't that put the drawing of the line into question?
  - jhamburger 15y ago
    I'm not asserting that the US has a superior human rights record or that we don't engage in policy that could be seen as 'evil'. The argument being made here seems to be that we lack the moral high ground to criticize the NK regime. I've heard a similar argument used to counter the US criticisms of China's human rights record, and while I think it could be relevant in that case, we're talking about mass death camps here. This is a completely different animal. We don't need to be perfect citizens to condemn abhorrant policy like this.
  - lukeschlather 15y ago
    I don't really care to judge where the line belongs, but if we were to draw the line to include just one country, it would be North Korea as far as my moral compass is concerned. If we drew the line so it included the US, then we would also be including Russia, China, Mexico, and the vast majority of world nations. So yes, lets not go ranking countries by evilness - but North Korea is so beyond that that your equivocating is offensive.
    - CWuestefeld 15y ago
      If we drew the line so it included the US, then we would also be including Russia, China, Mexico, and the vast majority of world nations. It's not nearly so simple. If we drew the line according to what portion of our population we imprison, then the USA would be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with North Korea, with the rest of the world nearly an order of magnitude lower. Consider https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/world/americas/23iht-23prison.12253738.html https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/world/americas/23iht-23pr... The United States has, for instance, 2.3 million criminals behind bars, more than any other nation, ... China, which is four times more populous than the United States, is a distant second, with 1.6 million people in prison. ... The United States comes in first, too, ... in order of the incarceration rates. It has 751 people in prison or jail for every 100,000 in population. (If you count only adults, one in 100 Americans is locked up.) The only other major industrialized nation that even comes close is Russia, with 627 prisoners for every 100,000 people. The others have much lower rates. England's rate is 151; Germany's is 88; and Japan's is 63. The median among all nations is about 125, roughly a sixth of the American rate.