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> If a prisoner is raped, the prison should incur liability, civil and criminal for allowing it to happen. When guards initiate violence against prisoners they

> If a prisoner is raped, the prison should incur liability, civil and criminal for allowing it to happen. When guards initiate violence against prisoners they should be liable as well. This should be the case for both private and "public" prisons. Here's the problem - you can have safe, large-scale, and cheap incarceration. Pick two. You can have safe, large-scale incarceration by sticking everyone in solitary and never letting them out of their cells, after all, but I doubt many people would consider that to be acceptable. If you want to treat prisoners with dignity and respect, you have to pay for it. The current model is the result of budget cuts upon budget cuts upon budget cuts coupled with vastly increased "demand" created by the War on Drugs. When you're incarcerating everyone for having a dime bag of weed, you're running a Walmart-style prison instead of a focused rehabilitation facility. If we, at the very least, decriminalized possession and only went after dealers, prisons would immediately improve. Fewer prisoners means safer conditions. > Frankly, this alone proves that government cannot be trusted with the business of distributing justice. Which is why I'm an anarchist. I see this as misguided. Yes, the government sucks at distributing justice. But I don't see the absence of government doing any better. You'd effectively end up with mob rule, which is typically governed by the biggest asshole. At least with democracy, the asshole has to keep the electorate somewhat happy. The very first thing that people did after settling the American frontier was to set up government to deal with justice. It beat forming a posse to kill your enemies whenever they pissed you off.

leesalminen 11y ago
I've always found the anarchist ideology confusing. There was a reason the early Americans (who were leaving tyrannical governments) formed a judicial system run by a government. The people of today forgot how the people of yesterday lived and never learned why they made the choices that they did. Unfortunately, I believe that history will continue to repeat itself until we learn from our ancestors in more meaningful ways.
- omegaham 11y ago
  > I've always found the anarchist ideology confusing. As far as I can tell, the most coherent philosophy of anarchy is "participatory democracy." Basically, if you want to be part of a society, you can take part. If you don't like it, you can leave. The problem with this is that people are selfish. If I think that plunder and rape is okay, and the other people in my area don't want me plundering, then all I have to do is say, "Well, I'm not participating in your democracy! I can do as I please!" In response, they have two options - let me be, (which is undesirable, as they're right next to me, and I'm going to attack them) or stop me by force. If they do the latter, guess what - they're a government! A crude, ad hoc, mob-driven, vigilante justice-condoning government, but a government nonetheless. And now we're right back to where we started, with the typical abuse of power, injustice, and so on. Probably with a lot more than what we started with, as infant governments tend to be messy when dealing with problems. So, the only way that anarchy can work is if everyone is benevolent. If that existed, then the government would be awesome and we wouldn't be trying to get rid of it.

leesalminen 11y ago

I've always found the anarchist ideology confusing. There was a reason the early Americans (who were leaving tyrannical governments) formed a judicial system run by a government. The people of today forgot how the people of yesterday lived and never learned why they made the choices that they did. Unfortunately, I believe that history will continue to repeat itself until we learn from our ancestors in more meaningful ways.

omegaham 11y ago
> I've always found the anarchist ideology confusing. As far as I can tell, the most coherent philosophy of anarchy is "participatory democracy." Basically, if you want to be part of a society, you can take part. If you don't like it, you can leave. The problem with this is that people are selfish. If I think that plunder and rape is okay, and the other people in my area don't want me plundering, then all I have to do is say, "Well, I'm not participating in your democracy! I can do as I please!" In response, they have two options - let me be, (which is undesirable, as they're right next to me, and I'm going to attack them) or stop me by force. If they do the latter, guess what - they're a government! A crude, ad hoc, mob-driven, vigilante justice-condoning government, but a government nonetheless. And now we're right back to where we started, with the typical abuse of power, injustice, and so on. Probably with a lot more than what we started with, as infant governments tend to be messy when dealing with problems. So, the only way that anarchy can work is if everyone is benevolent. If that existed, then the government would be awesome and we wouldn't be trying to get rid of it.