Husker_x

I think you'd be surprised how much sympathy there is on the left for this issue. Bill Maher won't play colleges anymore. He can't, because there are enough people who are waiting with bated breath to be offended by something that they can't even attend a comedy show without having their delicate sensibilities hurt. That's on the one hand. On the other, I think our society has made some good progress in realizing that it's not acceptable to call people f****s or retards or whatever in public. What you do in your house is your business. If you show up in a college classroom with that crap coming out of your mouth, I wouldn't stand for it, and I wouldn't expect anyone else to either.

1) No I'm not saying that . . . and I'm sort of confused how you would have gotten that from anything I said. My point was only ever about nonviolent drug offenders. I went back to the OP article to find it. According to Vox, "America's 'nonviolent drug offenders' account for a paltry 12 percent of America's prisoners." That's the confusion. I thought it was 20%. Vox argues it's 12%. 2) Fortunately for my argument it could be 1%, or 5%, or .034%. I'll take the 12%. My position is arresting anyone––even a single person––for a nonviolent drug offense is wrong. I also don't agree with the writer's choice of words. If you suddenly find yourself one day with a 12% reduction in the prison population with the stroke of a pen, that's a tremendous reduction with very little work. 3) Which brings me to my final point. Unless we're willing as a country to take a hard look at our drug policies from top to bottom, we're probably not going to see any kind of miraculous drop in the crime rate. If you keep the black market open, it's going to remain as violent as it is today. You're going to have all of the problems that we already associate with it. Which is why my position has consistently been we need to address the War on Drugs and everything that goes with it. I numbered your paragraphs to make it easier to respond. 1) I'm saying that due to the confusion you mentioned later in this paragraph. You were implying that 20% of the prisoners shouldn't be in prison due to drug crimes. From these numbers, 8% of the prisoners are violent criminals and so I wanted clarification as to if you wanted them released too. 2) I completely agree that someone just having a couple ounces of pot on them and getting arrested and put in prison shouldn't happen. We agree that these people should not be in prison. However, I have a question. What percentage of these 12% prisoners are in prison because they are trying to deal drugs like crack, cocaine or heroine to kids? I would think that technically would be a non-violent crime. Nobody was getting beat up, shot or raped. Just simply selling crack to kids. Should those people be not arrested and those laws making that illegal be taken off the books? 3) Well, we already have seen a pretty dang good drop in violent crime rate since the late 80s-early 90s. We have already seen a 12% drop in violent crime since 2009. 1) Yep. We got it cleared up. I simply disagree with Vox's coloring of this number as "paltry" or not worth considering. We are the United States of America, and we have 12% of our prisoners serving sentences for essentially nothing more than exercising their liberty. That's a disgrace. And it needs to stop. 2) If you regulate the drug market, you can more effectively police the people who would sell heroin to a kid. I think bringing in the "save the children" approach is a bit of a red herring. Not a big one, but a little one. Nobody on the left (or the right) advocates selling drugs to kids. We favor heavily regulated and taxed markets, and depending on the drug (selling a shake bag of green ≠ a gram of heroin), there should be severe penalties for selling it to a minor. How much worse it is than, say, the penalty for selling alcohol should depend on the drug and a lot of other factors. The main point is that it is a solvable problem, and any solution is likely better than what we're doing now, which is an expensive, disastrous failure (talking about drugs only). 3) Bill Clinton actually made that point. I heard it a few months ago. Apparently there was a serious violent crime wave in the 80s/90s which led to a lot of changes in how we dealt with it. Some were good and effective. By Clinton's own admission, the policy towards drugs and nonviolent offenses were ineffective and need changing. Finally, it's true we have seen a drop in violent crime. The problem is we still have one of the highest rates per capita in the world. Again, I'd look at our gun laws, and the way the black market for drugs functions in the real world (i.e. by force). We're doing better. We have a ways to go. I'm fairly optimistic about our prospects. We seem to have a broad consensus about reforming our criminal justice system.

This was a great post and I think it's important for any conservatives reading this board to take a hard look at it. I'm in the same boat. There was a period in my life where I drank every drop of conservative media I could get my hands on. Eventually it got to the point where I could predict more or less what Sean Hannity was going to say that night before he came on the air. I didn't need to watch the show anymore. Once I heard what the story or the newest and worst controversy was, I could instantly divine exactly what conservative media would tell me to believe about it. Noam Chomsky makes an argument in his book Manufactured Consent––which was a seminal work of media criticism––that the media's function has little to do with information and a lot to do with setting the "acceptable" parameters of our national discourse. People forget we once had a strong socialist party (actually two socialist parties and a Marxist party) in this country. These were not fringe organizations, either. Their combined influence was tremendous, paving the way to the New Deal. Which is another reason Sanders is important, win, lose or draw. The very fact that it is now acceptable in the United States to call yourself a democratic socialist (or a liberal) is a sign of the times. The right is failing. It's so bad that Donald Trump, who favored single payer healthcare and has no allegiance whatsoever to "conservative values," is able to walk into the Republican Primary and blow off his opponents like so many flies buzzing around him. It really is incredible.

Wait...I missed this. It worked??? I didn't know the election was over. If it DOES work, it doesn't say anything about the party other than they have a hard time all getting behind just one candidate. Well, first of all, I posed this as a hypothetical in response to what really is just a minor conspiracy theory. Clinton allegedly had phone contact with Trump shortly before he announced his run. Now this could mean one of a million things, but I base my hypothetical on the fact that Clinton is smart, certainly smart enough to know Trump's presence in the GOP race is a boon for his wife, and Trump is easy to manipulate once you understand his underlying motive (himself). The only thing Clinton would need to do to be successful is get Donald Trump into the race and to say ~1-2 stupid things you could put in attack ads (or have your super PACs put into attack ads). It damages the GOP win, lose or draw, because it turns their primary into a circus where all the candidates are caught in Trump's maddening orbit for as long as he can maintain it. If he wins the nomination, it's good for Clinton. If he loses but brings down a few of the big-money contenders with him, it's good for Clinton. If he runs third-party, it's good for Clinton. Basically there are a lot of ways this can work out for Hillary Clinton, and very few ways it can work out for the GOP. So in that sense, it already has worked. The GOP base may not see it this way, but every minute Donald Trump stays in this race is terrible for them and particularly for the establishment who already has enough trouble keeping its members in line. LOL.....that's pretty amazing. Throw out a hypothetical and come up with a big grand description of how it could work and then by the end claim...."well...hey...it's already worked" and we haven't even really got the heart of the campaign started yet. I do know one thing. In most Presidential elections, what appears to be projected to happen at this point in the game very very seldom ever actually happens come next November. So, claiming anything has "worked" at this stage of the game is well....getting the cart before the horse. Sigh . . . I don't think you're following me, man. I wrote that not because I actually believe Bill Clinton pushed Donald Trump into the race. Since I have no evidence to substantiate it, I can't draw any certain conclusions or make any claims about it. Don't make so much out of it. But IF Clinton wanted Trump in the race, and IF he deliberately acted to try and make it happen--and one more time to make sure you read it and don't have to respond to the same post a third time, there is zero hard evidence he did--it would be, HYPOTHETICALLY, a low risk/high reward deal that would have been a net benefit for Hillary the day Trump announced. That's all. Not rocket science. The political implications of it are about as basic as squares and triangles (or triangulation since we're talking about Bill Clinton).

Well that's interesting, because it wasn't even close to my point. Not even close. You are a master of red herring and straw man argument. And I'm in left field? At least I'm on the field, man. Talking to you I get the distinct impression of someone who isn't even in the stadium, or aware that the larger sport exists at all. I wouldn't bother. Not so much because I'm not interested but because it has nothing to do with my argument. You're evading the point by shifting the conversation to something you feel more comfortable talking about. I do appreciate it. I was actually about to take my Cadillac to exchange my food stamps for crack cocaine. That way I can be really high when I read Saul Alinsky this afternoon.

No I'm not saying that . . . and I'm sort of confused how you would have gotten that from anything I said. My point was only ever about nonviolent drug offenders. I went back to the OP article to find it. According to Vox, "America's 'nonviolent drug offenders' account for a paltry 12 percent of America's prisoners." That's the confusion. I thought it was 20%. Vox argues it's 12%. Fortunately for my argument it could be 1%, or 5%, or .034%. I'll take the 12%. My position is arresting anyone––even a single person––for a nonviolent drug offense is wrong. I also don't agree with the writer's choice of words. If you suddenly find yourself one day with a 12% reduction in the prison population with the stroke of a pen, that's a tremendous reduction with very little work. Which brings me to my final point. Unless we're willing as a country to take a hard look at our drug policies from top to bottom, we're probably not going to see any kind of miraculous drop in the crime rate. If you keep the black market open, it's going to remain as violent as it is today. You're going to have all of the problems that we already associate with it. Which is why my position has consistently been we need to address the War on Drugs and everything that goes with it.

Wait...I missed this. It worked??? I didn't know the election was over. If it DOES work, it doesn't say anything about the party other than they have a hard time all getting behind just one candidate. Well, first of all, I posed this as a hypothetical in response to what really is just a minor conspiracy theory. Clinton allegedly had phone contact with Trump shortly before he announced his run. Now this could mean one of a million things, but I base my hypothetical on the fact that Clinton is smart, certainly smart enough to know Trump's presence in the GOP race is a boon for his wife, and Trump is easy to manipulate once you understand his underlying motive (himself). The only thing Clinton would need to do to be successful is get Donald Trump into the race and to say ~1-2 stupid things you could put in attack ads (or have your super PACs put into attack ads). It damages the GOP win, lose or draw, because it turns their primary into a circus where all the candidates are caught in Trump's maddening orbit for as long as he can maintain it. If he wins the nomination, it's good for Clinton. If he loses but brings down a few of the big-money contenders with him, it's good for Clinton. If he runs third-party, it's good for Clinton. Basically there are a lot of ways this can work out for Hillary Clinton, and very few ways it can work out for the GOP. So in that sense, it already has worked. The GOP base may not see it this way, but every minute Donald Trump stays in this race is terrible for them and particularly for the establishment who already has enough trouble keeping its members in line. Is that what the Dems have? A party of drones they can "keep in line"? I'm not following you.

As to the bolded part. This is a quote from the article. The non-violent offenders are less than 20%. As to the RED hi lighted part. LINK Now, most of the top 5 (at least) talks about drug crimes and how there needs to not be mandatory sentencing for these crimes. Not much of what I read talked about violent crimes. So, I'm assuming he is talking about non-violent crimes. This is Eric Holder's top 10 list of how to reduce the over populated prisons. Now, this article seems to contradict the one I posted above. It would be interesting to know what the actual truth is. You mentioned poverty related to crime. I'm not necessarily questioning you. However, one political side would try to have everyone believe that poverty in America is horrible and getting worse every day. To that, I found this article very interesting and it's from a pretty left leaning site. LINK So, poverty is getting worse and violent crime is getting better. Another part of this that leaves me scratching my head. If violent crime is going down, and non-violent offenders aren't the majority of the prison population, then why do we have an explosion in prison population? Let me throw out a theory that I have no data to prove. Back in the 80s and 90s, there was a big movement in the government to become tougher on crime. It was talked about during the Reagan years, Bush 1 years and Clinton took it even a step farther and put legislation through to increase the police force by 100,000 cops to try to reign in violent crime. Well...it appears to me it has worked. So....is the violent crime rate going down because we are locking up a large portion of the right people who would be out committing more violent crimes? I know that goes against most popular political speak today. But, is it true? So, if we reduce sentences and let more people out of prison to reduce prison populations, are we going to see a rise in crime rate again? If so, what is going to be the solution then? Sorry, this discussion is changing in scope faster than I can figure out what the point is. I'll try and hit the refresh button here with my main thoughts. 1. If the total number of nonviolent drug offenders behind bars was 1%, it would still be a moral abomination. It would still be true that by not arresting those people, it would cost less not just for the state, but for society as a whole (try to get a job with a conviction on your record). Letting them out after you've already sent them to prison is anther story. It seems very few people who go through the penal experience come out any less apt to commit crime. In fact the opposite may be true. 2. Poverty is one of, but certainly not the only, reason people turn to crime. We've had a few epidemics of white collar crime, including one in the years leading up to the Great Recession. These tend to not get much media attention. But generally speaking, if you have a comfortable salary and a home, a car, money to spend on leisure activities, and a reasonable expectation that your future financial situation is secure, you have less reason to get involved with crime at all. On the other hand, if you can't get work either because you can't afford advanced education/training, there are no decent-paying career opportunities anywhere nearby (e.g. inner cities), or you're already a convict (for whatever reason), your incentive to make money through criminal activity increases. 3. Which means your likelihood of being involved in violent crime increases. If we weren't so busy pretending that the "War on Drugs"––which isn't a war, because like Ellis Carver in The Wire quips, "Wars end"––was somehow essential to our national survival, and we regulated the drug trade like we do any other business, the incentives and rationale for violent behavior in the drug trade practically disappears. I haven't heard too many stories about marijuana dispensary owners doing drive by shootings on other marijuana dispensary owners. 4. Context is important, and I think that's what your post was going for. Yeah, the United States is not Honduras. I don't know the stats off the top of my head because this is pretty far afield from my area, but I would imagine between gang violence and domestic violence, you'd have a pretty big chunk of the numbers. 1) I agree. But, that doesn't seem to be the attitude of Holder in the link I posted. He seems to think releasing non-violent drug offenders or greatly reducing there sentences is a main (if not THE main) way to reduce prison over population. To me, if we want to fix the over population of prisons, talking about non-violent drug crimes is mostly pointless. 3) But, like I said, we are lead to believe that poverty is growing and getting worse and worse and worse in our country but yet our violent crime rate is going down. Which, leads me to believe that, yes, it is a factor but a small factor. Community, family, leadership/moral examples (or lack there of) is a much bigger issue. AND, once someone commits a violent crime, having the police force to lock them up and keep them off the street is a much more productive effort to reducing violent crime than focusing on non-violent drug crimes. I think we're pretty much on the same page but mostly pointless is not the same thing as plain old-fashioned pointless. Think about this for a second: the last three presidents of the United States all used narcotics of some kind. I think Obama's exact words were––but don't quote me––"I smoked marijuana and did a little blow" (because anyone who has "I did a little blow" sort of roll of their tongue really means just a little). That's all well and good because they got away with it. If they'd been caught, they never would have been president. Probably never even would have run for public office. If the 20% figure is correct––that roughly a fifth of all offenders are in prison because they used or are addicted to narcotics––that's still a tremendous piece of the pie. Cut a pizza five ways and see if it doesn't look sizable. Then there's the strain on police departments to police the use of these readily available drugs. All that effort and the hundreds of billions spent to push against an exhausting tide. So it may not be "THE main way," but it is one of the main ways. Community. I agree with you there 100%. I'd start by taking a look at mental health. I'd also look at guns.

Great post. Thanks.

Friend, I say this out of respect, because I think you're a smart guy and I don't want to see you taken in by people who are basically carnies going after rubes. You need to do your homework on Fox News. I mean really dig into it. There isn't a 1-1 comparison to be had with any other media organization when you combine their influence, their message, and their control over the Republican party and platform. MSNBC has a liberal slant, there's no question. I don't watch it, but I'm savvy enough to realize they are basically running a lefty version of Fox but without anywhere close to the same suction in the DNC. And Fox can be conservative––that's fine. But their pretense of "Fair and Balanced" is not only absurd, it's downright sinister. When they have "experts" on to debate "both sides" of the climate change "debate," for one example, what is happening before your eyes is a kind of game––a play at moderation. It's not real. There is ample evidence out there that lays out in excruciating detail how Roger Ailes runs that organization. If you want me to lay out my problems with Obama, I'm happy to. Hillary I have less to say about because 1) she has only started to unveil her platform (and this isn't some dark ploy; she realizes that there is a long-term advantage in staying away from media early in the race), and 2) she's not the candidate I intend to support. But if someone says she hasn't accomplished anything––which is a Limbaugh talking point, by the way––it comes across as disingenuous. I get my hackles up about something like the Iran Deal because this affects me and my country in a very profound and dangerous way. The crap that's coming out of GOP headquarters is motivated wholly by politics, not reason. They say they want a "better deal," but not one of these bozos bothers to say what that even means, just that it needs to be better. Better than us getting exactly what we want (Iran to not build a nuke and subject themselves to constant surveillance for fifteen years) while giving away nothing except sanction relief . . . on sanctions that we imposed and ultimately control, and whose sole purpose was to make Iran have these negotiations against their will (and they did). It's frustrating. And when you consider what the implications are if we fail to live up to the deal we agreed to, it's alarming. This is about our country, not a political party.

Wait...I missed this. It worked??? I didn't know the election was over. If it DOES work, it doesn't say anything about the party other than they have a hard time all getting behind just one candidate. Well, first of all, I posed this as a hypothetical in response to what really is just a minor conspiracy theory. Clinton allegedly had phone contact with Trump shortly before he announced his run. Now this could mean one of a million things, but I base my hypothetical on the fact that Clinton is smart, certainly smart enough to know Trump's presence in the GOP race is a boon for his wife, and Trump is easy to manipulate once you understand his underlying motive (himself). The only thing Clinton would need to do to be successful is get Donald Trump into the race and to say ~1-2 stupid things you could put in attack ads (or have your super PACs put into attack ads). It damages the GOP win, lose or draw, because it turns their primary into a circus where all the candidates are caught in Trump's maddening orbit for as long as he can maintain it. If he wins the nomination, it's good for Clinton. If he loses but brings down a few of the big-money contenders with him, it's good for Clinton. If he runs third-party, it's good for Clinton. Basically there are a lot of ways this can work out for Hillary Clinton, and very few ways it can work out for the GOP. So in that sense, it already has worked. The GOP base may not see it this way, but every minute Donald Trump stays in this race is terrible for them and particularly for the establishment who already has enough trouble keeping its members in line.

A democrat can say 2 + 2 = 4 and it remains a fact. Your extremist, goal post-moving position on Hillary Clinton which is undoubtedly aped from talk radio or Fox News hosts is silly, and frankly a little offensive. I would be careful with that one in the general election. I don't think repeating that a tireless advocate for women's issues has never accomplished anything when in fact she has accomplished a great deal in life will play well. My point about her name recognition is to point out a political reality that you (or I) may not like, but which nevertheless has a lot to do with who gets elected in this country and cannot be ignored. The second bold is another fallacy: a straw man argument. I'm not a 9/11 truther, or a conspiracy theorist. The Senate investigations and testimony of top Bush Administration officials paint a clear picture that the administration was intentionally deceptive in crafting their case for war. They trumped up evidence that was extraordinarily weak and ignored all dissent within the intelligence communities. This in turn led to shifting rationalization as to why we were at war at all over the years. Was it that Saddam had something to do with 9/11? Or that he harbored Al-Qaeda in Iraq? Or that he had nuclear weapons (remember the aluminum tubes)? Okay, how about biological weapons? Well then, I guess it was for democracy and freedom and all that. Whatever you happen to think about the situation, I hope you are not satisfied with "whoops" as an answer to a needless war of aggression that left thousands of our own dead, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead, and squandered trillions of dollars in the process. Which leads me to the last point. Your characterization of the Iran deal is downright comical––and also obviously copied from clueless (or is it spelled CLOOLESS?) talk radio hacks and Fox News propagandists. We didn't cave. We didn't give up sh#t to get this deal. Not one thing. Not one missile or aircraft carrier or military installation is moved. The international community gets to blanket their country with surveillance. We control every link in the uranium supply and enrichment chain. We inspect everything, we see everything. The United States has total authority––unilateral authority––to reauthorize the sanctions if Iran does not follow the agreement. It was our own sanctions that drug them to the table in the first place. Every member of the UN Security Council supports the deal; in fact the entire world––with the exception of Fox News/talk radio partisan propagandists––support it. And now that all parties have agreed to it, if your wingnut conservatives manage to sabotage it in the House, what you have just ensured is another war in the Middle East. Iran, who already has little reason to trust us, will have no alternative but to pursue a bomb upon hearing that their concessions were rejected by the very people that demanded them. God help you. I wouldn't want to be the one to explain to our soldiers why thousands of them are going to die in a war caused by short-sighted, self-centered partisan hackery. Edit: Oh, and for the record, I do not watch cable news. And if the New York Times is your idea of a "liberal" publication, it just reaffirms what I've been saying for a long time: conservatives live in a political alternate reality where words and definitions have no meaning whatsoever.

Up to this point I have tried to consider the armchair conservative commentators' opinions with a degree of reflection and respect, but I'm afraid you guys have crossed the line into delusional thinking. I intend to support Bernie Sanders for president of the United States. I'm not a Clintoniite. Nevertheless, I do so recognizing that Hillary Clinton was, is, and likely will be a political juggernaut the likes of which is rare in politics (the last being Obama). Beating her is no small task, and pretending otherwise is wish thinking. She's not only one of the most recognizable candidates in American politics; she's one of the most famous people on earth. That is not a value statement. That is a political fact, which conservatives tend to ignore like science, math, and common sense. (Reflect for a moment that the same exact bunch of clowns that had the right wing believing Romney was going to beat Obama in a landslide the day before he was slaughtered in a landslide are now telling you the current GOP lineup is one Abraham Lincoln after another.) Pretending for a second that serving as an active first lady, a senator, and Secretary of State were all by some voodoo logic "not accomplishments", it's an act of deliberate ignorance to pretend she hasn't done anything. The crap you swallow and regurgitate from Fox News and talk radio may give you a warm patriotic feeling in your belly, but it doesn't make it reality. Maybe I'm going a bit too far there, because Fox News actually did publish a list of accomplishments she will undoubtedly use in her campaign. These are not all encompassing, either. It doesn't even include the part about how Clinton is partially responsible for the meager healthcare reform we did manage to get (against the forces of insanity that tried to keep the insurance company death panels healthy and active). Her unsuccessful attempt in the 90s ultimately gave birth to what we have now. If you want some more, here's some more. And last point. How can a conservative bring up Hillary's vote for the Iraq War? How can you even talk about it? As if somehow being deceived by someone is the same thing as causing the worst foreign policy blunder in modern American history. At least Hillary admitted her vote––and the war––was a mistake. Jeb Bush, one of your "frontrunners," won't even do that. The only one shouting about it on stage is Donald Trump, who as of this moment still has a comfortable lead in the Republican primaries. Hillary also gets partial credit for the Iran Deal, which is lauded by the global community, and opposed only by one wing of one party––incidentally the same wing that beat the drums for the aforementioned disastrous war in Iraq.

Really?

I thought he was in it for the long haul when he announced. Now I believe there is a tremendous possibility (God I'm even starting to sound like Trump) that he will run a third-party candidacy after that attempted political assassination. Apparently the word came down to execute Citizen Trump because that hand raising question, followed by Megyn's "why are you a misogynist?" style question, was a naked attempt to burst Trump's bubble––and no one learned anything they didn't already know by staging it. Other than that, I thought the moderators did an excellent job with questions in that debate. They completely avoided climate change, student debt, income inequality, and campaign finance reform (except where Trump made an open declaration that the corruption not only exists, but he was party to it along with most of the candidates on the stage). But I'm a forgiving sort of person when you have ten candidates and a little under two hours to let them all say something. There is also increased chatter that Trump is doing this to help out Hillary. I've seen more and more reports detailing how close Trump has been with the Clintons in the past, he had high praise for Hillary in 2012, and has really limited his criticism of her so far in this campaign which is odd. He and Bill also talked before Donald announced his candidacy. I know there are always conspiracy theories out there, so not saying this is definite, but the man has had many very liberal positions in the past, and it seems odd he would wake up in the past couple years and now be just the opposite. I'm not a conspiracy theorist either. My guess is Clinton never once told Trump to run. He's too smart for that. What he probably did do was indirectly encourage him by feeding his narcissism. "You know, Donald, they just don't respect your ideas like they should." Kind of like pointing a Frankenstein Monster in the direction of your enemies and letting him shamble on over there by himself. It doesn't matter if he implodes in a week or wins the nomination; either way it ends up working for Hillary. And pretending Bill did intend this––which we can't prove, but say he did. What does it say about the Republican Party that it worked? You have to tip your hat. If Bill poured honey in Citizen Trump's ear, it was a masterful strategy.

As to the bolded part. This is a quote from the article. The non-violent offenders are less than 20%. As to the RED hi lighted part. LINK Now, most of the top 5 (at least) talks about drug crimes and how there needs to not be mandatory sentencing for these crimes. Not much of what I read talked about violent crimes. So, I'm assuming he is talking about non-violent crimes. This is Eric Holder's top 10 list of how to reduce the over populated prisons. Now, this article seems to contradict the one I posted above. It would be interesting to know what the actual truth is. You mentioned poverty related to crime. I'm not necessarily questioning you. However, one political side would try to have everyone believe that poverty in America is horrible and getting worse every day. To that, I found this article very interesting and it's from a pretty left leaning site. LINK So, poverty is getting worse and violent crime is getting better. Another part of this that leaves me scratching my head. If violent crime is going down, and non-violent offenders aren't the majority of the prison population, then why do we have an explosion in prison population? Let me throw out a theory that I have no data to prove. Back in the 80s and 90s, there was a big movement in the government to become tougher on crime. It was talked about during the Reagan years, Bush 1 years and Clinton took it even a step farther and put legislation through to increase the police force by 100,000 cops to try to reign in violent crime. Well...it appears to me it has worked. So....is the violent crime rate going down because we are locking up a large portion of the right people who would be out committing more violent crimes? I know that goes against most popular political speak today. But, is it true? So, if we reduce sentences and let more people out of prison to reduce prison populations, are we going to see a rise in crime rate again? If so, what is going to be the solution then? Sorry, this discussion is changing in scope faster than I can figure out what the point is. I'll try and hit the refresh button here with my main thoughts. 1. If the total number of nonviolent drug offenders behind bars was 1%, it would still be a moral abomination. It would still be true that by not arresting those people, it would cost less not just for the state, but for society as a whole (try to get a job with a conviction on your record). Letting them out after you've already sent them to prison is anther story. It seems very few people who go through the penal experience come out any less apt to commit crime. In fact the opposite may be true. 2. Poverty is one of, but certainly not the only, reason people turn to crime. We've had a few epidemics of white collar crime, including one in the years leading up to the Great Recession. These tend to not get much media attention. But generally speaking, if you have a comfortable salary and a home, a car, money to spend on leisure activities, and a reasonable expectation that your future financial situation is secure, you have less reason to get involved with crime at all. On the other hand, if you can't get work either because you can't afford advanced education/training, there are no decent-paying career opportunities anywhere nearby (e.g. inner cities), or you're already a convict (for whatever reason), your incentive to make money through criminal activity increases. 3. Which means your likelihood of being involved in violent crime increases. If we weren't so busy pretending that the "War on Drugs"––which isn't a war, because like Ellis Carver in The Wire quips, "Wars end"––was somehow essential to our national survival, and we regulated the drug trade like we do any other business, the incentives and rationale for violent behavior in the drug trade practically disappears. I haven't heard too many stories about marijuana dispensary owners doing drive by shootings on other marijuana dispensary owners. 4. Context is important, and I think that's what your post was going for. Yeah, the United States is not Honduras. I don't know the stats off the top of my head because this is pretty far afield from my area, but I would imagine between gang violence and domestic violence, you'd have a pretty big chunk of the numbers.

I thought he was in it for the long haul when he announced. Now I believe there is a tremendous possibility (God I'm even starting to sound like Trump) that he will run a third-party candidacy after that attempted political assassination. Apparently the word came down to execute Citizen Trump because that hand raising question, followed by Megyn's "why are you a misogynist?" style question, was a naked attempt to burst Trump's bubble––and no one learned anything they didn't already know by staging it. Other than that, I thought the moderators did an excellent job with questions in that debate. They completely avoided climate change, student debt, income inequality, and campaign finance reform (except where Trump made an open declaration that the corruption not only exists, but he was party to it along with most of the candidates on the stage). But I'm a forgiving sort of person when you have ten candidates and a little under two hours to let them all say something.

No, I don't think so. I hope this clarifies it. If not, you'll have to send me your own research. Link Note: Leisure time was one of FDRs points in his "second bill of rights" in 1944.

Here's a video that outlines a few of his proposals. It's early in campaign season. Most candidates' energy is being spent on bolstering name recognition. Bernie does spend a lot of time in his stump speech talking policy; still I expect we'll hear more when the debates start in October (for the dems), and then we'll get the sausage making part if he's elected. Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 So, he is wanting more than three months of leave to take care of family matters and maternity leave? Non-eligible workers and types of leave[edit] The federal FMLA does not apply to: workers in businesses with fewer than 50 employees (this threshold does not apply to public agency employers and local educational agencies); part-time workers who have worked fewer than 1,250 hours within the 12 months preceding the leave and a paid vacation; workers who need time off to care for seriously ill elderly relatives (other than parents) or pets; workers who need time off to recover from short-term or common illness like a cold, or to care for a family member with a short-term illness; elected officials; and workers who need time off for routine medical care, such as check-ups. Edit: From his website, since you asked:

As of this moment he is the only candidate that has come out swinging against our country essentially devolving into a quazi-oligarchic plutocracy. Given what has happened with campaign finance after Citizens United, I believe we already have one foot in the grave, and getting both feet down there is simply a matter of time (i.e. how long it takes to stack congress, state legislatures, and consolidate power in the two national parties). The core of Sanders's policies are economic. Restoring thing like pensions, sick leave, maternity leave, vacation time––some of them things people took for granted sixty years ago. Salvaging Medicare and Social Security. The student debt crisis––and it is a crisis, make no mistake––is also high on his list. On a larger scale, Sanders favors a system of democracy more like Scandinavian countries have. High standard of living, excellent healthcare (as a human right, not a privilege based upon your bank account), and strong social safety nets. He's also in favor of employees being able to collectively bargain in the workplace, provided they want to. So far he has refused to call the billionaires or do business with super PACs. We'll see if he can pull it off without a few helping hands if he makes it to the general. The reason I am for Bernie is that until you deal with campaign finance and the complete desolation of our democratic system by admittedly legal corruption and bribery, it doesn't really matter what you believe. Conservative, liberal, Ayn Rand capitalist, libertarian, socialist––doesn't matter. Not a bit. What you want, or what the American people want, has no effect whatsoever on legislation in congress. Congressmen and women are too busy begging for money, which they openly admit, to worry about what their constituency needs or wants. Their primary concern is whether or not some billionaire is going to prop up a primary candidate in the next election cycle if they aren't given exactly what they ask for and in a timely fashion. For me, the separation of Corporation and State is the problem of our time after climate change. And if we don't solve it soon, we may not ever be able to. Sanders is one of our best shots at the moment. If you are talking about restoring pensions like they used to be offered, I am absolutely unequivocally opposed to that. Pensions are the absolute dumbest form of retirement funding known to man (other than not saving at all). What is being proposed or discussed about sick leave, maternity leave, vacation time? We have more family leave time than ever before. I don't know of many companies that have cut vacation time or sick time. I thought ACA basically expanded and took care of Medicare. As for campaign finance reform is concerned. I'm all for it. Separation of Corporation and State is good as long as you include other special interest groups too. I'm all for what Husker X and BRB said about campaign finance reform. It has to include not only corporations. PACs, but also special interest like Teachers Unions, the Govt workers union (whatever their initials are), etc - in which workers union dues are being used to support candidates which they do not support. I think Citizens United was a reaction to the union access to politicians and union money in campaigns - it sort of 'evened the playing field' but 2 wrongs don't make a right. Remove the influence of big unions and big corporations they both have a corrupting influence. I'll throw out a bomb here but I'm beginning to think that we should reverse the 17th amendment - make Senators beholding to the states again from which they were elected. They were elected to represent the people of the states however, it seems that once they get in the Senate - they set themselves up as Senators for all of the people in which they end up represent no-one - just the lobbyists who are in their wallet. Linking them to the state reps may bring back accountability and may actually allow for some turnover in the Senate which is sorely needed. We got guys there who have served for 30, 40, 50 years and have no new ideas but just get re-elected because of the fat cat special interest money behind them. Ok - I haven't researched this idea much but just started thinking about it. On the one hand I do believe that people––even organizations like unions and corporations––have a right to say what they want, and even to approach the government when there's a grievance. But there's a long way between that and what's going on right now under our noses. Our politicians need to be saved from the system that's devouring them.

Here's a video that outlines a few of his proposals. It's early in campaign season. Most candidates' energy is being spent on bolstering name recognition. Bernie does spend a lot of time in his stump speech talking policy; still I expect we'll hear more when the debates start in October (for the dems), and then we'll get the sausage making part if he's elected.

As pointed out in the article. The myth is that we can solve our prison over population by not locking up non-violent drug offenders. Now, we might all agree we need to do that. But, that's not going to all of a sudden solve our over population problem. Oh, I don't believe that will solve all of our problems. I don't know anyone that alleges it will solve all of our problems. That seems like a strawman argument. I do believe non-violent drug offenders is a good place to start productive reform. I'm not sure what "strawman argument" you are talking about. I'm not arguing anything. I presented an article for discussion. You're not presenting a straw man. The straw man is that anyone thinks not locking up nonviolent drug offenders will solve all the problems. It won't. Certainly no informed person I'm aware of on the left thinks that. Until you solve poverty, the problem of crime remains. It's also impossible to divorce the issue of the failed drug war from violent crime and incarceration. They're interconnected. The drug trade is violent precisely because it is an illegal black market where there is no legal recourse for anyone involved. That being said, 20% of our prison population is comprised of nonviolent "offenders." That's not an insignificant percent or an insignificant amount of people. It's a moral abomination and a stain on a country that lauds itself as a "beacon of freedom."

As of this moment he is the only candidate that has come out swinging against our country essentially devolving into a quazi-oligarchic plutocracy. Given what has happened with campaign finance after Citizens United, I believe we already have one foot in the grave, and getting both feet down there is simply a matter of time (i.e. how long it takes to stack congress, state legislatures, and consolidate power in the two national parties). The core of Sanders's policies are economic. Restoring thing like pensions, sick leave, maternity leave, vacation time––some of them things people took for granted sixty years ago. Salvaging Medicare and Social Security. The student debt crisis––and it is a crisis, make no mistake––is also high on his list. On a larger scale, Sanders favors a system of democracy more like Scandinavian countries have. High standard of living, excellent healthcare (as a human right, not a privilege based upon your bank account), and strong social safety nets. He's also in favor of employees being able to collectively bargain in the workplace, provided they want to. So far he has refused to call the billionaires or do business with super PACs. We'll see if he can pull it off without a few helping hands if he makes it to the general. The reason I am for Bernie is that until you deal with campaign finance and the complete desolation of our democratic system by admittedly legal corruption and bribery, it doesn't really matter what you believe. Conservative, liberal, Ayn Rand capitalist, libertarian, socialist––doesn't matter. Not a bit. What you want, or what the American people want, has no effect whatsoever on legislation in congress. Congressmen and women are too busy begging for money, which they openly admit, to worry about what their constituency needs or wants. Their primary concern is whether or not some billionaire is going to prop up a primary candidate in the next election cycle if they aren't given exactly what they ask for and in a timely fashion. For me, the separation of Corporation and State is the problem of our time after climate change. And if we don't solve it soon, we may not ever be able to. Sanders is one of our best shots at the moment.

No, The surest way for Clinton to get elected would be if Trump stayed a Republican and won the nomination. That would pretty much guarantee any Democrat candidate would win. I would love for a third party candidate to run that is actually viable. The problem is, they tend to be the extremes on both sides. I firmly believe there is a place for a moderate conservative candidate (party) in this country and if one really did run and form a really good campaign with talented people around him/her, I believe they would win easily. Disagree completely. Trump running third party and siphoning off votes from a candidate like Bush, Walker, or Rubio would be a disaster for the Republican party. There is no situation in politics that is better for one party than to have the other party get outflanked by an ex-whatever they are (in this case Republican). One more reason I'm a Sanders guy is that his top priority––or one of them––is campaign finance reform. I am with you 1000% that it's high time we had viable third-party alternatives. Some of the ideas I've heard Sanders put out there would almost certainly lead to the greatest chance of that happening we're likely to see in our lifetimes. I think as a third party candidate, both of the other candidates would make him look so stupid by the time the general election came around that the number of votes he would siphon off would be minimal. But the base of people who are now causing Trump to surge ahead of every single Republican candidate in a massive field would not be persuaded by logic or reason in the first place. Nor would they probably care what the "establishment" candidate had to say about Trump, because as you'll recall, Trump is the one who's "just telling it like it is" and being attacked by the "liberal media" for it. Also, you don't have to siphon off a lot of votes to be an effective third party insurgent. If you swing the race by 5%, you've effectively sunk the candidate of the party disaffected voters are leaving.

I definitely agree with the bolded part here.