Nightly Ramble: Bombing Denver, 1 in 100,Trust, And Running the Dead

“We should start bombing North Carolina.”

… and notes:

That’s exactly what all the false equivocations of the thing add up to.

Exactly so. And I think I can demonstrate this clearly: We should Bomb Denver’s convention center on August 25th.  We’d eliminate the largest part of the nations problems with one stroke. Oh… you don’t like me saying that?  Hey, it’s valid, somehow, when the left does it… Get the point?

Currently in America, one out of every 100 adults is in jail or prison.  This cost the taxpayers more than $49 billion last year.

Of course the objection goes a little deeper. Richard Nikoley whines:

We’ve more people in jail than China, which has over four times our population (more than a billion more people than us). In terms of percentage in jail, China isn’t even on the map, while we exceed but keep such illustrious company as Russia, Belarus, Turkmenistan, and Cuba.

I tell him in comments:

comon, Richard… you’re over-reaching.

First you don’t really trust the numbers, provided by China, do you?

Even assuming what China is giving us is the right number…. (Did I mention I doubt it?_)…how much of the difference is due to the fact that most countries, China included, tend to dole out the death penaty more often. and for ostensibly lighter offenses? How many have died in prison due to conditions, and so on?

Sorry, but I don’t buy it.

He responds, lamely:

The shamefulness of the magnitude of the American prison system, laws for all sorts of things that don’t harm anyone, prosecutorial abuse, and ego “justice” don’t rely on China’s behavior, or the behavior of any other nation for that matter.They’re provided merely for perspective and everyone is perfectly free to place whatever stock in them they like.

And I respond:

Well, the comparison figures are bogus at the off.

Then we get into the justification behind that prison population. You are making the implicit assumption that if someone is in jail, it’s unjustified. That unjustified imprisonments happen occasionally goes without much question… but your implication is that it’s a significant percentage… and that holds up about as well as your comparison to China’s figures.

I’ll cap that by suggesting that after decades of not taking crime seriously, you’d expect a higher population. Have arguments if you will about one law or another, but don’t try to work around such laws by complaining about supposedly over-aggressive enforcement.

And by the way, gang… is this the same Criminal justice system we’re supposed to be asking to deal with terrorists?  Seems to me something isn’t meshing, there. Oh… something further; Had anyone noticed that the poppy crop is what’s funding the Taliban? Tell me again, how drugs “don’t hurt anyone”. And in the end, the knee-jery reaction to limitations on so-called ‘recreational drugs’ is what is at the root of most radical libertine objections to law enforcement.

My support for John McCain is quite tepid, and based on a few elements: first, he’s at least marginally better than Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. Second, if he’s elected, he’ll be out of the Senate, where he’s caused me a great deal of aggravation with his “Gang Of Fourteen” shenanigans and loathsome McCain-Feingold law. Third, there’s a hell of a good chance that he’ll be out of national politics by 2012 at the latest.But gosh darn it, right now his mere status as the Republicans’ presumptive nominee is causing such grand contortions by the Democrats as they try to reverse all their pro-Kerry arguments now that the boot is on the other foot that I like him purely for the entertainment value.

I don’t know if I’d go quite so far as all this being for entertainment value. My mind is coming from a damage containment perspective… limit the damage to the country and we stand a chance of living through these next few years. I don’t see McCain helping matters much, but of the bunch he’s the least damaging. That said, I’m quickly coming to the conclusion that as to the election in November, the RNC should ask Nancy permission to dig up Ronnie and run him. Reagan, even when dead, is better qualified than any of the people currently running… and yes, that probably includes McCain.