Election

In general, thinking about elections, I can only quote what my mother always tells me. "Never vote for what you wish to have, always vote for the lesser evil." Of course you always have to inform and educate yourself about the parties and their programs.

You know people, there's a saying that references exactly this. There's three things you shouldn't talk about in polite company: sex, politics and money. People tend to get in a huffy over any of the three. =\

I used to get huffy but after the first couple of encounters with dragna I learned to just skim his responses and take them with a grain of salt. Just because he's this way now and doesn't mean he won't be a decent human being later. He's still young. ^_^ I think hitting up those topics every once and a while is refreshing though.

Wow, a lot has gone on in this thread. Let me be a part of it :3 First of all, BurningHalo, that is some interesting information you presented. I am very much for the death penalty. Our prisons are way too overcrowded as it is. The world is overpopulated as it is. Sometimes you got to break a few eggs to make an omelette. I do agree with you, BurningHalo, that our justice system is ridiculous when dealing with the right to appeal sentences and fight as hard as you can to remove the death penalty. I'd like to see this tiresome structure simplified. You get one chance to appeal. If you fail, you die. Simple as that. Sure, some innocent people may die, but we have 7 billion people in the world. Sometimes you just have bad luck. As for our method of lethal injection, I think that method should be done away with. Like BurningHalo said, it can go wrong and cause extreme pain. Here is my problem with the method. It costs a lot of time and money to make the serum and carry out the injection, nevermind if it goes wrong. My solution? Bullets are relatively cheap, and a bullet to the back of the head has a 100% chance success rate of creating a painless death. Now it's time for me to comment on an unpopular opinion I hold about dealing with the immegration problem. It's a radical idea. How about instead of building a big-ass wall we simply annex mexico into the U.S. They have a ton of problems with drug cartels and we have the ability to clean things up. Let's help them help us. Solves all the illegal immigrant problems in one fell swoop. Just look at history. Building up big ass walls never proves to work forever. Bring them into the fold already. It's long overdue that we should start expanding our territory.

@Arc, prison reformation would actually be quicker, cheaper, and easier. This brings up an earlier point I made but prisons are overcrowded because petty criminals who honestly do not need a jail sentence are being shipped to the big house either as an "example" or just to throw away like trash. And again, recidivism. Most of them end up going back. For petty crimes like minor drug carrying charges, loitering, and not being able to pay certain fines I believe that there should be no jail time. These people aren't dangerous, let them have lighter sentences like community service and drug therapy. It has been shown to actually make a person much less likely to ever go to jail than someone who just got thrown in there for a few years. And much less costly at that. Also the world has plenty of room. I will not shrug my shoulders on the idea that a person can be killed off while a murderer gets off scott-free. Especially not when a better alternative exists. Make prisons less crowded by putting actual criminals in it. Not just culling the population through prison and death.

@lordragna37 http://49.media.tumblr.com/b6bb471b59720a9eafd5eff94b075c3f/tumblr_mr6mye8j3m1qzmfgzo1_500.gif ... Allow me to clarify this for you. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, "Blacks and Hispanics are approximately three times more likely to be searched during a traffic stop than white motorists. African Americans are twice as likely to be arrested and almost four times as likely to experience the use of force during encounters with the police" Minorities are almost 3 times more likely to be incarcerated for the same crime as a white person. I am not offering a soft hand for criminals. I am saying that the perception that black person = criminal drives harsher punishments for lesser crimes and a more watchful eye to boot. This is why I called the argument "self-fulfilling". It amazes me that some people are so against the idea that systemic racism may be a cause. And those same interrogation tactics I talked about earlier? They are much more likely to be used against a POC. A good 40% of confessions are false at least(according to the FBI. Again, I covered this earlier). So when you combat my argument with "oh blacks commit more crimes" it really does not hold water to me. It is not justice if someone who didn't do the crime has to face the punishment. Those drug offenses? The number 1 reason most people are in prison? A minority is over twice as likely to be convicted for it than a white person is. In some states its over 5 times as likely(look at the HRW report by Mr.Fellner if you want a state-by-state basis). This trend is due to prejudicial treatment by judges in the legal system, attorneys insisting their clients just plead guilty even if they are not simply because it is easier and less time and money consuming than going through a trial. Minority juveniles are more likely to be sent to an adult facility than their white peers(again, for the same crimes) and receive longer or harsher punishments. I can go on if you want but the point is that the whole "blacks commit more crimes" argument is bull. It's bull because a more watchful eye is put on them. It's bull because they get harsher sentences for the same crimes. It's bull because they are subject to interrogation methods which I've already shown you have a high propensity to get innocent people to confess. And it is bull because the people who are supposed to be there to help them often end up telling them to just take a guilty plea even if they didn't do the crime simply because they cannot afford a trial. Please never try to tell me that blanket bullcrap statement again. Justice is not looking at a broken system and saying that anyone arrested in that system is automatically guilty. Humans are prone to err and once someone is dead, they're dead. No apologies. Even ignoring all the reasons logically not to have the death penalty that brand of justice to me is just justifying legal vengeance. I stand by my statement that the best way to fix the system is not to try and make it harsher. We tried that, it didn't work. Again, sources are below. I even arranged them in order with my paragraphs -http://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/rates.html -https://www.aclu.org/report/war-marijuana-black-and-white -https://www.hrw.org/report/2009/03/02/decades-disparity/drug-arrests-and-race-united-states#_ftn21 -http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1800840 -http://www.sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/cjprimer2009.pdf -http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/nov/26/rudy-giuliani/giuliani-black-and-white-people-charged-murder-are/ -http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fssc06st.pdf -http://www.law.seattleu.edu/Documents/korematsu/race%20and%20criminal%20justice/Harris_Becket_Sup_Ct_3-2-11%5B1%5D.pdf -http://www.naacp.org/pages/criminal-justice-fact-sheet -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USkEzLuzmZ4