Say Anything Blog

Carrick: I agree with you philosophically, but the devil is in the details.  I personally have known individuals who think it would be beneficial to society if we all spent most of our day stoned on pot. The Marxists also believe that society would benefit if we all were in lockstep agreement with their ideology, even if they have to kill those who can’t get with the program.
Personally, I think that the best society is the one in which individuals have maximum independence consistent with good order, but there is a lot of wiggle room there, as well.  I think it is a matter of cost/benefit, and not everyone will be equally pleased with the outcomes.  I don’t hold any sort of perfection to be a realistic goal with imperfect human beings.  A relatively free society seems to get a better overall outcome for the greatest number of its members than a less free one.

Hope and change, in a free world, are the private possessions of motivated individuals.

Does the new law cause less net harm to society through unintended consequences than benefit through its intended or unintended consequences (e.g., will the new law provide a net benefit to society?)

We can simplify it to:

Will this new law lead to more rights being usurped?

and if the answer is ‘yes,’ we shouldn’t pass it.

My right to do what I want ends when it enfringes on another citizen’s right to do what he/she wants. 

Simple as that.

prohibition of the smoking of weed in ones home just stupid

generally that’s tolerated. or so i’ve found. like jaywalking. it only gets punished when it is irresponsible or stupid/dangerous. if you safely smoke a joint in your home, nothing will probably happen. if you are dangerous or stupid about it, there may be repercussions. the felonies that are handed out for minor things related to weed in places like idaho are foolish.

Yun Chu said, “You must strictly not express in words what is very significant. Both dragon and snake are killed in one blow.”

Robert108:

Carrick: I agree with you philosophically, but the devil is in the details.

Well exactly.  But you’ve actually stepped into an other issue, namely how do “good laws” get written?

What I was arguing for was more of the framework for how individuals should evaluate whether a law is “good”.  Bad laws needless restrict individual freedoms, good laws restrict freedoms only when that freedom would significantly impact upon the good of society.

Smoking pot is an individual decision, and it’s a misunderstanding of the causes of addiction and addictive behavior to assume that simply because it’s legal that everybody will stayed stoned.  There may be drugs where that is more of a problem.  If so, then social prohibitions are in order in those cases.

As to the details...it’s called “representational democracy”.  Laws get entered in the books after careful though, then the effects of that law gets evaluated over time, and hopefully changed if it has harmed society and the freedom of individuals more than it has benefited society.

For example the “three strikes” rule has turned out to be an exceedingly bad idea.  This has led to people in jail for possession of marijuana for thirty years while a major sexual predator gets just 10 months. That’s just crazy.

Laws should restrict an individuals freedom only when this benefits society

I would contend that you need to state that a lot stronger.  You need a compelling argument that society actually will be materially harmed by the lack of the law.

A small benefit non-appreciated by the general population does not excuse a law that severely punishes a select group of people.

In other words, freedom trumps most alledged benefits.  In fact freedom is more likely to solve the problem all by itself.

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

As to the details...it’s called “representational democracy”.  Laws get entered in the books after careful though, then the effects of that law gets evaluated over time, and hopefully changed if it has harmed society and the freedom of individuals more than it has benefited society.

That is the ideal, but the reality is that we are subjected to an onslaught of propaganda every day, as well as “selective reporting” of the news, so the informed populace necessary to make the ideal work is not always available to all individuals.

For example the “three strikes” rule has turned out to be an exceedingly bad idea.  This has led to people in jail for possession of marijuana for thirty years <a
href="http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53070<while
a major sexual predator gets just 10 months.</a< That’s just crazy.

Disagree.  While I deplore the writing of laws that eliminate judicial discretion, like mandatory sentencing laws in general, the three strikes law needs to be evaluated in cost/benefit terms, no by only one emotion-loaded example.  The light term for the sexual predator you mentioned is not “caused” by the pot offender getting thirty years, so that is an irrelevant comparison.  Obviously, the sexual predator should have gotten more time, which is a separate issue; likewise, thirty years is not right for the pot smoker.  However, the real evaluation of the three strikes law is how many habitual criminals it keeps off the streets, not by one egregious example.  In that respect, its benefit far outweighs the cost, IMO.

Hope and change, in a free world, are the private possessions of motivated individuals.

Carrick said, There may be drugs where that is more of a problem.  If so, then social prohibitions are in order in those cases.

Like cocaine! Get that drug scheduled up high on the go-to-jail list fast!

Oh wait...now we have crack because it is cheaper to produce. Damn that law of unintended consequences. Even though the federal sentencing guidelines for jailtime for possession of crack is ridiculous (5 years for five grams or about 40 bucks worth) versus cocaine (5 years for 100 grams worth who knows how many thousands of dollars these days), it spread like wildfire even though the penalties for the mind, body and law are extremely higher.

I’m of the opinion that crack wouldn’t have sprouted up the way it did if all drugs were legal to begin with. Rob insists that I am “shooting myself in the foot” when I advocate that all drugs should be legal, but little does he, and many of you, realize that I believe the same of your position.

You want previously-considered (and still considered by a wide percentage of you) “heavy” drugs such as cocaine illegal? Fine,..then deal with crack and meth.

Maybe some of you can toast the perceived ridiculousness of my position with a bottle of beer tonight. Or is it wine that is the preferred drink of hypocrites? Seeing as how I generally stay away from the bad drugs such as alcohol, I’m not really sure what tonic would be the toast of choice.

Robert108, I agree partly with what you say.  We need an evaluation of the number of three strikers that are in there because of e.g. violent crime as opposed to shoplifters, pot smokers, etc.

But you also missed my point---the three strike rule increases the amount of injustice in sentencing, just as has almost every attempt at central control over individual judge’s decisions, including sentencing guidelines.

By supporting the three-strike rule, you are actually arguing that the central government is better at making the decision of who is a career criminal and a danger to society and who isn’t than the people participating in the sentencing process.

Robert108:

That is the ideal, but the reality is that we are subjected to an onslaught of propaganda every day, as well as “selective reporting” of the news, so the informed populace necessary to make the ideal work is not always available to all individuals.

And here, you’re arguing apparently that democracy doesn’t work.  Who should make the decisions for us, if society can’t be trusted with it?

And here, you’re arguing apparently that democracy doesn’t work.  Who should make the decisions for us, if society can’t be trusted with it?

I’m not saying anything of the kind; we are talking about the nature of laws, not govt in general, and I am under the impression that you think “representational democracy” is the solution to what you consider unfair or unjust laws regulating behavior. I think that is the ideal, but a lot of unfair and unjust laws are the product of a well-meaning but uninformed or misinformed public, so the real solution is accurate information, not “representational democracy” itself.
BTW, we have a representative republic precisely for the reason that pure democracy has some rather glaring faults, one of which is factionalism.

Who should make the decisions for us, if society can’t be trusted with it?

Certainly not the MSM.  Trust but verify.

Hope and change, in a free world, are the private possessions of motivated individuals.

Likwidshoe, seems like you’re putting words in my mouth there.  What I was trying to say is that prohibition of certain drugs should be made only if the societal costs are too high, and if the effects of the prohibition do not outweigh its benefits to society.

That’s a far thing from saying that I have an automatic line that certain drugs should be legal and others should not.  I’m not sure I have a line at all, but I would argue that the main problems with most prohibitions of drug use come from a misguided attempt to protect people from themselves.  You can’t do that, so like with your example of cocaine, something else pops that these same people start experimenting with.

Actually, I would argue that if a drug were killing or making psychotic one out of every three users, the word would get around that it was “bad shit” and people would quit taking it.

By supporting the three-strike rule, you are actually arguing that the central government is better at making the decision of who is a career criminal and a danger to society and who isn’t than the people participating in the sentencing process.

By supporting the three strikes law, I am saying that keeping violent career criminals out of our society is more beneficial than allowing them back into our society, and the cost, which is an occasional injustice, is worth it.  Thought I made that clear.  Ideally, we would allow the judge some discretion when it came to less dangerous criminals, but it’s still beneficial to society, overall, IMO.
I think the three strikes law addressed a serious problem with slackness in the judiciary, possibly arising from an excess of liberal judges.

Hope and change, in a free world, are the private possessions of motivated individuals.

Actually, I would argue that if a drug were killing or making psychotic one out of every three users, the word would get around that it was “bad shit” and people would quit taking it

Have you heard of Meth?

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

I think that is the ideal, but a lot of unfair and unjust laws are the product of a well-meaning but uninformed or misinformed public, so the real solution is accurate information, not “representational democracy” itself.

Which is why it’s necessary to go back and address the effects of the legislation and decide if it did what you wanted it to do.

Representational democracy works better than a pure democracy not only because it leads to less factionalization, but because the people making the final decisions are informed by the opinion of their voting public, but are much more informed on the nitty-gritty details of the law and public policy in general.  That is the people writing the laws are more likely to be experts at those laws and their social consequences.

This is the American brand of democracy at its best, and is my favored way of running my own group: Everybody gets an input, but the person best for suited for it makes the final decision.  (Thus my engineer makes the final call on things like e.g. a wireless network design, he just has to be able to justify his decision.)

I think you’re on to it there Carrick.  The blame for a law for everything must be placed on the people as a whole.

The solution to this problem is to create a majority of citizens that don’t look to government to write a law to cover every perceived situation. 

What’s that going to take?  A ton of blogging I guess.

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

Carrick: As I said before, in spite of what you believe, I also support a representative republic; I think the problem is in the way information is disseminated, not in the structure of society itself.  In matters of law(our original discussion), I favor a bias in favor of keeping criminals out of society, rather than the leftie one of bias in favor of releasing criminals into society, out of pity for them being “poor and oppressed”.  I want to be fair to the non-criminals, not the criminals.  If we continue to be biased in favor of criminals, it will result in the degradation and destruction of our society.

Hope and change, in a free world, are the private possessions of motivated individuals.

Whistler:

Have you heard of Meth?

It doesn’t kill one out of three or anything like that.  As an abusive substance, it’s actually less risky than alcohol consumption, which leads to liver malfunction and death, and is the leading cause of death for those who abuse drugs.

Don’t mistake the abused substance for the illness of the abuser.  That was one of the points I was making.  People who describe the after effects as making them feel depressed, probably were depressed to start with, and found that meth (like most amphetamines) gives them a temporary high that lifts them out of the depression, but has a dramatic negative swing after the high has faded.

The problem is that we don’t know which percentage of people started out “normal,” which already had psychological problems that they were “treating” with the drug and so forth.  Even for “normals”, the meth consumption may simply act as a trigger for people who have a predisposition for depression.

There has been a lot of research in the last few years on exactly this issue--the effects of substance abuse on people with mood disorders.  One of the discovers is that it can lead to “heightened cycling” of their mood swings.  For these people, the cure is to treat the underlying illness, and not simply to stop taking the addictive substance.

Carrick: It also occurs to me that the present wish to make recreational drugs illegal is exactly a result of “representational democracy”.  Ironic, isn’t it?

Hope and change, in a free world, are the private possessions of motivated individuals.

Robert108, I obviously think you favor republicanism.  It just appears that you are arguing against your own beliefs here.  By favoring the interference of the central government in the sentencing of criminals you are in fact arguing for something more akin to true democracy rather than republicanism.

I don’t argue laws favoring convicts, but the crime and the punishment should be correlated (let’s call that “justice").  Otherwise, something is really haywire.  And I simply argue the best way to ensure that is to allowing the people making the sentence decide the case upon the details of that case, and not have a heavy handed big brother decide for them.

Robert108:

Carrick: It also occurs to me that the present wish to make recreational drugs illegal is exactly a result of “representational democracy”.  Ironic, isn’t it?

Actually, it’s a bummer.

Nobody ever said that representation democracies are perfect.  They just work better than any other system, including a centralized government handing out justice en masse.

Carrick said, Likwidshoe, seems like you’re putting words in my mouth there.  What I was trying to say is that prohibition of certain drugs should be made only if the societal costs are too high, and if the effects of the prohibition do not outweigh its benefits to society.

I know. I was just using that one little snippet out of your comment to springboard into mine.

Your views on this topic don’t exactly align with mine, but I would venture to say that the process you lay out in the above post is the same exact logic I used in coming to my opinions on the matter. It is also how I rationalize such vast differences of opinion on this matter with those of whom I normally agree with on every other topic.

We’re all basically after the same thing: as much freedom as possible with the caveat that it doesn’t hurt society (aka tread onto another’s freedom) too much. There is a balance in there somewhere and there is no easy answer.

You know my opinion: prohibition of gluttonous substances and activities (mainly drugs and gambling) just makes the problems worse in all areas. That includes legal, societal, personally, with the mind and body, and etcetera.

The Whistler:

What’s that going to take?  A ton of blogging I guess.

That’s the only cure I know of.

What’s that going to take?  A ton of blogging I guess.

That, talk radio, and more outlets like Fox.

Hope and change, in a free world, are the private possessions of motivated individuals.

Robert108, I obviously think you favor republicanism.  It just appears that you are arguing against your own beliefs here.  By favoring the interference of the central government in the sentencing of criminals I favor no such thing. In fact, the three strikes laws are a response to the citizenry asking for protection against career criminals, because liberal judges were setting them free.  I refer you to the Willie Horton case for a particularly egregious example of the practice.you are in fact arguing for something more akin to true democracy rather than republicanism.

I don’t argue laws favoring convicts, but the crime and the punishment should be correlated (let’s call that “justice"). Another example of the devil being in the details, I think. One person’s “justice” is another’s leniency.  The real bottom line, IMO, is how many innocent citizens are harmed by the prevailing legal philosophy, not whether or not some criminal is dealt with “too harshly”. Otherwise, something is really haywire.  And I simply argue the best way to ensure that is to allowing the people making the sentence decide the case upon the details of that case, and not have a heavy handed big brother decide for them. Once again, it’s not “the heavy hand of Big Brother, but the wishes of the majority, in the case of three strikes laws.  It’s that “representational democracy” again.

Hope and change, in a free world, are the private possessions of motivated individuals.

* Can the behavior lead to harm to others?
* Would a law prohibiting the behavior be effective in stopping the undesired behavior?
* Does the new law cause less net harm to society through unintended consequences than benefit through its intended or unintended consequences (e.g., will the new law provide a net benefit to society?)

If everything is a cost-benefit analysis for society, we’d have an even greater Nanny State today. A 4% decrease in speed limits leads to a 17% decrease in traffic accidents; does it not “provide a net benefit to society” to go back to a 25mph limit?

Robert108:

I favor no such thing. In fact, the three strikes laws are a response to the citizenry asking for protection against career criminals, because liberal judges were setting them free.  I refer you to the Willie Horton case for a particularly egregious example of the practice.

First of all, that is a single example, which has little probative value.  Have any numbers to back up your claim of lax sentencing being an endemic problem?

Second of all, it’s a specious example, because the Willie Horton controversy ignited over Horton being released on a weekend furlough program (from which he never returned).

In fact, the original sentencing judge had given him a life sentence, the maximum possible sentence in that case.

It was the Massachusetts penal system that let a convicted lifer out on a weekend pass that resulted in the rape of a woman after the assault of her husband…

And the judge who sentenced him that time?  Two life sentences.  Maximum possible sentence.

The three-strikes-and-your-out federal rule, whether you like it or not, is exactly a centralized government imposition on a problem whose scope had never been clearly established.  Clearly this is a centralized government action that you are advocating.  How can you claim otherwise?

Dave:

A 4% decrease in speed limits leads to a 17% decrease in traffic accidents; does it not “provide a net benefit to society” to go back to a 25mph limit?

You haven’t factored in the benefit to the individual or to the economy from higher speed limits.  Reduce the speed limit, and you reduce the economic efficiency of the economy.  At some point, the economic damage from speeding becomes lower than the economic damage from lower speed limits.

The real problem with speeding leading to accidents is the lack of enforcement of existing limits in residential neighborhoods.  In Britain, adding cameras in residential areas reduced traffic incidents by more than 30%. 

You have to go beyond simple statistics if you’re going to make a meaningful cost-benefit analysis.

And how does a holocaust denier damage society?

It was the Massachusetts penal system that let a convicted lifer out on a weekend pass that resulted in the rape of a woman after the assault of her husband…

You are technically right, but it doesn’t change the fact that the public demanded the three strikes law, precisely for that reason.  It was an appeals judge who let Willie Horton out, under the influence of the governor(Dukakis).  The three strikes law takes the matter out of the hands of those who would coddle criminals and let them out into society.
It is not an invention of “central govt” as you claim, but reflects the wishes of the people as expressed through their legislators.  I don’t claim it as the perfect solution, but it is a result of “representational democracy”.
Can you back up your claim that it comes from central govt, and is not supported by society at large?

Hope and change, in a free world, are the private possessions of motivated individuals.

And how does a holocaust denier damage society?

That made zero sense.  You are equating a popularity contest to a cost benefit analysis.  The two are very different things.

There are zero reasons based upon the three rules I gave for censoring an individual.  You’d have to start by identifying a cost to society, and there are little or none in this case.

Sometimes I think you argue for the sake of arguing.

Sometimes I think you argue for the sake of arguing.

Ya think!

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

Robert108:

It was an appeals judge who let Willie Horton out, under the influence of the governor(Dukakis).

That too is incorrect.  Here’s some background.

As I understand it, Horton’s release was part of the weekend furlough program in the Massachusetts penal system that he qualified for as a result of “exemplary behavior” and nothing to do with any appeal process.  It was a smashingly successful program because of the large number of convicts who were released on Friday, never to be seen again, until of course they eventually got caught in the commission of another crime…

Regarding the other, you are still mixing how the law was chosen with the question of how it’s administrated.  Regardless of how you want to slice and dice it, the three-strike rule is administratively a mandate from the central government, no matter whether it was instituted as a result of public outcry or for some other reason.

Carrick: You are right about the specifics of the Horton case; I stand corrected on that one.  It is, however, an example of the general tendency of lefties in positions of political power to be soft on violent and dangerous criminals, which is what occasioned the three strikes law.  Appeals judges have freed many other violent criminals, to the detriment of law-abiding citizens.

Regardless of how you want to slice and dice it, the three-strike rule is administratively a mandate from the central government, no matter whether it was instituted as a result of public outcry or for some other reason.

Speaking as a citizen, that is exactly what I hire public officials to do; I fail to see how it isn’t doing the will of the people. My personal preference, btw, is to have all violent criminals locked up for life without possibility of parole. Until or unless it is well established that they can be reliably(100%) rehabilitated, that is my wish as a law-abiding citizen.  I have little tolerance for career criminals, although I don’t think most drug users(especially pot smokers) should be imprisoned; they should be heavily fined, IMO.

Hope and change, in a free world, are the private possessions of motivated individuals.

Robert108, you’re still missing one critical point...I’m not referring to how the laws get written, but the nature of how the law gets administrated.

Laws that leave the decision making to the central government are not examples of republicanism, no matter how the laws get written.  Republicanism basically extends the trust to the individuals most closely associated with the specifics to make the wisest decision.

If the individuals don’t make good choices, it’s up to us as citizens to remove them from power, either by voting them out or petitioning for their removal.  Nobody should be above the will of the people in that respect.

Carrick: I am simply disputing your point, not missing it.  As far as I am concerned, we hire the officials to administer our wants, and in the case of the three strikes law, the people wanted to take the discretionary power out of the hands of the leftie judges, so that the habitual criminals would be locked up, not released to do more crime.  It was clearly the will of the people, to override officials who were not acting in the interest of the majority.  That was my point.  While we were waiting for competent judges to come up for re-election, more criminals were being released, and leftie politicians were appointing more.  Not all judges are elected, you know.  We still have Carter appointees, for God’s Sake.

Hope and change, in a free world, are the private possessions of motivated individuals.

Robert108, I’m going to try this one more time.  Here is a chart illustrates the decision making process for (A) a Centralized Democracy and (B) a Representational Democracy.

I’m not asking you to defend why you think it’s a good law.  I’m merely pointing out the obvious:  It is an example of type (A) Centralized Democracy rather than type (B) Representational Democracy.

My philosophical position is that type (A) governmental style is always inferior to type (B) in the long run, and often in the short run.

Of course, I also disagree with you about the harshness of penalties.  Penalties in all cases should be commensurate with the crime.

You’re apparently OK somebody losing their temper then popping somebody else in the nose, then ending up in the pen for life?  That’s what you appear to be advocating.

BTW, in a representational democracy, a judge who fails to follow mandated guidelines can be removed from office.  That explains Ashcroft’s much talked about policy of clamping down on judges who weren’t following sentencing guidelines.

The problem with errant behavior can be solved without resorting to type (A) government.

Carrick, I’m going to try this one more time:  I fully understand the difference between the two systems, as you describe them, and it is irrelevant to the situation with the three strikes law.  That law was made necessary, IMO, because of the tendency of liberal judges to circumvent the will of the people.  We are tired of being robbed and raped by violent criminals who are clearly unsuitable to be in a polite society.  Because liberal judges(some of whom are appointed, not elected) seem to be so hard to remove, we asked our legislators to find a way to keep the criminals in prison, and they obliged with the three strikes concept.  IMO, that is one strike too many(maybe even two), but three robberies/rapes seems to be the magic number.  You object to the style of administration, and I support the substance of protecting the public from violent career criminals.  How to choose?  I go for public safety over style consideration.

You’re apparently OK somebody losing their temper then popping somebody else in the nose, then ending up in the pen for life?  That’s what you appear to be advocating.

This kind of thing is beneath you, I would think.  You know damn well that is not what I mean.  I would say this is a straw man argument, but I guess that would offend you.  I say again; when someone demonstrates that they think they are entitled to solve their problems with violence against peaceful citizens, I would prefer that they be removed from society permanently.  I’m not talking about people getting into fistfights over personal problems, but aggravated assault and battery might qualify, or violent road rage might be on the bottom rung here.  The main issue with me is, of course, rape and robbery of innocent citizens, not differences of opinions.  You should know that, but you choose to make a ridiculous statement instead.  Shame on you!
BTW, I didn’t mention murder, because I thought that was obvious.

Hope and change, in a free world, are the private possessions of motivated individuals.

Carrick, I’m going to try this one more time:  I fully understand the difference between the two systems, as you describe them, and it is irrelevant to the situation with the three strikes law. 

I disagree.  The fact that it is a centralized decision making process, in my opinion, necessarily makes it inferior to a more distributed one.  “A necessary evil” I suppose in your way of viewing it, but it is totally and completely relevant. 

I’m sorry irritated you with my example, I really wasn’t trying to emotionalize this discussion, but rather trying to get you to clarify what you mean by “violent crime”.  In the future, please chalk it up to the difficulties and limitations of communicating via text only.  In person, you would have asked for immediate amplification of my example, because on the face of it, it sounds absurd, doesn’t it?

To expand on my example, punching a person in the nose a single time can injure that person enough for them to be put in a hospital (you can actually paralyze them from the neck down or even kill them if the blow is landed just right, by driving the skull back rapidly and damaging or severing the spinal cord in the process).  Michael Tyson would no doubt be able to do this with a single blow to an untrained opponent.

When a sentence on battery is handed out, the specifics, including the extent of the injuries to the “victim” are considered.  If Tyson were to punch somebody in the nose, resulting in their long term hospitalization, that would likely result in a first-degree battery conviction.  Should Tyson go to jail for life for what amounts to a single impulsive act of violence that lead to the serious injury of another individual?

Put in those terms, the example isn’t that ridiculous.  I bring it up because for many cases, there are specific details you can’t discern by simply looking at the sentence handed down without considering the circumstances of the case.

There is a place for life sentences.  I prefer that the judge hand them out because on average, justice will be more often served.  I am advocating Type B government, even if I disagree with the results from individual cases.  If there are problems with the system, the system should be fixed rather than circumvented.

Carrick: I would love to go point by point with you, but am unable to do so at this time.  Suffice to say that “my” justice system is primarily focused on protecting society, not the criminal(although the accused should have the usual rights and considerations before conviction).  Bottom line for me is to protect the public from violent career criminals, and I believe that is the will of the people communicated through their elected officials.  How this is administered is less important to me than it’s effectiveness in protecting the public from the aforesaid criminals.
If Mike Tyson did it once, “impulsively”, you might have a point.  The second time is another matter.  That is the beauty of the “three strikes”. It gives some leeway for real mistakes, but punishes the pattern and protects the public.  This is a benefit that outweighs the cost, as illustrated by your consideration.  This is where I stand on the matter.  I think the three strikes law is a specific remedy for a specific problem, not a degeneration of our overall justice system into some centralized form, as you seem to fear.
If judges weren’t trying to legislate their personal morality from the bench, such laws wouldn’t be necessary, IMO.

Hope and change, in a free world, are the private possessions of motivated individuals.

I guess you’ll never concede that you are using a central government form of adiminstration to achieve a desirable goal, let alone that there is anything either philosophically or instrumentally wrong with it.

We can haves three-strike-like results from sentencing guidelines so in fact my example demonstrates nothing of the sort you claim:  You can get life-time sentences from multiple offenses even without a central government mandate if the guilty party is deemed a habitual criminal. 

The only real difference is guidelines provide a flexibility not present in a central-government imposed sentence.  Three-stirke laws, whether you accept this or not, hand out unjust penalties in some cases to prevent egregiously light sentencing for others.  And I claim that this result is guaranteed to occur more frequently because of the centralized nature in which the life-time sentencing is handed out.

The goal of the legal system is to hand out moral and just punishments for wrongful acts, and not just to protect the innocent.  In the long run, it benefits our society to for to act morally rather than just expediently, which is what I think is happening with centrally-mandated sentencing.

The only real difference is guidelines provide a flexibility not present in a central-government imposed sentence.  In actual practice, this “flexibility” has resulted in numerous instances of criminals being released into society, to the detriment of society. Three-stirke laws, whether you accept this or not, hand out unjust penalties in some cases to prevent egregiously light sentencing for others. I have never denied that; my point has always been the the way it was handed out lenient penalties to prevent heavy sentencing for others, and that tradeoff was to the detriment of society.  No system will ever be perfect, so that argument is bogus; any errors should benefit society, not the criminals. And I claim that this result is
guaranteed to occur more frequently because of the centralized nature in which the life-time sentencing is handed out. The cost/benefit works better for the law-abiding citizens.

The goal of the legal system is to hand out moral and just punishments for wrongful acts, and not just to protect the innocent.I disagree on that; it is primarily designed to punish the guilty and keep order for the law-abiding citizens. “Fairness” is certainly desirable, but not at the cost of the suffering of the innocent to benefit the guilty in some way. In the long run, it benefits our society to for to act morally rather than just expediently, which is what I think is happening with centrally-mandated sentencing.I think it is immoral to expose law-abiding citizens unnecessarily to the activities of violent criminals, or even any sort of criminals.  We shouldn’t be making things easier for them.  Punishment should be a deterrent, first and foremost.  The justice system should not be regarded as a social engineering project or experiment.

Hope and change, in a free world, are the private possessions of motivated individuals.

Robert108, we both agree that any error should benefit society.  The rub is to figure out which errors benefit society and which ultimately hurts it.

Needlessly locking away criminals who are salvageable has a real human and economic toll.  Many of these people, after all, have families too, and there are costs to society for removing these individuals from their families in terms of the development of their children and so forth.  And that doesn’t even factor in the economic cost of confining theses people as opposed to them potentially being contributing members of society.

Carrick: I think we might both agree that it would be a good thing if the three strikes law were made unnecessary by a judiciary which acted to protect the public.  In that case, we could trust the discretion of the judges to be lenient with those who actually merited that treatment.  The problem has been excessive and inappropriate leniency.

Hope and change, in a free world, are the private possessions of motivated individuals.