“We Want Our Freedoms”

Freedoms is a concept too nuanced for the mind of an SP
Patrick Andendall

“We Want Our Freedoms – No body is safe” 
I have just posted below a story written by Lucius Taylor–an individual wrongly imprisoned for 25 years for a murder he did not commit. It might be said that  Lucius was relatively lucky in that the crime he did not commit was perpetrated in Deep Blue New York State and not in a  Dark Red Stupidparty State such as Texas—if that had been the case he would likely have been gleefully and lethally strapped into some absurd contraption worthy of Dante’s inferno.

When I ever I hear people ranting about “Our Freedoms”—  I tend to profile such individuals in a negative light, suspecting that they are intellectually calcified in the past, believing 18th and 19th Century practices of Slavery, Emancipation and Dentistry are preferable to 21st Century expectations.

The fact is that the term “Freedoms” (it always sounds even sillier in the plural) requires far more nuance than the vast majority of Stupidparty disciples have ever demonstrated mastery of. To set up the story of Lucius, I am only going to focus on the most literal example of such a term being so simplistically bandied about – I will simply focus on criminality and incarcerations. Freedom to be become a criminal and incarcerated by a perverted US Judicial system – a system so bad that no foreign nation should allow their Citizens be extradited to – and some nations have in fact figured that out. Before further explanation let’s put such observations into perspective, where do you think the USA stands regarding incarceration compared to every other Country?

It is ironic that the USA is 700% worse than those Freedoms loving French Fries. But if you live in the most Freedoms loving Red States, the picture is even bleaker.

          Data extracted from DOJ 2008; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_incarceration_rate
There is a Wiki conflict in that the state numbers can vary, which I am putting down to older data.

Regarding my comment about Lucius being lucky that his supposed crime took place took place in New York

I am a believer in judging by the company one keeps. Through the period 2007-2013 only China, Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia have outperformed the United States in this macabre and medieval practice— this is tragic by itself, but made so much worse by the fact that numerous innocent people are executed here, in the land of the free. Modern Science and DNA are helping to correct unjust sentences. But what if there is no such DNA evidence? Well if you are incarcerated in New York there is a now Charity for that scenario – it is called the Exoneration Initiative. I am sure contributions are welcome – because there are not many things more outrageous than Innocent people being put a way for life, and or executed. But thanks to New York’s stance on the death penalty and thanks to this Charity ‘lucky’ Lucius (and others) remain alive today and are now free to tell us their stories, stories that can inform us better than other “third party” sources. Worse–it appears Lucius’s story is but a drop in the bucket.   

But Stupidparty Disciples don’t really care – because they take simplistic slogans such as “do the crime, do your time” at face value. Nothing looks better to them than “minority moochers” behind bars or suffering the ultimate barbaric fate.

Stupidparty disciples seem perfectly content to allow the government the freedom to torture, (yes we now know, that under Stupidparty tortured rationalization’s, that the CIA tortured – rectal dehydration, waterboarding, 180 hour sleep deprivation) thus ignoring the Geneva Convention and taking away Freedoms without due process (Guantanamo Bay). Well, they are only foreigners. Back in America, “Joe Sullivan was sentenced to die in prison at age 13 for a sexual assault. He is physically and mentally disabled but remains imprisoned in Florida.”

With the ever-increasing profit-fed incarceration rate, the massive lengths of time in solitary confinement come into greater focus. Worse, is the issue of children spending months or longer under such conditions.

The US Judicial system has always been highly politicized, and since the country has now become devastatingly polarized between critical thinkers and non-critical thinkers – the judicial system reflects such absurdity. First, I just do not understand the concept of Judges being members of political parties and even worse—parties selecting such Judges. Judges are meant to interpret the law, not pander to the mob. So adding fuel to fire of politicization and polarization we now have politicians who are undeniably bought off by the people who contribute to their campaigns. So in a final twist of irony, the mob does not get what it wants, it simply gets what it thinks that it wants–we have established elsewhere that 67% of Stupidparty disciples are not inclined to exercise their brains sufficiently to bother with critical thinking, therefore they are blind to such irony.

But the above is just the tip of the iceberg. It only tells half the story. We need some more connecting dots in order to see what the pattern will reveal. We need to link Incarceration rates with attempts to cheat Democracy itself. To undertake this exercise one needs to recognize a rather simple fact that few people really understand–Voter Fraud by the Voter is Mathematically irrelevant (*this link might be password protected – password is PARIS), and when one can grasp this fact – then one can recognize that voter suppression strategies are acceptable only to the ill-informed (and or bigots) and that these suppression policies are devised by politicians trying to game the system. Since the Stupidparty has abandoned Facts, Math and Science, it must survive by perpetuating Myth and undermining Democracy. The means of voter suppression are numerous and they tend to be rooted in a racist history.

The Supremely Stupidparty Court appears to have concluded that race is not significant today – thus green lighting a new wave of fundamentally bigoted voter suppression strategies.

Whilst it might be unfair to accuse Chief Justice John Roberts of being a racist- one must at least wonder at how he comes to have such infantile notions about race—“One must truly wonder, if, in Roberts, we are seeing a textbook example of the myopia, lack of self-awareness, and narrow-mindedness that can result from attending the non-racially-diverse Roman Catholic grade and boarding schools in 1960s and 1970s small-town, rural, overwhelmingly-white Indiana…..”

Gerrymandering, elongated waiting times, less days or hours to vote, driving license ID’s are a few of the examples, but voter suppression via criminality is an even more nefarious tool. One vital suppression tactic is the driving up of incarceration rates, this is done on the back of stupidparty slogans such as “three strikes and you are out” or the license to murder Black Children inherent in the various “stand your ground laws”,  (orchestrated by odious The American Legislative Exchange Council  or  ALEC). Such orchestrated propaganda is then ably assisted by the lack of diversity in law enforce cement, (take note Ferguson) – and the tapping into bigotry, being “tough on crime” all this to “excite the base”. But the end result is the fact that somewhere between 47m-65m Americans have criminal records. This is great news for Stupidparty, but tragic news for the rest of us.

“A new study shows that nearly one-third of American adults have been arrested by age 23. This record will keep many people from obtaining employment, even if they have paid their dues, are qualified for the job and are unlikely to reoffend. At the same time, it is the chance at a job that offers hope for people involved in the criminal justice system, as we know from research that stable employment is an important predictor of successful re-entry and desistance from crime….

The impact of having a criminal record is exacerbated among African Americans, who may already experience racial discrimination in the labor market and are more likely than whites to have a criminal record. Two prominent studies by Devah Pager involved employment audits of men in Milwaukee and New York City. Both studies, funded by NIJ, found that a criminal record reduces the likelihood of a job callback or offer by approximately 50 percent. This criminal record “penalty” was substantially greater for African Americans than for white applicants. The more recent study included Latinos in the test pool and showed they, too, suffer similar “penalties” in the employment market.”

The Stupidparty vision of non-whites being a burden lacks nuance. The Red States are the “Moochers” plus immigration is actually good for the economy; but any such burdens are exacerbated by SP policies and thus worse in Red States – specifically derision, deprivation and disenfranchisement. Cultish non Biblical aversions to birth control, pro-life dogma, are far from helpful.

The Center for American progress reports “While people of color make up about 30 percent of the United States’ population, they account for 60 percent of those imprisoned. The prison population grew by 700% from 1970 to 2005, a rate that is outpacing crime and population rates. The incarceration rates disproportionately impact men of color: 1 in every 15 African American men and 1 in every 36 Hispanic men are incarcerated in comparison to 1 in every 106 white men….

As the number of women incarcerated has increased by 800%  over the last three decades  women of color have been disproportionately represented.

Students of color face harsher punishments in school than their white peers, leading to a higher number of youth of color incarcerated.”

So this is heaven in stupidparty land as it means the following in terms of Voter suppression:

1)      Inmates cannot vote.
2)      Although States differ – many disallow those with certain types of Criminal records from voting.
3)      Regardless of the specific laws, one can easily mislead or intimidate those with criminal records from voting.
4)      Women (a non SP voting block) are being knocked off the voter rolls in ever increasing numbers.

Since the deep well of out of control incarceration has been so clearly poisoned- one would think that similar legal doctrine should automatically undo laws prohibiting inmates and those with criminal records from voting. Some exceptions should probably remain – serious crimes, but that might represent about 5% of the people impacted.

Voter suppression strategies require fearful and falsely grounded attitudes to crime—this is where the corrupting power of big money kicks in. First having increasing amount of inmates, creates construction and Guard Jobs at a State level and also for profit prisons are increasing their market share exponentially. A $50,000 contribution to a state politician or two is worth its weight in blood money – and to encourage and rationalize such political contributions the voter is given a massaged message that permanently permeates itself through prejudicial rhetoric aimed at the more excitable voter.

I would just a like to make a brief comment about Capital punishment. I try to avoid opinions when analyzing subjects, but I guess I should come out of the closet and admit that I abhor this cultural enthusiasm for killing people, especially from the supposedly “pro-life” lobby. But my opinion is simply not important. What is important is that in terms of Crime prevention and taxpayer expense I do not believe that execution makes Mathematical sense—but we already understand that Math is not part of the Stupidparty repertoire, so I will try and speak in a different language:

If you believe in the death penalty, then you must insist that the accused has at least equal talent representing him, as the talent prosecuting him. If you cannot accept this simple notion, then it might be best if I do not state my opinion about what type of human being you are.

“We want our Freedoms”? As a general rule the ‘Redder’ you are, the less freedom(s) thou shalt have.  I would rather be free to figure out what freedom actually means – and recognize that attaining greater freedom is not going to be achieved by  exacerbating the present horrendous erosion’s of Democracy.

Please read on for Lucius’s take “easy to get in, hard to get out—nobody is safe”