What's on your mind?

[JonoBlade]

15 hours ago, Dead1 said:

I also have lost my last ounce of loyalty to Australia.  I hope at some stage the PRC rapes it good.

oh, it will. 

 

 

[Hungarino]

On 6/29/2023 at 4:19 PM, Dead1 said:

Televising it and having it a mandatory viewing in prisons would probably also help.

Doubtful. US used to have public hangings, and many more executions, and those were consistently times with much higher crime and murders. Now we have exponentially fewer private executions that take forever, coincidentally our murder rates are way below what they once were. There is no good evidence that capitol punishment is a good deterrent. There is actually some evidence that murder rates go down when capitol punishment is abolished.

 

On 6/29/2023 at 4:19 PM, Dead1 said:

"3 strikes and you're out" legislation (drafted by one Joe Biden) that reduced crime after it had skyrocketed out of control.

This brought crime down not because of a deterrent effect, but because criminals received much longer sentences and were off the streets. In fact it is increasingly obvious that recent sentencing reform including decriminalizing non-violent property crime in certain cities, though considered more socially just, is most likely to blame for crime spiking in the US. Which is utterly absurd and contemptuous of the civil contract in a democratic society, imo. But agreed on our bigger failures being our unwillingness to address inequality. The US has always vacillated between something closer to a meritocracy and a plutocracy, with the latter usually holding most of the cards.

 

[Dead1]

15 hours ago, Hungarino said:

 

 

This brought crime down not because of a deterrent effect, but because criminals received much longer sentences and were off the streets.

 

Exactly.  

Death penalties kind of serves the same purpose, just permanently and more efficiently in terms of resource utilisation.

 

I don't know if it's like this in USA, but here in Australia there's a lot of fudging of figures.  Eg attempted murders being downgraded to aggravated assault etc.  Rape cases are even harder - most are just thrown out without charges ever being laid.  I've read similar things happen in the US with rape

Corruption isn't even pursued by police most of the time (eg that case of ex-NSW premier being allowed to walk without charges being laid or case of local health executives not being pursued for corruption and fraud.

 

[RelentlessOblivion]

54 minutes ago, Dead1 said:

Exactly.  

Death penalties kind of serves the same purpose, just permanently and more efficiently in terms of resource utilisation.

 

I don't know if it's like this in USA, but here in Australia there's a lot of fudging of figures.  Eg attempted murders being downgraded to aggravated assault etc.  Rape cases are even harder - most are just thrown out without charges ever being laid.  I've read similar things happen in the US with rape

Corruption isn't even pursued by police most of the time (eg that case of ex-NSW premier being allowed to walk without charges being laid or case of local health executives not being pursued for corruption and fraud.

 

185, since 2000 that’s the number of people who have been exonerated on death row in America. It’s worth noting as well we don’t have stats on people who were wrongfully executed because it is much more challenging to determine those figures. Not only is capital punishment. Not a deterrent for crime, it is also irreversible if the conviction was incorrect. Yes, it is appalling that politicians, law in Forseman Ct, and so on frequently, able to get away with flagrant corruption, to me, however, the solution isn’t execution but rather to create an anticorruption watchdog, which actually at the power and authority to do their job. The same goes for violent crimes, vengeance should never be easy motivating factor behind the sentencing of individuals. For the record, that 185 is 20% of people were scheduled for execution in America, so it stands to reason if the punishment was handed down more frequently even more people would be wrongfully, convicted and sentenced.

 

[GoatmasterGeneral]

Well in our crazy corrupt justice system the prosecutors protect their win loss records at all costs because that's how they advance their careers. If you can't keep your conviction rate up well over 90% you'll never advance. They try to plead as many cases out as they possibly can because plea deals go onto their records as a conviction without any risk of losing. And winning is all they care about, not truth or  justice. 

For the cases that they can't plead out, once they've decided to take a case to trial they will go to any lengths necessary to win, regardless of any exculpatory facts that may exist that could exonerate the accused. And especially back in the days before DNA evidence was available there were a ton of falsely accused defendants, usually poor people who could not afford a good lawyer that were wrongly convicted and sent to prison. 20% would be a very conservative estimate, by many accounts it's likely much higher than that. DNA evidence accounts for a very large portion of overturned convictions of convicts who were tried before DNA was a thing, or in cases where no one ever bothered to test for DNA, or who had trials in which DNA evidence was in some way supressed or disallowed. 

So in theory I would not be opposed to capital punishment for violent offenders, especially if they've committed multiple violent offenses I'd be happy to see them suffer that fate. But since we've proven that justice and fair trials and innocent until proven guilty are just a myth in this country, and they can't seem to get anything right since the innocent poor are often falsely convicted while the wealthy guilty generally face zero accountability, I think most states have done the right thing by suspending the death penalty.

[Nasty_Cabbage]

The death penalty in the United States isn't necessarily rife with corruption in the truest sense of the word. There are still some cases where police bias is very obvious, but, for the most part, these don't result in a death sentence, but rather an officer with a bone to pick or a legal department wanting to, either as a distraction from an existing flub up in the media or a sort of show of force in an election year (judges are elected in almost all cases) a lock 'em up and throw away the key sentence. Usually judges and lawyers don't want to pursue death accept in extreme circumstances. 

Now as far as record and stats go, the whole thing is a complete mess. You have to consider that every single piece of information, no matter how unbiased the collection of that information is, will absolutely become politicized. Bureaucracy and shady incentivization thrive at every level, and you don't necessarily have to have a strong educational background in political science to be given a job where your influence and bias can be devastating to the objectivity of data. I won't go into it with rape or murder cases save to say that most people seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of the simple concept of innocent until proven guilty. No one wants to move toward fixing it though as long as the pendulum swings back their way eventually.

You have to understand that even though we label our departmental imprisonment and law enforcement complex as "Corrections" there's nothing corrective about it. It's not even meant as a deterrent in most cases involving violence. Sentences are purely punitive plain and simple, and this is enshrined on a cultural level. It's not something that changes from the top-down. Cultural change has to take place from the bottom-up. Attempting to change it by changing laws would have a similar effect that "bringing democracy" to a dangerous underdeveloped nation via military invasion has. The culture is not going to suddenly change just because you came in and gave a kid a piece of candy. That's just not how it works. Now it might change if you came in and gave a kid a piece of candy and a rocket launcher, but you probably won't like the way it changes.

That said, as much as the self-righteous and petulantly indignant part of me wants to believe my moral fiber would be enough to forgive and attempt to reform a criminal at whose hands I had suffered, or lost loved ones, I know deep down I'd hope for the death penalty for such a person, and in some horrific bizzaro world where I was made a judge in charge of setting a sentence, I wouldn't be able to look a victim's family in the eyes and say "instead of giving this violent and irredeemable monster who tortured and killed your loved one what they deserve, we're going to house them, give them three square meals a day, and even protect them from other inmates".

I couldn't do it. I wouldn't do it. That's just how it is.

[Dead1]

1 hour ago, RelentlessOblivion said:

 

As GG said American system is high flawed (part of the problem of having "democratically elected" attorney generals, massive inequality, institutional racism etc etc).  To be honest when you read about what happens in some American gaols (eg death or amputation due to lack of medical treatment) then any kind of false conviction is potentially life destroying. 

But in what world should we let Martin Bryant or the Bourke St killer or Ivan Milat live due to risk of judicial error?  In some cases they committed very public mass murders.  Bryant slaughtered over 50 people in a major tourist spot.  Guilt was almost automatic - there was dozens if not hundreds of witnesses and in some case CCTV footage!

 

Or all those American guys who have committed mass shootings?  Why let them live? Why waste resources that could be spent on education, mental health and housing and job opportunities to potentially reduce chances of it happening again?

 

----

 

Speaking of how flawed Australian justice system is, we just had a government commission into a system which destroyed lives of ten of thousands of lives.   This was related to Social Welfare payments and an automated system to collect debts, even when the person owed the government nothing.

It was known to be completely illegal when it was adopted.

The commission has declared that any prosecutions will be secret.  And to make matters worse, none of the evidence (including witness testimony, documents etc) they collected is admissible in a court of law which completely undermines any prosecution.

So there you go - government openly destroyed many people's lives but most likely everyone involved will walk free.

 

[Dead1]

In other stuff on my mind, as a major history buff it's been interesting to see the west start retconning Russia as a historical entity.

There is more and more articles trying to undermine Russia's historical role (eg contribution in WWII or Napoleonic Wars) or turning Russia into the bad guy for everything (even in wars against Ottomans where Ottomans were aggressors and slaughtering Slavs in what we now call genocide or at least warcrimes) or that certain internationally recognised Russian territorial holdings are illegitimate (Karaelia, Chechnya, Tartarstan, Kalinigrad, Amur).

Ironically given timespans involved, it would also make the USA, New Zealand and Australia completely illegitimate but this seems lost on the intellectuals and journalists involved.

There is a growing movement to make the concept of Russia illegitimate.  Eg even US congress people have attended summits that propose Russia is an illegitimate colonial state that needs to be broken up.  Sure Russia has some minorities but ethnic Russians are still 77% of the population and are majority in most of the Russian Federation.

In terms of Ukraine, other imperial powers are legitimised (Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth or Ottomans) and Russians take overs of this territory in 1700-1800s viewed as illegitimate (noting US conquered most of western US from Mexico in 1840s!).

Some in the academia (especially Poland and other eastern Europeans) now refer to Russia as Moscovy ie the Grand Dutchy of Moscow that ceased to exist in the 16th century.  

 

 

So it's fascinating to see 400 years of history being rewritten in front of me and so overtly.

 

Even during wars in Iraq and Yugoslavia, there was no attempt to delegitimise Iraq (even though it's actually a fake country incapable of operating as a single whole) or Serbia.

[GoatmasterGeneral]

15 minutes ago, Dead1 said:

As GG said American system is high flawed (part of the problem of having "democratically elected" attorney generals, massive inequality, institutional racism etc etc).  To be honest when you read about what happens in some American gaols (eg death or amputation due to lack of medical treatment) then any kind of false conviction is potentially life destroying. 

But in what world should we let Martin Bryant or the Bourke St killer or Ivan Milat live due to risk of judicial error?  In some cases they committed very public mass murders.  Bryant slaughtered over 50 people in a major tourist spot.  Guilt was almost automatic - there was dozens if not hundreds of witnesses and in some case CCTV footage!

Or all those American guys who have committed mass shootings?  Why let them live? Why waste resources that could be spent on education, mental health and housing and job opportunities to potentially reduce chances of it happening again?

---

Speaking of how flawed Australian justice system is, we just had a government commission into a system which destroyed lives of ten of thousands of lives.  This was related to Social Welfare payments and an automated system to collect debts, even when the person owed the government nothing.

It was known to be completely illegal when it was adopted.

The commission has declared that any prosecutions will be secret.  And to make matters worse, none of the evidence (including witness testimony, documents etc) they collected is admissible in a court of law which completely undermines any prosecution.

So there you go - government openly destroyed many people's lives but most likely everyone involved will walk free.

The wealthy and powerful have always 'walked free' and found ways to avoid accountability ever since humans gained the ability to speak and started setting up societies. It's not some troubling new development in the 20th century found only in Australia and the US. It will likely always be this way, that's kinda the whole point of being wealthy and powerful. Likewise, the poor and lower working classes have always gotten chewed up and spit out by whichever justice system was in place at the time. Nobody cares what happens to them or how many innocent lives might be destroyed.

Why let them live? You've either gotta kill all of them or none of them. Better to let some guilty scum rot in prison than to execute the innocent. I know you don't neccessarily agree with this sentiment, but I do quite strongly. With such a huge percentage of false convictions in this country I just don't accept 20 or 30% as an acceptable level of collateral damage.

Small point: The USAG is appointed to serve at the pleasure of the POTUS, it's not an elected position.

[GoatmasterGeneral]

8 minutes ago, Dead1 said:

In other stuff on my mind, as a major history buff it's been interesting to see the west start retconning Russia as a historical entity.

There is more and more articles trying to undermine Russia's historical role (eg contribution in WWII or Napoleonic Wars) or turning Russia into the bad guy for everything (even in wars against Ottomans where Ottomans were aggressors and slaughtering Slavs in what we now call genocide or at least warcrimes) or that certain internationally recognised Russian territorial holdings are illegitimate (Karaelia, Chechnya, Tartarstan, Kalinigrad, Amur).

Ironically given timespans involved, it would also make the USA, New Zealand and Australia completely illegitimate but this seems lost on the intellectuals involved.

There is a growing movement to make the concept of Russia illegitimate.  Eg even US congress people have attended summits that propose Russia is an illegitimate colonial state that needs to be broken up.  Sure Russia has some minorities but ethnic Russians are still 77% of the population and are majority in most of the Russian Federation.

In terms of Ukraine, other imperial powers are legitimised (Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth or Ottomans) and Russians take overs of this territory in 1700-1800s viewed as illegitimate (noting US conquered most of western US from Mexico in 1840s!).

Some in the academia (especially Poland and eastern Europeans) now refer to Russia as Moscovy ie the Grand Dutchy of Moscow that ceased to exist in the 16th century.  

So it's fascinating to see 400 years of history being rewritten in front of me and so overtly.

Even during wars in Iraq and Yugoslavia, there was no attempt to delegitimise Iraq (even though it's actually a fake country incapable of operating as a single whole) or Serbia.

Propaganda is our stock in trade here in the USA. History is written by the victors, and history gets rewritten all the time to suit the needs of our wealthy and powerful. And they get away with it because they know most people don't know and/or don't care. One of our biggest industries in this country is the $837 billlion defense industry. The military industrial complex. This industry consistently puts many hundreds of millions into a lot of wealthy and powerful people's pockets. To keep this shit all running at full capacity at all times to keep budgets increasing which will maximize their profits and kick-backs, they need villains. If we had no evil villains we wouldn't need as much defense. So Russia, China, N Korea, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan have been th lucky ones chosen to be our main villains. While other nations which are just as bad or worse have found favor with the right people (usually has something to do with large amounts of money changing hands) and can basically do no wrong. World politics is a total shit show which is why so many people prefer not to spend too much time thinking about it.

[Dead1]

22 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

 

Why let them live? You've either gotta kill all of them or none of them. Better to let some guilty scum rot in prison than to execute the innocent. I know you don't neccessarily agree with this sentiment, but I do quite strongly. With such a huge percentage of false convictions in this country I just don't accept 20 or 30% as an acceptable level of collateral damage.

They're probably guilty of something.  In my experience most crime including violent stuff never even gets on the radar of the police.  Eg most drug dealers I knew were never arrested and never even had the cops raid them. 

 

But I less and less believe in human rights being inalienable.  A human concept that is abstract and mutable depending on circumstances.  

 

A bit ironic as I am a second class citizen in Australia without full rights of Australian born citizens    Despite being formally granted citizenship in 1985 I don't have full set of rights because government won't issue me with a certificate of citizenship  (I can't get a passport, can't get a job with Commonwealth government, can't stand for parliament).   

 

I can apparently fight and die for Australia.  Which if I ever get called up to do first thing I'm doing when given a weapon with live ammo is gunning down my "fellow" soldiers!

4 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Propaganda is our stock in trade here in the USA. History is written by the victors, and history gets rewritten all the time to suit the needs of our wealthy and powerful. And they get away with it because they know most people don't know and/or don't care. One of our biggest industries in this country is the $837 billlion defense industry. The military industrial complex. This industry consistently puts many hundreds of millions into a lot of wealthy and powerful people's pockets. To keep this shit all running at full capacity at all times to keep budgets increasing which will maximize their profits and kick-backs, they need villains. If we had no evil villains we wouldn't need as much defense. So Russia, China, N Korea, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan have been th lucky ones chosen to be our main villains. While other nations which are just as bad or worse have found favor with the right people (usually has something to do with large amounts of money changing hands) and can basically do no wrong. World politics is a total shit show which is why so many people prefer not to spend too much time thinking about it.

 

It's not just Americans though.  The British and Eastern Europeans are really jumping on this especially countries with their own delusions of grandeur (Poland) or strange Nazi sympathies (the Baltics where locals who served in SS are viewed as heroes).  Yes I know they suffered under Russians but then so did the Koreans under Japan or Indians under Britain but those guys aren't pretending the colonialist doesn't exist and isn't a place with some sort of power.

I don't read much German or French analysis but the little English language stuff I have read from them adheres to historical orthodoxy (Russia is a great if diminished power, and no historical revisionism eg contribution to WW2).  But France and Germany are far more rational players in international affairs (eg Macron just stopping NATO expanding into Asia).

 

It's actually a dangerous pathway - look at what happened to Libya and Syria when the US and friends decided to retcon their government's legitimacy and helped topple governments or pump billions of dollars worth of weapons.  Russia may be a gas station with nukes but it still has 5000 nukes.  If retconning them out of existence goes from academia and media to becoming a standard view in western countries, the chances for any kind of peace disappear.

[Dead1]

So I went to the Australian Human Rights Commission about being discriminated and not having full citizenship rights.

Apparently not their job.

They told me to go to Commonwealth Ombundsman who had previously "not our job".

You have no protections in Australia.  They exist on paper and as some cushy public service job but not as an actual thing.

 

Little wonder we have actual slaves in this country and also little surprise the white population not only condones it but encourages it with its massed permanent fixed-term immigration scheme designed to entrap people in a life of poverty.

This country is stuck in the 1850s.

 

[GoatmasterGeneral]

8 hours ago, Dead1 said:

(the Baltics where locals who served in SS are viewed as heroes) 

The war ended 78 years ago, how many Latvian and Lithuanian SS officers could there possibly still be alive and kicking?

[Dead1]

11 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

The war ended 78 years ago, how many Latvian and Lithuanian SS officers could there possibly still be alive and kicking?

None, but then neither are any Gallipoli vets or many Normandy vets let alone any guys who served in American War of Independence yet those guys are still venerated in Australia and US respectively.

Latvia even has Legionnaire Day as an unofficial holiday ie commemorating those who fought in SS' Latvian Legion against the Red Army in 1944-45.

By the way many Ukrainians have the similar attitudes - their national hero is Stepan Bandera, an anti-Semitic war criminal who worked with the Nazis.

 

The other interesting thing about whole western media reporting on Russia situation is whitewashing of actual known Neo-Nazi units that are part of formal Ukrainian military eg Azov Regiment or Russian Volunteer Corps.

 

Not defending the Russians. But there's no real innocent parties here.

Much like Croatia and rest of Balkans - all our heroes are warcriminals and butchers.

[Dead1]

Here's an interesting fact.  So I went to Australian Human Rights Commission due to my citizenship issues.

Got one final response from them where they said government can act discriminatory against a certain group if they act in a discriminating fashion against all members of that group, as long as they don't specify your race.  So if government requires all foreign born Australians to be treated differently, then that's fine.

 

So if I was required to wear a yellow armband signifying I was foreign born or be denied accessed healthcare, that's fine.

But if those same rules applied only say Croats or Nigerians or Muslims or people who wear fezes or people who like pineapple on pizzas, then it's discrimination.

 

And to make matters even more depressing, apparently if the government makes discrimination legal then it doesn't fall under Australian Human Rights Commission.  Their words, not mine.

 

Quote

 Unfortunately, this Commission is arguably unable to consider concerns about acts done in direct compliance with the law/standing legislation

So if government put all of us foreign born citizens into concentration camps then that's not discrimination as long as government applies it equally to all foreign born citizens and not just certain groups.

 

And if the government legislates to make it legal to say murder people who wear fezes or like pineapple on pizza then the Australian Human Rights Commission is fine with that as long as it is all legal.

 

Note unlike USA, Australia does not have a bill of rights

 

[Thatguy]

57 minutes ago, Dead1 said:

And if the government legislates to make it legal to say murder people who wear fezes or like pineapple on pizza then the Australian Human Rights Commission is fine with that as long as it is all legal.

You've got to start badgering your local MP and write to the Prime Minister.

[AlSymerz]

23 minutes ago, Thatguy said:

 write to the Prime Minister.

You'd want to make it airmail the cunt is never home.

Anthony AirbourneEasy

[Dead1]

16 hours ago, Thatguy said:

You've got to start badgering your local MP and write to the Prime Minister.

I have written to PM's office (both ScoMo and Albo) on other issues.  They never respond even with a "thank you for your mail" auto response.

Some of the local pollies respond by usually with form letters written by staffers.  Though last time I wrote a letter to Greens about ICAC I got a pretty good response from them.

About the only local Tassie polly who is known to help people is Bridget Archer but I am no longer in her constituency.  Even the Greens and Jackie Lambie aren't known for being helpful.

 

I don't have much faith left in the system.  And as ABC keeps telling us, there's people in far worse positions than even me and the politicians do nothing - the permanent "fixed term" migrants with no rights whatsoever, the fruit pickers deprived of all their incomes, the at least 15,000 literal slaves, the growing homeless* etc.

 

 

*A great example of how little politicians care is that there are visible homeless encampments in front of and behind the building that is home to a number of local politicians offices (Henty House).  None of these politicians advocate for better access to housing.  Instead they've used tax payer dollars to build secure parking access on the other side of the building so they don't have to see the homeless!

 

[AlSymerz]

I just fell asleep sitting at the table looking on the web for a new washing machine. I get all the interesting jobs around here!

[AlSymerz]

Must be cold this morning. I slept in today but when I got up at 5:30 the pipes in the dunny were frozen and took a minute or so to flush properly. Going to be a sunny day with temps in the mid teens apparently so it's not that bad.

[RelentlessOblivion]

Y’all are about to see a whole lot less of me when I start TAFE in two weeks. At least you will if my commercial cookery course is going to plan.

[AlSymerz]

I expect a recipe a week posted and I'll grade myself on the outcome of said recipe.

[Dead1]

15 hours ago, RelentlessOblivion said:

Y’all are about to see a whole lot less of me when I start TAFE in two weeks. At least you will if my commercial cookery course is going to plan.

But we'll miss you.  😢

 

Good luck with the course!

[RelentlessOblivion]

Cheers guys, I look forward to bragging about how a (nearly) blind man is cooking rings around sighted folks. Damn is chef kit pricey though.

[AlSymerz]

You'll be the expert chef on Masterchef in no time.