07-08-2003, 12:23 AM
Hi,
Here are some examples; Families to Amend California's Three-Strikes (FACTS)
One hundred fifty cases. How often has the law been applied. What does 150 cases represent? 90%? 10%? 0.0001%? Anyone looking for perfection (as opposed to striving for it) is a fool. We are an imperfect species in an imperfect world. If this law is working correctly over 95% of the time, then that's good enough for me. If the other 5% are people so *stupid* as to continue to commit "crimes" and get caught, they're probably better off in jail anyway.
The list in the link you gave is pure crap anyway. Look at the first case, "stealing a spare tire". Makes it sound so innocent. Now look at the *other* two crimes: residential burglary and residential burglary. You know, the kind that breaks into your house, rips off what can be ripped off, destroys most of the rest. Probably kills your pets, and if you are unlucky enough to be home, kills you too.
Just clicking on the links in that table, at random, I keep running across "residential burglary", usually two or three times as the prior bad acts. So, the third (or fourth, or fifth, or . . . ) offense *that they actually got caught for* might have been something comparatively minor. Given that for each conviction, they probably got away with half a dozen other crimes, these all belong in jail (or on an island about a thousand miles from civilization). These aren't people who "made a mistake", these are what used to be called ha-bitches (habitual criminals). For every years this scum spends in jail, the number of robberies, etc. goes down by fifty or more.
To paraphrase an old saying: "A person can make a mistake, that's happenstance. They can make two mistakes, that's coincidence. But if they make three mistakes, that's enemy action." Drop stealing tires and possessing drugs as crimes, and from the ones I looked at, those people should still be in jail for life for the other crap they pulled.
Sorry, but I think your "evidence", when examined closely, weakens your argument.
--Pete
Here are some examples; Families to Amend California's Three-Strikes (FACTS)
One hundred fifty cases. How often has the law been applied. What does 150 cases represent? 90%? 10%? 0.0001%? Anyone looking for perfection (as opposed to striving for it) is a fool. We are an imperfect species in an imperfect world. If this law is working correctly over 95% of the time, then that's good enough for me. If the other 5% are people so *stupid* as to continue to commit "crimes" and get caught, they're probably better off in jail anyway.
The list in the link you gave is pure crap anyway. Look at the first case, "stealing a spare tire". Makes it sound so innocent. Now look at the *other* two crimes: residential burglary and residential burglary. You know, the kind that breaks into your house, rips off what can be ripped off, destroys most of the rest. Probably kills your pets, and if you are unlucky enough to be home, kills you too.
Just clicking on the links in that table, at random, I keep running across "residential burglary", usually two or three times as the prior bad acts. So, the third (or fourth, or fifth, or . . . ) offense *that they actually got caught for* might have been something comparatively minor. Given that for each conviction, they probably got away with half a dozen other crimes, these all belong in jail (or on an island about a thousand miles from civilization). These aren't people who "made a mistake", these are what used to be called ha-bitches (habitual criminals). For every years this scum spends in jail, the number of robberies, etc. goes down by fifty or more.
To paraphrase an old saying: "A person can make a mistake, that's happenstance. They can make two mistakes, that's coincidence. But if they make three mistakes, that's enemy action." Drop stealing tires and possessing drugs as crimes, and from the ones I looked at, those people should still be in jail for life for the other crap they pulled.
Sorry, but I think your "evidence", when examined closely, weakens your argument.
--Pete
How big was the aquarium in Noah's ark?