Hear That Sound? It's Feces Hitting the Fan.

[kandrathe]

...
Civic virtue should indeed be both "its own rewarded" and rewarded by being granted primacy of consideration.

Occhi
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First in reflection on federalism, the State I am refering to is the United States. Over time the federalist compact which allowed the individual states self governance has been eroded in favor of more central authority. Some of that has been good, and essential for the progress of our nation, but in other ways the freedom of citizens to self determination has also been sacrificed. Also, I see year after year, law by law, the same erosion of individual liberties and stricter control over individuals by governments. As the purpose of government expands, therefore also their sphere of control, regulation, and interference. If we are talking about the USA, then defense is mostly constrained to the military. However, these days increasingly, the FBI, ATF, DHS, CIA, NSA, & DIA are becoming inwardly focused on domestic threats. In many ways I'm glad they are, since it would be a pain for me to fight Al Queda alone, then again at times we get nearer and nearer to "jack booted thugs" and "brown shirts" ruling by invasions of privacy, intimidations and threat.

So, to bring as an example in one of our recent discussions. Citizens can be in violation of the law by simply using their home computers to make a copy of a song. Each infraction can be punished by up to a $10,000 fine. Each day there are myriads of laws that we citizens blythely violate and ignore, until that day when the State decides it is time to disapprove of us, and they "throw the book at us". How much of our prison population is made up of individuals who committed victimless crimes? How many "law abiding citizens" are there really?

When it comes to defending self, family and property, local and state governments try to provide adequate protections, but far from encourage self sufficiency are more afraid of that able citizen and I find the government uses the type of coercion I described above to legalistically harass individuals into conformity. I think what they want are sheep, and if you are not a sheep then they assume you must be a wolf.

When you say,

It is my belief that citizens, and particularly law abiding citizens, whom "The State" allegedly is constructed to benefit, must accrue and be granted primacy of consideration, and that scofflaws and criminals be relegated to a lesser priority.

I see a danger in the identification of who might be labeled "scofflaws and criminals". Consider that the very founding fathers who crafted that document were considered traitors, criminals and probably the terrorist ring leaders of their day.

Another consideration is redemption. Once an offender has paid for their crime, the society needs to allow that former offender room for redemption and a place back into society. Should the slate be wiped clean? I'd say "yes" after an adequate period of good citizenship has passed. Otherwise, the scofflaws would be forever branded with their past transgressions, with no hope of improving their position in society by doing the very things we would desire them to do as good citizens.

In identifying the prison populations of our times; I would release all drug offenders and other victimless criminals and give them an alternative rehabilitative sentence. For me, the primary purpose of incarceration is to remove violent and potentially dangerous elements from society temporarily with the remote hope that some rehabilitation is possible. I see that rather than mandatory minimum sentences in our justice system, quite the opposite is needed. We need more sentencing lattitude to attempt to redirect a criminal, or potential criminal from their own bad choices. And, yes, I believe the extremely dangerous and unredeemable violent offenders should be given a quick and painless execution (regardless of whether they are insane, or mentally retarded).

If you are merely implying that our society should not mollycoddle offenders at the expense of "good citizens", then I agree to a point. What it comes down to then is the expense. Can we afford to redeem all the offenders? If not, then what? I don't think building more and more prisons is the right answer.