United States The Left Can't Meme

[Bear Ribs]

Somehow the fact that this has been reposted so many times and has so much approval just makes the hideous meme even worse.

 

[Blasterbot]

Well, you're not wrong.

Can't say I know what "stoner's" is, though, unless you're talking about Stonetoss comics or something?

Stoner. as in someone who gets stoned. or high. they smoke the reefer. marijuana.

 

[Zyobot]

Stoner. as in someone who gets stoned. or high. they smoke the reefer. marijuana.

Yeah, I know what "stoner" means.

Just... rather odd @Cherico would compare stoners to Spongebob, in terms of how much more useful Spongebob is.

 

[Bear Ribs]

Yeah, I know what "stoner" means.

Just... rather odd @Cherico would compare stoners to Spongebob, in terms of how much more useful Spongebob is.

I parse it more that he thought Spongebob was useful to stoners myself, but I could be wrong.

 

[KilroywasNOTHere]

Somehow the fact that this has been reposted so many times and has so much approval just makes the hideous meme even worse.

Honestly what I'm getting from this is "Global communism good boarders and private property bad."

 

[Zyobot]

Honestly what I'm getting from this is "Global communism good boarders and private property bad."

Doesn't praise global communism explicitly, but based on what kind of subreddit that is, odds are the people there genuinely believe that.

Otherwise, while I don't have time to wad through all their claims, I've always wondered how true the whole "US has the world's largest prison population!" claim is? If anything, I wonder if China and Russia have more prisoners than we do, fudging the numbers to make themselves look more reputable notwithstanding.

 

[Bear Ribs]

Doesn't praise global communism explicitly, but based on what kind of subreddit that is, odds are the people there genuinely believe that.

Otherwise, while I don't have time to wad through all their claims, I've always wondered how true the whole "US has the world's largest prison population!" claim is? If anything, I wonder if China and Russia have more prisoners than we do, fudging the numbers to make themselves look more reputable notwithstanding.

The US does have a pretty bad prisoner problem, incarceration rates are fairly high. That said, quite a bit of fudging the numbers is also going on with those claims.

For starters most of those people aren't actually in prison, somewhere around 1/3rd of the total are people in jail for a few hours/day before making bail. The lion's share of what's left are serving sentences of varying lengths in county and state jails, not federal prisons. The actual population in prison is fairly sedate. The number has also been steadily dropping for the last decade. These claims like to use 2012 numbers where the incarceration rate was at its peak, today the US lags behind several other countries by rate per 100,000, such as being just edged out by Cuba.

Further they often make some very arbitrary "Developed" or "Western" nation only comparisons in order to exclude China, Russia, and all those inconvenient communist nations out there.

They also like to exclude political prisoners, gulags, concentration camps, and the like from their figures because those aren't "Prisoners." Looking at the meme above, let's note that China has something like 1.1 million Uiygurs in re-education camps. That would change the numbers slightly if they didn't find reasons to exclude inconvenient bits.

Lastly, it kinda ignores that a lot of those nations just straight up execute people at a vastly higher rate than the US does, where the death penalty is incredibly rare.

That said, yeah, I still think the US has a prison problem.

 

[Blasterbot]

I'm impressed. Russia, China, all of africa, all of south america, and all of central america have literally 0 prisoners and prisons. clearly we should look at what they do instead.

 

[LordDemiurge]

That said, yeah, I still think the US has a prison problem.

What's the primary cause?

Is it because of people getting prosecuted for possessing the devil's lettuce? Or something else?

 

[Blasterbot]

What's the primary cause?

Is it because of all those times we kept filling prisons with people who got caught with the devil's lettuce? Or something else?

yeah that is one part. another is the almost complete eradication of in patient mental health care. I forget the exact levels but we closed the asylums because they were corrupt and abusive. this is fair. we then never replaced them with anything and now most of those who would have been institutionalized are on the streets homeless or in prison. there is rarely a single problem that is solved by a single solution unfortunately. most of our issues exacerbate each other and make things worse.

 

[Cherico]

Well, you're not wrong.

Can't say I know what "stoner's" is, though, unless you're talking about Stonetoss comics or something?

Bob is popular among the reefer crowd

 

[Zyobot]

Bob is popular among the reefer crowd

Okay… but why, and where exactly are you getting this from?

 

[Blasterbot]

Okay… but why, and where exactly are you getting this from?

he lives in Cali. presumably first hand interaction.

 

[DarthOne]

he lives in Cali. presumably first hand interaction.

He live in California? Poor bastard….

 

[ParadiseLost]

The US does have a pretty bad prisoner problem, incarceration rates are fairly high. That said, quite a bit of fudging the numbers is also going on with those claims.

For starters most of those people aren't actually in prison, somewhere around 1/3rd of the total are people in jail for a few hours/day before making bail. The lion's share of what's left are serving sentences of varying lengths in county and state jails, not federal prisons. The actual population in prison is fairly sedate. The number has also been steadily dropping for the last decade. These claims like to use 2012 numbers where the incarceration rate was at its peak, today the US lags behind several other countries by rate per 100,000, such as being just edged out by Cuba.

Further they often make some very arbitrary "Developed" or "Western" nation only comparisons in order to exclude China, Russia, and all those inconvenient communist nations out there.

Lastly, it kinda ignores that a lot of those nations just straight up execute people at a vastly higher rate than the US does, where the death penalty is incredibly rare.

That said, yeah, I still think the US has a prison problem.

The US Prison Problem is pretty fucking bad, and I think its one of the few areas where the left has any sort of point.

Its pretty damning for US institutions (both legal and cultural), as a whole, that the US has such a high incarceration rate, no matte how you slice it the US's imprisonment rate is pretty insane.

Further they often make some very arbitrary "Developed" or "Western" nation only comparisons in order to exclude China, Russia, and all those inconvenient communist nations out there.

Because those are the ones we should be measuring ourselves against.

I agree the map is stupid (there are no Western communist, or even socialist, nations, something that Leftists like to ignore), but you can more or less skewer the US just on a comparison with Western nations.

Like, the fact that someone might try to compare the US to Russia or China or Cuba as a defense is in itself damning.

Now, a lot of Leftists are like ostriches and like to ignore that the reason the US has such a crime problem is largely cultural, not legal, and it can't simply be fixed through police reform, but the reality is that the US has terrible rates of recidivism compared to other Western nations, and our citizens are for some reason committing more crime in general.

 

[LordDemiurge]

but the reality is that the US has terrible rates of recidivism compared to other

Banning private prisons is one way

See the kids for cash as an example. Prisons should not have a profit motive frankly. Too many perverse incentives.

Aside from that I think there is an overall problem where the prison system is designed to be a waste bin for so many disparate problem people that its pipes become clogged.

One solution of course is stop filling cells with petty drug abusers and plan a way to restore asylums. The latter would also alleviate the problem where many homeless shelters become unsafe to live in.

I wonder though as well if there's a way to segregate criminals based on the severity of their crimes. A place where we can put Joe the crack dealer and another place, let's call it the hardcore prison, for Tom the murder-rapist.

That way we can actually sort the wheat from the chaff. The criminals who can be reformed vs the people who probably are not going to turn out well.

Another is also changing how sex offenders get sorted out. The crimes that get people in a registry can be shockingly minor IE public urination, prostitution and teenagers sexting eachother.

Offenses which nevertheless get people put in the same bin as people who actually assault children. Most pedophiles, I think, should be dumped either in the institutionalized or hardcore prison bin, depending on the offense.

 

[Cherico]

he lives in Cali. presumably first hand interaction.

This is true, I've dealt with a lot of pot heads sponge bob is really popular with them.

 

[Zachowon]

Banning private prisons is one way

See the kids for cash as an example. Prisons should not have a profit motive frankly. Too many perverse incentives.

Aside from that I think there is an overall problem where the prison system is designed to be a waste bin for so many disparate problem people that its pipes become clogged.

One solution of course is stop filling cells with petty drug abusers and plan a way to restore asylums. The latter would also alleviate the problem where many homeless shelters become unsafe to live in.

I wonder though as well if there's a way to segregate criminals based on the severity of their crimes. A place where we can put Joe the crack dealer and another place, let's call it the hardcore prison, for Tom the murder-rapist.

That way we can actually sort the wheat from the chaff. The criminals who can be reformed vs the people who probably are not going to turn out well.

Another is also changing how sex offenders get sorted out. The crimes that get people in a registry can be shockingly minor IE public urination, prostitution and teenagers sexting eachother.

Offenses which nevertheless get people put in the same bin as people who actually assault children. Most pedophiles, I think, should be dumped either in the institutionalized or hardcore prison bin, depending on the offense.

Only 8% are held in the 158 private prisons

 

[Typhonis]

The War on Drugs and War on Crime is to thank for that because depending on how the DA pulls it a first-time offender, with no previous problems could get an extended stay in prison due to the circumstances of a crime.

 

[Wargamer08]

The issue with prison reform is that the leftists have long championed it to get their shock troops out as well as cause racial drama. It's like seeing gun control for the right. At this point it's just reflexively rejected because of how many times it's been poison.