Scott…. Kathleen Parker is the quintessential upper crust Manhattan Republican. She has principles — but polite people don’t really hold to them. I don’t even know if she’s from Manhattan, but she embodies the principle…. Rockefeller — not Reagan. Sadly — it seems Peggy Noonan has gone that way also
Charles Nelson Riley had the shortest-running saturday morning kids show in history, and one of the very, very few ever to get cancelled mid-run. “Uncle Croc’s Block” How bad does a no-budget kids show have to be to get pulled before they can even run 13 episodes? (That’s not a rhetorical question. I have only the vaguest of memories of it)
While working the switchboard on the midnight shift at a hotel I took a call from Charles Nelson Reilly. He wanted a wake-up call. I wanted desperately to engage him in conversation, but there was a rule prohibiting us from talking to famous guests, so we didn’t bother them.
Ok, while reading Give War a Chance last night, I had a question maybe someone here can answer. He was talking about Saudi Arabia and how little crime there is there and I remembered that my best childhood friend, who was 1/2 Israeli, always said how little crime there was in that area and both of them attributed it to the fact that they have very strong punishments, albeit a bit barbaric.
So maybe someone can explain to me how people can say that more grace in dealing with our crime problems will help reduce crime. It seems simple to me, the countries where we piddle around with it, we have lots, the countries where they will hurt you bad when you screw up, there’s not that much.
I’m NOT advocating hand chopping here in the states. I do understand that there are parts of the legal system where the “good” guys are corrupt. What I’m trying to understand is why if something has never worked in the history of the world, someone would think it would work now, when things seem to be worse than ever.
Tracy… actually crime is way down overall since the 1970s. When you consider the amount of liberty we have here coupled with the amount of guns, knives, etc. it’s Amazing we only have around 16,000 murders every year — which is small given a population of 310MM or so. There are spikes in things like ID theft, etc., but street crime is trending at an all-time low since stats have been kept (except maybe during WW2). COmpare today’s NYC to the 1980s or even the 1850s — Scorsese was pretty spot-on in Gangs of New York — older cities were full of death, theft, rape, riots, and fires. Modern policing, guns in law-abiding citizens’ hands, cell phones, 9-11, forensics, and the expansion of the penal code and other factors have all helped to lower crime.
24/7 news has served to increase the public perception of crime. There are maybe 60 kids kidnapped and killed by predators every year. Kids are more likely stolen by a parent during a family law dispute. I’d wager in a town like you live in in Texas you have higher odds of being killed by a swarm of bees than being murdered or even robbed (and that’s not hyperbole).
While I am for prison reform there is no doubting the correlation with increased prison populations and lowered crimes.
In Shari’a countries (or any foreign country for that matter) there’s also a definitional difference. There are things here or there that may or may not be crimes based on culture, statute, etc.
Does this mean you don’t think the “broken windows” methods employed in the ’90′s were significant? It seems like you think cities that employed the methods would have seen crime go down by the same amounts without the methods.
In 2005, Harvard University and Suffolk University researchers worked with local police to identify 34 “crime hot spots” in Lowell, Massachusetts. In half of the spots, authorities cleared trash, fixed streetlights, enforced building codes, discouraged loiterers, made more misdemeanor arrests, and expanded mental health services and aid for the homeless. In the other half, there was no change to routine police service.
The areas that received additional attention experienced a 20% reduction in calls to the police. The study concluded that cleaning up the physical environment is more effective than misdemeanor arrests, and that increasing social services had no effect.[7][8]
Broken windows was a smashing success (no pun intended). Crime had been trending back up in the 1980s when crack came on the scene and after 20 years of LBJ-inspired social policy. David Dinkins, the mayor of NYC in the 1980s was especially incompetent. In CA — the Three-Strikes law resulted in a double-digit drop in crime the very next year and it hasn’t gone back up. As a general principle broken windows works too. Crime in neighborhoods where the residents care for it — keep the places up, etc. are vastly lower than neighborhoods with broken windows, cars on blocks, etc.
Broken windows works well in Eastern urban environments like NYC, Chicago, etc. It’s more difficult to do in LA for example. LAPD only has 9,000 cops and 4x the space to cover. NYPD has nearly 40,000 officers so it’s easier to put 2 cops on every corner. Another factor that works is a program called CompStat which enhances accountability. It keeps stats and then the cops put the men and materiel where the crime is as opposed to randomly or blindly patrolling in circles.
1. Their understanding of the world not only fails to factor in common sense and plain reason, but rejects it out of hand. Postmodernism declares truth a non-entity, so there is either something always hidden behind the “truth” or something must always put put in its place, facts be damned.
2. They believe that by virtue of being modern–by virtue of the fact that they happen to be walking around–they are superior to all that came before and can make it work now, facts be damned.
3. They are not concerned with results, but perversely focused on a “compassion” that would see criminals go unpunished for their crimes. Claiming that it would reduce crime is a means to an end.
4. Part of the for more crime now is that our prison system is based, in part, on reforms by Quakers who wanted “compassion” instead of “barbaric” punishment. Now, I will say those Quakers were fighting against some barbaric elements of punishment in their day and they were sincere about wanting compassion. But believing in the natural goodness of man, they believed incarceration and isolation would cause men to reflect on the evil of their deeds. The only thing it did was drive them insane.
The other part is that liberals pushed through parts of their “reforms” in the 1960s and 1970s and we have a system that doesn’t do its job as a result. In fact, it’s actually worse for those who go through the system, because a little more common sense in punishment may actually deter more crime and get them on the straight and narrow. My own opinion on prison reform is a bit more complicated than that, but that would be a good place to start.
Note: Floyd’s got a point, but there is a persistent issue with repeat offenders of smaller crimes, due to the aforementioned “reforms” of the 60s and 70s, a lot of it centering around the homeless.
This is more up Floyd’s alley, but I don’t think it’s the type of punishment so much as eliminating nogoodnicks from the population, and good, strong policing. Mayor Giulliani’s “broken windows” approach in New York is a good example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixing_Broken_Windows
Once folks know and believe that law enforcement is enforcing the laws 97% of us will be good citizens. That’s the good policing part. The remaining 3% of scofflaws are always in the population. Then, keep that 3% out of the free population and you’ve got it licked.
I’d also add… the melting pot aspect of the U.S. has a downside…. the cultural conflicts that arise from immigrant influx either between each other, with natives (think West Side story without the dancing) or within (think Russian mafia extorting Russian shopkeepers) keep crime stats up in urban neighborhoods too. When the assimilation model was humming… stats usually drop in a generation as descendants become “Americans”, age out of delinquency, etc.
The flipside… in Japan for example… when your country is 99.99% ethnically the same, they all speak the language, grow up in the same Shinto culture (whether or not practitioners) and know the structure, etc…. there’s less crime.
Liberty brings crime and we are the freest society in history in many respects. It’s a miracle we don’t have higher crime rates — that and a product of American know-how.
I didn’t mean to hurt Floyd’s feelings , I was more just messing with David.
We do live in a remarkably safe society, considering the freedom and numbers of people. I indicated otherwise, I was wrong.
I do agree with education and cleaning up neighborhoods as part of crime prevention. As a parent, I do that all the time. I avoid doing or allowing things that will cause my children to stumble and I do try to do things that encourage good behavior. But they still find plenty of opportunities to disobey. I’m primarily talking about the ones who already committed the crimes though. I don’t see that being more compassionate has helped with repeat offenders, as DM pointed out. I fall more on the side of thinking the most compassionate thing I can do is help them stop failing, even if the method to do that is painful. I see it in terms of parenting, which is a weak analogy, but it’s how I see everything. I can keep giving my kids chance after chance until I lose my temper because they keep running over me, or I can give them appropriate discipline in the beginning, while I’m still calm and collected, and we can go on with a good day. I’ve never really understood why threatening until you lose your temper is ok, but giving a quick swat on the butt and getting on with life is abuse.
I can also see where the melting pot thing has brought it’s share of problems and those things add a dimension that other countries don’t have.
It seems one of the things those against stronger punishments worry about is mistaken identity. Is that not a problem in those countries? I would think if there is less crime, the incidence of that would go down too. Of course, I don’t think mistaken identity is a significant enough problem anyway.
I think mistaken identity… while it happens… is overblown. We have millions of police contacts each year and trials too. If we have a few thousand mistakes — that is too many but ultimately statistically insignificant. By which I mean… critics will bemona mistaken ID when it happens, but don’t offer any other alternatives that are better. Waiting for 100% proof would let most criminals go unless they confess fully or are on camera….
One other thing we lose here…. I don’t want to over state this, but facial recognition skills are better in other countries. Going back to Japan… to someone who rarely sees a Japanese person they can quite frankly “all look look alike” when trying to provide a description or picking form a lineup. A Japanese native can more easily provide an accurate description, etc. We see the same in the U.S. in Black and Hispanic and Whites…. There are studies that show that inter-racial recognition skills are lower than intra-racial facial recognition skills.
The harshness of punishments can backfire too. A lot of the backlash against British monarchy was against the brutality of punishments for lower classes as opposed to quick death for upper crust criminals. Giving death penalty for DUI would also result in a huge backlash.
Looks very, very good to me. I might make an editing suggestion. Principle 12 (I think it’s 12; I find it hard to count vertical series on a computer monitor), says: “We believe it’s a supreme danger to society where there are no clear limits on the amount of money and power that government can have.” I think the word “when” would be better than “where” here.
I think an underestimated part of this equation is the pop culture glorification of criminals and the demonizing of law enforcement. While we can look at criminal statistics and say crime has trended down one point worth considering is a massive amount of it goes unreported, especially in gang areas, due to fear of reprisal. Clearly anyone with any exposure to today’s youth can see they are significantly more violent than even a generation ago and most of this is due to they have been told it’s “cool” to be “gangsta”. Screw being productive, they want to be Fifty Cent.
My personal opinion is we need significantly stronger enforcement of laws. Death row needs to be exactly that, death row. Right now it’s a seemingly endless purgatroy. Predators respect only one thing and that is fear and our current laws do nothing to encourage fear.
You know, I’ve never seen Lidsville. I must have been asleep the week it aired. Never saw it as a kid, nor in reruns. I do remember seeing a kid with a Lidsville lunchbox which must have been around the time it was airing, and even then I was like “What the hell is that?” Conversely, I have very clear memories of “The Bugaloos,” though I really wish I didn’t.
The thinking behind an ‘enlightened’ penal system is that many people turn to crime as a symptom of a larger problem. For instance, extreme poverty causes many people to steal. Raise the standard of living, and thefts related to poverty decline. Some people steal because they’re mentally ill. Get them psychological treatment, and most of them stop doing that. There’s some merit in this, but it ignores the fact that some people do bad things simply because they’re sons of bitches, and you can’t fix it, and of course regardless of one’s motivation in killing and eating a family of three, it doesn’t change the fact that that was a really super-damn bad thing to do.
So it was a benevolent idea, and it actually did work on some levels in some cases, however as with all liberal ideas it got taken too far and applied to situations where it really didn’t fit. And it was hampered by other liberal ideals. For instance, if someone’s mentally ill, and you get them treatment, they get better. Then they get arrested again because once they got better, they stopped taking their pills, but alas, the liberals tell us that it’s bad to force medical treatment on people, even people who are clearly not able to make decisions for themselves, so the system shoots itself in the foot there.
More draconian systems of punishment work fairly well, but the failing is that if your neighbor doesn’t like you, and frames you for stealing or whatever, you are well and truely screwed. It’s hard to re-attach a hand, or take back 40 lashes.
I think a happy median would be the old-west solution, which had the lowest per capita violent crime rate in the history of our nation, presumably because everyone was armed. No one’s willing to start a bar fight when everyone in the bar has guns, nobody’s going to mug someone knowing you might blow their head off if they tried it. As an added advantage of this, universally armed societies are invariably very *polite* societies.
Butch Patrick (Eddie Munster) was on Lidseville, too. His role was like Jack Wild’s role from Puf’n'stuf, opposite CNR’s role which was similar to Witcheepoo. All the characters were variations of hat styles.
Eric, I am the high priest of obsolescent technology, so I’m happy to be able to do this for you.
Matt, It’s a shame Butch Patrick’s career never went anywhere. (“Also, I’m a notary, so I’ve got that going for me!” — Butch Patrick on “The Simpsons”)
Everyone else, you have *got* to check this out, it’s hillarious. I love the part where the aliens are debating the best way to invade us, and they decide to just let us kill ourselves off with the Cap and Trade legislation http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/07/science_fiction_global_warming.html
PS: Butch Patrick’s real name is “Patrick Lilly.” Probably a good move, him changing it.
Kathleen Parker did write a good piece once, years ago. It was about those stupid girls who fall in love with men who are doing life without parole or are sitting on death row. She made the correct thesis that those girls are stupid. I think it was a case of it takes one to know one. I don’t doubt that she voted for the presidential candidate which made her panties the wettest.
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“When Old Man Periwinkle left the hospital, he said, “Blank.” CNR’s answer followed with a, “Uhlhlhlhlhlhlhlhlhlhlll!”
The Democrat Neo-Townhall:
“[U.S. Rep. Ron]Klein [D] plans to hold a healthcare forum in his district this month — via telephone.
He brushed off suggestions that he is trying to duck face-to-face encounters.”
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/top-stories/v-fullstory/story/1173602.html
Anyone know who this Kathleen Parker broad is? She had the nastiest column in the paper about the GOP and the South.Made my blood boil.
Scott…. Kathleen Parker is the quintessential upper crust Manhattan Republican. She has principles — but polite people don’t really hold to them. I don’t even know if she’s from Manhattan, but she embodies the principle…. Rockefeller — not Reagan. Sadly — it seems Peggy Noonan has gone that way also
Don’t you blaspheme Charles Nelson Reilly!
Charles Nelson Riley had the shortest-running saturday morning kids show in history, and one of the very, very few ever to get cancelled mid-run. “Uncle Croc’s Block” How bad does a no-budget kids show have to be to get pulled before they can even run 13 episodes? (That’s not a rhetorical question. I have only the vaguest of memories of it)
Followed by the low-budgeted kid’s show “Lidsville.” He said it was awful working on that show because everyone shouted their lines.
Matt,
While working the switchboard on the midnight shift at a hotel I took a call from Charles Nelson Reilly. He wanted a wake-up call. I wanted desperately to engage him in conversation, but there was a rule prohibiting us from talking to famous guests, so we didn’t bother them.
Thanks,Floyd,now I remember,one of those David Brooks RINOs
David Marcoe, get your numbers ready.
Ok, while reading Give War a Chance last night, I had a question maybe someone here can answer. He was talking about Saudi Arabia and how little crime there is there and I remembered that my best childhood friend, who was 1/2 Israeli, always said how little crime there was in that area and both of them attributed it to the fact that they have very strong punishments, albeit a bit barbaric.
So maybe someone can explain to me how people can say that more grace in dealing with our crime problems will help reduce crime. It seems simple to me, the countries where we piddle around with it, we have lots, the countries where they will hurt you bad when you screw up, there’s not that much.
I’m NOT advocating hand chopping here in the states. I do understand that there are parts of the legal system where the “good” guys are corrupt. What I’m trying to understand is why if something has never worked in the history of the world, someone would think it would work now, when things seem to be worse than ever.
This is in my wheel-house…
Tracy… actually crime is way down overall since the 1970s. When you consider the amount of liberty we have here coupled with the amount of guns, knives, etc. it’s Amazing we only have around 16,000 murders every year — which is small given a population of 310MM or so. There are spikes in things like ID theft, etc., but street crime is trending at an all-time low since stats have been kept (except maybe during WW2). COmpare today’s NYC to the 1980s or even the 1850s — Scorsese was pretty spot-on in Gangs of New York — older cities were full of death, theft, rape, riots, and fires. Modern policing, guns in law-abiding citizens’ hands, cell phones, 9-11, forensics, and the expansion of the penal code and other factors have all helped to lower crime.
24/7 news has served to increase the public perception of crime. There are maybe 60 kids kidnapped and killed by predators every year. Kids are more likely stolen by a parent during a family law dispute. I’d wager in a town like you live in in Texas you have higher odds of being killed by a swarm of bees than being murdered or even robbed (and that’s not hyperbole).
While I am for prison reform there is no doubting the correlation with increased prison populations and lowered crimes.
In Shari’a countries (or any foreign country for that matter) there’s also a definitional difference. There are things here or there that may or may not be crimes based on culture, statute, etc.
Floyd,
Does this mean you don’t think the “broken windows” methods employed in the ’90′s were significant? It seems like you think cities that employed the methods would have seen crime go down by the same amounts without the methods.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixing_Broken_Windows (it has to be true, I read it on the internet!)
If they moved Kerouac’s grave, they might cut down on even more.
Broken windows was a smashing success (no pun intended). Crime had been trending back up in the 1980s when crack came on the scene and after 20 years of LBJ-inspired social policy. David Dinkins, the mayor of NYC in the 1980s was especially incompetent. In CA — the Three-Strikes law resulted in a double-digit drop in crime the very next year and it hasn’t gone back up. As a general principle broken windows works too. Crime in neighborhoods where the residents care for it — keep the places up, etc. are vastly lower than neighborhoods with broken windows, cars on blocks, etc.
Broken windows works well in Eastern urban environments like NYC, Chicago, etc. It’s more difficult to do in LA for example. LAPD only has 9,000 cops and 4x the space to cover. NYPD has nearly 40,000 officers so it’s easier to put 2 cops on every corner. Another factor that works is a program called CompStat which enhances accountability. It keeps stats and then the cops put the men and materiel where the crime is as opposed to randomly or blindly patrolling in circles.
1. Their understanding of the world not only fails to factor in common sense and plain reason, but rejects it out of hand. Postmodernism declares truth a non-entity, so there is either something always hidden behind the “truth” or something must always put put in its place, facts be damned.
2. They believe that by virtue of being modern–by virtue of the fact that they happen to be walking around–they are superior to all that came before and can make it work now, facts be damned.
3. They are not concerned with results, but perversely focused on a “compassion” that would see criminals go unpunished for their crimes. Claiming that it would reduce crime is a means to an end.
4. Part of the for more crime now is that our prison system is based, in part, on reforms by Quakers who wanted “compassion” instead of “barbaric” punishment. Now, I will say those Quakers were fighting against some barbaric elements of punishment in their day and they were sincere about wanting compassion. But believing in the natural goodness of man, they believed incarceration and isolation would cause men to reflect on the evil of their deeds. The only thing it did was drive them insane.
The other part is that liberals pushed through parts of their “reforms” in the 1960s and 1970s and we have a system that doesn’t do its job as a result. In fact, it’s actually worse for those who go through the system, because a little more common sense in punishment may actually deter more crime and get them on the straight and narrow. My own opinion on prison reform is a bit more complicated than that, but that would be a good place to start.
Note: Floyd’s got a point, but there is a persistent issue with repeat offenders of smaller crimes, due to the aforementioned “reforms” of the 60s and 70s, a lot of it centering around the homeless.
Tracy,
This is more up Floyd’s alley, but I don’t think it’s the type of punishment so much as eliminating nogoodnicks from the population, and good, strong policing. Mayor Giulliani’s “broken windows” approach in New York is a good example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixing_Broken_Windows
Once folks know and believe that law enforcement is enforcing the laws 97% of us will be good citizens. That’s the good policing part. The remaining 3% of scofflaws are always in the population. Then, keep that 3% out of the free population and you’ve got it licked.
I’d also add… the melting pot aspect of the U.S. has a downside…. the cultural conflicts that arise from immigrant influx either between each other, with natives (think West Side story without the dancing) or within (think Russian mafia extorting Russian shopkeepers) keep crime stats up in urban neighborhoods too. When the assimilation model was humming… stats usually drop in a generation as descendants become “Americans”, age out of delinquency, etc.
The flipside… in Japan for example… when your country is 99.99% ethnically the same, they all speak the language, grow up in the same Shinto culture (whether or not practitioners) and know the structure, etc…. there’s less crime.
Liberty brings crime and we are the freest society in history in many respects. It’s a miracle we don’t have higher crime rates — that and a product of American know-how.
I didn’t mean to hurt Floyd’s feelings
, I was more just messing with David.
We do live in a remarkably safe society, considering the freedom and numbers of people. I indicated otherwise, I was wrong.
I do agree with education and cleaning up neighborhoods as part of crime prevention. As a parent, I do that all the time. I avoid doing or allowing things that will cause my children to stumble and I do try to do things that encourage good behavior. But they still find plenty of opportunities to disobey. I’m primarily talking about the ones who already committed the crimes though. I don’t see that being more compassionate has helped with repeat offenders, as DM pointed out. I fall more on the side of thinking the most compassionate thing I can do is help them stop failing, even if the method to do that is painful. I see it in terms of parenting, which is a weak analogy, but it’s how I see everything. I can keep giving my kids chance after chance until I lose my temper because they keep running over me, or I can give them appropriate discipline in the beginning, while I’m still calm and collected, and we can go on with a good day. I’ve never really understood why threatening until you lose your temper is ok, but giving a quick swat on the butt and getting on with life is abuse.
I can also see where the melting pot thing has brought it’s share of problems and those things add a dimension that other countries don’t have.
It seems one of the things those against stronger punishments worry about is mistaken identity. Is that not a problem in those countries? I would think if there is less crime, the incidence of that would go down too. Of course, I don’t think mistaken identity is a significant enough problem anyway.
Thanks for chatting with me on this.
I think mistaken identity… while it happens… is overblown. We have millions of police contacts each year and trials too. If we have a few thousand mistakes — that is too many but ultimately statistically insignificant. By which I mean… critics will bemona mistaken ID when it happens, but don’t offer any other alternatives that are better. Waiting for 100% proof would let most criminals go unless they confess fully or are on camera….
One other thing we lose here…. I don’t want to over state this, but facial recognition skills are better in other countries. Going back to Japan… to someone who rarely sees a Japanese person they can quite frankly “all look look alike” when trying to provide a description or picking form a lineup. A Japanese native can more easily provide an accurate description, etc. We see the same in the U.S. in Black and Hispanic and Whites…. There are studies that show that inter-racial recognition skills are lower than intra-racial facial recognition skills.
The harshness of punishments can backfire too. A lot of the backlash against British monarchy was against the brutality of punishments for lower classes as opposed to quick death for upper crust criminals. Giving death penalty for DUI would also result in a huge backlash.
I remember Charles Nelso Reilly most fondly from the Ghost & Mrs. Muir reruns I’d watch after school.
The other day I mentioned that Obama’s giving the Medal of Freedom to the ring-leader of the Durban conference.
Ted Kennedy’s getting one, too. Has Kennedy ever been interested in freedom? I seem to recall at least one person he preferred to leave trapped.
So, who’s up for a Conservative Manifesto?
Looks very, very good to me. I might make an editing suggestion. Principle 12 (I think it’s 12; I find it hard to count vertical series on a computer monitor), says: “We believe it’s a supreme danger to society where there are no clear limits on the amount of money and power that government can have.” I think the word “when” would be better than “where” here.
CNR is only against obamacare because he’s pissed at Obama for his opposition to same sex marriage.
I think an underestimated part of this equation is the pop culture glorification of criminals and the demonizing of law enforcement. While we can look at criminal statistics and say crime has trended down one point worth considering is a massive amount of it goes unreported, especially in gang areas, due to fear of reprisal. Clearly anyone with any exposure to today’s youth can see they are significantly more violent than even a generation ago and most of this is due to they have been told it’s “cool” to be “gangsta”. Screw being productive, they want to be Fifty Cent.
My personal opinion is we need significantly stronger enforcement of laws. Death row needs to be exactly that, death row. Right now it’s a seemingly endless purgatroy. Predators respect only one thing and that is fear and our current laws do nothing to encourage fear.
You know, I’ve never seen Lidsville. I must have been asleep the week it aired. Never saw it as a kid, nor in reruns. I do remember seeing a kid with a Lidsville lunchbox which must have been around the time it was airing, and even then I was like “What the hell is that?” Conversely, I have very clear memories of “The Bugaloos,” though I really wish I didn’t.
The thinking behind an ‘enlightened’ penal system is that many people turn to crime as a symptom of a larger problem. For instance, extreme poverty causes many people to steal. Raise the standard of living, and thefts related to poverty decline. Some people steal because they’re mentally ill. Get them psychological treatment, and most of them stop doing that. There’s some merit in this, but it ignores the fact that some people do bad things simply because they’re sons of bitches, and you can’t fix it, and of course regardless of one’s motivation in killing and eating a family of three, it doesn’t change the fact that that was a really super-damn bad thing to do.
So it was a benevolent idea, and it actually did work on some levels in some cases, however as with all liberal ideas it got taken too far and applied to situations where it really didn’t fit. And it was hampered by other liberal ideals. For instance, if someone’s mentally ill, and you get them treatment, they get better. Then they get arrested again because once they got better, they stopped taking their pills, but alas, the liberals tell us that it’s bad to force medical treatment on people, even people who are clearly not able to make decisions for themselves, so the system shoots itself in the foot there.
More draconian systems of punishment work fairly well, but the failing is that if your neighbor doesn’t like you, and frames you for stealing or whatever, you are well and truely screwed. It’s hard to re-attach a hand, or take back 40 lashes.
I think a happy median would be the old-west solution, which had the lowest per capita violent crime rate in the history of our nation, presumably because everyone was armed. No one’s willing to start a bar fight when everyone in the bar has guns, nobody’s going to mug someone knowing you might blow their head off if they tried it. As an added advantage of this, universally armed societies are invariably very *polite* societies.
Butch Patrick (Eddie Munster) was on Lidseville, too. His role was like Jack Wild’s role from Puf’n'stuf, opposite CNR’s role which was similar to Witcheepoo. All the characters were variations of hat styles.
Oh, also, as some of you like Cheap Trick, I thought I’d share this with ya
http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2009/07/ktswe_have_been_selling_and.php
As I have my uncle’s old 8-track in my living room, that new Cheap Trick is mine — thanks for the heads-up. 3.0!!!
The Latest isn’t as good as the genius of Rockford, but still a damn fine little album, probably the best thing George Harrison never released.
Eric, I am the high priest of obsolescent technology, so I’m happy to be able to do this for you.
Matt, It’s a shame Butch Patrick’s career never went anywhere. (“Also, I’m a notary, so I’ve got that going for me!” — Butch Patrick on “The Simpsons”)
Everyone else, you have *got* to check this out, it’s hillarious. I love the part where the aliens are debating the best way to invade us, and they decide to just let us kill ourselves off with the Cap and Trade legislation http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/07/science_fiction_global_warming.html
PS: Butch Patrick’s real name is “Patrick Lilly.” Probably a good move, him changing it.
Kathleen Parker did write a good piece once, years ago. It was about those stupid girls who fall in love with men who are doing life without parole or are sitting on death row. She made the correct thesis that those girls are stupid. I think it was a case of it takes one to know one. I don’t doubt that she voted for the presidential candidate which made her panties the wettest.