The Crime of Existing in the Wrong Place
Friday, 21 Mar 2025
Exclusive insights, data, and analysis for financial market experts.
Search
Have an existing account?
Sign In
addendum to this: remember how a Nixon aide came out and said that the War on Drugs was just a ploy to criminalize groups (“the antiwar left and black people”) politically opposed to the Nixon administration? This shit HAS HAPPENED before.
The same happens everytime a Republican or fascist proposes some law to give pedos the death penalty or something. Sounds alright if you dont give it much thought (and also dont already oppose the death penalty), but beyond the fact that it would kill innocents, those laws would absolutely be enacted to classify any queer person as a pedofile the second its possible. Now youve got an attempted genocide of a minority
These fuckheads try to coat things in a way that it sounds acceptable if you dont give it much thought, right until they think they have enough power to just say what they mean and do what they want
Absolutely. It’s ridiculous that people with felony convictions still can’t vote even after serving their time.
If you say anything starting with “… Except for” you have missed the point.
I served time for a drug-related offense and lost my right to vote because of it. That’s the only thing I want back. I don’t care about owning a firearm—I just want to be recognized as a citizen with a voice, not treated like someone whose opinion doesn’t matter.
As Dostoevsky wrote, “a society should be judged not by how it treats its outstanding citizens but by how it treats its criminals.”
Nelson Mandela said that you can’t truly understand a nation until you’ve seen its prisons. “Judge a nation not by how it treats its highest citizens, but by how it treats its lowest ones.”
As Pratchett (Vimes) said it about beating up suspects to get a confession:
“If you start doing it for the right reasons, you end up doing it for the wrong ones.” (not verbatim).
Public defender here, definitely agree. Criminal law is a weapon to be used against people who aren’t in power by the people in power. When people in power are unscrupulous, we’re all at risk.
But beyond that, criminals are people too and deserve their rights. They deserve to be treated with dignity, because as humans they have inherent dignity. Anyone who disagrees with this has a belief that a person’s worth is tied to what they do. It’s not, people are worthy of love and kindness. Even bad people. Even bad people who have done monstrous things.
It was a genuinely chilling precedent when Shamima Begum lost her citizenship, and almost nobody I work with saw a problem with it.
I was reminded of [this scene](https://youtu.be/PDBiLT3LASk?si=at13smRWFIQi-Dg0) from Man for All Seasons yesterday:
>William Roper: “So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!”
>Sir Thomas More: “Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?”
>William Roper: “Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!”
>Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!”
This post learned from the past and therefore successfully predicted the future
Remember the man who wrote First They Came genuinely did support the Nazi’s art first till he himself ended up in a camp.
They can and will use their current excuses on you and your family members.
this is somehow one of the hardest pills for people to swallow and it’s wild to me. People are downright addicted to the idea of “Well X group is bad people so it’s okay to hurt them.”
“tough on crime” mfs when austerity cosplay, tougher punishments and increased cop funding for the 7,509th time does nothing to reduce crime (the root problem is yet again poverty)
remember some Reddit posts of illegal immigrants being deported and everyone aplauding it with statements like “these people are pedophiles and rapists who traffick drugs. don’t feel bad for them”
or mocking those critical of the practice. “will someone think of the pedophiles?!?”
does the constitution, amendment protections against self-incrimination and unlawful search and seizure, and Miranda rights, right to a speedy trial, apply even if you aren’t an American citizen?
this idea is not just something to be wary of in the future, it is happening right now
Republican constituents read this and think you want to let criminals run free
“To not assert yourself, for the rights of the oppressed, is to FALL DOWN AND WORSHIP AT THE MOLOCH OF DESPOTISM.”
-John Brown, The Good Lord Bird
This is why police who sport “punisher” skull logos are not to be trusted and really need to be removed from the police force.
Those people are announcing they back a form of law enforcement that removes all due process and legality and is just “shoot people in the head immediately on suspicion of any criminal actitivy”
this is exactly what the nazis did to jews in WW2 and what the zionists are doing and have been doing to Palestinians for literal decades.
history always repeats itself because of the ego of mankind and the devil (plus your own greed & desires) that constantly whispers in our ears.
That right there is exactly why I don’t believe in the death penalty. People are like “oh, so you think mass murderers deserve to live, huh.” No, I think that no justice system is infallible and no government should have the authority to kill people with impunity. If someone like trump were to come along and say “guess what, spray painting teslas is now considered an act of terrorism”, then they’re murdering people for an act of protest.
“Slavery’s over, and everyone’s equal. So, we’ve put our prisons in need of a sequel. ‘Cause black folks can vote, you gotta pay them to work. Unless you label them felons.. regain the perks – of their blood, sweat, and tears – can’t just let them prevail. Without slave labour capitalism fails.”
Made in America by Broken at Best
You can hate murderers and molesters all you want, but at the end of the day you have to swallow that hatred and extend the same rights and decency to them as to anyone else. If there are any exceptions to human rights, then those in power will make sure anyone who opposes them can be slotted into those exceptions.
I still hate people who hurt others. I still *personally* wish nothing but pain upon them. But morally, I have to set those feelings aside and support their rights. Even if I don’t like it.
It’s sad that it’s happening at this very moment. The US government is branding immigrants as members of a Venezuelan gang and deporting them despite not having any proof.
I hate how accurate this is
Which is not saying that people who are *convicted* of crimes should retain rights that allow them to commit further crimes.
Criminals should have the same right to be free from violence, rape, abuse, and inhumane conditions as everyone else.
The value of a moral system can be measured by what it considers appropriate treatment for those it considers deplorable.
Posts like this think they’re making a compelling point, but ask a MAGA Republican if they think criminals deserve rights, and they’ll tell you unequivocally that they do not.
Stop trying to change MAGAts’ minds. It isn’t happening. We need to be motivating those who understand posts like this, that sharing posts like this won’t help. Voting will. They missed their last chance. They better not miss the next one.
MAGAts do not care. They don’t care about anything. The only principle they have is that they like the taste of boot while being told they’re owning the libs.
Conservatives have actually gone a step further and now believe immigrants actually have no rights to begin with and arent protected under our laws.
https://imgur.com/a/c5eTHpc
A convicted felon cannot own a gun in most states. Is that a right they should have?
B-but all the murderers get light sentences/parole
The problem with this position (entirely correct in a vacuum, I must admit) is that the force that is supposed to give criminals rights but, somewhat expectedly, doesn’t, is the tyrannical government itself.
Literally just waiting for Trump DEA to invade states with legal weed and just charge anyone in a dispensary with federal drug charges.
Including letting them be president?