trex

numerous sources including the bbc claim china has 1.5 million prisoners. compared to the united states, self admitted 2.4 million, or so. now what i think mr. shav was trying to say was, given china has 3 times the US population approximately, that makes US musch worse per capita, because it has 2.4 million out of 300 million people! that is not counting the ones on parole, ir the ones who are no longer on parole but are ex-cons with criminal records for the rest of their lives... of course i would rather live in usa than china any day, that not whats really being said here. ets drop china for a moment, and look at the US vs other free western countries... thats what we should use as a comparator for evaluating freedom.

ouch... nice kick in the crotch there shavluk... and well deserved!

i tell you that is what it read, which is what i based my claims on. i did not modify my own post here sonce yesterday either, so where do my claims come from? that was the web site i referenced for my data, i provided the link and said it was 25%. you read it, and i havent modified my posting, still says 25. so, I read it that way yesterday myself... are we having a problem facing the fact that we are wrong? no one has modified the post. and i told you how to prove it... next

i modified what? heh, you got to be kidding me... i dont have time for this. i dont even know how to do that. man you are out on a limb! i didnt go back and read it today, just remembering what they said. yes i believe the socialist website may have said 22%, wikipedia said 25%. MSNBC, cant remember. But the headline was 7 million, same as wikipedias number, hey, you think i modified wikipedia? tsk ... dont they have a review panel that decides what edits are allowed? yes i believe they do. theres some kind of software, a website that tells you the history of wikipedia edits... please go and find it and download it for us. just to see who modified it, if at all. i would like to see the date it was last modified, and by whom.

i think this is an important point that shows the benefits of immigration. many immigrants take jobs which are hard manual labour, for some who want the chance to a better life and making money, to establish themselves in a new country they're willing to work hard for it. we need more of these ambitious types here. we certainly dont need people who will immediately go on welfare, but there is still the question of allowing in refugees. we are a wealthy society and we can do better in terms of fairness, so that the opportunity for wealth is fairly distributed, not in the hands of a select few. i think you are mistaken to use these kind of inflammatory comments in your posts... avoid polarizing the debate between "left" and "right". these are issues which need to be carefully thought out. social issues are complex and we need to balance both of these views, so that the needs of people are not trampled on for the sake of fixed ideology.

that is a double maybe. that is almost orwellian in nature, it says that freedom is a prison. obviously that must be wrong, since a free society is more tolerant. the reason theres so much jail is not because theres so much freedom. thats kind of a reductio ad absurdum. there are many equally free countries where this level of incarceration isnt necessary. i am sitting in one of them, and i dont want it to go down the wrong road. we can see the example of drug war and mandatory incarceration in our friends to the south.

also noteworthy on the MSNBC article i gave as a link, is this comment- "Today's figures fail to capture incarceration's impact on the thousands of children left behind by mothers in prison," Marc Mauer, the executive director of the Sentencing Project, a Washington-based group supporting criminal justice reform, said in a statement Wednesday. "Misguided policies that create harsher sentences for nonviolent drug offenses are disproportionately responsible for the increasing rates of women in prisons and jails." This is one example the secondary, hidden punishment of these mandatory minimum sentences, the other lives that are harmed as a consequence. That and the lasting stigma of being an ex-con, trying to get their life going again is not easy. all this in light of the consequences of the actual offence, makes the punishment far harsher than the so-called crime of drug use.

i do not have a problem with it. only it seemed that you were trying to take a swipe at my credibility with a remark that was off topic. otherwise no harm done

you asked for a link, i gave you three. and the wikipedia site also meantions what you are missing- "The United States has 5% of the world's population and 25% of the world's incarcerated population." with references to this site to back up their claim- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15960666/ Report: 7 million Americans in justice system One in every 32 U.S. adults behind bars, on probation or on parole in 2005 etc. i dont "believe" anything unless it has a source. even then i can question it. I have also known this fact about prison populations for several years now. it was easy to find and there are many other sources, including statistics by the US department of justice. apparently you had no clue. Sorry if these facts make you uncomfotable. how do you arrive at your conclusions, just fantasize and make up your ideas? lets see YOU start to back them up with something real.

heheheh! one thing we definitely have in common is a quest for more compassionate humanity... not purely for wealth and strict ideologies. also in case you didnt notice, i dont like to use capitals or apostrophes much when posting online... and shavluk likes commas while i like dots... ;^)

we probably agree on most things political. i have some of my own issues. whats your point?? the other day you boasted what an open mind you have.

"land of the free..."

it is not "utter and complete nonsense", the US has the highest rate of incarceration by a wide margin- "The US incarcerates a far higher percentage of its population than any other country, with its prison population accounting for fully a quarter of the world’s prisoners. In 2006, newly released Census Bureau data indicate, the US incarcerated population stood at 2.1 million. According to separate figures put out by the Justice Department, by June 30, 2006, the prison population stood at well over 2.2 million. No other country in the world comes close to these numbers. The far more populous China ranks second, with a prison population of approximately 1.5 million. The number of incarcerated persons in the US now exceeds the population of all but three cities in the country, and is equivalent to the combined populations of Seattle, Boston, Atlanta and Washington, D.C." ... "The Sentencing Project estimates that in 2006, one in every 133 Americans was in prison or jail. Excluding the child population from the total brings this ratio close to one in every 100 adults behind bars." The overall correctional population (either in prison or on parole) has grown during this time from 1.8 million to well over 7 million people. Another 4.3 million ex-convicts live in the US. The total population of the United States is approximately 300 million. The figures from the Justice Department and Census measure the number of prisoners at any given time. However, during the course of one year, a far larger number of people spend at least some time behind bars. According to the 2007 Public Safety Performance review by the Pew Charitable Trusts, more than 600,000 people are admitted to state and federal prisons, and more than 10 million spend time in local jails, over the course of any given year." ... "Driving this increase in prisoners has been a shift from rehabilitative to punitive “tough on crime” policies. The incarceration rate increased dramatically beginning in the early 1990s, in tandem with a drastic growth in inequality and the dismantling of social programs. Even as violent crime has dropped over the past decade, longer and more rigid mandatory sentences for non-violent offenses have resulted in the huge growth in incarceration." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6113000912.html http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/sep2007/pris-s29.shtml http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_prison_population sounds familiar...

it has already been thought of and being is researched now. i read an article sometime in the past year that discussed this idea specifically, a kind of immunization against getting high off pot by blocking these very receptors.

i cant vote in the poll here because the options are too limited. none of them is acceptable to me, least of all privatization. sending people away is totally unnecesary as we have plenty of wealth to fix the problem, without making it a commercial enterprise. we have a 15 billion surplus but there are hospitals lacking equipment and trained personnel... and the lack of accountability in those hospitals means the best decisions are not being made, questionable choices are being made, vast sums of public money wasted with no repurcussions to the administration. or government for that matter. it seems to me that this crisis is artificially created, theres no need to be sending people anywhere else if the system is properly managed and funded. fix the public system.

canada has always been a lapdog to the empire, when empire was the british commonwealth before wwII, and america after wwII. hence the reason to rush to afghanistan after 9/11, in which also we were not attacked. we are an ass-kissing plutarchy that wants to cosy up to wherever the big money is. we have no problem hammering down the poor in thrid world countries where that gives us an economic advantage. as a wealthy nation, we have no problem ignoring our own poor to. something that im tired of

one thing i dont agree with is this polarization of left and right, with left being godless while the right has some sort of implicit connection to god. that is false. its like those who claim that they have god on their side, not "the others", in this case giving rise to the notion that if you are religious, you must be politically on the right. therefore being religious you must vote for the right wing party... completely baseless. is this just another form of political manipulation? oh yes.

its not "whining", just a discussion of the pros and cons. if enough people are convinced that a law is unjust, they can sign petitions, write their mp, and indicate their displeasure with the law. thats part of the deomocratic process. not, expecting change to come from "on high" heheheh, but through the will of the people. so its not a pointless debate, this is how things can get changed. for example, if enough people know about certain FACTS, they can make an informed decision when it comes time to vote, where a party takes a position on these issues. so this is an exchange of facts. perhaps these facts make you uncomfortable, but they stand up to criticism. i havent heard anything yet in this debate against pot that cant be argued away, hence your attempt to stifle it. as usual

no i think the response to this one is obvious... this kind of self destructive behaviour it is not unique to pot and hard drugs, people wreck their lives with alcoholism too. so that is not even the point.

ok, its enough to even make me start jumping up and down, at the sheer injustice of it!!

makes sense

it should be taught every year, not just once in high school. and civics is all about politics, not world religions, i believe. or did you take a different class than me

there are many ways to win against your opponent aside from fighting force against force. for example, in the ju-do, we learn that by adding our strength to our opponents momentum, we have the strength of two and can obligingly guide them on their way to defeat. now effortlessly the giant man can be thrown to the mat, even by someone of small stature. of course, you to have proper balance to be able to do this... ;^)

i am raising three teenagers here at home and have to have such incredible patience john... and firm persistence at the same time. although my kids have an excuse... they are young and naive. some are just naive, it seems. but no problem, i will hit them where it hurts... right in the brain pan ;^)

so explain yourself fully then. i have given my reasons for why prison does not work for drug addicts. but you simply saying, "because", has no merit.