This is how weed will ruin your life

like he got off in court for technicalities and whatnot

 

he had a good lawyer and what you know from media and rumors is hearsay..

There are inmate in wheel chairs, there are blind inmate, deaf, ones with no legs, there are gang bangers that are partially crippled..
Just because someone is sick or injured it dont liberate them from prosecution or sentencing ..
If that be the case, Poplawski the cop killer should be free cause of the gun shot wounds he received during his arrest and mental heath problems..
It cost the prison just as much money to care for minor offenders with diabetes as it would a cripple or whatnots..

 

agreed. maybe in illinois, you'd get some shit like this story.

but lots of states are incredibly lenient.
its on the norml.org website.

 

Wow. Thats a very moving open thread about the state of the prison system there.

The prison system is a market in itself there isnt it? With a lot of privately owned institutions?

Its sickening what so many people go through and 100% counter productive, its no wonder that incarceration rates have rocketed since the 80s, its a horribley defunkt downward spiral and its actually promoting crime.

I had a recent discussion with my dad about America, he lived there for 20 years and he said "Whatever you do and wherever your life takes you, please dont ever go to America, its a 3rd world country with a pretty facade. The worst place Ive ever been"
That thread just reinforced his words. Of course its a beautiful place with many lovely people but Im very grateful to have grown up here.

 

Haha while America is often full of massive dicks and of top first world countries we are by far the most conservative, America is awesome. To quote Hunter, we are a land of limitless ideas and opportunities, we're just so vast and filled with so many different cultures and people. And our people are awesome, we are a very friendly people, I hear this from tourists from Europe, and from people who I know who've done the vice versa and have said Europeans are a bit more cold with strangers.

Thanks for actually reading that thread though, I post it a lot when it comes up but I don't think anyone ever reads it thinking they'll have to read through a whole thread vs just the opening posts. Honestly I think a lot of people here are also guilty of the mindset "well they get what they deserve" in regards to people in prison since they assume people in prison obviously did something terrible. But god so many asinine things can lead you into prison.

We do in fact have private prisons, literally, hundreds of thousands of people across the country have a vested financial interest in getting people into jail and making sure they stay there.

But it's not just that, it's the fucking bail industry too. Anyone here who's ever been arrested can testify to this. 25 years ago almost everyone that didn't have a felony or wasn't a violent crime was given a promise to appear and surprise surprise, most people still in fact showed up at court. Almost everyone now gets a bail, underage kids drinking are getting $300 bails. The bail industry is worth tens of millions of dollars and these people pay off judges(literally, many DA's are elected so need campaign contributions) and people in state assemblies to keep this horrible industry going, and to hide actual resources people in jail can use to get out for free. Judges and police set bails at 10X any sane amount to keep this going. I don't know how it works in your country but here if you pay all your bail up front, you'll get it all back at the end of court. Most people can't do that for how ridiculous the bails are, so you pay a bondman 10% of your bail, they put up the rest, they keep your 10%

On top of this, bondsmen are supposed to ensure said defendant goes to court and if they flea pay the court the full bail money. Most people who flea are caught again by actual police, and bondsmen often settle to the court for 5%(while you as defendant pay 10%), they literally get paid by the system not to do their job.

For anyone with interest, NPR did a good 3 part serious on the fucked up bail industry
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122725771
First part shows a man who use to work the rigs and has a handyman, became unemployed, stole 3 blankets from a store in winter to try to keep warm because he was sleeping in his truck, admitted it and didn't try to run. Couldn't post the $100(technically $1,000) bail, sat in jail for 8 months till his case was over, in which he finally got forced to plea to felony theft. It's a vicious cycle, if you're stuck in jail you're going to get more fucked, you can't really work on your case from the inside, and it's statistical fact people not in jail get off with lighter sentences, you have more time to work on it(more money obviously too for a lawyer), and you're not sitting in jail so you can show the judge you're not a total fuck up on the outside world.

Looking at America's incarceration rate, both the highest in the world by numbers as a whole and numbers per capita, and our violent crime rate, and reoffender rate, something is obviously not working right and we refuse to admit it. Or Americans are just terrible people by nature. Which may be true, one quote from "East of Eden"(which is also the greatest book ever, and I don't even really like Steinbeck's other books) was one of the greatest quotes on Americans I've ever read:

 

Well my take on my own country- with respect to your words as well as your dad's...

This is a cultural cesspool- a playground for the elite. What was at one time a middle class is now soft storage for corporate utilization- the working class is little more than industrial machinery and service slaves leased out to a business. If you are proven to be of no use to business or otherwise are excluded from their "economy" then you become either a permanent vagrant- a class of people they try very hard to enact legislation making you invisible- or are inducted into the penal system because most acts of desperation are classed as crimes.

Drug laws are less about public health and safety- something their sold as- and more about politics and protecting corporate profits. Our freedoms and rights of free speech and travel have been heavily curtailed under the guise of public safety and anti-terrorism. The whittling continues and no one presses for a rational plain English explanation accepting instead the transparent lies and pat answers forthcoming when the token "challenge" is raised. The overwhelming majority of people are too busy pursuing what they're told that they want to be bothered questioning those in charge.

The idealized life that is promoted as uniquely American only works when there is a middle class actively engaged in the political process and local community. This is what's missing.... and the absence what would otherwise effectively temper the corporate money interests has allowed the annexation of a way of life by the elite using various means- like turning home ownership into a commodity whose speculative value can be run up in the stock market putting it out of reach of most people here. The community becomes a collection of transients who are tied to an area by short term lease and who have no compelling interests in what goes on around them.

People who live in closely knit communities tend to be more concerned about what happens to their neighbors- whether they're being railroaded through a court system on bogus marijuana charges or having a foreclosure rammed down their throat because of the decriminalization of bait and switch within the mortgage industry for the purpose of temporarily inflating investment portfolios by artificially increasing demand. There's a sense that what happens to the people next door can also happen to you and they stand up and demand actual justice instead of allowing a series of legal dominoes to crush an individual's life and for corporate interests to garnish what he's worked so hard to attain.

The level of trickery that is not only permitted legally but encouraged paints the corporate world as well as the government with the same criminal paintbrush... and it is the people who engineer schemes designed to ruin lives that should be locked away in prison- but the people who tell us that they're looking out for our interests are busy selling us out to these criminals- handing over hundreds of billions of dollars over to those not smart enough to cash out before their speculative bubbles burst, ruining the parts of the economy that had used it as their foundation.

Collectively we do not question marijuana laws any more than we questioned the mortgage schemes that helped take us to the brink of another great depression. This is our choice and why as a whole we deserve everything that is going down. The corporate criminals and government thugs wouldn't get away with their shenanigans if we didn't allow it- so we effectively do it to ourselves with our collective inattention and apathy. If we permit the machine to destroy and dispose of a potentially productive member of society because of bullshit drug laws then we do not deserve to expect justice should they pull their bullshit with us.

 

This is often quite true, and it leads into culture, in which I think the main problem is Americans have just stopped caring, nihilism and capitalism have finally won, we buy and sell and that's it.

What makes us great though is also tearing us apart, in regards to our size and culture. States in different parts of the country are becoming so different because we're becoming so culturally divided that at a national level we can't agree on anything at all, so nothing gets done or changed. We're going to wake up one day and the news is going to be saying:

"America has officially become ungovernable, grab your gun and follow me"

We are a cultural wasteland, no argument about that, but the question is is it really any different anywhere else in the first world? We have a lot of hidden culture, we have so many underground scenes producing so much work in so many thousands of miles in every direction. So many of the world's most respected musicians, bands, artists, architects, poets, inventors, ect have come from America in our short history. And it could be worse, I mean people rally against illegal immigration for example here, but at least on a political level it has some sanity. I see, especially in Britain, France and Italy political parties, that are actually decently mainstream with representation in parliament say things about immigration that would be called racist and far-right even by FOX news.

Our freedom of speech is actually pretty decent. If Americans would actually get off their asses we actually do have a decent system of government, over 1/2 the states have referendum laws in place that with enough signatures a public and more importantly it's a binding vote. Our entire house goes up for election every 2 years. Our freedom of speech is actually more literal then most western nations since we allow any jackass to go onto the street and spew whatever kind of hate they want. Our constitution guarantees a right to privacy that's generally more broad then other nations, our freedom of internet is near anarchy and is fabulous, and despite how it seems our police are actually bound by more restrictions then most countries, our need for a warrant and the ability for police to search without it, and also use evidence collected without it is actually pretty good, our police themselves are just massively corrupt, but at the same time they face a society that's ridiculously violent compared to most.

So yes, America is a cultural wasteland, and our rights are being curtailed like hell. But are we really any different then most of the western world. On top of the fact when it comes down to it compared to the world as a whole America is still really a shining beacon of liberty.

Damn, we're all fucked.

 

Yeah the whole system sounds fucked there, I have nothing against America, Ive never been there yet so it would be stupid of me to judge a place on what Ive heard. I think its to do with the size of the country too, that the government gets away with so many fucked up things. Our country has less people than some cities which makes things like the jail system a lot less hostile and more controlled. There is only 4 main prisons and theres no private market, as for the bail system. You have to apply for bail and its set by the court judge with or without surety, usually without.

You have to pay at least 1/3 which gets back to you if you turn up in court as promised. Bail here isnt as high though.

The only European country I found to be unhospitable of strangers has been France, they are proud to level that just makes them right stuck up. This, of course doesnt appy to everyone but all countries have their assholes and their nice friendly people.
The cities here are shite to be honest, the small towns are usually much friendlier.

 

I agree, well said. Also they have successfully played the working class against itself with empty promises of personal gain.Anytime one mentions the word union they are promptly despatched for greener pastures.


madcap;

I watched our "shining beacon" blink in 1968,again in 1980 and in 2000 it blew compelely out.

 

Theres no collective movement to change things anymore. Greece is close to riots, Spain and Portugal wont be far behind and then it comes to Ireland. We will fall right after Spain if things keep on the same tracks.

I dont know if you know much about the Lisbon Treaty, but in effect, its trying to demoralise and eliminate European countries individual identities. Its doing this based on public confusion, half the people dont even know what the Lisbon Treaty is. Ireland and Greece were the only countries who voted no (public vote) originally and we were made to vote again because we chose the wrong answer.

We werent given a choice, we were bullied into voting yes and its going to bring us down in the long run. The Fianna Fáil government should have been taken down years ago...100% mortgages were being granted to every second person and their dog. Thats what brought us down to the economic level were at now.
But still, people let them get away with open and blatant disregard for the Irish people. Its going to get to a point where the whole local community and public relations with the government crumble and the country descends into chaos. Im waiting to welcome in this chaos because thats the only thing that will wake up the government and the people to the state of shit things have descended to.

Im going completely off topic but its fucked. The youth dont actually give a shit about the people running the country. Total apathy towards a system that needs to be changed, everyone complains but no one leads, no one organises the collective government hate into positive change.

Im the only one in my age group that signed the register to vote as soon as I was 18. I seem to be the only one in my age group that actually gives a shit about the countries politics...but thats what the system has succesfully accomplished, apathy.

 

Oh having the other side win an election is not the light going out, the right is saying the same thing now. Take Nixon, a dick yes, but also passed the clean water bill, EPA, and made Keynsian economics ok for everyone. Seriously how is American any worse then any other western nation, hell we got a black man for president while mainstream parties in Britain and Italy are saying things that would be downright racist here, and we're a pretty racist country often.

 

lol everywhere you go everyone hates the French. Our country is large, but at the same time it's like multiple different countries(well technically it is legally, each state of sovereign united under a federal government), but most things are controlled by the states, and there are many distinct cultural areas of the country it's fabulous.

Also Bad Fish I like how Ireland on 2 different treaties has voted no and then the EU would go, "well hey thanks for voting, but why not vote again and vote the right way this time"

No other country out of 27 was allowed a vote, wtf.

Or the EU constitution, it failed in both France and Netherlands, and opinion polls show it would've failed in Britain and Ireland, so what to do? Make a near similar document and let no one vote on it.

 

I know, Ireland means jack shit to Europe, I mean were not even physically connected. We should have accepted the €, its only worth as much as the lowest country. Greeces international debt at the moment is being bailed out by France and Germany. If they didnt do that then the € would be worth nothing on the international market.
Britain is doing a lot better because they kept the £.

Joining the Euro was retarded because we didnt need it economically. Our two biggest trading partners are the US and Britain, both of which have their own currencies. Joining the Euro is just going to cripple us in the long run and well be left to pick up the pieces because we mean nothing to Europe.

 

I never understood how it was seen that the Euro would work in the long run, even healthy economics have different needs depending on how their set up, especially when you mix up countries like Germany and Greece. The Germans must be pissed, they've always been very good at saving both personally and in government. Not to sound like an asshole American, but it always seemed an attempt to take on the dollar. Everyone was very disappointed when it started below the dollar and there seemed to much jubilation when it went above the dollar(which just helps us because it makes American goods cheaper in Europe and European goods more expensive here), and now the mess in one country has taken it down over 10 cents to the dollar in less then a month.

Even on a European level it doesn't have dominance. Sure mainland Europe may be mainly Euro, but Britain is still has the world second largest financial market outside the US and the pound sterling is still a leader in the world.

 

Greece are the ones that are pissed, the greeks didnt want Germany bailing them out in any way. Theres been riots there over this...still bitter tensions about WWII.
Britain have a better economy because they control their own market currency, a collective currency was a shit idea to begin with. Its too late for us to back out now, all we can do is sit back and watch everything go to shit, then try to pick up the pieces.

 

Yes sir, you are correct about that.
I am talking about in 1968 when political and civil rights leaders were being killed like it was free.

The Iranian hostages being released only after Ronald Reagan was elected.

In 2000 the political cartoon that put George W. Bush into office.

We have a black man for president that cannot seem to get a newspaper delivered because of partisan politics.

This country never compared herself to other western nations,This was America, A beacon on a hill.

Right now the senators and congressmen are bailing out of another term, the tea party group is opposing John McCain in Arizona for his return because he isn't conservative enough for them.

bank bailouts, automobile makers bailouts,God knows how many out of work,two wars,soldiers screaming for home time,the price of everything humanly imaginable going up by the day.Street people seem to be growing into a ragtag sub culture persecuted by the police for sleeping.

Every time a fishing license is bought the state gives one a phamplet about how many fish to eat a week because of mercury in water.

On the weather alerts air quality warnings are posted each day.

the river banks are polluted with tons of trash.

The great lakes are being threatened with asian carp, rivers in several midwestern states are losing massive amounts of fish to the asian carp.

Deer populations are in danger due to the wasting desease.

I am not just talking about what political party has drawn the long straw this time around.This country is in a world of hurt any still everyone wants to praise what use to be. There was a time to stand proud as an american and we all took it to heart when John Kennedy said "Ask not what your country can do for you,but what you can do for your country"Uh then he was shot.

 

Yes we are a shining beacon of liberty- but mostly because our government tells us we are... but does the rest of the world see it that way? So much of what we take as self evident truth is that way because we do not question the source of the assertion- or the premise on which it is based.

I watch with a slow building tide of rage the rhetoric being tossed around during each election year and it has become beyond obvious that by the transparent nature of the lying that the American public has become the punch line of some sick inside joke shared by the elite corporate and governing class as well as much of the rest of the world. This is how stupid they think we are because we have failed to prove otherwise.

 

I think of it like the typical "cool" kid in school. He looks at himself in the mirror and thinks hes the man. People hang around with him and he thinks hes loved by everyone but in reality people look at him and just see him as a big arrogant douche.

Again though, I have nothing against America :cheers2:

 

Good analogy. Another is akin to substance abuse- in this case that substance being power (and money)...

Our industrial-military complex is the disease and we are the enablers.

 

When you said that, I immediately thought of one kid I went to high school with and played baseball with while growing up. I mean, he was the epitome of the "wtf why are you popular, everyone hates you.. O ya you're an arrogant douche who hit puberty faster the rest of us" . I saw him the other day, and no exaggeration, he must have gained 100-150 lbs and looked like shit haha.