Tim May wrote:
At 4:09 PM -0700 7/4/01, Sandy Sandfort wrote:
... Honestly, would you rather wear a ankle transponder or be Bruno's bitch?
This is that chestnut of a logical fallacy called "false alternatives." (Or "false dilemma.") The choice is not just between an ankle transponder and being Bruno's bitch.
Yes that IS the choice. This is not a logical fallacy. This is the real choice real people have to make every day. "Changing the system" is not an individual option. Right now, in the real world, prisoners have to decide whether they are going to be "hard cases" and staying in the joint or of "going along" and getting out sooner, albeit on parole. Eliminating parole should be the LAST thing done to reform the system. Anything else merely compounds the evil. I'll go a bit further. To the extent a libertarian society had prisons, I think there would--and should--be a system of parole (i.e., "conditional release") to help released inmates re-enter society. S a n d y