RE: Oregon's proposed new class of terrorists
May[SMTP:timcmay@got.net] wrote:
The Oregon law makes a very broad class of forms of civil disobedience--including unscheduled gatherings which disrupt traffic, sit-ins in colleges, marches, etc.--the same as blowing up buildings or crashing airliners, and carries a mandatory, no parole, minimum of 25 years incarceration. After 25 years, the possibility of being a slave laborer (in effect) picking up trash and cutting brush for the state of Oregon.
What a hypocrite! You have repeatedly stated that you would kill people who committed far less serious offenses. What if protestors performed a sit-in or march on your property? You have threatened many times to kill trespassers in such situations. How can someone who threatens death for the most minor offenses claim to be shocked at a sentence of 25 years? Your violent rhetoric has destroyed whatever credibility you once had as a defender of rights.
On Thursday, May 22, 2003, at 12:41 AM, Anonymous Coward wrote:
May[SMTP:timcmay@got.net] wrote:
The Oregon law makes a very broad class of forms of civil disobedience--including unscheduled gatherings which disrupt traffic, sit-ins in colleges, marches, etc.--the same as blowing up buildings or crashing airliners, and carries a mandatory, no parole, minimum of 25 years incarceration. After 25 years, the possibility of being a slave laborer (in effect) picking up trash and cutting brush for the state of Oregon.
What a hypocrite! You have repeatedly stated that you would kill people who committed far less serious offenses. What if protestors performed a sit-in or march on your property? You have threatened many times to kill trespassers in such situations. How can someone who threatens death for the most minor offenses claim to be shocked at a sentence of 25 years?
Your violent rhetoric has destroyed whatever credibility you once had as a defender of rights.
Defending my property against trespassers is not the same class of thing as a march down a public street spilling over into another public street and thus causing traffic delays. My purpose in stockpiling weapons to defend my house is to defend my house against home invaders, thieves, looters, and other threats. The purpose of life imprisonment for all involved in a street protest which delays or impedes street traffic is to frighten off any form of public demonstration. One is a citizen defending his life and property. The other is a politician passing a draconian (and expensive!) law to show how tough on crime he is. By the way, this has happened in reality. The chancellor of a major university tolerated various disruptions and marches on his campus, without 25-year sentences. Indeed, without even expulsion from the university. But a woman wielding a machete inside his house was shot and killed. A justifiable difference. Protest marches or demonstrations which may cause some delays in traffic flow are not terrorist events, but intruders inside houses are almost always deserving of killing. --Tim May
Something else that should be mentioned is the _economic analysis_ of silly proposals like Oregon's to make fairly minor transgressions or just associations into life sentence felonies: It costs a _lot_ to imprison a person. A lot per year, a lot over 25 years, and a lot over a life sentence. It costs a lot in direct costs of operating a prison, it costs a lot in terms of the lost economic production and taxes of the incarcerated person, and it costs a lot in terms of intangibles for the society to have prisons filled with nonviolent, minor convicts. If local communities had to pay directly for the upkeep of prisoners things might be different. If a small town with a thousand residents and maybe 400 tax-paying households had to pay the $150,000 per year (rough estimate, could be low) to incarcerate Theresa Treehugger, they might complain to their legislature. "Yep, we were required to build an extension to our jail to house the Terrorists from our community. Theresa Treehugger, over there in Annex B, used to be a programmer down in Silicon Valley. But she joined a protest march against the logging company, saying they had used imminent domain to seize a ranch. Someone in the protest dropped a tree across the Old Redwood Highway, shutting it for 3 hours. We never did find out who. But all 150 protesters were convicted under the Protection of the Environment and Safe Forests Act of 2003, so she's doing life without the possibility of parole in our little prison. We can't get fire sprinklers for the school cuz of her! And I hear that Annex B is filled up now and we've got four of those kids from the community college who participated in a frat party that got out of control and forced a delay in classes the next day. Yep, they were all convicted and got life sentences. Now we've got to come up with another $600,000 a year to deal with _them_!" (Note that in actual small towns where local criminals actually _are_ incarcerated at town expense, instead of by some nebulous "society pays" system, it takes a fair amount to incarcerate a person. Drunks are released after one night in jail, village idiots are just that, and so on. Even a shoplifter probably ends up doing a few days's worth of hot, sweaty work on the County road crew and then thinks twice about whether stealing a pair of sunglasses is worth it. No small town would dare to incarcerate a college kid or Green Party activist for 25 years in their own jail for the "crime" of having been at a rally where someone went too far. The Oregon bill does not give the courts any such discretion, though, if the law is applied consistently.) The issue is decoupling costs of the actual from abstract proposals. California, for example, is building or subcontracting the building of numerous new prisons: the costs of felonizing more and more behaviors is not being felt directly. Rather, "everyone pays." A small town would likely not pay to put a pot smoker in its jail for several years, but by making the crimes "state" or "Federal" crimes the costs are transferred and obfuscated. It's like the familiar example (used by me for many years, independent of the Wall Street Journal's nearly identical usage some years ago) of a party going to a restaurant and agreeing to split the check evenly. Diners are incentivized to order more expensive items, as their incremental cost is 1/N. Diners who might be trying to save money by ordering less expensive items find themselves screwed. Net result: the overall bill goes up. A classic game theory situation. Even worse is when society pays for the meals, as with health insurance (combination of subsidized health care and mandatory employer insurance, for example). When paying for a choice is decoupled from the choice, mischief occurs. Market economics 101. In the case of Oregon's proposed new definition of terrorism and the draconian sentences intended to be meted out, those making the proposals and those voting to approve them don't have to _pay_ for incarcerating college kids and Green Party marchers for the rest of their lives. This is the real act of terrorism. --Tim May
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Tim May