this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2025
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Even still if there's no other record of violent behavior I imagine barring them from firearm possession, 5 years in prison, and 5 years probation would do the trick.
All punitive justice is good for is giving more slaves to the prison complex. Rehabilitation is better for everyone. It's not only cheaper but also creates better (ie safer) outcomes for society.
After 20 years what will they even have to live for anymore? This is why people re-offend.
You're correct, but anyone from the US, whether they're on the furthest right or the furthest left, is going to have an incredibly hard time understanding why. Their country is deeply indoctrinated with this notion that anything less than the death penalty is basically a slap on the wrist, and even the progressive segments of their populace have mostly failed to ever meaningfully address or deconstruct this sentiment. Left/right disagreements over justice in the US tend to look more like disagreements over which things you should get put in prison for life for, rather than positing that such extensive prison terms being normal across the board might not be healthy for a society.
What this couple did is horrific, and it deserves a very serious penalty, and the problem then becomes that because the bar for "Very serious penalty" is set at "Spend most of your life in prison", arguing for anything less than that feels like siding with these monsters against their victims.
I'm an American though, and many of my friends agree with me on the topic of prison reform
American here as well. Prison reform is needed, it's modern slavery. But these people are Nazis and I do feel no remorse being intolerant of their actions in society. Rehabilitation or exile I do think are appropriate ways forward. It's not the people that aren't reasonable, it's our laws and two tiered justice system.
See, this is an excellent example of the point I just made.
Even when people say "I want prison reform" they inevitably always have some kind of carve out for "Except in the case of X."
Which means you don't actually have a problem with the current system. You just have a problem with who it gets applied to.
This isn't an example of that. My alternatives were rehabilitation or exile, which I suppose could be argued isn't reform as we've exiled people as punishment for like as long as we've been people, but I'm really having a hard time seeing how I said "except in the case of x" I said you should be mean to Nazis, not lock them up for life.
I never said to tolerate their actions. I said the punishment does not fit the crime and better serves feeding the prison system slaves.
Some people take the idea of not tolerating intolerance to mean we ourselves must become the fascists. I reject that. We don't have to go high when they go low but we certainly shouldn't go lower when they go low.
Now of course big fucking astrix for our current situation. Revolution is starting to look like our only way out of the current administration.
But on the topic of prison reform that's a bit different.
Also exile is just a terrible idea, and it's a very antiquated one. Arguably the way it was presented was just an extension of colonialist/imperialist ideal. "Hello poor nation we've decided to ship you our undesirables. Good luck with that"
Sorry I didn't mean to imply that you were tolerating their actions lol. I agree that the punishment doesn't fit the crime.
My idea of exile, just a thought in my head, would be that it would be a choice to go through rehabilitation or leave society. If a person refuses to stop being intolerant, what is the solution? They can refuse treatment, act in bad faith, and I don't think forcing compliance ever helped anything. So what do we do?
I get that exile is kind of a terrible antiquated idea, but if we cannot tolerate intolerance and the offender refuses to change what is the solution?
You add more time in prison. If you keep re-offending and are a harm to society you will start to spend more time in prison.
But you'll find the vast majority of people want to be productive and even those that are more self centered will generally take the opportunity to be a better member of society even if it's just to avoid more prison. If you start with massive penalties then you never even gave that person a chance.
It's not about controlling people's thoughts. It's about ensuring that their actions aren't illegal. If they want to hold onto hate their whole life that's their choice. As long as they aren't harming others they can still carry their prejudice.
Break the law again though you go back to prison.
But when you put someone in our current prison system for 20 years you're basically ensuring they will commit a crime again. You're taking away their chance to be a productive member of society, essentially enslaving them, and all of this comes at a great monetary cost to the taxpayer.
Okay, so you want prison, but with time more suited to the crime to give ample opportunity to reform. I don't even want prisons. Rehabilitation should be completely different from that. You're still using the stick and hurting people by taking away their freedom. I think that's why our opinions differ. You would continually punish offenders and I would just give them a chance to reform or leave. I don't really like the idea of putting anyone in a cage.
Well hold on some clarifying questions.
In your rehabilitation model would criminals allowed to go free or would they be held through the rehabilitation process? What if they are violent and pose an immediate threat to the community?
If the safety of the public is at risk, then some amount of supervision is necessary. If a person is violent for example, then being restrained, restricted, or sedated is probably necessary. There can be no tolerance of them interfering with the freedoms of others.
Having thought about this for half the day, my best answer is that response, the no tolerance, should be as humane as possible. If a person is actively homicidal, then yes, they need to be restrained. If a person is untrustworthy they need to be tracked.
However, rehabilitation should teach integration into society and thus should be tightly integrated with society. Ideally rehabilitation happens in the community you live in and with as minimal restrictions as possible other than whatever requirements there is for safety of the community, attending, passing, reintegration, whatever we're calling it, a person should be encouraged to live and work within their community.
If we end up in extremes as would of course happen, the order of which I think is most humane to least is as follows : voluntary exile, voluntary imprisonment, involuntary imprisonment, involuntary exile, execution
Are you claiming that actually everyone in America agrees with you on this point, or are you simply agreeing with me, in a very roundabout way, that talking to Americans about prison reform is incredibly difficult and that you and your friends represent the rare exceptions?
Your comment made it sound like you believed no American would agree with prison reform.
I thought this was amusing since you were replying to an American that at least associates with many that agree with me on prison reform.
To make the argument more direct I'd say you'll find a lot of Americans on the left that want a reform of our justice system
We don't have a system of rehabilitative justice and we're not going to start having one any time soon, so the options available to us for dealing with these shitbags are either lock them up or let them keep doing what they're doing, I think preferring option 1 is extremely reasonable
Well no, you could have given them a more reasonable sentence.
By putting them in prison for 20 years you're basically garunteeing they commit more crime when they get out. Congrats you've made society less safe.
Cool story, but as I said our reality is unfortunately limited to two shitty options and your idea isn't one of them
Unfortunately my original idea working within the system was ban on firearm ownership, 5 years prison, and 5 years probation.
Plenty punitive, but at least gives them a chance of reforming a life afterwards. Works completely fine without giving in to your false dichotomy
Honestly why are you even from .ml?
Also in case you're confused when I said rehabilitative justice is better that was entirely separate from my suggested sentence
If we had anything resembling a reliable system for rehabilitation of violent ideologues in this country your plan would be a good one, but we don't so it isn't. Not a false dichotomy, just one you don't like. I'm on ML because communism is the future, the present is dogshit and our options are dogshit.
Yeah there are still more than 2 options. Mine is completely reasonable.
The stance of "the prison complex should be given a slave to make as much profit as possible, but yeah I'm a communist" is absolutely wild
Reasonable but has no chance of happening in the US right now, so you're still wrong, cope. I said nothing about "should", learn to read.
Well that's an amusing backpedal
My first comment: "If we had anything resembling a reliable system for rehabilitation of violent ideologues in this country your plan would be a good one"
My second comment: "Reasonable but has no chance of happening in the US right now"
Does that actually register as a backpedal to you? Are you sincerely stupid or just that desperate to pretend I'm not 100% right?
I'm sorry you didn't understand, but it was abundantly clear that the punishment I described was meant for the current system.
You kept disagreeing with that and engaging on the point. You insisted that they must be locked up for an extremely long period of time. I rejected that was being the only option ubder the current system. Then after pointing out that insisting they are locked up long term is supporting slavery you began to backpedal.
Sorry I didn't entertain your other hypothetical.
But yeah keep doubling down and insulting others. That's the way to make an argument
Lol so that's a yes on "desperate to pretend I'm not 100% right"
The classic flip the table and declare victory approach. It's certainly an approach
I said the same thing twice in a row and you tried to call it backpedaling, you are a joke
There's no reforming from being a racist shitbag that threatens kids with guns. He can rot in prison for 50 years for all I care.
The ability for a human to change is one of the few things I believe about humanity.
Everyone deserves that chance, but he should still recieve a stiff punishment.
When you put people in jail for these incredibly long periods they will re-offend. Honestly if you had hate in your heart sit in jail for 20 to 50 years after you get out what do you have left to lose? He didn't show up and start murdering people, but if the punishment is the same maybe he'll just go ahead and do it when he gets out. Nothing to lose anymore.
With a shorter sentence he still has a life worth living and is less likely to re-offend.
You'd be surprised how good people can be if you give them the chance. I'm not saying he shouldn't go to prison, he definitely deserves some time. I'm just saying let's deal in facts and do what we know reduces re-offense rates. Let's give humanity a chance. You'd be surprised how many racists can and do change. I remember watching a documentary about a guy that spent his free time talking with members of the KKK and slowly de-programming them. This guy was a POC too. If he can bridge that gap I'm sure the rest of us can too.
A life worth living? What, so he can come back and still be a racist shitbag? Except next time he will make sure to not get caught? Realistically he's going to be released from prison even earlier for good boy behavior and then he'll get right back where he was: a racist shitbag.
He didn't go out and like, shout racial slurs to a bunch of people. Then I'd agree, 15 years is too much.
He fucking threatened to fucking kill and fucking brandished a fucking firearm at kids who were having a birthday party. Even if you remove the racial aspect to what happened, this shows a level of sociopathy, psychopathy that no amount of jail time will solve. Then you factor in the racial hate aspect. You don't reform from that.
The only solution for people like that, is to remove them from society indefinitely or until they're rendered harmless.
This is part of the reason Americas justice system has failed. You've been trained to believe all criminals are irredeemable. Trained to believe the only solution is to lock people away for decades.
When in reality nearly every person can reform when given the chance. Extremely long prison sentences are shown to actually provide significantly worse outcomes for society as a whole, but those facts don't matter to you. You only care that the bad people are hurt.
This is why this country has the largest per capita prison population in the world. You've bought the lies fed to you designed with no other purpose than to provide a constant stream of slaves to the prison complex.
Maybe pick a view that believes the facts and doesn't support the continuance of slavery?
First, I'm not american but ok.
Second, I don't believe all criminals are irredeemable.
This special kind of shitbag though? No way he will change. The only cure for this level of shitbaggery is a bullet in the head. However, since we've moved on from summary executions, the next best thing is locking them away until they die.
Here's facts: I live in a country where drug dealers get like 2-5 years tops, and are often released early on basis of being good little boys because prisons are overcrowded. They don't reform, they don't change, they just go back to dealing drugs. For some of them it's even something to be proud of.
There's things you simply don't reform from. Brandishing a firearm at kids having a birthday party, and threatening to kill them is one of these things. A normal, functional person with a normal, functional brain doesn't do that. And, again, that's even without factoring in the racial aspect, which makes things even worse.
These people are net losses for society. The only thing they will learn from a short sentence is that next time, they'll cover their tracks better. They won't be less racist. They won't be functioning members of society. The only thing a short sentence achieves is, I believe, in the USA you can't legally own a firearm if convicted? Like that would make them less useless racists pieces of shit?
Maybe pick a view that is rooted in reality.
God your persecution fetish is weird. You would've vibed with the Puritans
You forgot the real option. Which is supporting reasonable sentences focused on rehabilitation.
There are very few offenses where a human deserves to be locked up for 20 years.
Also let's not pretend you wanted to imprison them indefinitely. You wanted to deport them, mutilate them, and dump them on a poor nation. You either didn't care or think about whether or not these African nations want our criminals, but what they think doesn't matter right? As long as you hurt the right people?
That's not even getting into the American centrism that assumes people in Africa know all about the American civil war
So repeating your points is "going off the deep end"? Sounds like you were already there
I'm trying to help, you just won't let me