you didn't say who was at fault in the accident. Was there a traffic citation? Who was cited for what? Just because a fellow had some other violation/s doesn't mean he was at fault in the accident.
Next, what was your partner's license suspended FOR? Usually there's some kind of prior violations, and more than one.
So they caught these 2 fellas breaking the law. Suspension of itself is sort of like violating the building code, except that there is almost always a lot more to the story.
The drunk (assuming he was) should have been locked up. I can't guess why - maybe they didn't see him driving or something.
Both rules - don't drive drunk or with a suspended license - are generally for the public safety. Who gets stuck may well depend on who was at fault in the accident.
Of course, I agree with it....tree hugger I am.
This is a brilliant recommendation, especially the part about decriminalizing recreational drugs. As a doctor, I've long called for that: an end to the grossly mendacious propaganda the govt feeds us about the effects of drugs (it didn't end with Reefer Madness), the denial of freedom to millions of non-violent people who prefer toking to tobacco, cocaine to cocktails, as if the government is supposed to choose for us the intoxicant of choice in our pursuit of happiness; the end to the corruption of people throughout the justice system (did anyone notice, at the end of American Gangster, that *75%* of the local DEA were arrested for being on the take!! True Story.). The irony is that even in prison, prisoners can still get drugs. So we can turn America into a prison (as the War on Drugs is doing) and still not stop drugs.
Having said that, there is no hope in hell any reform like this will pass. It's like developing a war on terror after the Cold War ended. What would happen to the military-industrial complex if there were no war to fight? Similarly, too many people are now financially or existentially beholden to the War on Drugs to ever repeal Prohibition again. (Our govt was much smaller when we did it the first time. Our govt doesn't like to be small...)
Randolph Bourne said it best about the time of World War I. Bourne was a journalist and writer who was then known as a liberal, now would be known as a libertarian. His aphorism, well known in some circles, is a truism people must remember: War is the Health of the State.
BTW, given the smarmy title "liberal position for all you conservatives to make fun of", it should be noted there is only one major candidate for President who opposes the War on Drugs and would accept this policy recommendation. His name is Ron Paul. He's also a physician. And he's on the Republican, not Democratic, ticket.
I am a tree planter, not a tree hugger and I am sure not a "liberal" as that word is currently defined but I agree, the prison and jail populations are absurd, both from a cost and effect perspective. Most of the people sitting in slammers are not a threat to society. As pointed out in the article some are there for reasons that defy logic. Government generally has its head so far up its ass that it has completely lost sight of its legitimate purpose. It is a government tag team of professional politicians and bloated bureaucracy, few of which have a legitimate argument for their existence.
I know a lot of libs {definitely not all } like to bash on praying.. Also I have often heard religious people being called ignorant by the anti religion crowd..remember the constant cry separation of Church and State...I have said before I am not a religious person probably because the Nuns and priests beat the religion out of me however .......I remember when I was young and easily led I truly believed most of the punishments that my teachers told me God would inflict if I was bad..And to this day if the bank teller gives me a extra 100 I give it back..Why ??Not because I am afraid of some God but because I know its the right thing to do..Where did most of the prison population learn the right thing to do?Just wondering if the high prison population is directly correlated to taking religion out of schools.One thing for sure is the prison population is a bit more ignorant than the rest of the country..perhaps a little religion would have helped them stay out of jail.. Just wondering???
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071119/us_nm/usa_prisons_dc
There's not enough praying going on, but you are pointing the finger at somebody else instead of accepting your God-given responsibility.
How about YOU doing some praying?! What is with dumping it on somebody else? What if they are not as favored in the eyes of God, as you? So you have the responsibility here.
Pray that these boys will see the light, and accedpt Jesus instead of stealing your goods and murdering your kin. Have faith, because God always answers prayers - sometimes He will pass over your house, and sometimes he will cause these boys to steal your goods, rape your womenkind and murder your kin, so as to test your faith. Do not be deceived.
If prayer works for a mere convict, surely it will work for you, a man of faith.
At least not in my world.
The person doing the praying is helped the most.
(smit? smitten? smited?) by his/your enemies, isn't that being helped?
Shit! What do you want!? Not only to be saved from crime, but a fucking chocolate sundae too, I suppose!
"Pray that these boys will see the light, and accedpt Jesus instead of stealing your goods and murdering your kin. Have faith, because God always answers prayers - sometimes He will pass over your house, and sometimes he will cause these boys to steal your goods, rape your womenkind and murder your kin, so as to test your faith. Do not be deceived."
Or the more likely scenario is that god is not real and bad shit is or is not going to happen to you regardless of what you desired.
Interpreting good or bad things as divine message from god without any idea which is which, borders on being, or maybe is, batshit crazy.
There are prison chaplains galore. The Bibles are cheap and available. If you have trouble reading, don't worry, there's somebody who will quote chapter and verse to you. You could easily tune in to Holy Radio and TV. Yet, even after all this, you think people aren't praying enough.
Funny, I believe there is no God, no heaven, no hell, but I'll return $100 to a bank teller. I'll even return $5. I don't want her to get fired.
We have a crumbling ruin of a prison system and your solution? Pray for divine intervention. But isn't this the same God who's supposed to start the "End Times" soon? You think he will pencil in fixing our prison system into the Divine Plan?
I pray for God to smite my enemies. Sometimes it works, but sometimes God's aim is not so good, and sometimes other people get splattered a little.
I pray for the nosy neighbor next door to fuck off and die. Hasn't died yet, but is always fucking off. So I guess God answers some prayers, or answers them in different ways. Sometimes I get the funny feeling that God may be getting bad information.
I pray God for a raging hard-on and a hot bitch to sit on it, but those rarely come at the same time anymore. Providers are late way too much, and I don't so much give a shit anymore.
Sometimes I think that if God really had his shit together, he could save us a lot of money by just nuking those prisons, and while he's at it, may as well get the liberals, too. But of course it'd put all those hard working prison guards out of work, and I'm a union man all the way!! Solidarity or something, I think.
you never think that preventing crime may not be the goal! The goal is to take all your Satan spawn out of circulation, spawn when you liberals were going bareback, and not using rubbers!
So this is a perfect solution! Late term birth control! You never think that conservatives think of the environment too, but we do!
... the article mentions scooter libby, and the woman who threw coffee.
Here's a doozy for you... and it is completely true.
My business partner was involved in a traffic accident last year. He was driving an 8 year old honda accord. The other fellow was some driving a new Caddy. My partner is clean and sober, with 4 years of AA under his belt. He was also driving with a suspended license. Just like Paris Hilton did earlier this year.
The other guy was drunk. And not the first time he'd been deemed DUI after a traffic altercation as it turned out.
I'll spare you the details, but in the end, my partner spent 28 days in jail for driving with a suspended license. The other guy was released on OR, no charges filed, no DUI filed, no jail time, but he did file a lawsuit against my partner for damaging his Caddy. Turns out he was a partner in a Glendale law firm. Glendale, where the accident happened.
Talk to me about Blind Justice. Talk to the Hand.
where in incident as innocent as the coffee throwing in the article could have resulted in the incarceration of a specific person close to me... fortunately due to great detective work, quick thinking and a witness to the episode we "made it go away"! but know that someone was pushing for Jail time for someone close to me.!!!
when did we start jailing people for normal reactions? Throw coffee!?? Bwahahaha.... I've thrown worse...
you didn't say who was at fault in the accident. Was there a traffic citation? Who was cited for what? Just because a fellow had some other violation/s doesn't mean he was at fault in the accident.
Next, what was your partner's license suspended FOR? Usually there's some kind of prior violations, and more than one.
So they caught these 2 fellas breaking the law. Suspension of itself is sort of like violating the building code, except that there is almost always a lot more to the story.
The drunk (assuming he was) should have been locked up. I can't guess why - maybe they didn't see him driving or something.
Both rules - don't drive drunk or with a suspended license - are generally for the public safety. Who gets stuck may well depend on who was at fault in the accident.
Granted the drunk driver should have been punished however too many times someone with a suspended license with a history of DUIs kills a innocent person...and a lot of them have been to AA. The courts have no way of knowing whether your partner had been driving drunk on other occasions or not..The fact is we have to get the repeat offenders off the highways and the only way to slow them down is by stiffer sentences ..If I had been the judge and someone with 2 or more DUIs is driving on a suspended license I would give them a year..but six months should be minimum sentence..
knowing if your partner had murdered somebody and just not been caught. So just to be safe, they should execute those lawbreakers. You can bet they'd never break any more laws!
But I think you have to graduate from junior high to be a judge.
"The courts have no way of knowing whether your partner had been driving drunk on other occasions or not.."
You want to punish people for what they MIGHT have done but didn't get caught?
How about you go turn yourself in for 'punishment' for all the prostitution laws you've broken but didn't get caught at?
Idiot.
Docs partner was driving on a SUSPENDED license not expired but SUSPENDED..What do you NOT understand about suspended? It means his right to drive was taken away for some sort of abuse..People that drive on SUSPENDED licenses should be put in jail ..The courts took his right to drive away and he ignored the Courts ruling .I rest my case
I commented on your asinine statement:
""The courts have no way of knowing whether your partner had been driving drunk on other occasions or not..""
You then accuse me of twisting facts. You're either an idiot or drunk.
You want him jailed for what he might have done but didn't get caught at. What part of you own fucking quote are you having trouble comprehending?
Idiot.
My partners record was clean, he's never had anything more than a speeding ticket.
Now stop wasting our time and get back to rooting out truffles, latex-brain.
or do you mean it was just expired? Licenses don't normally get suspended over a speeding ticket (singular).
Next big question: did he get a public defender? 28 days in jail isn't a sneeze. God knows it's easy enough to get a real lawyer.
If your partner was clean why was he driving on a suspended license????roflmao at your denials
Dr. Gonzo's anedecotal story and I had to laugh. I mean you drive around with a suspended license you should expect to be arrested and be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Get a clue, my liberal friends, a driver's license is a privilege not a right. You should not be behind the wheel of an automobile with a suspended license. Recently, I have told my liberal friend that I will drive to the golf course. He asked why? I said buddy, you drive 15 -20 mph above the speed limit. Whew we got into an argument.
When your offered an illegal substance follow the words of Nancy Reagan and say; "No to drugs" or as I perfer to say; "Hugs not drugs".
Jesus who can see your pure heart intentions. Then he probably wants some $$.
The Doc might express sympathy for his friend, but the comparison makes a point of unequal justice before the law.
Not to be disparging upon the law, but I too have become quite cynical about it. The law has become more about motions, procedures, and technicalities than justice. That however is a broader subject than the original post inscribed.
Still I stand by dictum "Obey the law, stay out of jail".
going on with motions, etc, and the courts don't care to spend resources educating you. (A jeffersonian democrat would expect you to educate yourself; a roosevelt democrat would say that it's a little hard to educate oneself in even the major issues of modern life; and a republican would bitch & whine about about how the schools didn't do their job.)
We wonder if you are mostly obeying the law, or just the ones you think are fair.
The fact is most drunks don't get jail time for their FIRST conviction of being a drunkard behind the wheel.. Most people who get caught driving on SUSPENDED licenses do get jail time..There was no discrepancy in sentencing.
Did he need a driver's license? I guess not!
Well if it's good enough for the elders, I think it's good enough for me. All these people running around telling me to get a passport so I can get a drivers license so I can get a bank account so I can give the bank my money, and my birth certificate has to be on the right kind of paper with the right stuff on it, well what if I was born of a midwife in the snowy hills and don't have no birth certificate?!
So my license runs out on my birthday, and they want me to go down and stand in line half a day and drive around in circles on my bike with the DMV guy watching so I don't fall down or nothing.
Let me tell you, the last time that happened, I told the guy, HUGS NOT DRUGS! and they just flunked me.
So they sent me to the shrink, and the shrink says, "Get a clue, my liberal friend, life is a privilege not a right! I can have you needled in no time if you piss me off." So I said, "yes'm" and went on my way.
of course there is always the exception for our own personal favorite diversion.
You know, some guys like to drive 20 over, some guys like to P4P. Some guys like to 420, some guys like to jump fences.
Everybody should be allowed their own amusement, I think. Like when you turn 21, you fill out a card that exempts you from one section of the penal code for the rest of your life.
Pretty cool idea, hunh?
Check and see how the "Get of jail free card" has worked for drug users in California, they just use it to avoid jail, and go for rehab. My son, who
now has been drug free for 10 years told me not to vote for this measure, I didn't listen to him,
it has turned out just as he said it would.
My poast should have read "they DON"t go to rehab"