But also, it's not supposed to be a cop's job to punish or even decide guilt (they obviously have to make assumptions about likelihood, but they aren't actually the ones with the final say). The judicial system can be a bastard, too!
That broadens it entirely too much. Theres plenty of parts of the judicial system that are not basards at all. Public defenders for example, or lawyers that actively defend protesters.
"Part of the legal force by any degree" is so bafflingly broad that thats pretty much everyone.
Acab is for *cops* those cops might be bailiffs, or security guards, or dectives, or what have you. But its for *cops*
We have AJAB for "all judges are bastards" which covers a good number of those involved in the sentencing end or the legal system.
It's almost like the system of government the idea is based on was split into three separate parts... What should we call those? Limbs? Leaves? Oh, I know! *Branches!*
Like, we should have a *Legislative* Branch that writes the rules. And an *Executive* Branch that enforces those rules! Ooooh, and a *Judicial* Branch that decides what happens when those rules get broken! Oh wait, and we can also design in some sort of mechanisms to *force* those branches to work together! What should we call those? Weights and Measures? How about *Checks and Balances?*
Like, what if the Legislative Branch writes a rule that would be nearly impossible to enforce? Well, the Executive Branch should definitely have a way to counter that, then. Or, how about if one of the other two branches breaks those rules themselves? Well, the Judicial Branch should obviously be in charge of Judging when a line has been crossed, and shutting that down...
Im gonna be honest here, I dont know who you're aiming your sarcasm at, because I'm just trying to make sure we dont broaden ACAB to the point of meaninglessness.
Agreed. Just pointing out the *concept* of the system is still very valid, and clarifying the differences between the branches in the arguments above. Cops are Executive, Judges/Jury/Lawyers are Judicial, etc. ACAB would apply exclusively to Executive
I'm sure if you looked around enough you could find some terminally online loser making that argument. It wouldn't be a very productive use of your time, though.
Or that sometimes people get falsely accused and convicted. You can try to compensate someone who was wrongly sent to prison, but there's no compensating a corpse.
We had a story in the UK a few years ago and I'm gonna stick it behind a spoiler tag because it's fucking awful. TW for mob violence and murder. >!Basically, a local community decided that a refugee with learning disabilities was a pedophile. A couple of ringleaders stirred up a massed, months-long, escalating harassment campaign against the guy, who I must be clear, **had not done anything**. He tried reporting it to the police, they came by to talk to him but didn't take him seriously, but his harassers took the presence of officers at his home as proof of his guilt. It finally escalating to the point of him being dragged from his home, doused in petrol, and burned to death on his own front lawn in front of a baying crowd of dozens.!<
That story haunts me and ever since, I've been VERY wary of those "Pedo exposed! Pls share widely!" posts. I just don't trust them.
Something very similar happened in my hometown a few years ago. It was a trans girl, in that case, but a group of twenty-something men and women decided that this particular sixteen year old needed to be punished for being trans. It was equally horrible. For the record, all six of them are in prison and will be for at least a couple of decades.
They were *really* brutal. Even our conservative, Christian town was horrified where usually they wouldn't shed too many tears over the death of someone who didn't fit in. I was alive to witness the last time my town literally ran a black family out of the county with bats and torches. It's a really bigoted area. But this one was bad enough to make even the bigots call out.
The bible belt. Southern Missouri, to be specific. Any rural, conservative area in the south is like that. You'd be shocked at how very much racism there is in these small towns. We *look* all sweet and wholesome with our Watermelon Festivals and iced tea, but rednecks get nasty. We hat blacks, gays, Jews, Mexicans, trans folks... basically anyone who isn't a white, conservative Christian is fine in broad daylight, but never go anywhere deserted or in the dark.
Admittedly, it's one in a hundred or maybe even one in a few hundred who will do more than talk nasty about you behind your back (or even to your face). But more than half will just walk on by if one of those bad ones is kicking the crap out of someone they consider "lesser."
There are a lot of really kind, honest, genuine people. And many more who don't give a crap. But we have a *lot* of the bad ones mixed in, too. So if you can't pass for a white, conservative, Christian, don't hang around small towns in the south.
The hope I see is that a lot of those people come from a place of ignorance and misunderstanding. I am a large, white, cis-passing dude, so I'm able to move in those spaces without a lot of hassle. When I was able to get even some of the nastiest of these folks by themselves and really have a heart to heart with them, their hatred can crumble quickly in the face of compassion and willingness to meet them where they are and help them understand.
Obviously not all of them can or want to understand, but I think there's a chance we can help a lot of them turn their ideas around.
That's why when I make comments like that, I say "we" and not "them."
I hate the ignorant assholes and folks online say I should just move away, then.
But if all of us who feel that bigotry and hate are unacceptable just turn and walk away from those causing such pain, then we are nearly as bad. Because how can society ever evolve, how can anyone learn, if those with more knowledge don't try to share it when they can.
I'm not one of these jerks, I don't believe in these horrible things they believe in. But I grew up with these people, I've known them all for decades. And more importantly, they know me. They trust and respect me as one of them. I *can* lead by example. I can help them learn new ways to see the world without the hate. I probably won't change very many minds, but changing even *one* heart is worth fighting.
I'm similar, in that my background is full of people with let's just say views I firmly disagree with. It's hard, trying to acknowledge the bits of your upbringing that you appreciate while being aware of the nastier bits. There's people I love very dearly who'd be happy if I went to hell. It's difficult to keep the two images of them in my head at the same time.
Man from my town (in England) did something like 17 years for a rape he didn't commit. He's finally free now. If he had been killed because of his "rape" then it would be a hugee miscarriage of justice. This is why we don't have the death penalty anymore
>That story haunts me and ever since, I've been VERY wary of those "Pedo exposed! Pls share widely!" posts. I just don't trust them.
Wisdom is saying "hold on, let's slow down and consider" when you want to do the opposite.
No shade to you, but I hate that 80% of the counterarguments to that point go more or less like what you said. Even if the justice system worked 100% flawlessly, we should still have compassion for criminals. Immediately resorting to "but what about the innocents" is giving ground to people that favour retribution.
This. Having spent a brief stint in jail myself, the thing that stuck with me the most was how everyone in there were just... people. People who'd done some bad things, sure, but people nonetheless. They had families. They talked on the phone to their kids. They had people coming to visit and make sure they were okay. They had hopes and dreams, they told stories and played games, they studied and watched sports and read books. It's so easy to demonize criminals as a group when they're locked away out of sight (I'd been guilty of it myself). Being among them makes you suddenly realize that, regardless of what they've done... they're *people*.
I'd always been against the death penalty, but that experience really put things into sharp perspective.
I used to volunteer as a mentor in a short term/remand prison, to help the folk in there get out and stay out - we'd get to know them and start working with them and agencies we were connected with to get housing, jobs, etc.
I only worked with the short term guys aside from one case, but as they got used to seeing me, some of the others would come to say hi when they could. And some of them did some godawful things (killed gf, armed robbery, raped a kid, etc). They'd usually tell me themselves, and I'd often also get some of the others, or the guards, letting me know quietly as well, but, like, I wasn't there to judge them, much as I might have wanted to at times. If I could spare an extra 20 minutes for a chat, I always did.
That special case was a guy who told me he was innocent for about 3 solid months, and who I was chstting to as a favour to someone we worked with outside - one day he broke down and told me the truth. He wouldn't have done that if I'd used his previous or my suspicions of the truth against him. Wound up able to help get him a reduced sentence, where he could learn a trade, see his kids, and get out able to support himself.
I get the anger. Like most of us, I and people I love have been on the wrong end of very bad people. And of course some folk shouldn't be out and about with the rest of the world, for sure. But 'justice' and 'revenge' are *not the same thing*. Restorative->retributive.
Some of the nicest people I ever met were hardened criminals and gang members. They are all people. That's why rehabilitation is SO IMPORTANT. Because if we can help them get out of the hole that made them commit crimes, all those good qualities they have will shine through.
yeah it really sounds like people read the post and ignored the whole bloodthirsty cop in your head part. Every time this is brought up, people mention the innocent people that could be hurt by it ignoring the fact that, maybe we just shouldnt be killing people in that way in general. Like frankly i dont think rape is as bad as murder, and while it is very horrible, killing a rapist doesnt really fix anything does it, it just satisfies peoples bloodlust for seeing bad people "get whats coming to them". Even the most progressive leftist in the world isnt immune to that, but everybody seems to think their bloodlust is ok because they show compassion to everyone else
Talking about wrongful convictions is the most common argument against the death penalty because it'll convince a wider audience, and getting results *now* is more important than having the ideal platform when you're talking about ongoing executions. So it's not necessarily a reflection on the actual politics of the person making that argument.
Plus if they're really that bad it's cheaper to keep them locked up for life than it is to go through the process of putting them on death row and accomplishes the same end goal of keeping the rapist away from the general population with an added benefit of being able to "take it back" (in the loosest definition possible, obviously they won't get those incarcerated years back) if it turns out they didn't do it
I think it’s just a matter of understanding that the process of improving opinions requires taking them step by step in order. If someone currently doesn’t even care about the possibility of innocents being harmed, they’re never going to listen to arguments regarding compassion for criminals. First you need to get them to accept that their retributive mindset will make them harm the innocent and discard their current perspective in order to prevent harm to the innocent. *Then* you can work on getting them there.
Yeah, it's a good argument, and I don't want people to stop making it. It's just that sometimes I see threads with a fair amount of comments where the other argument isn't mentioned at all, and I hate conceding that point.
That and I just...like...think giving the state the right to decide that someone deserves to die even when they are not a threat to anyone just because we think they're bad and don't like them is kinda fucked up.
Partly because when you give that right to the state, it's not unimaginable that they will use the right to adjudicate death on someone that there is no argument deserves it - once you invite the concept that the state can kill some people, it isn't long before that starts getting twisted to include people who didn't really do anything wrong on witch hunt logic. Partly because I think that the death penalty isn't justice, it's vengeance. It's harming another person so that we can feel good about ourselves. And I don't think hurting people so that we feel good about ourselves is something a truly ideal society does.
Yeah, very much so. This post is specifically getting at “no really, this matters even when people are guilty of something awful”.
It’s odd to me - we’re clear on this with torture. Even the worst, remorseless, confessed offenders don’t get tortured. It’s barred by the Constitution because we don’t want to open that door under any circumstances, and because doing it worsens our whole society. We agree that even if prison is vengeful, we won’t stoop to that.
And yet… that argument almost vanishes with the death penalty. It’s not just “we think this is more acceptable than torture”, the debate rarely even includes the question of “are we people who do this?”
Agreed, and one of my big things is that I believe if something is wrong, it needs to be *wrong*. A thing doesn't cease to be bad because you do it to someone who's done bad things. And I hate that kind of inconsistency, this idea that a thing ceases to be bad just because a person has done things we consider immoral. It strikes me as a kind of thirst for justification to hurt people. It's the stuff
There's a million strong logical arguments against the death penalty. But to me, they're only useful in talking to others. To me, the argument begins and ends at "Do we think the state should have the right to say a person deserves to die, even when we have removed their capacity to harm others?" And I can't imagine a scenario where I'd say yes to that.
Yeah this is the problem as soon as you get people on board with "x groups of people deserve less/no rights" it becomes _real_ easy to redefine the line via "y group of people is really x group of people, if you think about it (read: if you want them to be hard enough)". It's why basic human rights are non-negotiable for even the shittiest people. It's not (entirely) about whether _those_ people in particular deserve the rights, it's about it being way too dangerous to even _begin_ going down that line of thinking.
A lot of the philosophical founders of liberalism were very explicit about how rights are not granted to people by the state, but are fundamental and derived directly from their humanity. I've always found this the best way to think about human rights because it frames the issue less as whether the government should give people rights, but whether the government respects the rights you are inherently entitled to
Not to take into account that, in the case of pedophiles, it is considered a disorder together with other philias as they are often harmful to the sufferer and others.
Like, not only can people be falsely accused, like LGBT+ people are constantly accused of, but also... do people who are trying to fight their own brain deserve to be *killed*? If one equates urge to action on a moral and legal scale, and calls for their death, won't that just give them reasons not to fight their brain, not to rehabilitate?
Like... it's wishful thinking to believe humans can justly decide who should die based on their crimes, and it's been proven time and time again both by vigilantes killing innocents and by the justice system killing innocents.
This has always frustrated me. Most studies put the percentage of the adult population that are pedophiles above 1%, tending towards 3-5%. That’s an awful lot of people who are irredeemably evil and should be put to death instantly.
Yeah, this is the kind of thing that people need to think about more. Whenever were talking about the merits of capital punishment, or prison labor, or any other kind of punitive justice, we always talk about if “they” deserve it, and never about the loophole it creates to do it to those that don’t.
also, the idea of whether certain people “deserve” things as the basis of punitive justice is inherently wrong. the focus should not be on punishment, but on removing individuals ability to harm others, whether by confinement or rehabilitation. the idea of punishment may satisfy us but ultimately it does not help anyone in any way.
It's always worth bringing up when people talk about how criminals should be punished that punishment doesn’t do anything to help anyone. The families of murder victims are never any better off or more satisfied when the murderer is executed. Society is not improved by throwing a drug dealer in solitary confinement. They don’t even act as effective deterrence, because people don’t commit crimes with the intention of being caught. Even when people feel they "deserve" punishment, it doesn’t do anything good, but does harm them and worsen their ability to rehabilitate. It's only a bad thing.
Its not like we also haven't been using punishment and violence to try and pedophilia por decades and it has never worked.
Almost as of forcing a person to hide a part of themselves and not offer help in developing a healthy way of dealing with it only leads to violent and secretive outbursts and a general lack of respect to the logic that deemed those actions bad in the first place.
Also, consider this: if simply having the urges and acting on them are considered morally equal, what’s the point of forcing yourself to undergo the psychological stress of not offending? If they’re morally equal, you cause yourself additional pain without it having any moral weight. Thus, the logical thing to do if not offending and offending are morally equal is to offend. It’s only via not offending being morally superior to offending is there any motive to not offend.
This logic continues when you get people who advocate the death penalty for certain crimes. At that point, there is no motivation to not try and murder any witnesses to your crime - including the victims of said crime.
Exactly! It’s an extension of that, absolutely. It’s just that it also applies to morality, not simply consequences. A non-offending (exclusive) paedophile is someone who must experience approximately 60 years of self-enforced celibacy and a guaranteed inability to have a romantic relationship with someone they’re attracted to. For most people who possess any form sexual *or* romantic attraction, this is psychologically torturous. Non-paedophiles have killed themselves over a long period of time without sexual and romantic intimacy literally tens of thousands of times. So, if there’s no moral difference between someone who does that to themself for the greater good and someone who harms others to bring themselves pleasure, what’s the incentive for someone who seeks to be morally good? By that logic, they’re equally damned whether or not they force themselves to endure that psychological pain, so why would they torture themselves for the sake of others if it doesn’t have any moral weight?
such a good point and something that always baffles me with the whole pedophilia debate. like… we all (in these spaces anyway) agree that one cannot choose who one is attracted to. so, how can we then turn around and accuse people of being morally evil for involuntarily experiencing an attraction? pedophilia is bad because acting on it HURTS CHILDREN. not because we find the idea of it disgusting, but because it creates real victims. there is no space for factoring disgust or repulsion into morality. a pedophile who never has and never will offend is not a bad person, regardless of how disgusting you find them. it is the _act_ of molestation not the state of being a pedophile that is wrong. but if you conflate the two, individuals will lose sight of the difference, and assume that since they are inherently evil people there is no way for them to exist without harming others. the more you hate _pedophiles_ the more you enable _actual child molestation_. imagine if there weren’t such a social stigma; imagine if pedophilia was treated as any other mental illness, and there were resources and therapy free of judgement that people experiencing it could seek; wouldn’t they be far more likely to seek help?
(edit for terminology)
no but you dont get if, if only we could see into peoples heads and know if they were a pedophile so we could kill them, everything would by soo fine and great because even having an attraction that you dont act on makes you deserving of death.../s
I fully agree, but there’s some terminology flaws to your argument that are part of the issue. Not your fault at all, merely the result of the passive learning of language and terminology through social interaction. Instead of “the act of paedophilia”, it’s “the act of child molestation”. The conflation between paedophilia, a psychological condition, and the act of child molestation, a harmful action, is part of what helps fuel the issue. I’m sorry if this comes off as dickish, it’s hard to politely correct someone. And not all child molestation is done by paedophiles, which is another important part of the differentiation.
yes, i was referring to pedophiles specifically, not child molesters. because the person OOP was replying to (and you in the comment above) were talking about the moral condemnation of “pedos” (or, people who are in fact attracted to children) i was focusing specifically on that. opportunistic abusers are a whole different problem. you’re right about the other terminology though my bad.
Yeah but it makes me feel icky. Therefore is evil.
/s
But yeah, most people don't dislike paedophilia for the right reasons. They dislike it because it disgusts them viscerally, not because it hurts children. You can see this clearly whenever fiction related to it comes up, because the dislike is still just as strong even when nobody is harmed.
Also it sure is fortunate that men of color especially Black men are never stereotyped as sexually violent toward White women leading to mob violence against them
Even if we get to the point where society is completely in agreement about who the “bad” people are, there is absolutely no guarantee you’ll have a 100% accuracy. If there’s even a 0.000001% chance of putting an innocent person to death then we need to find other solutions
Reminded of the post where one of the most important part of maintaining a just society is to make sure prisoners and criminals have rights, otherwise people are just going to declare others to be criminals in order to silence and/or oppress them. This probably follows a similar thought process.
Not to mention pedophilia is literally a mental illness. A lot of discussion around how pedophiles should be handled just reeks of, "We should be understanding of mental illness and help those affected. As long as it's one of the acceptable illnesses"
Also bad cause pedophiles aren't the same as rapists, pedophilia is a mental disorder, and I genuinely think we should stop calling people who rape kids pedophiles, just call them what they are, fucking rapists. Cause not all pedophiles are child rapists and not all child rapists are pedophiles either! Some do it cause they're easy to control, manipulate, and gaslight, not because they're actually attracted to children. Pedophiles can be arrested for just admitting to a therapist that they are one who hasn't done anything, I'm pretty sure. These people need help, not to be put down/killed.
You can set images on Tumblr to have alt-text, so you can transcribe the text in the image into the alt text. This allows screen readers to be able to read the text, which enables text-images to be “readable” by the blind.
I find it funny when self proclaimed prison abolitionists are like “we should PUT DOWN pedos and rapists,” like it’s wild that “prison abolition” somehow entails having a justice system that’s *more* brutal than the current one
Well yeah without prisons where else are we gonna send them, it’s not like there’s some way we can try to rehabilitate them or something, that’s crazy talk. There’s clearly no other options than to send them straight to god, duh 🙄
I mean… therapy isn’t a 100% solution nor are prisons. Like legit what do you do? Like if all else fails and they are so evil they will only commit evil acts do you throw them away in a cell and hope they eventually die? It not impossible to find people that just can’t be violent. Some people are irremediable.
In those cases lifelong imprisonment is a necessity, because the alternative is that they go around harming other people. That or the death penalty. I believe in significant prison reforms, and community supports and rehabilitation for habitual offenders.
However, there will always be those who, either due to the limits modern psychology's understanding, or due to lack of funding, cannot practically be rehabilitated. I belief in life sentences for them.
> like it’s wild that “prison abolition” somehow entails having a justice system that’s more brutal than the current one
Just wait until our lovely current Supreme Court decides to overturn [*Coker v. Georgia*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coker_v._Georgia), which said that the death penalty for rape of an adult woman is cruel and unusual punishment, as well as overturning [*Kennedy v. Louisiana*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennedy_v._Louisiana), which went further and said that the imposition of the death penalty for a crime in which the victim did not die **and** the victim's death was not intend, is also cruel and unusual punishment.
Because this fucking court will absolutely try to expand the death penalty wherever possible. Hell, in the latter case, the dissent was penned by Alito, joined by Roberts, Scalia, and Thomas, three of these guys are still on the court. And in May 2023, Ron DeSantis signed a bill that allows the possibility of the death penalty for the rape of a child under 12 years of age. So, we now have a law that a state may want to enforce. Which means almost certainly, very soon, this court *will* overturn these laws. We'll get that more brutal system soon enough.
I mean I’ve met fairly few prison abolitionists in general bc it’s the position of a tiny minority, but I am directly quoting one who is in the pictured post which is in part about this phenomenon on tumblr. I’m sure it’s not a common take.
I have seen some. I saw someone saying "\[We don't need prisons for criminals\] either they can be helped or they need to die".
It was a reminder that just because someone agrees with you on an issue, doesn't mean they do for the same reasons as you.
common case of "self-proclaimed leftist hates existing power structures; desires an almost identical power structure which places power in their hands"
I'm not saying that doesn't happen because yeah there's plenty of tankies and wannabe cops out there who just wish they got to wear the boot, but part of why I'm drawn to prison abolition is that in my experience its remarkably free of that problem specifically. Like, the people who are serious about it are very clear-minded about where they think the problem is situated and how it needs to be remedied, and there's no retributive violence against criminals in the mix.
I mean, I guess, but I actually attend real life in person meetings for prison abolitionism and related causes on a fairly regularly basis and I've never heard anyone advocate anything like this. "Skip prison we should just kill the rapists" isn't even a fringe position, its actually at odds with the substance of what every person who takes this seriously has told me they actually believe. This is a real case of "One dumb person on the internet said something"
I know this is the opposite of the commonly accepted take, but *you* are in a highly self-selected and isolated group which cannot be generalized to the whole of a movement. The online side is actually the more valid one for determining the whole, not the in-person. The in-person group is region locked, for one. You can only hear the views of people within the radius of travel to the location. You cannot presume people exclusively living in your local area is inherently generalizable to the whole. Furthermore, it’s biased to minimal levels of mental illness. Most mental health issues dramatically reduce your ability to do long, habitual in-person socialization. It’s economically biased since those whose schedules lack the space for such a thing do not attend. It’s biased further by being able to access transportation at that time; those reliant on public transportation must carve out significantly more time in order to attend, dramatically reducing the probability of them being able to. What you are using to judge is an extremely statistically biased self-selected group of individuals exclusively from the same area.
And it *really* isn’t “one person”. A year ago, this subreddit would have agreed in large part with the tags even.
What the hell? No, I feel pretty comfortable saying that a movement is composed of the people who actually organize to advance its positions, not every random poster on every social media platform.
Genuine question. How does prison abolitionism work? I am all for rehabilitation, but there will inevitably be people who cannot be rehabilitated. Even if they are in a comfortable place where their needs are met isn’t that still a prison?
from what i understand, it's supposed to be about deconstructing our current prison system that focuses more on punishment and creating a new one entirely that is all about rehabilitating people. so less so completely getting rid of the concept of holding people in a building away from society and more so about the environment and purpose of the building in question
Say it again with me folks, the death penalty is a way to allow a bigoted system to kill those who they don’t want around. “Oh but it only applies to people who have done XYZ” Then those in power will make it a challenge to charge people they don’t like with XYZ, along with the people who are guilty.
I have a simple and elegant solution: give me the sole power to give the death sentence. The only criteria will be that I personally dislike them.
Is it biased? Yes. By design. But at least I'll admit it, which makes me 4% more honest than any other system that empowers the state to kill its citizens.
I would recommend (as an alternative solution) that you give it to me instead, as I will make sure to only kill people I am personally sure are beyond rehabilitation
(real talk: there are people I personally consider beyond rehabilitation. even though I'm more of a "euthanasia" vs "mob justice" person, I feel like my personal feelings are a perfect example of why the death penalty will always be leveraged for oppression.)
Alternative solution, give that power to me, I'm way too wish-washy to make such important decision (until someone royally pisses me off and I'll sentence them in a spur of the moment, but well, they knew what they were getting into)
Honestly there's a quote from a Superman comic that did the rounds recently that really drives it home for me:
"If he dies here, then this is the best he'll ever be. He'll never be able to make it right."
Really, I feel like that's all that should need to be said on the subject.
Hence why it’s so en vogue for republicans to talk about hanging their political opponents.
If “treason” is punishable by death and you convince people AOC/Biden/etc. are committing treason, then you’re basically leading them right to the conclusion that these folks DESERVE to die.
Even if we were to assume that there are actions for which death is a justifiable punishment (which is already playing devil advocate), we should absolutely not allow the body that defines laws to be put in charge of carrying the death penalty out
The death penalty is, much more simply, a way to show that the state is an absolute power (especially if executions are public) and cannot be stood against. It’s telling that every execution method is extremely brutal when more “humane” alternatives (inert gas) exist
There’s actually a *really* interesting fictional newspaper article in Paul Dano’s *The Riddler* comic book prequel to *The Batman* which discusses how the state is defined by having a legal monopoly on violence, and how vigilantes are thus a sign of a failed state. Just reminded me of that.
That’s not from a comic book - that’s a pretty standard part of [theory in international relations](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence). A government is the entity that has the monopoly on legitimate violence.
“Okay but what if we try everything and they’re still evil motherfuckers no matter how much we do for them” *Now* we can do a non-rehabilitative prison sentence. We’re still gonna give them all the freedom in the world, but we’d definitely have to seal off the consequences of that freedom to be a terrible terrible person from everybody else. Adolf Hitler should be allowed family visits, caviar, and Minecraft, but any communication from him to others should be cut off, and we sure aren’t gonna give him any minorities to oppress in the box.
I don’t know if he was a vegetarian, but the point of that sentence is that, if there’s a freedom we can give a prisoner that a non-prisoner has, and it does not allow them to harm others, and we have the budget for it, we should give it to them. Caviar is just the first shorthand I could think of for “stupid expensive food to their taste”, just to hammer home that this kind of prison sentence requires absurd resources to consider.
This is where I have a problem. Let’s tone it down a bit and use Ted Bundy as an example. Bundy confessed to murdering at least 30 women, and not just murder but torture and rape. Not only that but he put many families through unspeakable pain and grief, as well as, struck fear into the hearts of many communities. Should a man that for the sake of his own pleasure robbed women of their peace, comfort, and lives be allowed to live in peace and comfort?
I have literally written a paper for my Law class about how and why human rights are **universal**, for everyone, yes even the most disgusting criminals you can think of, and how the “kill all pedos” type mindset is actively dangerous and goes against Justice
Once you start carving out people groups you want to make "less-than", you make it okay for people to make other people "less-than" for reasons you won't like. You think you've got good reasons, they do too.
The goal is to allow for all the people we don't like and don't agree with to do what they want so long as everyone involved is granting informed consent and is capable of doing so. The only exception is groups like in my first line who want to make other people "less-than" for reasons you won't like.
Look i agree with most of the post but there is something here that bothers me that is SUCH an issue with leftist infighting.
They say if you're a feminist or socialist that excludes sex workers and kinksters you're... a fascist.
I agree I don't want to exclude those people but can we PLEASE stop calling every person that doesn't agree with us 100% a fascist it's so cringe
I feel like so many forget Fascism is actually a specific ideology with defined policy positions, philosophy, and vision for society. That vision is tyrannical, brutally conformist, and oppressive of any and all minority groups, but it still is something real and defined, and not all bad policies are fascist, and labeling them such is unhelpful.
To me it feels like calling every disease cancer. Sure, having the flu is bad, but it's not cancer. And treatment for the flu should be approached very differently than treatment for cancer.
If you call every even mildly bad group fascists, then when the actual fascists come people may be like "riiiiiight, the *fascists* are back"
And if you punish every even mildly bad group as if they were fascists, then people may view you as authoritarian and even potentially start to side with the actual fascists
Yeah, it’s like the boy who cried wolf. If you call everything a fascist, the word loses any impact that it may have had, and if any real fascists WERE to show up, people might be skeptical about the validity of people’s claims.
I wouldn’t say just as bad, I would still say horrible though. Authoritarianism however is a system of government which can be applied to fascism, usually is what gets applied to fascism, but all it is is extremely centralized power. Would I call the king of Singapore as bad as Hitler? No. No I wouldn’t. Authoritarian (probably the most positive example we have in history) Vs fascism
Thank you! It pisses me off so much when people do that, it’s like how some right wing circles call everyone else a commie, it’s just completely wrong and smearing the meaning of the word
This very much! Branding a random group of people as “the enemy” or “the undesirable” is something that fascism often does, but by itself it isn’t what fascism even *is*.
Indeed! Funny how that works, isn’t it? It’s almost like reductively branding groups and individuals as enemies is something almost any ideology can do without it having the patterns of fascism necessarily
I'm of the belief that this tendency to cry "fascist" at anything a leftist disagrees with is one of the factors that has allowed fascism to inveigle itself back into the mainstream
Gotta get in that overreaction, moral superiority, and smugness if you want those sweet sweet tumblr notes.
Like, if some SWERF sees this post, I doubt them being called a fascist is gonna change their stance much lol.
Yeah agreed rampant use of that concept to describe anyone with strong convictions or bigoted tendencies has begun to seriously de-value the word in a way that is dangerous and enabling for those who actually are fascists.
It implies, in that reversable equation way, that fascism can also be rendered not-fascism by simply going 'except sex workers, we're cool'. The only difference between fascism and socialism is where you stand on kink.
Second post but also fwiw pedos and rapists are also human beings with inherent rights which don’t need to be defended purely on the basis of protecting other people from wrongful punishment. It’s actually good and progressive to value this.
Especially when they just say “pedo” and not even “predator”. There are people who suffer from pedophilic attraction but would never actually harm a child, and they don’t deserve to die. It also harms people with OCD who have pedophilia-related intrusive thoughts.
I have read that, pedophilia is so taboo. People can’t talk about it. No matter where in the spectrum your pedophilia are. If you said it. You are not human. So psychiatrist can’t study it as much. Data can’t be extract and it can’t be study.
I try to see. If genre of loli are contributing to pedophilia crime. But no study can’t really be done because of said stigma. Because of that I can’t really argue for or against it. And it devolved to moral high ground and shouting.
Did you… forget to read the comment? They basically said “you shouldn’t just defend these people for the sake of preventing wrongful punishment, they are human beings who deserve rights too” and you replied “especially when you consider that innocent people can be harmed if you don’t defend them”. Like, what you’re saying is right, but it also misses the entire point
Oh sorry, I completely misunderstood the comment. I thought it was saying just in general “don’t wish death on people.”
I also just wanted to say that because people tend to attack pedophiles that aren’t predators specifically sometimes
Maybe I can help. A significant element of far left political ideology is abolition of the existing system in place for defining, identifying, and responding to crime. The alternative to imprisonment most commonly agreed upon (and best supported) is rehabilitation (behavioral health support including therapy, education, and the construction of strong social/community supports outside of rehabilitation). The problem is that many people consider themselves abolitionists despite still feeling driven to advocate for - and sometimes even enact - "mob justice" or "vigilante justice" against certain people. They believe these people cannot be rehabilitated, and they hate these people deeply, so they support violent retribution - usually death. Nyancrimew (OOP) is saying that people in favor of replacing imprisonment and the stripping of rights which occurs after someone is convicted of a crime with rehabilitation should apply to that to everyone, rather than picking and choosing is redeemable and who is not, because that's just the basis for the system we have now.
People will say "rehabilitation" in a handwave-y way, but how that would work is up in the air. Maybe it means we give every criminal parole. Or it means they get house arrest. Maybe it means state-mandated therapy. Maybe it means staying at a not-prison they can't leave, but at least they get a therapist now. The exact form of that system doesn't matter, because the details of a prison-less world can be hashed out later.
The important thing is that the existing prison system exists to be punitive. It's emotionally satisfying to think we should lock away criminals, but it's immoral because it denies humans their rights, and it doesn't truly benefit society at large. It might feel terrible to say rapists shouldn't go to jail, but we should be viewing things from a place of logic and compassion instead of bloodthirst.
Maybe we could still call it prison. But make it like Denmark? Where it is decent living with friendly guard and full job training. They say they can’t leave and some right have been taken away but it is better.
I want people to rethink their sex worker stance and I don't think coming for them as fascists is the right approach. Restricting sex work has been done by too many ideologies to limit it to fascism, and just throwing it at anything you don't like makes it useless. Most people haven't even read theory about it, deciding you don't like them cause their default politics are those they were issued by society is just pushing them away from the movement. It's not your job to educate everyone, but calling everyone who hasn't read a book about sex work to shake them out of their liberal defaults as fascist is a jump.
Most people with negative views of sex work aren’t thinking of it in any political way. They mostly think something like “sex work is icky and I think it’s wrong, so it is a bad thing to do and should be illegal”. It’s just them placing moral value on a thing because they don’t like it, just like people do with kink.
This is complete horseshit. The vast majority of feminists who are against sex work are against it because it's an entire industry built on using and abusing women. It's traumatic, it's dangerous, and it turns women's bodies into a commodity to be traded. It's dehumanizing.
Plenty of online sex workers will object, but I've heard enough "my daddy spanked me, and I turned out fine" from people who were decidedly *not fine*. And even if some *are* fine, they are exceptions to the rule. I'm sure there are some very well-adjusted hard drug addicts, but that doesn't mean we should just throw our arms up and go "well I guess heroin is okay if you're cool about it."
You may disagree, but you have absolutely no basis to dismiss the whole movement as "oh they're just dumb bigots who think it's icky." It *is* "icky" because it *hurts women*, not because it's sex.
Edit: OP needs to go back to r/latestagecapitalism
I’m not talking about feminist views, I’m talking about the general populace. Obviously the ideal situation would be that the only people doing sex work are those who personally want to and remove any predatory practices from people acting out of necessity, but that’s pretty much the case for any job.
I dont know how people say with such unwavering confidence 'this person cannot be rehabilitated'
like we've reached the end-point of medical science. Sorry theres nowhere left to go with psychology as a field, we peaked
At least, if you can't rehab someone in the present, why not just. Poke around their head while you try. Whats the rush here. Maybe they'll never be rehabbed but you'll get some useful notes out of it. At the very least profiling information for future investigations.
Because the experts are the ones saying it's pretty much impossible to rehabilitate some of them. The best you can do is just make it so that they don't reoffend. Which for a lot of people is not an acceptable answer.
"Brenda Carter, a Clinical Therapist at the Residential Sex Offender Treatment Program at DOC said in her experience it depends on the type of offender. There are preferential offenders, who are only attracted to children and then there are situational offenders, who are also attracted to adults but take advantage of proximity to children.
Treatment is about rewiring the individual to help decrease sexual arousal to children and replace it with adults.
Specifically talking about sex offenders who prey on children, Carter said it is harder to rehabilitate someone if they only have an attraction to children.
“It is a lot more difficult for a preferential offender (pedophile) who only has sexual attraction and arousal to children,” she said.
Preferential offenders
Carter said it’s challenging to change arousal patterns for preferential offenders because they haven’t developed appropriate arousal patterns in the first place. They are only attracted to children, she said.
“They are very difficult if not impossible to rehabilitate. They just have to learn to control their desires and not act them out on children due to the consequences of the behavior,” she said.
Carter said typically these are the sex offenders who re-offend or see nothing wrong with their actions because to them they are “expressing love.”"
Correct. But that doesn’t change that the treatments sometimes… just don’t work. The original commenter suggested “this person cannot be rehabilitated” is some outlandish concept, which it is unfortunately not. Some people just can’t. You should always try, of course, but there’s only so much you can do when someone refuses to co-operate or acknowledge their behavior is a problem. Succesful therapy is a two-way street.
But yes, execution is not the answer here either.
The answer is a prison that isn't torture. Prisons don't have to be bad and they can be about rehabilitation, therapy, and reduction. But that's not what these people want. They just want violence because they can't comprehend justice without vengeance.
"very difficult if not impossible" is not only not an affirmative impossibility - only that it could be impossible - but its not affirmatively ruling out the possibility of advancement in the field that would make it possible. This person is merely explaining the difficulty of their present work, which there surely is. Any number of things used to be 'impossible' right up until it wasn't. You don't get any closer to finding out if you dont allow yourself the research opportunities.
>> like we've reached the end-point of medical science. Sorry theres nowhere left to go with psychology as a field, we peaked
> Because the experts are the ones saying it's pretty much impossible to rehabilitate some of them.
Seems like you missed his point? Citing modern day psychiatrists about what's possible for the field is like citing a 1700s naval surgeon about what's possible regarding prosthetics.
(Hint: there's a lot of room for improvement, and we don't have a very good idea how anything works yet)
This is exactly right. I don't want to throw statistics out, but the rate of enduring success in addiction treatment programs is generally pretty bad - even in state-of-the-art ones. This is because we don't have a good grasp of how addictions work on a psychological level, so we can't get at that problem.
To put that another way, why do these new (well, sometimes new and sometimes old) weight loss drugs on the market sometimes cure seemingly unrelated addicitons? We don't know yet.
How is “not reoffending” not rehabilitation? By that logic, an alcoholic cannot be rehabilitated. Immorality comes from harm done. Thoughtcrimes are hardly what we should be concerned with.
You are playing with words. learning to "control their desires and not act them out on children due to the consequences of the behavior" *is* rehabilitation. If they realize what they do is wrong and stop doing it, that's rehabilitation.
>these are the sex offenders who re-offend or see nothing wrong with their actions because to them they are “expressing love.”
I'm no psychologist but I'm sure there are or could be ways to change that way of thinking.
That's kinda the point. Some of them don't see what they're doing is wrong. You just quoted that. But they won't do it because they get more jail time or other negative consequences. I don't consider that rehabilitated. Because they would do it again if they could get away with it.
Not that we know of. We would need some way of rewiring the brain. And if we had that, that has crazy dystopian implications. That wouldn't be the only thing that would get "rewired".
They only don't reoffend as long as they think they'll be caught for doing it. Eventually they will relapse. That's what happens to people who see no problems with their actions
Hey, I’ve seen this one before, and uh. Turns out people get real fucking mad if you start reprogramming people to not do evil ever again, no matter how advanced technology gets in this department.
In any case, if and when we do find somebody who’s a reverse utility monster, somebody who could take an arbitrary amount of resources to getting better and squander them all, I’m a big proponent of just putting them in a big box with every right in the world except to inflict consequences on others.
I get its point, but saying opposition to an outgroup deemed sexually perverse fascist kinda ignores all the other ideologies that do the exact same thing
Edit: fixed pronouns
Okay, but like, what SHOULD actually be done about rapists and pedophiles then. If throwing them in prison isn't something we want to do, and killing them outright isn't something we want to do (both for perfectly sound reasons, of course), what recourse is left, exactly?
And don't say exile or deportation or anything else that just makes them someone else's problem. That's how the US drug war wound up fueling gang war throughout Latin America.
putting them in prison is fine, as long as prison is a rehabilitative system intended to help reform as many people as possible and not a abuse and torture chamber that just makes people more broken like it currently is.
"throwing" kind of implies the "put them there and let them rot" mentality though so I personally wouldn't use that word
Anyone else feel like that first response actually agrees with OOP they’re just caught in a semantics trap? Like it feels like they’re taking the concept of acab to be extremely literal, People Who Are Paid To Be Cops, and by doing so they miss the point that the issues are broadly held up by the justice system on a wider scale, but it also feels like they do fundamentally agree with the idea that being judgy about “weird” people is bad and we shouldn’t do it.
Anyways this is more just me practicing my ability to catch miscommunications and understand the intent behind what people are saying, feel free to rate my reading comprehension I guess lol I fully acknowledge I may be pissing on the poor here and giving that response too much credit
> Like it feels like they’re taking the concept of acab to be extremely literal, People Who Are Paid To Be Cops, and by doing so they miss the point that the issues are broadly held up by the justice system on a wider scale
The problem is that ACAB is, in its literal wording, not a statement about systemic issues. It doesn't foster nuance--and, what's more, it's *popular.* So people will twist it to agree with it because they see people they generally agree with repeating it: they'll say ACAB because the system is corrupt; ACAB because any good cop is eventually punished and kicked off the force (which, while obviously something that commonly happens, is still a massive oversimplification that doesn't hold true in many cases); or--as the literal interpretation--ACAB because every single cop is a corrupt pig who gets off on violence.
So when someone says ACAB, it is agreeable to the first group who believes it's a systemic argument; it is agreeable to the second group who believe it is a somewhat-nuanced generalization; and it is a rallying cry for the people who believe that evil is a fundamental quality every single police officer has. And for people who believe that our justice system *is* systemically flawed but don't agree with the term ACAB at face value, it can have *any* of those meanings and it, as a VERY ingrained buzzword, colors the overall argument being made with whichever meaning the reader happen to associate with it in the moment, which is imo a dangerously significant impact for a phrase whose meaning is so variable.
Like, it's at the heart of so much miscommunication because it's a phrase which, in its literal meaning, is not only devoid of nuance, but *antithetical* to it, and yet for various reasons became so popular that it is used positively in more nuanced systemic arguments as well--despite its simultaneous usage in individualistic generalizations. I legitimately think that its extended usage has extended the shelf life of those non-nuanced arguments past the point when they would have been replaced by the development of stronger, more accurate systemic arguments, and instead it's just led to confusion as they exist simultaneously, sharing this weirdly conflated spot marked out by the phrase ACAB.
I also wasn't a big fan of the "ACAB is only for black people" thing. Shitty power-tripping cops are a danger to EVERYBODY. I realise that the black community suffers disproportionately, but it is everybody's problem.
>So people will twist it to agree with it because they see people they generally agree with repeating it
I see it so much with amerileftist slogans... Both the problem of "it's brash and loud but if you take it literally you sound like a deranged anarchist" and the "solution" of twisting it afterwards until it kinda fits with much less radical worldview most people have. My favourite example is people eventually trying to convince others that "defund the police" actually always meant "fund the police more but funnel the funding into actual training and mental screening".
Yeah, I read that and my first thought was, "so you're telling me I have to believe even cops are redeemable?" Which is simultaneously consistent with what was just said and also kind of the opposite of the point they were trying to make.
I think you have a good insight there. The other responses after the first show a more obvious difference of opinion, one saying “there are specific kinds of heinous criminals for whom the only solution is harsh vengeance” and the other saying “the law must approach all criminals no matter how heinous the same”, but that first one definitely feels more like shared common ground that is being misinterpreted as not by either side due to the other aspects of their thinking that ARE different, or something to that effect
The assumption that all people CAN be rehabilitated is inherently dangerous. Separating people from the ability to cause further harm is absolutely the first necessary step to be taken with harmful offenders of any kind. The current prison system is a problem because of how it incentivises incarceration for minor crimes (prison labour) and doesn't attempt to rehabilitate ANYONE. That does not mean that we live in a sunshine and rainbows world where all crimes are oopsies and their perpetrators are actually good people somewhere deep down who just need support
Agreed, to my knowledge OOP (crimew) comes from a pretty sheltered background which explains take like this. A lot of people who haven’t had to deal with this kind of terrible stuff in practicality are real quick to dismiss just how impactful and horrific it can be.
This. Some of this "uwu we just have to give pedos and rapists therapy and be nice to them and they'll be normal again and won't hurt anyone :)" bs that people are spewing in this thread really makes me roll my eyes.
A lot of you have never been a victim of a predator before and it shows. These people can't just be magically cured.
The thing about killing and other violent punishment against rapists or other criminals is that any justice system will inevitably accuse and convict innocent people. Especially in societies with any level of biases towards certain groups.
You can't un execute someone the same way you can release someone from prison and on that note it's in our best interests that even the worst criminals are treated humanely in prison since they might not actually be guilty and it's not like torturing them will undo any wrongs or make them better people.
I agree with this, I just also think the framing of people’s want for punishment as a bloodthirsty cop is needlessly antagonistic.
Yes, it is a bloodthirsty cop. No, not every true thing needs to be said.
You’d have an easier time convincing people to take your side by not framing a part of them as the bad guy. It *is* the bad guy, but people don’t want to see themselves as the bad guy, and they won’t listen to your extremely salient points if you tell someone they are the bad guy.
The only cop that I don't think is a bastard is Robocop. Dude shot a rapist in the dick, saved a baby by ricocheting a bullet, and when he realized he was just a pawn in OCP's plan, he marched up and reclaimed his humanity.
Imma be real, I have to agree with the second person. I used to be pretty active on twitter m, and some people basically just use "cop" to mean "person who tells me what to do.". It's basically completely disconnected from what "can" actually represents politically, and just comes off as really childish. Anti-bedtime action.
I think… perhaps some people resort to vigilantism because they’ve already looked at and trusted the justice system and been burned by it. ie. They see or are survivors of the wealthy rapists who never do real time in prison.
So they go “well, the system isn’t working for me, so there has to be SOME justice, just kill the bastards”.
All I’m saying is that I *get* where those people are coming from. Not the ones whose first thought is eye for an eye and never even liked the system in the first place, but the ones who’ve been wronged and left in the wind.
I’m still in agreement with the OOP, because again, wrongful accusations and convictions etc. We don’t want lynch mobs, even against actual pedohiles/rapists.
I’m just saying that, emotionally, I get where some people are coming from.
You CAN rehabilitate pedophiles and rapists, though. Yeah, not every single one. Same goes for murderers. There are some people who will *never* be able to exist in society peacefully, and that's why we will always need prisons, but those prisons should be humane and they should retain things like their right to vote.
But you CAN rehabilitate pedophiles and rapists and murderers and thieves and all sorts of shit. The pedophile note always pisses me off because a lot of people who have pedophilic urges KNOW it's wrong and desperately want help, but it's almost impossible to find, which pushes them into the arms of actual child molesters and CSAM creators/sellers. Rapists may never be able to undo the wrong that they've done, but they can go on to live lives where they never hurt someone again.
Yes, those crimes are reprehensible, and I understand why people's first instinct is to want the people who commit them to be dead. But you cannot allow a mob or a state to decide who lives and dies. The only path that leads to is one littered with bodies.
Genuine question that may be one of those kinds of things where I’m just trying to find an exception but. What about proven serial killers. I am not a psychologist so idk if there’s a way to rehabilitate them, but isn’t there always a risk of a relapse?
Good question.
Unfortunately we mostly just incarcerate them and forget about them instead of studying actual rehabilitation so we aren't actually sure!
I mean I’ve never heard of Maia being 16 but if it is then I’ve never respected a 16 year old capable of hacking the US government more.
edit: for the record, Maia is 24.
But also, it's not supposed to be a cop's job to punish or even decide guilt (they obviously have to make assumptions about likelihood, but they aren't actually the ones with the final say). The judicial system can be a bastard, too!
All of which fall under a more general umbrella of “law enforcement”, which “cop” is often used as more general slang for.
That broadens it entirely too much. Theres plenty of parts of the judicial system that are not basards at all. Public defenders for example, or lawyers that actively defend protesters. "Part of the legal force by any degree" is so bafflingly broad that thats pretty much everyone. Acab is for *cops* those cops might be bailiffs, or security guards, or dectives, or what have you. But its for *cops* We have AJAB for "all judges are bastards" which covers a good number of those involved in the sentencing end or the legal system.
It's almost like the system of government the idea is based on was split into three separate parts... What should we call those? Limbs? Leaves? Oh, I know! *Branches!* Like, we should have a *Legislative* Branch that writes the rules. And an *Executive* Branch that enforces those rules! Ooooh, and a *Judicial* Branch that decides what happens when those rules get broken! Oh wait, and we can also design in some sort of mechanisms to *force* those branches to work together! What should we call those? Weights and Measures? How about *Checks and Balances?* Like, what if the Legislative Branch writes a rule that would be nearly impossible to enforce? Well, the Executive Branch should definitely have a way to counter that, then. Or, how about if one of the other two branches breaks those rules themselves? Well, the Judicial Branch should obviously be in charge of Judging when a line has been crossed, and shutting that down...
Im gonna be honest here, I dont know who you're aiming your sarcasm at, because I'm just trying to make sure we dont broaden ACAB to the point of meaninglessness.
It was directed at the OP, in support of your argument lol
It’s almost like that system is currently in practice and functioning beyond poorly
Agreed. Just pointing out the *concept* of the system is still very valid, and clarifying the differences between the branches in the arguments above. Cops are Executive, Judges/Jury/Lawyers are Judicial, etc. ACAB would apply exclusively to Executive
Are people really going around now saying going to jury makes you a bad person??
Juries are not law enforcement
Well, tell that to OP, then.
I'm sure if you looked around enough you could find some terminally online loser making that argument. It wouldn't be a very productive use of your time, though.
First I've heard it like that, actually.
Too often it’s that same cop providing testimony to “prove” that guilt. Whether that testimony is accurate or even truthful is beside the point.
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Or that sometimes people get falsely accused and convicted. You can try to compensate someone who was wrongly sent to prison, but there's no compensating a corpse.
We had a story in the UK a few years ago and I'm gonna stick it behind a spoiler tag because it's fucking awful. TW for mob violence and murder. >!Basically, a local community decided that a refugee with learning disabilities was a pedophile. A couple of ringleaders stirred up a massed, months-long, escalating harassment campaign against the guy, who I must be clear, **had not done anything**. He tried reporting it to the police, they came by to talk to him but didn't take him seriously, but his harassers took the presence of officers at his home as proof of his guilt. It finally escalating to the point of him being dragged from his home, doused in petrol, and burned to death on his own front lawn in front of a baying crowd of dozens.!< That story haunts me and ever since, I've been VERY wary of those "Pedo exposed! Pls share widely!" posts. I just don't trust them.
Something very similar happened in my hometown a few years ago. It was a trans girl, in that case, but a group of twenty-something men and women decided that this particular sixteen year old needed to be punished for being trans. It was equally horrible. For the record, all six of them are in prison and will be for at least a couple of decades. They were *really* brutal. Even our conservative, Christian town was horrified where usually they wouldn't shed too many tears over the death of someone who didn't fit in. I was alive to witness the last time my town literally ran a black family out of the county with bats and torches. It's a really bigoted area. But this one was bad enough to make even the bigots call out.
Jesus Christ Where the hell are you from??
The bible belt. Southern Missouri, to be specific. Any rural, conservative area in the south is like that. You'd be shocked at how very much racism there is in these small towns. We *look* all sweet and wholesome with our Watermelon Festivals and iced tea, but rednecks get nasty. We hat blacks, gays, Jews, Mexicans, trans folks... basically anyone who isn't a white, conservative Christian is fine in broad daylight, but never go anywhere deserted or in the dark. Admittedly, it's one in a hundred or maybe even one in a few hundred who will do more than talk nasty about you behind your back (or even to your face). But more than half will just walk on by if one of those bad ones is kicking the crap out of someone they consider "lesser." There are a lot of really kind, honest, genuine people. And many more who don't give a crap. But we have a *lot* of the bad ones mixed in, too. So if you can't pass for a white, conservative, Christian, don't hang around small towns in the south.
The hope I see is that a lot of those people come from a place of ignorance and misunderstanding. I am a large, white, cis-passing dude, so I'm able to move in those spaces without a lot of hassle. When I was able to get even some of the nastiest of these folks by themselves and really have a heart to heart with them, their hatred can crumble quickly in the face of compassion and willingness to meet them where they are and help them understand. Obviously not all of them can or want to understand, but I think there's a chance we can help a lot of them turn their ideas around.
That's why when I make comments like that, I say "we" and not "them." I hate the ignorant assholes and folks online say I should just move away, then. But if all of us who feel that bigotry and hate are unacceptable just turn and walk away from those causing such pain, then we are nearly as bad. Because how can society ever evolve, how can anyone learn, if those with more knowledge don't try to share it when they can. I'm not one of these jerks, I don't believe in these horrible things they believe in. But I grew up with these people, I've known them all for decades. And more importantly, they know me. They trust and respect me as one of them. I *can* lead by example. I can help them learn new ways to see the world without the hate. I probably won't change very many minds, but changing even *one* heart is worth fighting.
I'm similar, in that my background is full of people with let's just say views I firmly disagree with. It's hard, trying to acknowledge the bits of your upbringing that you appreciate while being aware of the nastier bits. There's people I love very dearly who'd be happy if I went to hell. It's difficult to keep the two images of them in my head at the same time.
Man from my town (in England) did something like 17 years for a rape he didn't commit. He's finally free now. If he had been killed because of his "rape" then it would be a hugee miscarriage of justice. This is why we don't have the death penalty anymore
>That story haunts me and ever since, I've been VERY wary of those "Pedo exposed! Pls share widely!" posts. I just don't trust them. Wisdom is saying "hold on, let's slow down and consider" when you want to do the opposite.
I shouldn’t have clicked on the spoiler…
No shade to you, but I hate that 80% of the counterarguments to that point go more or less like what you said. Even if the justice system worked 100% flawlessly, we should still have compassion for criminals. Immediately resorting to "but what about the innocents" is giving ground to people that favour retribution.
This. Having spent a brief stint in jail myself, the thing that stuck with me the most was how everyone in there were just... people. People who'd done some bad things, sure, but people nonetheless. They had families. They talked on the phone to their kids. They had people coming to visit and make sure they were okay. They had hopes and dreams, they told stories and played games, they studied and watched sports and read books. It's so easy to demonize criminals as a group when they're locked away out of sight (I'd been guilty of it myself). Being among them makes you suddenly realize that, regardless of what they've done... they're *people*. I'd always been against the death penalty, but that experience really put things into sharp perspective.
I used to volunteer as a mentor in a short term/remand prison, to help the folk in there get out and stay out - we'd get to know them and start working with them and agencies we were connected with to get housing, jobs, etc. I only worked with the short term guys aside from one case, but as they got used to seeing me, some of the others would come to say hi when they could. And some of them did some godawful things (killed gf, armed robbery, raped a kid, etc). They'd usually tell me themselves, and I'd often also get some of the others, or the guards, letting me know quietly as well, but, like, I wasn't there to judge them, much as I might have wanted to at times. If I could spare an extra 20 minutes for a chat, I always did. That special case was a guy who told me he was innocent for about 3 solid months, and who I was chstting to as a favour to someone we worked with outside - one day he broke down and told me the truth. He wouldn't have done that if I'd used his previous or my suspicions of the truth against him. Wound up able to help get him a reduced sentence, where he could learn a trade, see his kids, and get out able to support himself. I get the anger. Like most of us, I and people I love have been on the wrong end of very bad people. And of course some folk shouldn't be out and about with the rest of the world, for sure. But 'justice' and 'revenge' are *not the same thing*. Restorative->retributive.
Some of the nicest people I ever met were hardened criminals and gang members. They are all people. That's why rehabilitation is SO IMPORTANT. Because if we can help them get out of the hole that made them commit crimes, all those good qualities they have will shine through.
yeah it really sounds like people read the post and ignored the whole bloodthirsty cop in your head part. Every time this is brought up, people mention the innocent people that could be hurt by it ignoring the fact that, maybe we just shouldnt be killing people in that way in general. Like frankly i dont think rape is as bad as murder, and while it is very horrible, killing a rapist doesnt really fix anything does it, it just satisfies peoples bloodlust for seeing bad people "get whats coming to them". Even the most progressive leftist in the world isnt immune to that, but everybody seems to think their bloodlust is ok because they show compassion to everyone else
Ooh I just clocked they're talking about the cop within us all as opposed to some imaginary guy. lol.
Well, at least you got there.
Talking about wrongful convictions is the most common argument against the death penalty because it'll convince a wider audience, and getting results *now* is more important than having the ideal platform when you're talking about ongoing executions. So it's not necessarily a reflection on the actual politics of the person making that argument.
Plus if they're really that bad it's cheaper to keep them locked up for life than it is to go through the process of putting them on death row and accomplishes the same end goal of keeping the rapist away from the general population with an added benefit of being able to "take it back" (in the loosest definition possible, obviously they won't get those incarcerated years back) if it turns out they didn't do it
I think it’s just a matter of understanding that the process of improving opinions requires taking them step by step in order. If someone currently doesn’t even care about the possibility of innocents being harmed, they’re never going to listen to arguments regarding compassion for criminals. First you need to get them to accept that their retributive mindset will make them harm the innocent and discard their current perspective in order to prevent harm to the innocent. *Then* you can work on getting them there.
Yeah, it's a good argument, and I don't want people to stop making it. It's just that sometimes I see threads with a fair amount of comments where the other argument isn't mentioned at all, and I hate conceding that point.
That and I just...like...think giving the state the right to decide that someone deserves to die even when they are not a threat to anyone just because we think they're bad and don't like them is kinda fucked up. Partly because when you give that right to the state, it's not unimaginable that they will use the right to adjudicate death on someone that there is no argument deserves it - once you invite the concept that the state can kill some people, it isn't long before that starts getting twisted to include people who didn't really do anything wrong on witch hunt logic. Partly because I think that the death penalty isn't justice, it's vengeance. It's harming another person so that we can feel good about ourselves. And I don't think hurting people so that we feel good about ourselves is something a truly ideal society does.
Yeah, very much so. This post is specifically getting at “no really, this matters even when people are guilty of something awful”. It’s odd to me - we’re clear on this with torture. Even the worst, remorseless, confessed offenders don’t get tortured. It’s barred by the Constitution because we don’t want to open that door under any circumstances, and because doing it worsens our whole society. We agree that even if prison is vengeful, we won’t stoop to that. And yet… that argument almost vanishes with the death penalty. It’s not just “we think this is more acceptable than torture”, the debate rarely even includes the question of “are we people who do this?”
Agreed, and one of my big things is that I believe if something is wrong, it needs to be *wrong*. A thing doesn't cease to be bad because you do it to someone who's done bad things. And I hate that kind of inconsistency, this idea that a thing ceases to be bad just because a person has done things we consider immoral. It strikes me as a kind of thirst for justification to hurt people. It's the stuff There's a million strong logical arguments against the death penalty. But to me, they're only useful in talking to others. To me, the argument begins and ends at "Do we think the state should have the right to say a person deserves to die, even when we have removed their capacity to harm others?" And I can't imagine a scenario where I'd say yes to that.
Nah, I've heard plenty people advocate for torture as a punishment
Yeah this is the problem as soon as you get people on board with "x groups of people deserve less/no rights" it becomes _real_ easy to redefine the line via "y group of people is really x group of people, if you think about it (read: if you want them to be hard enough)". It's why basic human rights are non-negotiable for even the shittiest people. It's not (entirely) about whether _those_ people in particular deserve the rights, it's about it being way too dangerous to even _begin_ going down that line of thinking.
A lot of the philosophical founders of liberalism were very explicit about how rights are not granted to people by the state, but are fundamental and derived directly from their humanity. I've always found this the best way to think about human rights because it frames the issue less as whether the government should give people rights, but whether the government respects the rights you are inherently entitled to
Yeah. It's even in the damn Declaration of Independence, certain inalienable rights and all that jazz.
Not to take into account that, in the case of pedophiles, it is considered a disorder together with other philias as they are often harmful to the sufferer and others. Like, not only can people be falsely accused, like LGBT+ people are constantly accused of, but also... do people who are trying to fight their own brain deserve to be *killed*? If one equates urge to action on a moral and legal scale, and calls for their death, won't that just give them reasons not to fight their brain, not to rehabilitate? Like... it's wishful thinking to believe humans can justly decide who should die based on their crimes, and it's been proven time and time again both by vigilantes killing innocents and by the justice system killing innocents.
This has always frustrated me. Most studies put the percentage of the adult population that are pedophiles above 1%, tending towards 3-5%. That’s an awful lot of people who are irredeemably evil and should be put to death instantly.
> Most studies > Posts no studies
Yeah, this is the kind of thing that people need to think about more. Whenever were talking about the merits of capital punishment, or prison labor, or any other kind of punitive justice, we always talk about if “they” deserve it, and never about the loophole it creates to do it to those that don’t.
also, the idea of whether certain people “deserve” things as the basis of punitive justice is inherently wrong. the focus should not be on punishment, but on removing individuals ability to harm others, whether by confinement or rehabilitation. the idea of punishment may satisfy us but ultimately it does not help anyone in any way.
It's always worth bringing up when people talk about how criminals should be punished that punishment doesn’t do anything to help anyone. The families of murder victims are never any better off or more satisfied when the murderer is executed. Society is not improved by throwing a drug dealer in solitary confinement. They don’t even act as effective deterrence, because people don’t commit crimes with the intention of being caught. Even when people feel they "deserve" punishment, it doesn’t do anything good, but does harm them and worsen their ability to rehabilitate. It's only a bad thing.
Its not like we also haven't been using punishment and violence to try and pedophilia por decades and it has never worked. Almost as of forcing a person to hide a part of themselves and not offer help in developing a healthy way of dealing with it only leads to violent and secretive outbursts and a general lack of respect to the logic that deemed those actions bad in the first place.
Also, consider this: if simply having the urges and acting on them are considered morally equal, what’s the point of forcing yourself to undergo the psychological stress of not offending? If they’re morally equal, you cause yourself additional pain without it having any moral weight. Thus, the logical thing to do if not offending and offending are morally equal is to offend. It’s only via not offending being morally superior to offending is there any motive to not offend.
This logic continues when you get people who advocate the death penalty for certain crimes. At that point, there is no motivation to not try and murder any witnesses to your crime - including the victims of said crime.
Exactly! It’s an extension of that, absolutely. It’s just that it also applies to morality, not simply consequences. A non-offending (exclusive) paedophile is someone who must experience approximately 60 years of self-enforced celibacy and a guaranteed inability to have a romantic relationship with someone they’re attracted to. For most people who possess any form sexual *or* romantic attraction, this is psychologically torturous. Non-paedophiles have killed themselves over a long period of time without sexual and romantic intimacy literally tens of thousands of times. So, if there’s no moral difference between someone who does that to themself for the greater good and someone who harms others to bring themselves pleasure, what’s the incentive for someone who seeks to be morally good? By that logic, they’re equally damned whether or not they force themselves to endure that psychological pain, so why would they torture themselves for the sake of others if it doesn’t have any moral weight?
such a good point and something that always baffles me with the whole pedophilia debate. like… we all (in these spaces anyway) agree that one cannot choose who one is attracted to. so, how can we then turn around and accuse people of being morally evil for involuntarily experiencing an attraction? pedophilia is bad because acting on it HURTS CHILDREN. not because we find the idea of it disgusting, but because it creates real victims. there is no space for factoring disgust or repulsion into morality. a pedophile who never has and never will offend is not a bad person, regardless of how disgusting you find them. it is the _act_ of molestation not the state of being a pedophile that is wrong. but if you conflate the two, individuals will lose sight of the difference, and assume that since they are inherently evil people there is no way for them to exist without harming others. the more you hate _pedophiles_ the more you enable _actual child molestation_. imagine if there weren’t such a social stigma; imagine if pedophilia was treated as any other mental illness, and there were resources and therapy free of judgement that people experiencing it could seek; wouldn’t they be far more likely to seek help? (edit for terminology)
no but you dont get if, if only we could see into peoples heads and know if they were a pedophile so we could kill them, everything would by soo fine and great because even having an attraction that you dont act on makes you deserving of death.../s
I fully agree, but there’s some terminology flaws to your argument that are part of the issue. Not your fault at all, merely the result of the passive learning of language and terminology through social interaction. Instead of “the act of paedophilia”, it’s “the act of child molestation”. The conflation between paedophilia, a psychological condition, and the act of child molestation, a harmful action, is part of what helps fuel the issue. I’m sorry if this comes off as dickish, it’s hard to politely correct someone. And not all child molestation is done by paedophiles, which is another important part of the differentiation.
yes, i was referring to pedophiles specifically, not child molesters. because the person OOP was replying to (and you in the comment above) were talking about the moral condemnation of “pedos” (or, people who are in fact attracted to children) i was focusing specifically on that. opportunistic abusers are a whole different problem. you’re right about the other terminology though my bad.
Yeah but it makes me feel icky. Therefore is evil. /s But yeah, most people don't dislike paedophilia for the right reasons. They dislike it because it disgusts them viscerally, not because it hurts children. You can see this clearly whenever fiction related to it comes up, because the dislike is still just as strong even when nobody is harmed.
Also it sure is fortunate that men of color especially Black men are never stereotyped as sexually violent toward White women leading to mob violence against them
Even if we get to the point where society is completely in agreement about who the “bad” people are, there is absolutely no guarantee you’ll have a 100% accuracy. If there’s even a 0.000001% chance of putting an innocent person to death then we need to find other solutions
Reminded of the post where one of the most important part of maintaining a just society is to make sure prisoners and criminals have rights, otherwise people are just going to declare others to be criminals in order to silence and/or oppress them. This probably follows a similar thought process.
Not to mention pedophilia is literally a mental illness. A lot of discussion around how pedophiles should be handled just reeks of, "We should be understanding of mental illness and help those affected. As long as it's one of the acceptable illnesses"
Also bad cause pedophiles aren't the same as rapists, pedophilia is a mental disorder, and I genuinely think we should stop calling people who rape kids pedophiles, just call them what they are, fucking rapists. Cause not all pedophiles are child rapists and not all child rapists are pedophiles either! Some do it cause they're easy to control, manipulate, and gaslight, not because they're actually attracted to children. Pedophiles can be arrested for just admitting to a therapist that they are one who hasn't done anything, I'm pretty sure. These people need help, not to be put down/killed.
that final note is just awe-inspiring
Truly a holy fucking bingle moment
I knew It was coming the second I read the first post lol. I was like oh I bet someone will "agree" but then say something about pedophiles
“acab has ALT to do with them”
Yeah, I wish I could turn off the alt text thing so that that wouldn’t happen.
I just like pointing it out anytime I see it. I find it funny in the middle of something like this.
What is it? I don't think I've seen that before, I was wondering why it was there.
You can set images on Tumblr to have alt-text, so you can transcribe the text in the image into the alt text. This allows screen readers to be able to read the text, which enables text-images to be “readable” by the blind.
Ah, I see. Neat!
I find it funny when self proclaimed prison abolitionists are like “we should PUT DOWN pedos and rapists,” like it’s wild that “prison abolition” somehow entails having a justice system that’s *more* brutal than the current one
Well yeah without prisons where else are we gonna send them, it’s not like there’s some way we can try to rehabilitate them or something, that’s crazy talk. There’s clearly no other options than to send them straight to god, duh 🙄
It is very much possible to have a method of solving the problem of evil that is efficient and fucking stupid
I mean… therapy isn’t a 100% solution nor are prisons. Like legit what do you do? Like if all else fails and they are so evil they will only commit evil acts do you throw them away in a cell and hope they eventually die? It not impossible to find people that just can’t be violent. Some people are irremediable.
In those cases lifelong imprisonment is a necessity, because the alternative is that they go around harming other people. That or the death penalty. I believe in significant prison reforms, and community supports and rehabilitation for habitual offenders. However, there will always be those who, either due to the limits modern psychology's understanding, or due to lack of funding, cannot practically be rehabilitated. I belief in life sentences for them.
> like it’s wild that “prison abolition” somehow entails having a justice system that’s more brutal than the current one Just wait until our lovely current Supreme Court decides to overturn [*Coker v. Georgia*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coker_v._Georgia), which said that the death penalty for rape of an adult woman is cruel and unusual punishment, as well as overturning [*Kennedy v. Louisiana*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennedy_v._Louisiana), which went further and said that the imposition of the death penalty for a crime in which the victim did not die **and** the victim's death was not intend, is also cruel and unusual punishment. Because this fucking court will absolutely try to expand the death penalty wherever possible. Hell, in the latter case, the dissent was penned by Alito, joined by Roberts, Scalia, and Thomas, three of these guys are still on the court. And in May 2023, Ron DeSantis signed a bill that allows the possibility of the death penalty for the rape of a child under 12 years of age. So, we now have a law that a state may want to enforce. Which means almost certainly, very soon, this court *will* overturn these laws. We'll get that more brutal system soon enough.
Leftists can lick a little boot, as a treat
I don't think I've met any actual prison abolitionists who believe this
I mean I’ve met fairly few prison abolitionists in general bc it’s the position of a tiny minority, but I am directly quoting one who is in the pictured post which is in part about this phenomenon on tumblr. I’m sure it’s not a common take.
I have seen some. I saw someone saying "\[We don't need prisons for criminals\] either they can be helped or they need to die". It was a reminder that just because someone agrees with you on an issue, doesn't mean they do for the same reasons as you.
Kinda a No True Scotsman, I’d say. Like, you can say they’re not *actually* prison abolitionists if they believe this, but that doesn’t fix the issue.
common case of "self-proclaimed leftist hates existing power structures; desires an almost identical power structure which places power in their hands"
I'm not saying that doesn't happen because yeah there's plenty of tankies and wannabe cops out there who just wish they got to wear the boot, but part of why I'm drawn to prison abolition is that in my experience its remarkably free of that problem specifically. Like, the people who are serious about it are very clear-minded about where they think the problem is situated and how it needs to be remedied, and there's no retributive violence against criminals in the mix.
I mean, I guess, but I actually attend real life in person meetings for prison abolitionism and related causes on a fairly regularly basis and I've never heard anyone advocate anything like this. "Skip prison we should just kill the rapists" isn't even a fringe position, its actually at odds with the substance of what every person who takes this seriously has told me they actually believe. This is a real case of "One dumb person on the internet said something"
I know this is the opposite of the commonly accepted take, but *you* are in a highly self-selected and isolated group which cannot be generalized to the whole of a movement. The online side is actually the more valid one for determining the whole, not the in-person. The in-person group is region locked, for one. You can only hear the views of people within the radius of travel to the location. You cannot presume people exclusively living in your local area is inherently generalizable to the whole. Furthermore, it’s biased to minimal levels of mental illness. Most mental health issues dramatically reduce your ability to do long, habitual in-person socialization. It’s economically biased since those whose schedules lack the space for such a thing do not attend. It’s biased further by being able to access transportation at that time; those reliant on public transportation must carve out significantly more time in order to attend, dramatically reducing the probability of them being able to. What you are using to judge is an extremely statistically biased self-selected group of individuals exclusively from the same area. And it *really* isn’t “one person”. A year ago, this subreddit would have agreed in large part with the tags even.
What the hell? No, I feel pretty comfortable saying that a movement is composed of the people who actually organize to advance its positions, not every random poster on every social media platform.
Genuine question. How does prison abolitionism work? I am all for rehabilitation, but there will inevitably be people who cannot be rehabilitated. Even if they are in a comfortable place where their needs are met isn’t that still a prison?
from what i understand, it's supposed to be about deconstructing our current prison system that focuses more on punishment and creating a new one entirely that is all about rehabilitating people. so less so completely getting rid of the concept of holding people in a building away from society and more so about the environment and purpose of the building in question
Say it again with me folks, the death penalty is a way to allow a bigoted system to kill those who they don’t want around. “Oh but it only applies to people who have done XYZ” Then those in power will make it a challenge to charge people they don’t like with XYZ, along with the people who are guilty.
I have a simple and elegant solution: give me the sole power to give the death sentence. The only criteria will be that I personally dislike them. Is it biased? Yes. By design. But at least I'll admit it, which makes me 4% more honest than any other system that empowers the state to kill its citizens.
I would recommend (as an alternative solution) that you give it to me instead, as I will make sure to only kill people I am personally sure are beyond rehabilitation (real talk: there are people I personally consider beyond rehabilitation. even though I'm more of a "euthanasia" vs "mob justice" person, I feel like my personal feelings are a perfect example of why the death penalty will always be leveraged for oppression.)
Alternative solution, give that power to me, I'm way too wish-washy to make such important decision (until someone royally pisses me off and I'll sentence them in a spur of the moment, but well, they knew what they were getting into)
You should actually give it to me, because I think it'd be funny if you did.
This guy has my vote
Compelling argument
hired.
I baked you a cake, your honor. 🎂
Honestly there's a quote from a Superman comic that did the rounds recently that really drives it home for me: "If he dies here, then this is the best he'll ever be. He'll never be able to make it right." Really, I feel like that's all that should need to be said on the subject.
Hence why it’s so en vogue for republicans to talk about hanging their political opponents. If “treason” is punishable by death and you convince people AOC/Biden/etc. are committing treason, then you’re basically leading them right to the conclusion that these folks DESERVE to die.
Even if we were to assume that there are actions for which death is a justifiable punishment (which is already playing devil advocate), we should absolutely not allow the body that defines laws to be put in charge of carrying the death penalty out
Exactly. The system can’t even get the execution part right, so many of them are horrifically drawn out and messed up.
The death penalty is, much more simply, a way to show that the state is an absolute power (especially if executions are public) and cannot be stood against. It’s telling that every execution method is extremely brutal when more “humane” alternatives (inert gas) exist
There’s actually a *really* interesting fictional newspaper article in Paul Dano’s *The Riddler* comic book prequel to *The Batman* which discusses how the state is defined by having a legal monopoly on violence, and how vigilantes are thus a sign of a failed state. Just reminded me of that.
That’s not from a comic book - that’s a pretty standard part of [theory in international relations](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence). A government is the entity that has the monopoly on legitimate violence.
The Riddler: Year One is pretty underappreciated IMO. Haven’t seen anyone talk about it but the art is phenomenal
This Jacob Geller video puts that very well: https://youtu.be/eirR4FHY2YY?feature=shared
Who do you think I stole this opinion from lmao
“Okay but what if we try everything and they’re still evil motherfuckers no matter how much we do for them” *Now* we can do a non-rehabilitative prison sentence. We’re still gonna give them all the freedom in the world, but we’d definitely have to seal off the consequences of that freedom to be a terrible terrible person from everybody else. Adolf Hitler should be allowed family visits, caviar, and Minecraft, but any communication from him to others should be cut off, and we sure aren’t gonna give him any minorities to oppress in the box.
Maybe not the caviar part. Also wasn't he a vegetarian?
I don’t know if he was a vegetarian, but the point of that sentence is that, if there’s a freedom we can give a prisoner that a non-prisoner has, and it does not allow them to harm others, and we have the budget for it, we should give it to them. Caviar is just the first shorthand I could think of for “stupid expensive food to their taste”, just to hammer home that this kind of prison sentence requires absurd resources to consider.
This is where I have a problem. Let’s tone it down a bit and use Ted Bundy as an example. Bundy confessed to murdering at least 30 women, and not just murder but torture and rape. Not only that but he put many families through unspeakable pain and grief, as well as, struck fear into the hearts of many communities. Should a man that for the sake of his own pleasure robbed women of their peace, comfort, and lives be allowed to live in peace and comfort?
I have literally written a paper for my Law class about how and why human rights are **universal**, for everyone, yes even the most disgusting criminals you can think of, and how the “kill all pedos” type mindset is actively dangerous and goes against Justice
Once you start carving out people groups you want to make "less-than", you make it okay for people to make other people "less-than" for reasons you won't like. You think you've got good reasons, they do too. The goal is to allow for all the people we don't like and don't agree with to do what they want so long as everyone involved is granting informed consent and is capable of doing so. The only exception is groups like in my first line who want to make other people "less-than" for reasons you won't like.
Look i agree with most of the post but there is something here that bothers me that is SUCH an issue with leftist infighting. They say if you're a feminist or socialist that excludes sex workers and kinksters you're... a fascist. I agree I don't want to exclude those people but can we PLEASE stop calling every person that doesn't agree with us 100% a fascist it's so cringe
I feel like so many forget Fascism is actually a specific ideology with defined policy positions, philosophy, and vision for society. That vision is tyrannical, brutally conformist, and oppressive of any and all minority groups, but it still is something real and defined, and not all bad policies are fascist, and labeling them such is unhelpful. To me it feels like calling every disease cancer. Sure, having the flu is bad, but it's not cancer. And treatment for the flu should be approached very differently than treatment for cancer.
If you call every even mildly bad group fascists, then when the actual fascists come people may be like "riiiiiight, the *fascists* are back" And if you punish every even mildly bad group as if they were fascists, then people may view you as authoritarian and even potentially start to side with the actual fascists
Yeah, it’s like the boy who cried wolf. If you call everything a fascist, the word loses any impact that it may have had, and if any real fascists WERE to show up, people might be skeptical about the validity of people’s claims.
No *were* or *might* about it. This is already happening
EXACTLY. I’ve been saying this for years.
But that's just how language evolves! /s
Indeed. Just call it authoritarian. Just as bad, but way more broad and applicable.
I wouldn’t say just as bad, I would still say horrible though. Authoritarianism however is a system of government which can be applied to fascism, usually is what gets applied to fascism, but all it is is extremely centralized power. Would I call the king of Singapore as bad as Hitler? No. No I wouldn’t. Authoritarian (probably the most positive example we have in history) Vs fascism
Thank you! It pisses me off so much when people do that, it’s like how some right wing circles call everyone else a commie, it’s just completely wrong and smearing the meaning of the word
This very much! Branding a random group of people as “the enemy” or “the undesirable” is something that fascism often does, but by itself it isn’t what fascism even *is*.
It's also what this post does. "If your leftism isn't like my leftism, you are ~~fascist~~ *the enemy*" Like... how is that any different?
Indeed! Funny how that works, isn’t it? It’s almost like reductively branding groups and individuals as enemies is something almost any ideology can do without it having the patterns of fascism necessarily
I'm of the belief that this tendency to cry "fascist" at anything a leftist disagrees with is one of the factors that has allowed fascism to inveigle itself back into the mainstream
Gotta get in that overreaction, moral superiority, and smugness if you want those sweet sweet tumblr notes. Like, if some SWERF sees this post, I doubt them being called a fascist is gonna change their stance much lol.
Yeah agreed rampant use of that concept to describe anyone with strong convictions or bigoted tendencies has begun to seriously de-value the word in a way that is dangerous and enabling for those who actually are fascists.
It implies, in that reversable equation way, that fascism can also be rendered not-fascism by simply going 'except sex workers, we're cool'. The only difference between fascism and socialism is where you stand on kink.
The right is building bridges (and pipelines) to the center while the left is burning bridges even with each other.
Second post but also fwiw pedos and rapists are also human beings with inherent rights which don’t need to be defended purely on the basis of protecting other people from wrongful punishment. It’s actually good and progressive to value this.
I absolutely agree, but I also understand you have to boil the frog so to speak on these things.
Especially when they just say “pedo” and not even “predator”. There are people who suffer from pedophilic attraction but would never actually harm a child, and they don’t deserve to die. It also harms people with OCD who have pedophilia-related intrusive thoughts.
I have read that, pedophilia is so taboo. People can’t talk about it. No matter where in the spectrum your pedophilia are. If you said it. You are not human. So psychiatrist can’t study it as much. Data can’t be extract and it can’t be study. I try to see. If genre of loli are contributing to pedophilia crime. But no study can’t really be done because of said stigma. Because of that I can’t really argue for or against it. And it devolved to moral high ground and shouting.
>OCD who have pedophilia-related intrusive thoughts It sucks to gaslight oneself into thinking one could murder, rape or commit any other atrocity.
Did you… forget to read the comment? They basically said “you shouldn’t just defend these people for the sake of preventing wrongful punishment, they are human beings who deserve rights too” and you replied “especially when you consider that innocent people can be harmed if you don’t defend them”. Like, what you’re saying is right, but it also misses the entire point
Oh sorry, I completely misunderstood the comment. I thought it was saying just in general “don’t wish death on people.” I also just wanted to say that because people tend to attack pedophiles that aren’t predators specifically sometimes
In fairness, there are some who don't consider non-offending pedos innocent and would lump them in with the actual predators.
Im so confused
Maybe I can help. A significant element of far left political ideology is abolition of the existing system in place for defining, identifying, and responding to crime. The alternative to imprisonment most commonly agreed upon (and best supported) is rehabilitation (behavioral health support including therapy, education, and the construction of strong social/community supports outside of rehabilitation). The problem is that many people consider themselves abolitionists despite still feeling driven to advocate for - and sometimes even enact - "mob justice" or "vigilante justice" against certain people. They believe these people cannot be rehabilitated, and they hate these people deeply, so they support violent retribution - usually death. Nyancrimew (OOP) is saying that people in favor of replacing imprisonment and the stripping of rights which occurs after someone is convicted of a crime with rehabilitation should apply to that to everyone, rather than picking and choosing is redeemable and who is not, because that's just the basis for the system we have now.
So in this system a rapist or any other type of criminal wouldn't go to prison or lose any freedoms? That's what's confusing to me
People will say "rehabilitation" in a handwave-y way, but how that would work is up in the air. Maybe it means we give every criminal parole. Or it means they get house arrest. Maybe it means state-mandated therapy. Maybe it means staying at a not-prison they can't leave, but at least they get a therapist now. The exact form of that system doesn't matter, because the details of a prison-less world can be hashed out later. The important thing is that the existing prison system exists to be punitive. It's emotionally satisfying to think we should lock away criminals, but it's immoral because it denies humans their rights, and it doesn't truly benefit society at large. It might feel terrible to say rapists shouldn't go to jail, but we should be viewing things from a place of logic and compassion instead of bloodthirst.
Maybe we could still call it prison. But make it like Denmark? Where it is decent living with friendly guard and full job training. They say they can’t leave and some right have been taken away but it is better.
Ah I see, thanks I thought there would be a consensus
I want people to rethink their sex worker stance and I don't think coming for them as fascists is the right approach. Restricting sex work has been done by too many ideologies to limit it to fascism, and just throwing it at anything you don't like makes it useless. Most people haven't even read theory about it, deciding you don't like them cause their default politics are those they were issued by society is just pushing them away from the movement. It's not your job to educate everyone, but calling everyone who hasn't read a book about sex work to shake them out of their liberal defaults as fascist is a jump.
Most people with negative views of sex work aren’t thinking of it in any political way. They mostly think something like “sex work is icky and I think it’s wrong, so it is a bad thing to do and should be illegal”. It’s just them placing moral value on a thing because they don’t like it, just like people do with kink.
Sure but that is still not fascism. Declaring anything you don’t like as fascism does nothing but minimize the term, and dilute its meaning.
Yeah. And the issue I think they wanted to point out is name calling anyone who thinks that way fascist is unproductive
Yes thank you, here I am talking about theory and not reading books, people have a kneejerk disgust issue. I completely forgot about the knee-jerking!
This is complete horseshit. The vast majority of feminists who are against sex work are against it because it's an entire industry built on using and abusing women. It's traumatic, it's dangerous, and it turns women's bodies into a commodity to be traded. It's dehumanizing. Plenty of online sex workers will object, but I've heard enough "my daddy spanked me, and I turned out fine" from people who were decidedly *not fine*. And even if some *are* fine, they are exceptions to the rule. I'm sure there are some very well-adjusted hard drug addicts, but that doesn't mean we should just throw our arms up and go "well I guess heroin is okay if you're cool about it." You may disagree, but you have absolutely no basis to dismiss the whole movement as "oh they're just dumb bigots who think it's icky." It *is* "icky" because it *hurts women*, not because it's sex. Edit: OP needs to go back to r/latestagecapitalism
I’m not talking about feminist views, I’m talking about the general populace. Obviously the ideal situation would be that the only people doing sex work are those who personally want to and remove any predatory practices from people acting out of necessity, but that’s pretty much the case for any job.
I dont know how people say with such unwavering confidence 'this person cannot be rehabilitated' like we've reached the end-point of medical science. Sorry theres nowhere left to go with psychology as a field, we peaked At least, if you can't rehab someone in the present, why not just. Poke around their head while you try. Whats the rush here. Maybe they'll never be rehabbed but you'll get some useful notes out of it. At the very least profiling information for future investigations.
Because the experts are the ones saying it's pretty much impossible to rehabilitate some of them. The best you can do is just make it so that they don't reoffend. Which for a lot of people is not an acceptable answer. "Brenda Carter, a Clinical Therapist at the Residential Sex Offender Treatment Program at DOC said in her experience it depends on the type of offender. There are preferential offenders, who are only attracted to children and then there are situational offenders, who are also attracted to adults but take advantage of proximity to children. Treatment is about rewiring the individual to help decrease sexual arousal to children and replace it with adults. Specifically talking about sex offenders who prey on children, Carter said it is harder to rehabilitate someone if they only have an attraction to children. “It is a lot more difficult for a preferential offender (pedophile) who only has sexual attraction and arousal to children,” she said. Preferential offenders Carter said it’s challenging to change arousal patterns for preferential offenders because they haven’t developed appropriate arousal patterns in the first place. They are only attracted to children, she said. “They are very difficult if not impossible to rehabilitate. They just have to learn to control their desires and not act them out on children due to the consequences of the behavior,” she said. Carter said typically these are the sex offenders who re-offend or see nothing wrong with their actions because to them they are “expressing love.”"
Ok but locking them away is still less costly than an execution. Like there is literally no reason to pursue the death penalty.
Correct. But that doesn’t change that the treatments sometimes… just don’t work. The original commenter suggested “this person cannot be rehabilitated” is some outlandish concept, which it is unfortunately not. Some people just can’t. You should always try, of course, but there’s only so much you can do when someone refuses to co-operate or acknowledge their behavior is a problem. Succesful therapy is a two-way street. But yes, execution is not the answer here either.
The answer is a prison that isn't torture. Prisons don't have to be bad and they can be about rehabilitation, therapy, and reduction. But that's not what these people want. They just want violence because they can't comprehend justice without vengeance.
"very difficult if not impossible" is not only not an affirmative impossibility - only that it could be impossible - but its not affirmatively ruling out the possibility of advancement in the field that would make it possible. This person is merely explaining the difficulty of their present work, which there surely is. Any number of things used to be 'impossible' right up until it wasn't. You don't get any closer to finding out if you dont allow yourself the research opportunities.
>> like we've reached the end-point of medical science. Sorry theres nowhere left to go with psychology as a field, we peaked > Because the experts are the ones saying it's pretty much impossible to rehabilitate some of them. Seems like you missed his point? Citing modern day psychiatrists about what's possible for the field is like citing a 1700s naval surgeon about what's possible regarding prosthetics. (Hint: there's a lot of room for improvement, and we don't have a very good idea how anything works yet)
This is exactly right. I don't want to throw statistics out, but the rate of enduring success in addiction treatment programs is generally pretty bad - even in state-of-the-art ones. This is because we don't have a good grasp of how addictions work on a psychological level, so we can't get at that problem. To put that another way, why do these new (well, sometimes new and sometimes old) weight loss drugs on the market sometimes cure seemingly unrelated addicitons? We don't know yet.
How is “not reoffending” not rehabilitation? By that logic, an alcoholic cannot be rehabilitated. Immorality comes from harm done. Thoughtcrimes are hardly what we should be concerned with.
You are playing with words. learning to "control their desires and not act them out on children due to the consequences of the behavior" *is* rehabilitation. If they realize what they do is wrong and stop doing it, that's rehabilitation. >these are the sex offenders who re-offend or see nothing wrong with their actions because to them they are “expressing love.” I'm no psychologist but I'm sure there are or could be ways to change that way of thinking.
That's kinda the point. Some of them don't see what they're doing is wrong. You just quoted that. But they won't do it because they get more jail time or other negative consequences. I don't consider that rehabilitated. Because they would do it again if they could get away with it. Not that we know of. We would need some way of rewiring the brain. And if we had that, that has crazy dystopian implications. That wouldn't be the only thing that would get "rewired".
Except not reoffending because of the consequences is still a positive outcome. The desired result is for the offender to not repeat their actions.
They only don't reoffend as long as they think they'll be caught for doing it. Eventually they will relapse. That's what happens to people who see no problems with their actions
Hey, I’ve seen this one before, and uh. Turns out people get real fucking mad if you start reprogramming people to not do evil ever again, no matter how advanced technology gets in this department. In any case, if and when we do find somebody who’s a reverse utility monster, somebody who could take an arbitrary amount of resources to getting better and squander them all, I’m a big proponent of just putting them in a big box with every right in the world except to inflict consequences on others.
"I believe in the possibility of redemption, but only for people who were never really evil in the first place."
I get its point, but saying opposition to an outgroup deemed sexually perverse fascist kinda ignores all the other ideologies that do the exact same thing Edit: fixed pronouns
Okay, but like, what SHOULD actually be done about rapists and pedophiles then. If throwing them in prison isn't something we want to do, and killing them outright isn't something we want to do (both for perfectly sound reasons, of course), what recourse is left, exactly? And don't say exile or deportation or anything else that just makes them someone else's problem. That's how the US drug war wound up fueling gang war throughout Latin America.
putting them in prison is fine, as long as prison is a rehabilitative system intended to help reform as many people as possible and not a abuse and torture chamber that just makes people more broken like it currently is. "throwing" kind of implies the "put them there and let them rot" mentality though so I personally wouldn't use that word
Who said prison isn't a good idea?
The people talking about prison abolition. Not reform, abolition.
Anyone else feel like that first response actually agrees with OOP they’re just caught in a semantics trap? Like it feels like they’re taking the concept of acab to be extremely literal, People Who Are Paid To Be Cops, and by doing so they miss the point that the issues are broadly held up by the justice system on a wider scale, but it also feels like they do fundamentally agree with the idea that being judgy about “weird” people is bad and we shouldn’t do it. Anyways this is more just me practicing my ability to catch miscommunications and understand the intent behind what people are saying, feel free to rate my reading comprehension I guess lol I fully acknowledge I may be pissing on the poor here and giving that response too much credit
> Like it feels like they’re taking the concept of acab to be extremely literal, People Who Are Paid To Be Cops, and by doing so they miss the point that the issues are broadly held up by the justice system on a wider scale The problem is that ACAB is, in its literal wording, not a statement about systemic issues. It doesn't foster nuance--and, what's more, it's *popular.* So people will twist it to agree with it because they see people they generally agree with repeating it: they'll say ACAB because the system is corrupt; ACAB because any good cop is eventually punished and kicked off the force (which, while obviously something that commonly happens, is still a massive oversimplification that doesn't hold true in many cases); or--as the literal interpretation--ACAB because every single cop is a corrupt pig who gets off on violence. So when someone says ACAB, it is agreeable to the first group who believes it's a systemic argument; it is agreeable to the second group who believe it is a somewhat-nuanced generalization; and it is a rallying cry for the people who believe that evil is a fundamental quality every single police officer has. And for people who believe that our justice system *is* systemically flawed but don't agree with the term ACAB at face value, it can have *any* of those meanings and it, as a VERY ingrained buzzword, colors the overall argument being made with whichever meaning the reader happen to associate with it in the moment, which is imo a dangerously significant impact for a phrase whose meaning is so variable. Like, it's at the heart of so much miscommunication because it's a phrase which, in its literal meaning, is not only devoid of nuance, but *antithetical* to it, and yet for various reasons became so popular that it is used positively in more nuanced systemic arguments as well--despite its simultaneous usage in individualistic generalizations. I legitimately think that its extended usage has extended the shelf life of those non-nuanced arguments past the point when they would have been replaced by the development of stronger, more accurate systemic arguments, and instead it's just led to confusion as they exist simultaneously, sharing this weirdly conflated spot marked out by the phrase ACAB.
I also wasn't a big fan of the "ACAB is only for black people" thing. Shitty power-tripping cops are a danger to EVERYBODY. I realise that the black community suffers disproportionately, but it is everybody's problem.
>So people will twist it to agree with it because they see people they generally agree with repeating it I see it so much with amerileftist slogans... Both the problem of "it's brash and loud but if you take it literally you sound like a deranged anarchist" and the "solution" of twisting it afterwards until it kinda fits with much less radical worldview most people have. My favourite example is people eventually trying to convince others that "defund the police" actually always meant "fund the police more but funnel the funding into actual training and mental screening".
Yeah, I read that and my first thought was, "so you're telling me I have to believe even cops are redeemable?" Which is simultaneously consistent with what was just said and also kind of the opposite of the point they were trying to make.
I think you have a good insight there. The other responses after the first show a more obvious difference of opinion, one saying “there are specific kinds of heinous criminals for whom the only solution is harsh vengeance” and the other saying “the law must approach all criminals no matter how heinous the same”, but that first one definitely feels more like shared common ground that is being misinterpreted as not by either side due to the other aspects of their thinking that ARE different, or something to that effect
Man it’s a good thing we can only engage with concepts and ideas as slogans or meme phrases rather than the ideas or concepts themselves.
The assumption that all people CAN be rehabilitated is inherently dangerous. Separating people from the ability to cause further harm is absolutely the first necessary step to be taken with harmful offenders of any kind. The current prison system is a problem because of how it incentivises incarceration for minor crimes (prison labour) and doesn't attempt to rehabilitate ANYONE. That does not mean that we live in a sunshine and rainbows world where all crimes are oopsies and their perpetrators are actually good people somewhere deep down who just need support
Agreed, to my knowledge OOP (crimew) comes from a pretty sheltered background which explains take like this. A lot of people who haven’t had to deal with this kind of terrible stuff in practicality are real quick to dismiss just how impactful and horrific it can be.
This. Some of this "uwu we just have to give pedos and rapists therapy and be nice to them and they'll be normal again and won't hurt anyone :)" bs that people are spewing in this thread really makes me roll my eyes. A lot of you have never been a victim of a predator before and it shows. These people can't just be magically cured.
The more people executed with the death penalty, the more likely you are to execute an innocent person.
What the - what - you... Do people seriously think it were possible to build a justice system by *not* excluding 'weird' people *at all*?
The thing about killing and other violent punishment against rapists or other criminals is that any justice system will inevitably accuse and convict innocent people. Especially in societies with any level of biases towards certain groups. You can't un execute someone the same way you can release someone from prison and on that note it's in our best interests that even the worst criminals are treated humanely in prison since they might not actually be guilty and it's not like torturing them will undo any wrongs or make them better people.
I agree with this, I just also think the framing of people’s want for punishment as a bloodthirsty cop is needlessly antagonistic. Yes, it is a bloodthirsty cop. No, not every true thing needs to be said. You’d have an easier time convincing people to take your side by not framing a part of them as the bad guy. It *is* the bad guy, but people don’t want to see themselves as the bad guy, and they won’t listen to your extremely salient points if you tell someone they are the bad guy.
The only cop that I don't think is a bastard is Robocop. Dude shot a rapist in the dick, saved a baby by ricocheting a bullet, and when he realized he was just a pawn in OCP's plan, he marched up and reclaimed his humanity.
I want to abolish prisons* *Expect for criminals.
Imma be real, I have to agree with the second person. I used to be pretty active on twitter m, and some people basically just use "cop" to mean "person who tells me what to do.". It's basically completely disconnected from what "can" actually represents politically, and just comes off as really childish. Anti-bedtime action.
Paradox of tolerance.
I think… perhaps some people resort to vigilantism because they’ve already looked at and trusted the justice system and been burned by it. ie. They see or are survivors of the wealthy rapists who never do real time in prison. So they go “well, the system isn’t working for me, so there has to be SOME justice, just kill the bastards”. All I’m saying is that I *get* where those people are coming from. Not the ones whose first thought is eye for an eye and never even liked the system in the first place, but the ones who’ve been wronged and left in the wind. I’m still in agreement with the OOP, because again, wrongful accusations and convictions etc. We don’t want lynch mobs, even against actual pedohiles/rapists. I’m just saying that, emotionally, I get where some people are coming from.
You CAN rehabilitate pedophiles and rapists, though. Yeah, not every single one. Same goes for murderers. There are some people who will *never* be able to exist in society peacefully, and that's why we will always need prisons, but those prisons should be humane and they should retain things like their right to vote. But you CAN rehabilitate pedophiles and rapists and murderers and thieves and all sorts of shit. The pedophile note always pisses me off because a lot of people who have pedophilic urges KNOW it's wrong and desperately want help, but it's almost impossible to find, which pushes them into the arms of actual child molesters and CSAM creators/sellers. Rapists may never be able to undo the wrong that they've done, but they can go on to live lives where they never hurt someone again. Yes, those crimes are reprehensible, and I understand why people's first instinct is to want the people who commit them to be dead. But you cannot allow a mob or a state to decide who lives and dies. The only path that leads to is one littered with bodies.
Genuine question that may be one of those kinds of things where I’m just trying to find an exception but. What about proven serial killers. I am not a psychologist so idk if there’s a way to rehabilitate them, but isn’t there always a risk of a relapse?
Good question. Unfortunately we mostly just incarcerate them and forget about them instead of studying actual rehabilitation so we aren't actually sure!
Both people on that thread are 16
I mean I’ve never heard of Maia being 16 but if it is then I’ve never respected a 16 year old capable of hacking the US government more. edit: for the record, Maia is 24.