All very true.

President Eisenhower, who commanded the largest amphibious invasion in history, warned in his final presidential address, in 1961, of the dangers of the “military-industrial complex.”

And he was right. War has become profitable, and the defense industry and the military are tied together. And even the most anti-war politician has to step back and become pro-defense when a military contract can go to his or her district…because it means jobs for his registered voters, increased tax revenues for the district, and greater economic development for all the service and communications industries that support the merchant of death.

Unfortunately those insisting upon the virtues of freedom at gunpoint don’t see it that way. Perhaps the real issue is that war is more profitable than peace.

It appalls me that we fight wars on everything BUT poverty.

Yeah, it irritates the heck out of me that conservatives who are so concerned with protecting human life in the womb don’t show much interest in nurturing them once they’re out of the womb.

And some of the loudest “family values” advocates turn out to be people like Jimmy Swaggart and Jimmy Bakker, busily cheating on their wives, in some cases with prostitutes.

It is ironic that, in a country where the conservatives trumpet their “family values,” there is so little interest in ensuring that young people get a good start so they are able to lead happy and productive lives. I guess that there is something in them that likes to warn and punish — I guess because it shows they’re “tough” — rather than lend a hand or sit and listen to someone who is drowning in frustration and needs help (like in school — “study, damn you! I don’t care if you have a learning disorder!”) It’s nice that we recognize this — I just wish that others would.

Aadila — Yes, NASCAR is, I am sure, full of pavement apes, although they are rolling pavement apes.

Reynardine — as we sink down to crawling on all fours, being a pavement ape is going to get ever tougher on the knees.

The best solution to crime is what you say…preventing it from happening in the first place. That’s not just surveillance, alertness, awareness, and other buzzwords… it’s creating conditions so that kids, mostly, don’t turn or get turned to crime.

You get them on the right track early, keep them away from drugs and gangs, and you prevent a vast number of crimes from ever happening.

Much of the crime we deal with in my neck of the nation is committed by repeat and career offenders, deeply enmeshed in gangs and drugs. The most dangerous of them are pretty much beyond help, and they recognize it — the gangbangers, while still teenagers or in their 20s, plan lavish funerals for themselves. They don’t expect to make it to 30.

There are some people out walking on the sidewalk in front of my house. I can see them. Do you think I should throw some rocks at them? You know — before they can throw rocks at me?

After all, from Pavement Ape’s comments, it sounds like he thinks that the North American Pavement Ape (whatever that is — I wonder if it’s larger or just meaner than the European Pavement Ape?) is dangerous. I don’t know. They just look like people to me. They don’t even seem to be carrying rocks or sticks with them or anything particularly menacing. As a matter of fact, I think these ones, since they are white and middle aged and in my neighborhood, have at least a 60% chance of being Republicans.

(I do suppose that the Bull Republican Pavement Ape may be dangerous during, er, election season. Or at least it bellows a lot.)

You will have to be more specific regarding what you consider a “North American Pavement Apes.” If you are simply speaking of folks who are out and about on the streets–you know, walking–then I am a “pavement ape.” Walking is a nice, healthy activity, and it is environmentally friendly. I haven’t killed anyone recently….

Don’t forget the nexus between “zero-tolerance” Republican authoritarianism and the billion-dollar prison industry. Follow the money to the root of the misery. Who gets paid so inmates can be raped, beaten, and depersonalized?

You’re absolutely right that the victimization of society goes well beyond the actual crime when we look at this in the terms you describe. Of course it is also true that the implementation of the death penalty with multiple appeals and so on is also an exceedingly costly affair. Nor would I think it makes sense to “fast-track” the death penalty to avoid social costs because innocent people do get put to death and appeals at least offer a chance that justice may one day be served.

Killing to me is just killing.

Perhaps you will take comfort in knowing that our correctional system makes common use of the form of torture known as solitary confinement. This is a practice which is widely considered torture because of the swift depersonalization of inmates, and those who have been more than even a few days in solitary confinement say they would prefer physical torture. Rape is also used as discipline. So maybe you take comfort in that grand little detail of the American prison system. I don’t.

I think it’s best to look at the root causes of crime, and attempt to intervene before the crime occurs. Once we have an act of crime, it is really already too late to figure out how to make things better. Injuring people’s minds is hardly going to help.

I also have a real problem with the unequal application of the death penalty — but that’s true with a lot of other less “high-profile” punishments. I have worked in enough lower-income and predominantly minority communities to see first-hand that the police handle the residents there a lot more roughly — and make a lot more assumptions — that I am quite sure leads to wrongful convictions. And since I live in Illinois, where I believe we lead the nation in the number of deathrow inmates who have been exonerated, it is very apparent that cops, prosecutors, judges, and juries can and do make dreadful mistakes.

But I also have a real problem with the whole prison environment in the U.S. No one should be raped or beaten up by other inmates in prison, and the fact that this is apparently the norm in some facilities is truly appalling. The for-profit prison systems are simply making conditions even worse.

Unfortunately, I think that many of our decision makers have it ass-backward: they would rather pay a lot of money to stick people in prison than pay much lesser amounts to ensure that kids receive good educations and that people who need drug rehab can actually get into good programs. I think a lot of the problem has to do with this very punitive mindset that a lot of Americans have that makes them want to make people “pay” for doing something wrong, but that don’t want to devote resources (lower cost resources than prisons) to ensuring that young people have the education necessary to obtain jobs, have assistance obtaining jobs (even if it means a Citizens Conservation Corp type thing during times of significant unemployment), and are given some hope of a better, non-criminal future.

There will always be sociopaths and psychopaths that need to be kept away from society, although they shouldn’t be able to run amok in the facilities in which they are kept. But we don’t need to add large quantities of inmates to the mix who are aimless and unprepared for any sort of real future.

However — when it comes to this duo of idiots, I rather doubt that rehabilitation is possible, and they do need to be locked up, although I am on the fence about whether they should be executed.

After that revolution, the nutter believes, he will be the object of veneration and worship, with great statues and so on. Goebbels himself talked about that in a way, in the final days of the Third Reich, urging his flunkies to greater sacrifices in an already lost cause, saying, “Years from now, when they show you on the movie screen, do you want audiences to hiss and boo?” Well, audiences hiss and boo anyway.

But I think what actually motivates these guys to go out in a “blaze of glory” is despair…they know nobody cares about them, nobody supports them besides fellow nutters, the sole result of their protests and internet flame wars is that they have to plead guilty to ugly crimes, getting ratted on by their volkish buddies for said crimes, and being ignored and forgotten, as their “party” disintegrates in a miasma of misbehavior and internal squabbling.

They know they aren’t going to take over as the new Fuehrer, and acts like these are statements of the despair they are in at leading hopeless, useless, hate-filled lives that achieve nothing but cause pain and hatred in total strangers, disdain and distrust in like-minded fellows, and alienation from former friends and family.

Some of these folks are already dead internally when they go out and pull the trigger.

I think the late and unmourned J.T. Ready is a good archetype. Unable to achieve anything in his life, booted out of the Marine Corps, ridiculed by the public, unable to do more than fulminate pointlessly on the Internet, he somehow seems to have got into a massive argument with his family, and killed them all off.

And facing what he had done, the enormity of his acts, the utter failure of his life, rather than face the consequences of his misdeeds, he committed the ultimate act of despair…he took his own life.

I think the real way to look at these junior Fascists is not with hatred…but pity, for how they waste the immense talents that God gives every human being, turning ability, passion, commitment, and determination to barren, useless causes, leaving behind an ugly legacy of pain and hate, and damaged lives — both their victims and their families. Pity…not hatred.

The waste, as Raphael Ezekiel writes in his brilliant book, “The Racist Mind,” is immense and tragic.

I don’t think it’s used fairly, and I don’t think it is really a deterrent against crime. The types of people who commit death-penalty offenses don’t seem to be impressed by the possibility of dying themselves, and some of them go into their killing sprees hoping to die at the end, like the Columbine killers. It certainly doesn’t deter many criminals, who never commit death penalty offenses. It doesn’t deter the street-level drug dealer, the house burglar, the con artist, the people who ripped off Enron, or the Watergate crowd.

On the other hand, I have a fundamental problem with my tax dollars being used to ensure that sadistic vicious killers get three square meals a day, good medical care, clean sheets, and a roof over their heads for decades, while their victims lie with grass over their heads. Some of these prisons give better medical care than members of my family receive, because of the health care crisis in this country. The victims are dead, the killers are living.

So I don’t know what to think about the death penalty. I take a firm stand with both feet in the air, unable to make up my mind.

And that’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it.

Speaking of extremist crime, did you hear about the conviction of mass murder Anders Brevik?

Terrorist Anders Behring Breivik’s Trial Ends But Not The Neo-Crusader “Counter-Jihad” Story
http://www.loonwatch.com/2012/.....had-story/

Hoods — yes, definitely.

I was really rather reluctant to make the comment on appearance (especially because my own looks are just average [better, if I try, but see me at the grocery store and you'd just shrug]) but it does seem to be a common characteristic of many of these folks.

Who knows? Maybe some of them are unconsciously displeased with not being more “lovely of face” and are so “prizing” of “white beauty” that this is one of the drivers behind their craziness (although economics, socio or psychopathic genes, and plug ignorance/stupidity are no doubt the main drivers).

But as I said, I have had some dealings with the dog show/dog breeder crowd, and one finds a lot of highly unattractive people (not a flaw in itself) who are just brutal when it comes to any imperfections in their animals. There has to be some weird, psychological connection, although, admittedly, there are a lot of dog breeders who a perfectly nice looking who also obsess over their dogs’ confirmation.

In cases like these, I believe the better question is ‘What ISN’T wrong with these people?’

To which the natural response is ‘Not much.’

A swimming pool full of papercuts is too good for them.

(Also, I’m now shuddering, because a swimming pool full of papercuts is a genuinely TERRIFYING concept. I hate papercuts, which I acknowledge to be a radical and unpopular opinion. But you’re all just going to have to live with it.)

Also, can you tell it’s Friday?