this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2023
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[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

God I fucking hate US prisons. This is the thing about my country I am the most ashamed of.

This is gonna happen again, to right-wing jan 6 insurrectionist Jessica Watkins. A trans woman who is likely to be put into a male prison for 8 years.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (5 children)

This is gonna happen again, to right-wing jan 6 insurrectionist Jessica Watkins. A trans woman who is likely to be put into a male prison for 8 years.

That's exactly what she voted and insurrected for, right? A trans republican getting the taste of their anti-trans party's own medicine.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I don't think that the punishment meets the crime. No one deserves to be treated inhumanely in prison. No matter how mislead this person is, that's a terrible outcome.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I can agree in principle. However, I can make exceptions for when people who vote for policies that promote and encourage discrimination experience the fruits of their labor first-hand.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well, if it were extrajudicial I would agree. Leopards ate her face. But this is our country's judicial system. It isn't wholly owned by the far right (though it's wildly close).

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Then you have no principle with which to agree. You can’t be a fair weather ethicist. You either believe in human rights for ALL, including pieces of shit, or you don’t believe in them for ANYONE.

“Message to my enemies: when the revolution comes you’re not just gonna get the wall, Buddy, you’re gonna get four walls, a roof, clean clothes, good food, education, and quality health care, because that’s what every human being alive deserves.”

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Precisely this. I tend to extend the tolerance paradox to violence, sometimes people have never been punched in the face and it shows. Just like tolerance of intolerance only allows intolerance to spread and shit all over everything, so does pacifism in the face of violence. I don't want her to be hurt, but she supported a system and society that sees violence against trans as a core value and she doesn't get to shocked Pikachu when she reaps the fruits of her labors.

Sucks to suck. 🤷

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

We don't sentence & punish people based on their politics. That way leads only to crazy fascism.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago

Yes, and there's an irony to it. That doesn't change that it's cruel and absolutely not something that should be happening even to the worst people out there, regardless of how much we hate them or if it's exactly what they were pushing to make even worse.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago

I'm sorry, do you want bad things to happen to trans people? Yeah, she's an insurrectionist, no, that doesn't mean she should get put in harm's way as part of her sentencing. Find your fucking heart.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Are trans rights human rights or not? You think it's fine for a trans women to be raped and murdered in a men's prison because her politics are shit? Well, thanks for letting us know where you stand.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

No one deserves to be raped and murdered in prison. The justice system is far from perfect but we don't sentence people to be raped and then murdered. We do rarely sentence people to death, but not by vigilante shanking or beating.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's so difficult to argue for a better prison system too, because a lot of people seem to think you're siding with the prisoners.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)

What's so bad about siding with the "prisoners"? Not with the "criminals" mind you, just the "prisoners".

In many countries, prisons have the mandate to "reeducate and reinsert into society", and while privation of liberty is a punishment in itself, it's intended only as a way to turn criminals too dangerous to let loose, into upstanding citizens once they do their time.

Prisoners can be "citizens in the making", not just "criminals thrown in a hole". That might be the first point to try to get through.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm saying people will say absurd things like "so you think it's okay to murder people?" I have genuinely had people ask me that when I complained about our inhumane prison system.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I know what you mean, we have a "reeducate and reinsert" penal system in Spain, and some people keep asking for the death penalty for murderers. Dead people can't become a member of society! 🙄

It's just the Overton window, we have it still towards the side of reeducation, but some people keep trying to push it towards punishment. In the US, it's already leaning towards punishment... and those people you mention, are the ones pushing it... so if you want that to change, you need to push it the other way.

Something like "so you think throwing people away is a good use of resources?". Follow up with a joke about Soylent Green, or something, to make it look less confrontational... but ultimately it needs to be something farther away than your actual position, just like they do 🤷

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Look at how they turned Bernie Sanders into "the guy who wanted to let the Boston bomber vote" for advocating for prisoner rights.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

These are great arguments ans genuinely I've never heard an American say them.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Exactly, a significant portion of people aren't able to argue about this in good faith and need to be walked through this long list of deep ethics questions in order to sorta meet the right answer.