Voting

[Salty]

Found this quote:
It is tragic that people who are incarcerated are unable to vote. They are probably the most important voices to listen to because they can tell us what we need to change. Yet they are arbitrarily silenced, as if forfeiting their right to vote punishes them. In truth, it punishes the rest of us because it turns the right into a privilege. Whenever privilege is introduced, there are problems. We cannot afford any more problems. - Margaret Cho
Note: Cho is an actress who is of Korean heritage.

Thoughts?

 

[PreachTony]

I don't have a problem with an incarcerated person not being able to vote. I don't think that punishment should extend beyond their incarceration, though. Once a person is out of jail, they have paid their debt to society, taking their punishment, and ought to be restored to their previous rights. Breaking the law to the point of jail time ought to carry a punishment. While I can't speak to it with certainty, I would bet that losing the ability to do one thing that happens every two to four years, depending on your level of involvement, isn't that big a deal to prisoners. I could be wrong, though.

 

[salzer mtn]

Having worked in the prison system for thirty two years I pretty well know how convicts think. If convicts voted in prison they would only vote for the things that suit their own agenda.

 

[PreachTony]

Having worked in the prison system for thirty two years I pretty well know how convicts think. If convicts voted in prison they would only vote for the things that suit their own agenda.

Isn't that sort of how everyone votes already? Pretty much everyone I know that votes does so because they think that particular candidate or party will do the best for them.

 

[salzer mtn]

Isn't that sort of how everyone votes already? Pretty much everyone I know that votes does so because they think that particular candidate or party will do the best for them.

What a convict would vote for and what I would vote for would not be the same, so would I want them to vote and possibly out vote me and other church people ?

 

[PreachTony]

What a convict would vote for and what I would vote for would not be the same, so would I want them to vote and possibly out vote me and other church people ?

No, I agree. I was just pointing out that anyone who votes tends to vote their own best interests. I meant no offense, salzer.

 

[carpro]

Found this quote:
It is tragic that people who are incarcerated are unable to vote. They are probably the most important voices to listen to because they can tell us what we need to change. Yet they are arbitrarily silenced, as if forfeiting their right to vote punishes them. In truth, it punishes the rest of us because it turns the right into a privilege. Whenever privilege is introduced, there are problems. We cannot afford any more problems. - Margaret Cho
Note: Cho is an actress who is of Korean heritage.

Thoughts?

She's an idiot.

 

[carpro]

Once a person is out of jail, they have paid their debt to society, taking their punishment, and ought to be restored to their previous rights.

Not by a long shot. Being placed on parole does not finish their debt to society. After their sentence is served, their parole is over, and they are completely free, I have no problem with restoring their right to vote.

The vast majority of them will never make it. Back to prison they'll go. Either for a parole violation or a new charge, but back they will go.

Parole is really hard for most of these fools. Rules, to them, are meant to be broken. That's why they were put in prison in the first place.

 

[Salty]

In a 15 state study, over two-thirds of released prisoners were rearrested within three years

 

[OldRegular]

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