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| Mandatory Community Service | |
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| Topic Started: Oct 1 2007, 01:43 PM (1,280 Views) | |
| Post #1 Oct 1 2007, 01:43 PM |
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What are your thoughts about mandatory community service? I attach this link to give you an idea of some of the programs that I'd like to see. http://chrisdodd.com/issues/national_service//plan |
Civilian
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| Post #2 Oct 1 2007, 05:54 PM |
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| Again, please don't just post a link and invite discussion. Please post your thoughts (along with the link, if you prefer), and then ask for other opinions. Thank you. |
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| Post #3 Oct 1 2007, 10:28 PM |
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| Again, I think charity should be a private thing not a government service. |
Civil Servant
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| Post #4 Oct 2 2007, 04:43 PM |
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| I completely agree with CT-95. I would want to choose my community service, not make it mandatory from the government. |
Civilian
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| Post #5 Oct 2 2007, 05:12 PM |
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Some of the initiatives seem decent, others simply another way to grow government and feed the socialist machine... Overall I also agree with CT. When service is mandated it is no longer service and any sense of moral or philanthropic value is removed from it. If they are going to mandate these things, at least call it what it is. It's not service, it's a form of slavery. (hmm, perhaps slavery is too strong) |
Civilian
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| Post #6 Oct 2 2007, 06:23 PM |
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| The most accurate term often seems too harsh. |
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| Post #7 Oct 3 2007, 08:19 AM |
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| It's a good thing I looked at that link before I replied. I first thought of court mandated community service. That...if it serves its purpose. And, at first I was inclined to agree with everyone else's point of view on this matter. But, then I thought about another thread that we have discussed concerning the youth of today and their apparent lack of respect for others. Maybe (and that's a big MAYBE) if they had to perform something where they were forced to at least pretend to have respect in order to pass the class some of it might rub off. At least once in their lives they would have had some practice at it. Maybe I'm just being idealistic. |
Civilian
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| Post #8 Oct 3 2007, 09:28 AM |
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Slavery or charitable service? 1) I concur with Gentry and Eye. Mandataed service is a form of slavery. 2) Community service isn't charitable and loses much of its inherent goodness for both the "giver" and the recipient if it is mandated. |
Civil Servant
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| Post #9 Oct 18 2007, 10:24 PM |
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It is slavery. It's clear-cut slavery, at least in my eyes. It is also slavery when one person or group makes a pot-smoker do community service--even if they try to justify it as a "punishment." It is effectively slavery when a government or mafia forces a person to give them a cut of the money the person earns from their labor. This most often comes in the form of income tax or a protection racket, which are a way to get paid for someone else's labor. That's capitalistic slavery. Perhaps slavery is common-place and freedom is just a dream. |
Civilian
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| Post #10 Oct 18 2007, 10:29 PM |
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By that logic, sending a killer to jail is kidnapping. Sorry to have to say it, but, if one breaks the law, society has the right and responsibility to set a reasonable punishment. We are lucky to live in a country where community service for breaking the law is an option. In other countries, that particular infraction would earn hard prison time. |
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| Post #11 Oct 18 2007, 10:38 PM |
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Sending a killer to jail is a form of defense. There is a difference between kidnapping and defending yourself, I would say. Insofar as there is not, I would say that I do not necessarily oppose kidnapping. Actually drugs like marijuana earn hard prison time in the United States more than anywhere else. Remember, the United States has the largest prison population in the world, at well over 2 million people. 25% of inmates in the United States are in for non-violent drug "offenses," and that percent is even higher when talking strictly of prisons (as opposed to jails). I don't oppose slavery only when it is done to someone who hasn't broken the law. I oppose it all the time, and I could care less about anybody's laws. Same goes with other acts of offensive coercion, such as rape, murder and kidnapping (in the offensive sense, if restraining a violent attacker is considered kidnapping). In analogy, I wouldn't support prima nocta if it was made into law here. I would still consider it rape and thus oppose it, even when it is legal and resisting it is illegal. The fact is, what a certain organization writes down as law doesn't change what qualifies as slavery or rape, at least not to me. Thanks, Scott |
Civilian
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| Post #12 Oct 19 2007, 07:16 AM |
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No. Sending a killer to jail is a form of punishment, a legitimate function of society. If it were defense, he'd only be sent if there were reason to believe that he'd kill again. One-time killers, who'd never ever do it again are sent to jail regularly. It is punishment. Societies have to set limits on behavior and to exact punishment for behavior outside those limits. It is reasonable. No doubt, people who choose to break a certain law, don't like that law--or the prospect of being punished for breaking it. However, it is illogical to believe that society should not punish someone for breaking it. The logical reaction is to try to change the law. On another point, can you back up your claim that marijuana earns hard prison time more in the U.S. "than anywhere else." That is a bold absolute that requires support! On one last point, of course you are against slavery. All reasonable people are. I am just taking issue with your specious claim that a punishment legally handed down to someone who chose to break a law is a form of slavery. That is an insult to any who have suffered under slavery due to no action of their own. Speak out vigorously against laws with which you disagree, but minimize the horrors of real slavery at the risk of not having your ideas taken seriously. |
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| Post #13 Oct 24 2007, 04:16 PM |
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Forcing someone to do labor is slavery, by definition. Even if the law says to. In analogy, forcing someone to have sex is rape, even if it is mandated by law--which is what is done with prima nocta. Insofar as any law or government punishes people just for the sake of punishment or vengeance is scary and I definitely oppose that. Punishment can be used as a form of defense because it can be used to deter victimization if victimizers know that they will be punished, and it can be used as a form of rehabilitation in the same way dogs are trained through punishment. (Most studies and psychologists have shown clearly that harsh punishment does not deter crime and can even cause more crime, though.) The only use of a jail with which I support is to use it to detain victimizers so that they can not victimize anyone--such that a killer would be locked up so that they cannot kill anyone (else).
I don't see how it is relevant whether the slavery is being used to punish someone for something innocuous (such as practicing a certain religion or smoking a certain substance) rather than something they did not choose such as height or ethnicity. If one group or person offensively forces another person to do labor, that is slavery--whether they do it because the person practices Christianity, or do it because the person is Chinese, or do it because the person smokes marijuana, or do it because the person watches TV. If one person or group non-defensively tells another person to do something or not do something, and threatens them with forced labor, that is slavery. In analogy, if one group or person forces another person to have sex, that is rape. It doesn't matter if they do it because the victim is Jewish, or do it because the person is Chinese, or do it because the person smokes marijuana, or do it because the person watches TV. For example, if a person tells another that if that second person follows a certain religion then that second person will have to do labor, than that is slavery, if it is done. If the first person tells the second person that the second person will be forced to have sex if the second person follows a certain religion, than that is rape, if it is done. If the first person tells that second person that the second person will be taken and detained if the second person follows a certain religion, then that is kidnapping. Sure you can use rape or slavery as punishment, but people like me oppose non-defensive punishment. Of course, the original question wasn't whether or not mandatory community service was punishment. The original question was whether mandated community service is slavery, and it most clearly is slavery. Thanks, Scott |
Civilian
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| Post #14 Oct 24 2007, 07:00 PM |
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No. That is simply not true. The definition of slavery is the ownership of another person, which, in turn, implies a "right" to force the owned person to do labor. Slavery is decidedly not the legal imposition of a labor sentence as punishment for breaking the law. One might metaphorically make a comparison, but, as I pointed out, such a comparison is horrifically insensitive to the actual plight of actual slaves, particularly those whose state of being owned permitted their owner to brutalize or even kill them. It is reasonable to complain that a sentence to community service is unfair because one feels that the action should not be a crime. I just find that a particularly useless and self-serving argument in the case of being punished for smoking pot. Making these comparisons of relatively minor crimes and punishments to particularly nasty actions like rape and slavery serves only to inflame and does not further the point that you are trying to make. Stated as plainly as I can, I submit the following: Pot is illegal. If one is sentenced to community service for committing that particular crime, they have been dealt with generously and should appreciate the lack of time in jail. The community service is not slavery, just as much as the time in jail would not be kidnapping. Both are the legal execution of a lawful sentence as decided and implemented with the agreement of members of society in general. We all live in a society. That means that we don't have the absolute freedom that anarchy would provide. It also means that we have a higher level of security and convenience for which people form societies. If one rejects society's right and need to pass laws for which there is general (but not necessarily complete) agreement among members of that society and society's right and need to punish those who break those laws using means that members of society generally agree are reasonable, then one ought to seek out a mountaintop where one can determine for himself, without considering anyone else, what should or should not be done. |
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| Post #15 Feb 28 2008, 01:08 AM |
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eye95, Your only argument seems to be that the forced labor is legally mandated and thus not slavery. But whether a certain action is slavery, kidnapping, or rape is not dependent on whether the action is illegal--at least as I use the terms. Do you not consider prima nocta to be rape? It is legally mandated sex, à la Braveheart. If some random person were to successfully force you to do regular labor without pay by threatening you with violence, would you consider that slavery? I would. And I would consider it slavery even if "the random person" is the government.
You seem to be suggesting social contract theory, which I reject. I do not believe that society needs rulership to be formed. I believe societies can be formed without rulership, namely through voluntary organizations. I agree with Pierre-Joseph Proudhon who said, "Liberty is the mother not the daughter of order." Regardless, the war on marijuana is not at all contributive to social order, in fact it blatantly disrupts order--hence the phrase "war on drugs." Due to the overwhelming limitations on freedom in the world, I am inclined to live on a mountaintop or in the wilderness much like one of my heroes, Henry David Thoreau, did for some time. But I am more inclined to go to jail because of stupid laws like he did. "Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison." ~Thoreau But if I can't go to jail for not paying taxes, maybe I can throw a Boston tea party. "I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it." ~Thomas Jefferson |
Civilian
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| Post #16 Feb 28 2008, 07:58 PM |
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No. That is not my argument. Community service does not involve ownership of the one so sentenced for his crime. Ownership of a person is what makes slavery slavery. It has nothing to do with legality. Please do not misrepresent what I say. When you do, that is as far as I will read and the only thing to which I will respond. If you wish to remake whatever your point was, without stating my position, poorly, I will be happy to address it. |
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| Post #17 Mar 5 2008, 01:05 AM |
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eye95, Well, then we are just talking terminology. If you do not want to refer to forced labor as slavery, then that's fine. I will continue to use the term slavery to refer to forced labor on my own, but I will remember not to use the term slavery to refer to forced labor. "What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet." ~Shakespeare I oppose (non-retributive) forced labor in the same way I oppose rape or battery. Whatever terms we use call them, I oppose any instance of one person or group using offensive violence or coercion against another person or group. I want people to be able to use force to defend themselves, but not to offensively control others. That's why I oppose rape, (non-retributive) forced labor, battery, murder, etcetera; and that's why I support the use of as much defensive force as necessary to defend oneself from rape, (non-retributive) forced labor, battery, murder, or so on and so forth. I include retribution in defense. So to force someone to pay (in terms of labor or money) for offensive damages they caused to someone else is supported by me. For example, I would support making a person do forced labor or paying money to refund a second person for damages the first person caused to the second person through such damage-causing things as rape, (non-retributive) forced labor, battery, murder, etcetera. (Of course, I would place the burden of proof on the person who wants retribution.)
I didn't mean to misrepresent what you said. I find it usually helps to clear up communication when I put what I think someone else said into my own words before responding. It helps keep us on the same page. I try to remember to do it often when responding. I'll try not to do it with you anymore. I apologize for misrepresenting what you said and any distress it caused you. |
Civilian
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| Post #18 Mar 5 2008, 06:07 PM |
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| What's in a name??? The name you choose to use is deceptive--and disgustingly dismissive of the horrors suffered by millions of Americans who suffered through the institution of slavery, just to rail against the state's right (and responsibility) to punish the breaking of its laws. |
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| Post #19 Mar 5 2008, 06:09 PM |
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Then please ask. Say, "Do you mean that...?" |
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| Post #20 Mar 8 2008, 05:49 PM |
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You can call it whatever you want. I think the term slavery is appropriate, but if you don't then I won't call it that here. I oppose (non-retributive) forced labor regardless of what it is called. The source of my opposition to a thing is not the thing's name but the thing itself regardless of what one calls it. |
Civilian
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2:54 PM Feb 6