Dick Dasterdly

Econ is correct, prisoners will get the vote.
If it is blocked any longer they will be making sizable compensation claims and
law abiding citizens will be footing the bill,...as usual.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010...lection-europe

He also has a good point about all expenses paid prison life.
Just think, no heating bills,tv licence,food bills and all the rest.
There have been numerous cases for as long back as I can remember, of habitual criminals openly admitting to deliberately getting themselves jail-time, (or expenses paid holidays with all mod cons, as they seem to consider it), when they have come upon hard times, quite often timing it for the colder Winter months.
Don't see law abiding citizens getting such rights, though no doubt they'll soon get a visit from the bailiffs if they don't pay their gas bills.

Econ

Well we agree on something, a society that refuses to deal with them properly.

My opinions on what should be a democratic right are obviously different than yours.

Just because it is in a tabloid does not mean it is not a truth.

If the European court of Human rights say they will get the vote then the British government is bound by it.

I really don't think you have understood much of what I have posted to be honest.

Have I gone on about how wonderful it would be to live in a dictatorship? But what I have said in short is I have been in Spain many times under Franco's rule (granted last 7 years of it) and did not see any problems or fear from the locals and experienced what I felt a very safe country compared to what it is now, I have clear memories of Spanish in the evenings out in the streets laughing and enjoying themselves without any fear of a dictator or his disciples. Looking back this is not what I would expect from a Franco dictatorship where people lived in fear which some people 'then unborn' keep saying was terrible.
I have put questions out there and tried to make comparisons, some easier comparisons than others but it seems to is the youth (unborn then) 'in my experience' that appear to complain more about Franco than the elder Spanish who where alive under Franco's rule.

bil

OK, I think we are arguing about different things, and using different sticks to measure them with.

First off, it is correct to say that dictators exist on a scale, where some are worse than others. I would rather have lived under Franco than Hitler or Stalin. That much I would agree with.

Next, by what do you measure quality of life? If your sole or main criterion is that you should live a crime free life and where criminals are punished brutally or killed, then a dictatorship has a lot going for it. Just so long as what you like doing isn't suddenly designated as a crime against the state.

Now rights. If you are going to compare rights between those banged up and those of us we class a free citizens, then we need to define clearly what is a right. There are the obvious ones like freedom of worship, thought, and so on. Things that are available to all people regardless of gender, colour, creed, race, sexuality etc. Should then those who are jailed be denied these? Is the ability to vote at an election solely the prerogative of free people? If so, then it could be argued that voting is not a right if that function can be denied us.

Democracy is messy, disorganised, keeps changing direction and is, bluntly quite inefficient at times.

As for the Daily Mail containing truth, I don't doubt that at times it does, however trusting things you read in it is a bit like putting your hand into an arab toilet and expecting to pull out a 50 euro note. Possible, but oh so unlikely.

Dick D.,

Jail as an all expenses paid luxury holiday?

That's only true if you compare it to living rough on the streets. Prison is a ghastly place, so why are you describing it thus?

Do you really think that for the vast majority of people that Jail is better than how they live? Would you trade your miserable existance for the delights of living in Jail?

Dick Dasterdly

Crimes against the state apply to democracies as well as dictatorships.
No doubt each country has it's own rules, which democracies can and often do bend or hide behind, just as with dictatorships.

With regard to being banged up, apart from total freedom, prisoners enjoy almost as many rights as everyone else, in addition to the numerous benefits they get free of charge, courtesy of the honest taxpayer.

I don't know on what evidence you describe prison as a ghastly place.
Having never been there myself, I have no personal experience.
However the fact that many habitual criminals seem happy to repeatedly spend time there, sometimes by choice, seems to speak for itself.

cricketman

I dont agree, it depends on who you are.

If you were a heterosexual Aryan German with a job and no mental illness or disabilities then life under Hitler was great. If you were Jewish, then not so much.

If you had communist, socialist or anarchist political views under Franco you would have been killed, imprisoned permanently or had to escape the country. However, it you were a good Catholic family who didnt mind the priest having a special relationship with your children, then life was pretty great

bil

Fair enuff dude, but I did assume that everyone would be bright enough to work that much out. Yeah, being a gay black jew under the nazis would give you about the same life expectancy as a kleenex in a blast furnace.

bil

Darling boy. It is terribly sweet of you to pull my plonker like this, but next time flowers and a meal first?

Here we go.

1. "Crimes against the state apply to democracies as well as dictatorships."

Yeah, but at least under a democracy I am less likely to be shot in the head and left by the side of the road as a warning to my family.


2. "With regard to being banged up, apart from total freedom, "

Total freedom? This is so silly I can't parody it. Sorry about that.

3. "prisoners enjoy almost as many rights as everyone else, in addition to the numerous benefits they get free of charge, courtesy of the honest taxpayer."

So what about dishonest taxpayers? Do they not have to contribute to this jamboree? List the rights and benefits. If you can't, then sadly we will have to accept that you are simply parroting Mailspeak.

4. " I don't know on what evidence you describe prison as a ghastly place.
Having never been there myself, I have no personal experience."

Me neither. I haven't gone over Niagara falls in a barrel, but I think my evaluation of it as wet, bumpy and noisy will stand as being pretty accurate.


5. "However the fact that many habitual criminals seem happy to repeatedly spend time there, sometimes by choice, seems to speak for itself"

Yes, but what does it say? It says that stupid people who make bad choices are unlikely to change. Institutionalised is a big word, but I think it bears merit applying it to this, don't you?



What would I do if I were robbed of all I had and thrown out onto the streets with nothing? I'd use my brain, and if I had no chance of ever regaining what I had, and a miserable life on the streets was all that I was faced with then I'd figure that the stae could look after me in jail if it wouldn't help me any other way.
However that would only be because the alternative was worse.

Mail readers are happy to parrot the shite that living in jail is luxury, because all too often they are inadequates whose personal spite to the rest of humanity is so great that the like nothing better than having someone who is lower down the food chain than them so that they have someone to look down on.

These people love having paedophiles around, because no matter how inadequate they are they still outrank paedos, and they can boost their own pitiful sense of self worth by abusing them.

Econ

No disrespect bil, but this last post of yours is what I would refer to 'parroting shite' as you put it!

I wonder some times are people totally blind or just taking advantage so much that they try to merit their ways and can only see in one direction, theirs.

bil

Ah yes, standard Daily Mail technique. What you can't answer, you disparage.

Oh yeah, some of it's ironic, as you would know if you read it.

xxx

cricketman

I actually think that is pretty accurate

Prisoners living in luxury That doesnt say much about the quality of life of the person who holds that opinion!

Econ

I have answered, time and time again but the problem is all you can do is spurt rubbish in defending your views, obviously a soft spot was touched on and you didn't like it.

bil

I already told DD, no touching soft spots without dinner and flowers.

I dunno, you do make me laugh. I answer and you go all huffy and say it's rubbish.

That's just like running away going "Lalalalalala I can't HEAR you..."

Go back to reading the mail about how the death penalty for socialism will cure dandruff.

bil

Yeah, you know I didn't actually think about that. How shit would your life have to be before you would prefer jail?

Econ

Don't you start trying to be smart because you have showed time and time again you are not.

Telling us how much you are 'anti dictators' but then telling us you think Castro is possibly a good dictator!

If you understood what you talked about you might understand that one side it seems was probably as bad as the other. You also forgot to add to your list above that Franco also killed because people where killing the Catholic cleargy, massacring would probably be more to the point.

I take it what you are saying that you then approve of killing the Catholic cleargy because some of them molested children? I might add that in recent years in democratic societies the Catholic cleargy have been in the news with their antics, Ireland, Canada, Germany... does this mean that you think going round killing these cleargy would be acceptable.

I don't think you have any idea what planet you are on.

bil

"I take it what you are saying that you then approve of killing the Catholic cleargy because some of them molested children?"

Where the **** did he say that?

This is planet earth calling econ, who is apparantly orbiting another reality.