This is where our hard earned money goes.

[sturg33]

Non violent drug offenders shouldn't be crowding our prisons. I think that's what sturg meant, or that's what I thought he meant.

Correct

[sturg33]

What should the punishment be for someone who breaks into your home and steals all your stuff?

Considering that is a violation of my property rights, I think there should be severe punishment.

[sturg33]

You think Sturg locks his front door at night? I mean if non-violent crimes shouldn't be punished why prevent them? What's a little breaking and entering charge? It is a non-violent crime after all. If Sturg owned a retail store you think he would prosecute shoplifters? If not, word spreads and people will steal from the store everyday and eventually he may go out of business due to theft.

The majority of persons in prisons have committed crime after crime. People don't wake up one day and start doing hard drugs or committing violent crimes. They start with small drugs and small non-violent crimes and after awhile they add on bigger crimes and harder drugs. A person is a ****ing idiot if they don't think small crimes should be punishable. If you make people realize that step 1 is wrong and if they commit the crime they have to do time you will have less people on step 2 but if you don't punish entry level offenders you'll have more offenders committing more heinous crimes.

If you really wanted to save spending in prisons you make the punishments more severe and less people will commit crimes down the road due to the punishments and eventually you'll have less people incarcerated.

I don't even know how to respond to such nonsense.

[jpx7]

Usually when your only argument against the OP is... oh but there's another shiny thing over there that sux, so go look over there... then maybe the OP is onto something.

Not sure what you mean here. Plenty of cogent arguments directly refuting thethe's initial claim have been advanced, with probably the most germane argument – made by both Julio and Gary – being that extrapolating generalities from one (seemingly foolish) lady is itself foolish, sensationalist, methodologically flawed, and does a disservice to all those who you really do depend on social supports because of circumstances beyond their doing or control.

[weso1]

I don't really see that as an argument against the OP, which just stated "This is where our money goes." That much is true. It's more like an addendum to the OP where Julio is essentially arguing that it's true, but not a big deal. The argument against the OP seems to be the hypocrisy complaint. Crumpfly grumped at me about changing the subject in another thread about FoxNews when I tried that same angle. The hypocrisy never ends.

[weso1]

I am really bored.

[jpx7]

I don't really see that as an argument against the OP, which just stated "This is where our money goes." That much is true. It's more like an addendum to the OP where Julio is essentially arguing that it's true, but not a big deal. The argument against the OP seems to be the hypocrisy complaint. Crumpfly grumped at me about changing the subject in another thread about FoxNews when I tried that same angle. The hypocrisy never ends.

To me, that seems like a deliberate misreading of thethe's opening statements: the "this" in question, for him, is not social supports per se but the abuse thereof, hence citing such an extreme case. But that's generating generalities out of a single grain.

However, if you want to go down that road: the US federal government spends almost twice as much on "defense" as it does on "safety-net" programs. So that, even more so, is where our hard-earned money goes.

[Coredor]

In the grand scheme of things, people like this lady are only a very small part of our budget problems. I also feel that we don't really have a choice, but to do what we can for those children. As for her, she is exactly the kind of reason we need to have a human spay/neuter program. I'm sorry, but people should not have more children then they can support. I'm sympathetic to poor people's rights to have a child or two, but once it gets to a certain point it's ridiculous.

As far as birth control and personal responsibility goes, yes it is something they could probably obtain. However I want it as easily and readily available as humanly possible. The government could probably save money delivering it to her door every month for free. It's in society's best interests that people who want birth control get it.

[The Chosen One]

In the grand scheme of things, people like this lady are only a very small part of our budget problems. I also feel that we don't really have a choice, but to do what we can for those children. As for her, she is exactly the kind of reason we need to have a human spay/neuter program. I'm sorry, but people should not have more children then they can support. I'm sympathetic to poor people's rights to have a child or two, but once it gets to a certain point it's ridiculous.

As far as birth control and personal responsibility goes, yes it is something they could probably obtain. However I want it as easily and readily available as humanly possible. The government could probably save money delivering it to her door every month for free. It's in society's best interests that people who want birth control get it.

Protect the sperm.

[Tapate50]

They don't make it a priority to get BC so they don't get it. It simply isn't a priority.