16 Replies to “Take a Bite Out of Crime [Dan Collins]”

1. JHoward says:

   January 26, 2008 at 12:30 pm

   Love it!

2. Karl says:

   January 26, 2008 at 12:39 pm

   Dude, second link needs a-fixin’.

3. The Cutting Edge says:

   January 26, 2008 at 1:23 pm

   WHO ATE MY DAWG?

   Yes, there’s this sad story from Hawaii, where a family pet (Caddy) was dog-napped from a golf course shack and eaten by some (hopefully hungry) Filipinos. Dan Collins posted on this tragic event yesterday (as a follow up to Ace’s original post) and …

4. daleyrocks says:

   January 26, 2008 at 2:54 pm

   R-E-S-P-E-C-T my property. You taka my dog, you paya me cash. You taka my car, you paya me cash. No such thing as private property. No need for individual responsibility. We’re on the JHoward cash system. Take what you want. Pay cash. No more PRISON NATION based on vapid emotionalism.

5. JHoward says:

   January 26, 2008 at 4:36 pm

   daleyrocks, Crime Dawg, Tough On Crime™.

   Retributivist arguments often employ thought experiments meant to elicit various responses from us – materials with which, it is hoped, compelling arguments for punishment can be constructed. Many think that these experiments help make a prima facie case for punishment, that they highlight reasons that speak unequivocally, if not decisively, in punishment’s favor. Retributivist use of these experiments has gone insufficiently challenged.

   […]

   These experiments do not highlight reasons for punishment. In fact, examination of these experiments and arguments that have employed them can help emphasize the strength of Abolitionism, the view that punishment is unjustified.

   […]

   Retributivist arguments employing these experiments suffer from a variety of problems. They rely on dubious and ambiguous claims about the nature and content of the responses elicited by the experiments, misconstrue the moral import of some of the responses, and insufficiently question mistaken assumptions that influence the responses.

   […]

   Emotions and desires are not judgments or intuitions – or at least not obviously judgments or intuitions of the sort that retributivists need. A desire for or emotional inclination towards something does not in itself furnish any evidence in favor of the claim that that thing is good.

   […]

   To make their case, retributivists must do more than appeal to popular responses to these experiments. Retributivists must show that anyone with a sufficiently good grasp of the enforcement options – including the range of non-punitive alternatives – would favor punishment and would do so for the right reasons. This is something retributivists have not done.

   Except for, you know, legislatures are never wrong…and the courts even less so.

   http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1083558#PaperDownload

6. JD says:

   January 26, 2008 at 4:57 pm

   Nothing like a little reductio ad absurdio (heh), jhoward.

7. JHoward says:

   January 26, 2008 at 5:19 pm

   Either that or retribution ad absurdio, JD. Because of all the pain the bastards caused, thereby upsetting the artfully-designed Social Order of Things.

   Funny; I feel like a boy and his dog.

8. daleyrocks says:

   January 26, 2008 at 5:22 pm

   Absurd is par for the course with JHoward. His cash compensation scheme for property crimes from the other thread doesn’t encourage people to respect private property and he continues to ignore the genesis of the Hawaiian law in question, content to focus on the red herring of emotionalism without investigation.

   Myself, I want to hear more about money as debt. I need more laughs.

9. daleyrocks says:

   January 26, 2008 at 5:26 pm

   In a Boy and His Dog, Don Johnson and his dog were eating other humans, including that tricky babe who lured Don underground, rather than dogs. Not the same situation.

10. JHoward says:

    January 26, 2008 at 5:33 pm

    You run with that, dr. Especially the film’s ending. Or the contrasting misogny and misandry throughout. I bet it all adds up, especially the sperm banks.

    At any rate, Ellison had actually constructed a managed, monolithic society where dissention simply wasn’t tolerated. I think because it interfered with stuff.

11. Dan Collins says:

    January 26, 2008 at 5:36 pm

    I don’t mind your wrangling, guys, but to be honest, I was hoping that the episode, apart from affording ample scope for tasteless jokes, would provoke a discussion about how we assign degrees of seriousness and kinds of punishment to the variety of transgressions that we choose to regard as crimes.

12. JHoward says:

    January 26, 2008 at 5:55 pm

    Dan, are you questioning daileyrock’s patriotism?

13. happyfeet says:

    January 26, 2008 at 5:59 pm

    Mostly I think there should be really harsh penalties for people who commit crimes I’m in no danger of committing. Not that everything I don’t do should be criminal, cause some of it I just haven’t gotten around to yet, but for things like building a subway and not connecting it to the airport I support the death penalty.

14. JHoward says:

    January 26, 2008 at 6:06 pm

    Leaving the issue of bad turtle-tank water completely off the table; I see how you are feets. Oh, yes I do.

15. happyfeet says:

    January 26, 2008 at 6:11 pm

    Hey, now. For real you should see what turtle-tank water does for the plants on the balcony. I should be bottling that stuff.

16. McGehee says:

    January 26, 2008 at 9:34 pm

    I question the dog’s patriotism.

Comments are closed.