Letters to the Editor
Ilya
Published Letters: 19 Editor's Choice: 2
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It's good to be king!
[Read the article: Bill Gates and Wal-Mart want to save the world]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"We have to find a way to make the aspects of capitalism that serve wealthier people serve poorer people as well." When Gates says "we", he doesn't include you and me -- and, certainly, not the aforementioned poor people. His philantropy is at its core anithetic to the democratic process. He just plain doesn't believe in it. He doesn't mind dishing out millions of dollars to affect global policy in accordance with *his* vision, but when the county assesses "too much" property tax on his mansion, he squeals like a stuck pig (although it means nothing to him financially). Why? He just plain doesn't like it when the plebs deign to excercise some control over his sovereignty. They are not entitled!... they just don't have his brain power.
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she is a terrorist -- and terrorism is what?
[Read the article: Is Briana Waters a terrorist?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Several letter writers have defined terrorism as trying to achieve political objectives through extra-legal means, i.e. commiting crimes to advance their socio-political cause. The flip side of that is the government trying to achive political objectives through the use of the criminal justice system. That is to say -- an arson is not just an arson, depending on the politics and motivations of the arsonist. Is this fair? Is this just? Do we want our criminal justice system to be used for such purposes? Do we want impeding traffic or disorderly conduct misdemeanors to carry 20yr sentences because the government wants to slap a political label of "terrorism" on the defendants?
I am not questioning her conviction; don't have a basis to opine on that. However, I do think that she should be treated as just another arsonist, who destroyed some amount of property.
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@Paul in NJ
[Read the article: Is Briana Waters a terrorist?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]How do you feel about 'hate crimes,' Ilya? Do you think a person should get extra jail time because s/he injured or killed a person of color rather than a white person? Just curious.
Actually, I almost added this point to my post. I think hate crime legislation is utterly stupid for the very same reasons: (a) criminal justice should not be in the business of judging the person's motives (b) is actually counter-productive to convicting the person, e.g. the jury sympathizes with the person's leanings. Just out of curiousity -- how do you feel about hate crimes, Paul?
Once again, this is quite simple -- read JackSparx's post that sums up quite well the absurdity of judging someone's intentions.
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@Brian Stegner
[Read the article: Criminals of the world, unite and take over]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In fact, because of the placement of the comma, the headline is imploring criminals to unite and take over. I guess it's quite ironic given the original slogan -- "Workers of the world, unite".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers_of_the_world,_unite!
In the context of this article, the "criminals" are the oppressors, or the capitalists in Marx's framework.
...just another proof that irony is dead, even at Salon.
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Finally!
[Read the article: McCain's gassy tax relief]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...someone is talking about public transportation, which is how a great number of lower-income workers commute. Of course, they will get nothing in terms of tax benefits from McCain's "tax relief"; neither will the drivers, as gas prices will immediately rise swallowing any tax-cut reduction. Public transportation -- along with other conservation measures -- is the only near term solution to both the oil prices and environmental woes. Buses can run on natural gas, bio-diesel, etc., for the obvious reason that they only need to get re-fueled in one place.
Let's disabuse ourselves from the quasi-religious belief that free market "knows" best. It's just too linear and simplistic. We live in the days when we need huge investments in public infrastructure to (a) aid commerce (b) maintain quality of life for the people who toil in it. We need public highways, trash disposal, environmental and public safety agencies, and so on and on and on. Just because it is difficult to add up these costs, doesn't mean that they don't exist! Taxation serves two purposes: to collect revenue and to affect behavior. Let's start using it wisely and spending the revenues wisely.
Perhaps, it's time to take a deep breath and start talking about shifting our economy from being consumption based to being quality of life based...
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automating criminal justice
[Read the article: Has our reverence for DNA gone too far?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Automation is great...except it is so error prone. It's not so much that the investigators will plant evidence, it's more a question of how they will approach investigating the crime. If everyone's DNA is on file, the investigation process will become inverted: DNA matches will be run on all the bits of physical evidence found at the crime scene and the rest of the facts will be fixed to fit the person. I can just see a CSI robot vacuming everything to collect all the little scraps of human anatomy, running the test, and then spitting out the name of the guilty party. Don't think so? Just look at what happened with that unfortunate lawyer from Oregon whose fingerprints were "matched" to the Madrid bombing. How is it possible that someone who had nothing to do with anything got linked to the crime?
There will be millions of DNA records in various databses, running on faulty hardware, being mangled by buggy software, transmitted over error-prone networks and so on, and on, and on, down the rabbit hole of automation. It will be just like in Terry Gilliam's "Brazil"...