Crimes like what she apparently committed you can't pay enough for. I mean seriously, WTF? I'm pretty damn liberal and I have no problem losing the key for people like her.

Your idea of retribution is not supposed to be what our criminal justice system is based on. I mean, it currently is, but that's far from ideal. Retribution leaves both parties blind, as the old saying goes. A more humane system focuses on rehabilitating people and preparing them to go back into society. We have to think really deeply about what human rights means here. If your human rights can be taken away from you because you're convicted of a crime, they didn't really mean all that much to begin with imo.

And regardless of what you think of her, she has served her sentenced time. I guarantee you it was no cakewalk. Does she ever get credit for this or is she just supposed to be shamed into a hole for the rest of her life?

It's not that anyone who committed a serious crime would be objectionable in this role. If someone like Snoop from the Wire were leading this discussion, then no one outside of the Fox News crew would care. But this lady's crime is heinous. One can appreciate she served her sentence while still wanting to keep their distance socially. If Jerry Sandusky lives to be 100, serving his full sentence, you're telling me you wouldn't object to him as a marquee speaker at a left wing event? Gmafb.

Right wing disagreement is always privileged, left wing disagreement is censorship.

Some people might think about the lesson you're sending to the left by saying that relatively benign behaviors like unsubscribing to a newspaper or kneeling during the national anthem are equivalent to violence. Might as well use violence then, right?

There's a weird unspoken assumption in all the handwringing about liberal overreaction like a subscription to the NYT is something the NYT is entitled to get from left-of-center people and their attempt at outreach to the right should be a freeroll.

Decisions have consequences. When you move left, you will offend the right, and vice versa.

She's a fine choice to speak at an event focused on prisoners' rights, but then the issue is that the woman needs to own her crimes. She needs to open with a brief description of what she did and segue into how she hopes to gain redemption by working for the rights of others, how a healthy society treats even their worst humanely, yada yada.

Why she would be marquee at a Women's March is beyond me. Incarceration and prisoners' rights aren't particularly women's issues. Beyond being female, in what way does she have any standing to speak for the concerns of women in general? Standing up for the downtrodden is important, but it's a sickness of the Left to treat those who embody the downtrodden as though ipso facto their voices are important in every circumstance. It's also emblematic of the tendency of the hard Left to soapbox about unrelated issues in a way that sabotages the focus on the issues at hand. I remember when I went to the Iraq War protests in Adelaide in 2003 (I think 70,000 people showed up in a city of 1 million, largest protest in my lifetime) someone got up at the rally endpoint at Parliament House and started giving a speech about unionism and workers' rights. Like really, get the **** off the stage, what is wrong with you?

Frankly if the woman had any sense, she'd ask for her name not to be associated with the event, because it's likely to be a detractor to coherent messaging.

Not really. I worked with a guy for 3 years who spent 5 1/2 years in prison on a drug charge who is absolutely a decent person. Another guy who worked with me occasionally is now in for life. He is not anywhere near torturing people for money. I think he was involved in a robbery where someone got shot. I worked with another guy briefly who was in for 8 1/2 years for a gang shooting. Not that these are necessarily great records, but the typical guy in prison is not an absolutely deranged psycho. Although I did teach at a place that served people just released, those three were just what you come across in construction if you are willing to hire felons.

I'm definitely on the side of giving a chance to people who seem decent now, but not for the torture woman. I don't hold it against someone else that they put her on a panel or w/e though.

"Vote for the Dem candidate" works in place of "subscription to the NYT"

Unfortunately the political market is even more consolidated than the media.

The whole point of prison-reform is that there are too many people who don't deserve to be in there for that long or often at all. Trotting out someone who definitely deserves what they got isn't the best way to deliver that message.

With regard to the former prisoner turned activist--reasonable opinions, for sure. And I think this is a topic on which reasonable people can disagree.

I know right. It seems like parts of the left have this desire to latch onto the insane right-wing messages for some reason. Whatever those right-wing people are doing it sure as hell is effective.

Amazing story of the secret speech Kruschev gave to the Communist Congress detailing the depth of Stalin's reign of terror.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/29/o...ml?ref=opinion

I didn't know any of this.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ia.theobserver

Freaking typist. Just typing up what they give you. Thrown in the Gulag, ripped from your family for a good chunk of you life. Crazy. Gives you a little perspective on the stuff we complain about in 2017.

LOLOL

Jeet Heer had a tweet storm over this, The New York Times "diverse range of opinions and concerns about free speech" runs as far left as the Clinton camp and as far right as Republican establishment. They'd never hire, say, the socialists who run Jacobin, or someone from the American Conservative or a naitivist pro Trumper.

Yep - nailed it.

douthat is a nativist religious right

Yeah but Douthat went to Harvard, he's not the uncouth sort of nativity religious nut, he's a Catholic intellectual from a nice family and the Northeast whose racism is a side dish. He's mostly there for the "young guy tells readership of old people that kids these days **** too much" takes.

Oh yeah, that's another hilarious thing about Douthat. Even though he's written for the Times for what seems like forever, he has insanely retrograde views, and he looks like this:


the dude is only like 37. He is two years younger than Vince Carter.