opinist

Look, the crux of the book and prison abolition more broadly isn’t that “people should be allowed to rape and murder, whatever” its that “the prison industrial complex doesn’t solve the problem of rape and murder, and in fact inflicts far more harm on society than good.”

A lot of people commit crimes and are never caught or charged.

Shouldn’t we as a society be trying to address that? Isn’t it better to prevent crimes from happening?

And having *all those people* incarcerated within a violent system is not a nuetral situation. It is active state violence.

We are talking about the entire prison system and the millions of people it really actually affects.

I’m saying that it is immoral, unethical, and unreasonable to continue a system that harms so so so so many people, and that we should instead fund alternative forms of justice. If your only argument is “but I’ve imagined a tiny hypothetical group of people who can ONLY be stopped by the current prison systems existence and NO proposed alternative will work for them my mind, and punishing them in the only way I think works is more important than anything else, so we cant” then…you aren’t having an open and honest discussion.

‘a few people might misuse it so no one should have it!’

Yeah?

And?

My tax dollars already go to cops and road infrastructure that is actively hostile to anything not a car, two things I would really rather not pay for.

I’d happily take every red cent that goes to both those bullshit things and put it into welfare if it was up to me. Welfare in it’s worst form is doing more good than cops and dangerous strodes on their best fucking days.

Jails and prisons don’t work and tossing more money and hope and human souls at it ain’t fucking fixing it.

People who got thrown in jail for laughably small drug charges or mental health problems don’t deserve to be raped and forced into slavery because some slimy government official thinks being poor is a moral failing or you’re concerned about the tiny percentage of harden criminals we may not be punishing properly.

We’ve already explained to you how it’s not a ‘small minority’ of innocent people being thrown into systems of intense violence @needabetternamelater, so you’re fine with a considerable chunk of the American population being forcefully removed from their families and getting gang raped over bullshit offenses?

That’s kinda fucked morally.

How about we just make the world a less shitty place for everyone simply for the sake of making it less shit for everyone?

Criminals are still people.

It’s not bad actually to treat them like people.

“Then the number of prisons should also be tiny!”

“No, it should be 0.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Ángela Davis keeps asking me why I think it’s necessary!”

“Cool. What was your answer then, and what did it change to? Mine is still ‘some people are going to keep hurting people and the only solution is to keep those people away from others.’ I’d love to better understand the alternative.”

“You don’t understand that lots of people are in prison for minor offenses!”

We literally KNOW what the people many of us want to imprison are doing, and what the recommended sentences under the current system are. We can look them up!

But somehow when we ask abolitionists what the new process is and what we should expect to result from it they just go “stop derailing.”

My dude I have friends who would like to make art for a living and I do not want moguls drugging or even just pressuring them ever.

What evidence do we have that prisons reduce the amount of overall sexual assault in our society? (Or, given the prevalence of sexual assault within prisons, do they actually INCREASE the number of victims?)

It’s very easy to point at the absolute worst offender imaginable and go “well what about him?” It’s important to remember that it’s estimated that less than 1% of rapists ever see the inside of a prison, and in the meantime, that system is creating new victims and perpetuating wild state violence against a shit ton of people that *arent* Diddy.

So yes, when the argument is “until prison abolitionists can lay out a foolproof plan that perfectly tackles this problem that our current system is miserably failing at, we will not entertain the premise at all, regardless of all the OTHER ways it would measurably improve things” I will, in fact, call it derailing.

Especially, *especially*, when you *presuppose* that any solution other than prison would automatically fail for your worst case scenario offender. I say counseling and community service and restraining orders, I say scheduled check ins or reparation hearings, and it doesn’t matter if that WOULD work for 99% of people, because you will say “well that wouldn’t work on DIDDY” and act like there’s not merit at all to the premise on a societal level.

And I think part of that is some fundamental misimagining for what prison abolition work actually looks like. We aren’t proposing we close all the prisons tomorrow and just let people go with no structures or supports in place and hope for the best. Abolition work is the long grind to build those alternative systems, change sentencing guidelines, advocate for reforms with the long term end goal of having a prisonless society. By the time the last prison closed, the systems to replace it will be robust and comprehensive. (And yeah, it probably won’t work for everyone. But will it work for more people than the current system? Will it cause less harm than the current system? Will it lead to overall FEWER assaults and murders and violence than the current system?)

Thats where I get the idea that some people are either just not going to be rehabilitated or that some people are just going to be so incredibly difficult to convince to break a habit of harming others that people give up.

I want you to convince me. I want to believe I can do it.

I hear every day of my working life that with some people you just can’t.

Please prove me wrong. PLEASE. If you can do that, I can argue no one should ever be barred from the shelter where I work.

Here’s a point that I feel like I did make but didn’t say directly- no solution will work for 100% of people, and it’s frankly an insane standard to hold up for this kind of work. I don’t believe EVERYONE can be rehabilitated, but I also think that’s an asinine reason to support a system that does so much harm to so many people who could be.

The actual metric of success here is “would it be better than the current system” and looking at basically any country that is further in that direction than we are, even if they aren’t 100% prisonless, suggests that…yes. restorative systems, counseling and community service and reparations and social work monitoring and job training and social services and non-punitive addiction care DO lead to better outcomes than a system where any breech of law gets you chucked in a hole forever.

Why am I saying it? Because your side says there must be no prisons. If there are no prisons, then EVERYONE, REGARDLESS of what they’ve done or how rational they are about it, cannot be removed from the community.

My position is that I cannot assert that everyone is ready to be reintegrated into the community right away. I think this because I believe I have met some that are not.

Where I agree with you is that this is a very small proportion of the people in the world, and therefore not many prisons would exist in my utopia either.

Which means we agree on most things. The one place where I don’t is I can only get to “the vast majority of prisons should be closed down.” I can’t get from that to all.

Ángela Davis apparently got you to all. How’d she do that? What convinced you?

How’d you take that last step, when like any of the rest of us you know what powerful cruel people are capable of?

I get to answer question after question after question for your ever moving goal posts, but I’ve asked 1 question, several times and worded in different ways, and not gotten an answer from you at any point.

What is your evidence that the current system reduces the amount of violent crime? What evidence do you have that a prison does more good than harm?

This is actually a legitimate public health/public safety position (legalization of drugs is essentially the identical argument - that the harm caused by recreational drug use is an acceptable price to pay for reducing the harm caused by the “war on drugs” - and so were the debates over covid lockdowns) that abolitionists could honestly discuss and debate if they were being intellectually honest about things. It’s the whole premise of harm reduction, which is about deliberately enabling and encouraging some types of harm in order to prevent greater harm.

Yes, that’s what it sounds to me like the position is, and why I disagree with it.

We can ALMOSTget rid of prison (defined, again, as “a place we put people we deem literally too unsafe to allow in our communities” which means A LOT of people who current,y get prison won’t, ideally) without telling rape victims (or other crime victims which I am) to suck it up, but we can’t totally do away with it.

So that’s my position.

You have not provided any evidence at all that prisons reduce the number of rapes or any violent crimes in our society. You acknowledged, in fact, that prisons *dont* reduce crime.

In my FIRST reply to you today, I said-

Especially, *especially*, when you *presuppose* that any solution other than prison would automatically fail for your worst case scenario offender. I say counseling and community service and restraining orders, I say scheduled check ins or reparation hearings, and it doesn’t matter if that WOULD work for 99% of people, because you will say “well that wouldn’t work on DIDDY” and act like there’s not merit at all to the premise on a societal level.

But here you are, acting as though my argument is this grotesque cavalier dismissal of victims. That Im proposing that rapists have free reign to do whatever to whomever, when that is clearly and demonstrably not what I said from the very fucking begininng.

For what? Clout? Because you think it makes you look smart to agree with someone spouting such a transparently false strawman?

This more than anything is why my strong suspicion is there’s compartmentalizing going on here. Rapists are outliers and they don’t matter—until you remind someone that most people on the planet know at least one survivor, if they’re not one themselves.

That for all that was horribly, twistedly, awfully wrong with the second wave that birthed white feminism and terfs, they were RIGHT to point out that most rapists are regular guys, and don’t think of the way they hurt people as wrong.

You remind people of all this and then… all of a sudden it’s “I never said let rapists have their freedom!”

I didn’t say rapists are outliers and don’t matter. I said that prisons do not reduce the amount of rapes that happen, only punish about 1% of rapists, and do immense harm all while being ineffectual at actually helping victims. So Ineffectual, in fact, that their existence *makes more victims*

You yourself said that prisons *dont reduce crime.* we agree that all the sorts of reforms that prison abolition advocates for *does reduce crime.* acknowledging that no solution will 100% prevent rape, but that prison abolition will do a better job of preventing rape and reducing recidivism than prisons, doesn’t mean that I “think rapists don’t count”.

Think about that story that was all over the news right after Dobbs, where a ten year old girl raped by her father needed an abortion and had to go to another state.

What should happen to that dad?

I think he should be kept away not just from his daughter, but also from society at large.

You seem to think he should be kept away from people too… but only as an interim measure. Ideally he gets… let me scroll up… “house arrest, counseling, or other intervention programs.”

How long of an interim do we take him away from people vs. not doing so? How do we know when we’re ready to make the shift?

He’s a person, regardless of the evil he’s done. No one in this discussion disputes that criminals are people. The issue is whether institutionalization is the kind of thing that’s so cruel no people should ever be subjected to it.

You’re arguing that it is, so over time it will be phased out fully. I’m arguing that while as currently constituted, prison is indeed too cruel, the basic idea of separating a dangerous person from the larger community is not inherently cruel, so we’ll still have “prisons,” meaning “places we send people we deem too threatening to let roam freely.”

Therefore, my question is: If prison is fundamentally too cruel and unusual for anyone, even someone who’s willing to rape his daughter, what do we do with him? House arrest is right out if that’s where the kid lives. How do we move him?

Where’d and when did she move the goalposts, baby boo? She didn’t; you’re a liar pure and simple!

Are you gonna ever address the topic or you just gonna make up reasons for why you’re not?

Yes, we all agree that a great many people do not belong in prison and would be better served by other solutions, as would society.

But–every time the issue of hard-core, unrepentant offenders who are dangerous to society is brought up, vigorous handwaving and whataboutism commences.

There’s always the ancient, classic, and medieval solution to such people when you don’t have prisons: execute them. Somehow I don’t think that’s what prison abolitionists are arguing for.

Where to me, “prisoner” CAN mean “young black guy who likes grass” but it can also mean “dad who molests his kid” or “cult leader who convinced all the women to put out for him” or “guy who ran the Ponzi scheme,” and those are sufficiently different that an appropriate response to the first is not going to look the same as an appropriate response to the second, which in turn is not going to look the same as an appropriate response to the third.

The one point where we disagree is that, if we do implement all their proposed measures and there remains a small population of people that continue to perpetrate violence and cannot be rehabilitated…I don’t believe imprisoning them is a non-option. I don’t believe that imprisoning someone (in a safe facility where their needs, including social and entertainment needs, are met) is so horrific that it can’t even be considered an option. I also don’t believe that prison rape is an unavoidable fact, as so many people here insist.

If there is a non box putting solution I’d like to hear it. I’m just not cool with dead mice on Kate’s porch, yannowhadimean?

Look, the crux of the book and prison abolition more broadly isn’t that “people should be allowed to rape and murder, whatever” its that “the prison industrial complex doesn’t solve the problem of rape and murder, and in fact inflicts far more harm on society than good.”

A lot of people commit crimes and are never caught or charged.

Shouldn’t we as a society be trying to address that? Isn’t it better to prevent crimes from happening?

And having *all those people* incarcerated within a violent system is not a nuetral situation. It is active state violence.

We are talking about the entire prison system and the millions of people it really actually affects.

I’m saying that it is immoral, unethical, and unreasonable to continue a system that harms so so so so many people, and that we should instead fund alternative forms of justice. If your only argument is “but I’ve imagined a tiny hypothetical group of people who can ONLY be stopped by the current prison systems existence and NO proposed alternative will work for them my mind, and punishing them in the only way I think works is more important than anything else, so we cant” then…you aren’t having an open and honest discussion.

‘a few people might misuse it so no one should have it!’

Yeah?

And?

My tax dollars already go to cops and road infrastructure that is actively hostile to anything not a car, two things I would really rather not pay for.

I’d happily take every red cent that goes to both those bullshit things and put it into welfare if it was up to me. Welfare in it’s worst form is doing more good than cops and dangerous strodes on their best fucking days.

Jails and prisons don’t work and tossing more money and hope and human souls at it ain’t fucking fixing it.

People who got thrown in jail for laughably small drug charges or mental health problems don’t deserve to be raped and forced into slavery because some slimy government official thinks being poor is a moral failing or you’re concerned about the tiny percentage of harden criminals we may not be punishing properly.

We’ve already explained to you how it’s not a ‘small minority’ of innocent people being thrown into systems of intense violence @needabetternamelater, so you’re fine with a considerable chunk of the American population being forcefully removed from their families and getting gang raped over bullshit offenses?

That’s kinda fucked morally.

How about we just make the world a less shitty place for everyone simply for the sake of making it less shit for everyone?

Criminals are still people.

It’s not bad actually to treat them like people.

“Then the number of prisons should also be tiny!”

“No, it should be 0.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Ángela Davis keeps asking me why I think it’s necessary!”

“Cool. What was your answer then, and what did it change to? Mine is still ‘some people are going to keep hurting people and the only solution is to keep those people away from others.’ I’d love to better understand the alternative.”

“You don’t understand that lots of people are in prison for minor offenses!”

We literally KNOW what the people many of us want to imprison are doing, and what the recommended sentences under the current system are. We can look them up!

But somehow when we ask abolitionists what the new process is and what we should expect to result from it they just go “stop derailing.”

My dude I have friends who would like to make art for a living and I do not want moguls drugging or even just pressuring them ever.

What evidence do we have that prisons reduce the amount of overall sexual assault in our society? (Or, given the prevalence of sexual assault within prisons, do they actually INCREASE the number of victims?)

It’s very easy to point at the absolute worst offender imaginable and go “well what about him?” It’s important to remember that it’s estimated that less than 1% of rapists ever see the inside of a prison, and in the meantime, that system is creating new victims and perpetuating wild state violence against a shit ton of people that *arent* Diddy.

So yes, when the argument is “until prison abolitionists can lay out a foolproof plan that perfectly tackles this problem that our current system is miserably failing at, we will not entertain the premise at all, regardless of all the OTHER ways it would measurably improve things” I will, in fact, call it derailing.

Especially, *especially*, when you *presuppose* that any solution other than prison would automatically fail for your worst case scenario offender. I say counseling and community service and restraining orders, I say scheduled check ins or reparation hearings, and it doesn’t matter if that WOULD work for 99% of people, because you will say “well that wouldn’t work on DIDDY” and act like there’s not merit at all to the premise on a societal level.

And I think part of that is some fundamental misimagining for what prison abolition work actually looks like. We aren’t proposing we close all the prisons tomorrow and just let people go with no structures or supports in place and hope for the best. Abolition work is the long grind to build those alternative systems, change sentencing guidelines, advocate for reforms with the long term end goal of having a prisonless society. By the time the last prison closed, the systems to replace it will be robust and comprehensive. (And yeah, it probably won’t work for everyone. But will it work for more people than the current system? Will it cause less harm than the current system? Will it lead to overall FEWER assaults and murders and violence than the current system?)

Thats where I get the idea that some people are either just not going to be rehabilitated or that some people are just going to be so incredibly difficult to convince to break a habit of harming others that people give up.

I want you to convince me. I want to believe I can do it.

I hear every day of my working life that with some people you just can’t.

Please prove me wrong. PLEASE. If you can do that, I can argue no one should ever be barred from the shelter where I work.

Here’s a point that I feel like I did make but didn’t say directly- no solution will work for 100% of people, and it’s frankly an insane standard to hold up for this kind of work. I don’t believe EVERYONE can be rehabilitated, but I also think that’s an asinine reason to support a system that does so much harm to so many people who could be.

The actual metric of success here is “would it be better than the current system” and looking at basically any country that is further in that direction than we are, even if they aren’t 100% prisonless, suggests that…yes. restorative systems, counseling and community service and reparations and social work monitoring and job training and social services and non-punitive addiction care DO lead to better outcomes than a system where any breech of law gets you chucked in a hole forever.

Why am I saying it? Because your side says there must be no prisons. If there are no prisons, then EVERYONE, REGARDLESS of what they’ve done or how rational they are about it, cannot be removed from the community.

My position is that I cannot assert that everyone is ready to be reintegrated into the community right away. I think this because I believe I have met some that are not.

Where I agree with you is that this is a very small proportion of the people in the world, and therefore not many prisons would exist in my utopia either.

Which means we agree on most things. The one place where I don’t is I can only get to “the vast majority of prisons should be closed down.” I can’t get from that to all.

Ángela Davis apparently got you to all. How’d she do that? What convinced you?

How’d you take that last step, when like any of the rest of us you know what powerful cruel people are capable of?

I get to answer question after question after question for your ever moving goal posts, but I’ve asked 1 question, several times and worded in different ways, and not gotten an answer from you at any point.

What is your evidence that the current system reduces the amount of violent crime? What evidence do you have that a prison does more good than harm?

This is actually a legitimate public health/public safety position (legalization of drugs is essentially the identical argument - that the harm caused by recreational drug use is an acceptable price to pay for reducing the harm caused by the “war on drugs” - and so were the debates over covid lockdowns) that abolitionists could honestly discuss and debate if they were being intellectually honest about things. It’s the whole premise of harm reduction, which is about deliberately enabling and encouraging some types of harm in order to prevent greater harm.

Yes, that’s what it sounds to me like the position is, and why I disagree with it.

We can ALMOSTget rid of prison (defined, again, as “a place we put people we deem literally too unsafe to allow in our communities” which means A LOT of people who current,y get prison won’t, ideally) without telling rape victims (or other crime victims which I am) to suck it up, but we can’t totally do away with it.

So that’s my position.

You have not provided any evidence at all that prisons reduce the number of rapes or any violent crimes in our society. You acknowledged, in fact, that prisons *dont* reduce crime.

In my FIRST reply to you today, I said-

Especially, *especially*, when you *presuppose* that any solution other than prison would automatically fail for your worst case scenario offender. I say counseling and community service and restraining orders, I say scheduled check ins or reparation hearings, and it doesn’t matter if that WOULD work for 99% of people, because you will say “well that wouldn’t work on DIDDY” and act like there’s not merit at all to the premise on a societal level.

But here you are, acting as though my argument is this grotesque cavalier dismissal of victims. That Im proposing that rapists have free reign to do whatever to whomever, when that is clearly and demonstrably not what I said from the very fucking begininng.

For what? Clout? Because you think it makes you look smart to agree with someone spouting such a transparently false strawman?

This more than anything is why my strong suspicion is there’s compartmentalizing going on here. Rapists are outliers and they don’t matter—until you remind someone that most people on the planet know at least one survivor, if they’re not one themselves.

That for all that was horribly, twistedly, awfully wrong with the second wave that birthed white feminism and terfs, they were RIGHT to point out that most rapists are regular guys, and don’t think of the way they hurt people as wrong.

You remind people of all this and then… all of a sudden it’s “I never said let rapists have their freedom!”

I didn’t say rapists are outliers and don’t matter. I said that prisons do not reduce the amount of rapes that happen, only punish about 1% of rapists, and do immense harm all while being ineffectual at actually helping victims. So Ineffectual, in fact, that their existence *makes more victims*

You yourself said that prisons *dont reduce crime.* we agree that all the sorts of reforms that prison abolition advocates for *does reduce crime.* acknowledging that no solution will 100% prevent rape, but that prison abolition will do a better job of preventing rape and reducing recidivism than prisons, doesn’t mean that I “think rapists don’t count”.

Think about that story that was all over the news right after Dobbs, where a ten year old girl raped by her father needed an abortion and had to go to another state.

What should happen to that dad?

I think he should be kept away not just from his daughter, but also from society at large.

You seem to think he should be kept away from people too… but only as an interim measure. Ideally he gets… let me scroll up… “house arrest, counseling, or other intervention programs.”

How long of an interim do we take him away from people vs. not doing so? How do we know when we’re ready to make the shift?

He’s a person, regardless of the evil he’s done. No one in this discussion disputes that criminals are people. The issue is whether institutionalization is the kind of thing that’s so cruel no people should ever be subjected to it.

You’re arguing that it is, so over time it will be phased out fully. I’m arguing that while as currently constituted, prison is indeed too cruel, the basic idea of separating a dangerous person from the larger community is not inherently cruel, so we’ll still have “prisons,” meaning “places we send people we deem too threatening to let roam freely.”

Therefore, my question is: If prison is fundamentally too cruel and unusual for anyone, even someone who’s willing to rape his daughter, what do we do with him? House arrest is right out if that’s where the kid lives. How do we move him?

Where’d and when did she move the goalposts, baby boo? She didn’t; you’re a liar pure and simple!

Are you gonna ever address the topic or you just gonna make up reasons for why you’re not?

Yes, we all agree that a great many people do not belong in prison and would be better served by other solutions, as would society.

But–every time the issue of hard-core, unrepentant offenders who are dangerous to society is brought up, vigorous handwaving and whataboutism commences.

There’s always the ancient, classic, and medieval solution to such people when you don’t have prisons: execute them. Somehow I don’t think that’s what prison abolitionists are arguing for.

Where to me, “prisoner” CAN mean “young black guy who likes grass” but it can also mean “dad who molests his kid” or “cult leader who convinced all the women to put out for him” or “guy who ran the Ponzi scheme,” and those are sufficiently different that an appropriate response to the first is not going to look the same as an appropriate response to the second, which in turn is not going to look the same as an appropriate response to the third.

The one point where we disagree is that, if we do implement all their proposed measures and there remains a small population of people that continue to perpetrate violence and cannot be rehabilitated...I don't believe imprisoning them is a non-option. I don't believe that imprisoning someone (in a safe facility where their needs, including social and entertainment needs, are met) is so horrific that it can't even be considered an option. I also don't believe that prison rape is an unavoidable fact, as so many people here insist.

Things when bad: kids and children are involved!

Someone else doesn't have to like what you like, people.

And I’ll say “an institution intended specifically to hold people who have (according to the processes of the legal system at least, which sometimes does get things wrong) committed what our society has deemed crimes”

And they’ll go “that might be what a prison is to you but that’s not what a prison is” and then not elaborate

And I’m just… do they disagree with the institution part? Or something else?

Because like, my last job was case worker at a homeless shelter, and one of the questions we’d ask people (which they could refuse to answer, to be clear!) was, “have you ever resided in an institutional setting?”

And if people asked what that was, we’d say, “a group home, a nursing home, a psychiatric hospital, or prison.”

But when I say “I wish I could look at prisons the same way the disability community looks at other institutions and join you in calling for full abolition, but I’m honestly not there yet. Can you help me see how you got there?”

People look at me like I’ve said something profoundly idiosyncratic that I came up with on my own.

Am I making some odd leap here? Google isn’t trustworthy like it once was but its answer to “is a prison an institution” is “yes.”

???????????

It honestly seems like wild intersectionality failure. “There’s a deinstitutionalizatipn movement?!?!?”

What is punishment then? I don’t mean this snidely, I’ve just noticed it seems like other people are using the word differently.

To me, “punishment” is the opposite of “reward.” Just like you can give or do something nice to someone when they behave in a way that you like, you can take something away or do something unpleasant when they behave in a way you don’t like.

Motivation doesn’t come into whether or not something is a punishment. I can very reluctantly tell my kid he can’t play on his iPad (hypothetical, I have no kids, in part because I know I’d sometimes have to punish them and I don’t want to!), or I can eagerly snatch it from his hands. In both cases I’m punishing him for something.

Whether I was cruel about it can factor in to whether or not it’s a just punishment, but cruelty isn’t necessarily. Just the attempt to extinguish a behavior by making the consequences worse than whatever the person gets out of the behavior.

I strongly believe it’s usually better to reward desired outcomes than to punish undesirable ones. But I’m not convinced that it’s *never* the right thing to do, so the idea that prison is “about punishment” doesn’t really bother me. I mean, yeah? By definition?

Think of the old joke about the rich guy and his friend. The rich guy parks his car in a spot for which there is a $500 fine. His friend says, “you can’t park here!” The rich guy says, “sure I can, it just costs $500.”

The idea of punishing a rapist is the idea that, “hey Brock we get that you really wanna do this and you’ll love it. Thing is, because your victim won’t and we don’t like you doing harm, we’re gonna lock you away. You sure it’s worth it?”

Some people are going to think so! I don’t think anything would have stopped Epstein, for example. Pretty much every survivor has said his abuse was compulsive, that he saw it as a craving he had to satisfy. It’s very hard to get people who are motivated by that kind of felt need to reason that it’s not worth it.

But what abolitionists haven’t convinced me of yet is that because it doesn’t work on some people, it’s a tactic we need to abandon wholesale.

Think of the common wisdom about Brazil. They punished Bolsonaro for inciting an insurrection, where we chose not to punish Trump for the same thing.

They’re doing better than we are.

If this is your child, presumably you bought them the iPad. So you don't want them to never use it, but you think there are times when this is appropriate and times when it isn't.

For your intervention to be effective long-term, you need to not only communicate why you don't want them to use the iPad, but understand their perspective- why they want to use it. You can't just take it away, even with a reluctant face and a "sorry", without causing frustration, resentment and/or fear. This may keep the child from doing the behaviour where you can see, but ultimately erodes trust and willingness to cooperate. Do this enough and eventually you end up with a child who never talks to you, because they can't trust you to relate to them as a being with their own needs and wants.

Okay, so you've talked to the child and they want to use the iPad to watch Peppa Pig all day. They don't want to do anything else because it's not as motivating. The iPad feels good and they want to keep using it. That's obviously not a good idea.

But is the problem that the child is a bad person who needs personal correction to become better, or that you handed them a source of dopamine created by a huge corporation that profits by addicting your child? Maybe the real problem is the addiction mechanics baked into the modern internet. You gave them access to that and told they could use it, and you expected them to be mature and resist addiction in a way they didn't know how to be. (Why did you think the iPad was appropriate for them, but only sometimes?) Maybe punishment will only cause more strife, and the only real solution to iPad Kids is to push back on the idea of iPads in general, and/or force big tech to stop preying on human nature.

Even if you accept we need to punish, maybe we're punishing the wrong person.

Maybe the real problem is that the rapist was raised in a society that told them they could use other people. (Why did their parents think misogyny was appropriate, but only sometimes?) Maybe we can't stop rapes at the individual level. Maybe we have to stop them at a social, collective level.

Maybe anything else is just a bandaid. Maybe some people want a society that isn't just slapping bandaids over patriarchy and pretending it fixes anything.

"But that's too big! It's too hard! We can't change things on that sort of level!" First, that's horribly defeatist. We The People are incredibly powerful if we organise. Second: prisons are created by the same government that does affect things on that sort of level. If you want any changes in prisons at all, you have to change government- and drastically at that, if you actually want prison to work against the rich. So why not advocate for solutions to patriarchy that aren't just bandaids?

"But it takes too long!" Start now and we'll get there that much sooner.

"But what do we do in the meantime?" Slowly phase out the existing system while replacing it with better things. It's not that we should never use harm reduction, never try to improve the current situation, but that we have to keep abolition in mind as an ultimate goal.

"All prisons should vanish now with no other change to society" is not what people are saying, and neurodivergent or not you have to understand that you can't name a movement in a way that describes every nuance of it, without the name of the movement itself being an essay. Prison abolition is about looking at the traps and flaws that we've baked into our current society and uprooting all of them. It starts by considering the problem of prisons, but goes far beyond them. It creates the motivation to look for other solutions to a society that's extremely sick.

"But there will be rapes during the transition period"- And there will be more rapes in and out of prison if we don't change anything. "There will be rapes" doesn't change that right now, we're operating rape factories, torture chambers and slave plantations and expecting them to dispense justice, instead of more rape, torture and slavery.

Not every culture punishes children, also. Look up Inuit childrearing; it's genuinely inspiring! Could it be that the fact that we start out assuming children must be punished by their parents for "bad behaviour" (generally, attempting to get their needs met with very limited autonomy and resources) creates a vicious cycle of punishment, that we've baked punishment into the way we deal with other people from birth? Could we do things a better way?

Will it be hard? Yes. Incredibly hard.

Which is why I keep thinking that people mean something different by punishment than I do. I keep saying it’s about behavior and people keep bringing character into it and I’m baffled.

I can’t remember which post it was where I mentioned it, but my experience providing peer support to an actual convicted rapist shaped my views on this.

Before I met this guy, I thought everyone was basically reachable. Oh, he must just not understand consent. Oh, he just wasn’t raised in consent culture. I just need to give him hints, help him see there’s another way to look at these things.

I tried. He told me multiple times to my face that the court was wrong, that everybody knew the program was bullshit, that there’s a way sex and sexuality works and that’s just how it is and deep down everyone knows it.

Do I think the guy was “a bad person?” Kind of depends what a bad person is exactly. But if you’re asking whether I thought all his actions were immoral for all time, no, I did not.

If you’re asking whether I think his rapes, or his cavalier attitude about them, meant he lacks dignity or human rights, I don’t think so.

But I do think changing his mind about his rapes isn’t simple.

Which is why punishment (a response to behavior, not character) seems to me to be occasionally necessary.

Should we try to change his mind? Of course. Should we give up? Of course not.

Should we assume that he’s not going to commit more rapes while he’s going around saying that’s just what sex is, though?

I wasn’t even sure how to parse that bit, honestly. So I have nothing to say to it.

I have a strong suspicion that part of the issue here is there are least two definitions of punishment people are using:

Mine, from Skinnerian behaviorism: Punishment is a negative consequence A imposes on B in response to B’s unwanted behavior.

This could be taking away something B wants or was expecting (“stop that or I take away the iPad for the evening”) or the addition of something aversive (“you get detention”). But the point is it’s a negative consequence for B’s unwanted behavior.

This is the opposite of a reward, which is where you give B something they want (or remove something they don’t) in response to a behavior you like and want to encourage.

The other definition seems to be.. well, I’m unsure exactly. But it seems ultimately derived from conservative Christianity maybe? And it seems to me to go like this:

Bad actions reveal an inherently bad nature. You can’t change this bad nature (it sound a lot like original sin?) but when you impose negative consequences you MAY be able to teach bad natured people to control themselves a little better.

Even if you don’t, you’re doing the right thing, because bad nature means negative consequences are fundamentally always deserved.

There’s… *something* in here too about sadistic gratification of the punisher, but it’s not clear enough for me to pin it down/define it.

So when we say “prison is a form of punishment,” I mean it’s a consequence for bad actions, ideally (though very much often not in practice) actions severe enough to warrant sequestering the offender from the community for its safety.

When I say I think prison is sometimes an acceptable punishment, I’m saying that while I think sequestration does unavoidable harm to the offender, I think sometimes it’s the lesser evil.

I’m open to the idea that as a matter of fact it isn’t. I just have never seen evidence for this, so I disbelieve it in the same way I disbelieve in an external God. Could be. Likely not. Give your evidence.

Where when other people say prison isn’t an accept punishment, or go further and say no one should ever be punished, they mean…

I honestly don’t know what they mean. But it seems like they mean something like “even committing the most horrific actions imaginable does not make someone inherently evil.”

Which I agree with! But I’m confused about how that means we respond to various different unacceptable behaviors.

In mild cases it probably means counseling, which is fine. But I don’t disagree! Those cases don’t warrant an aversive response! They warrant a discussion, or consideration of the person’s circumstances, or… a whole bunch of things.

But I think sometimes actions are so horrible, or sometimes someone is so hellbent on repeating them over and over, that an aversive response can be warranted.

(This is, of course, debatable! “We should never punish anyone” just means “we should never respond to unwanted behavior with aversives,” That is, “we can reward desired behavior, and must rely wholly on that to shape behavior.”

Which is a coherent statement! But I find it unconvincing because I think there are people who engage in boundary pushing, which is doing an unwanted behavior on purpose to test if they’ll be punished, and doing the behavior at will if they’re not. Trump is the famous example, and has eroded us democracy just by daring people to stop him and seeing that they won’t.)

At which point the question becomes whether prison is an acceptable aversive response. Which is where l find the conversation falls apart.

Now here’s a thing:

I don’t LIKE borrowing concepts from Skinneriab behaviorism! I think the guy did a preponderance of terrible things, which is the only sensible definition I can give the phrase “was a bad person!”

But I can’t seem to find a different definition of punishment that’s nearly as clear, so I use it.

I have in fact read the theory and I remain unsatisfied by its answers as to what we do with violent people that cannot be rehabilitated. Which is the core of the matter here. I don't need to be lectured to about the ABCs of prison abolition. I used to be an abolitionist. I have become unconvinced that everyone can be rehabilitated.

The answers theory has provided as to what we do with violent people that cannot be rehabilitated are, essentially, "we relegate self defense to victims (arming them, building them panic rooms if their rapist arrives at their house), and/or the community is tasked with protecting victims, and/or the community is tasked with ostracising/punishing perpetrators."

Thank you. All I ever saw was “if I’m marginalized in a way you’re not, you have to sit there while I insult you.”

To the point where I dated a woman who happened to be black, and who also happened to be abusive, and would reply to me saying, “hey. If you really do like me enough to want this relationship with me, please stop calling me names,” with “lol white girls.”

I left only when I realized her escalating to physical violence wouldn’t shock me.

I dunno. I still very much think the left has more correct than the right does. I still absolutely think societal position matters. A LOT.

But… never forget that there are people everywhere who, if you give them a bazooka, even if you very clearly indicate it’s only for use in specific situations…

The norm in progressive spaces in that era was that the highest-status* person in the room can harass anyone and nobody was allowed to push back in any way.

"Tone policing" was part of the structure enabling that bullying. The game was that the bully would call someone the worst thing they can think of, wait for them to respond, and then throw a fit about tone policing. Because the community knows that tone policing is a bad thing that bad people do, the bully will gain status for bravely standing up to the tone police, and their target will receive no help. After a few rounds of this, the group will learn that it's safer to just not respond to their attacks, and they win.

This whole subculture was built on bad popular understandings of academic concepts ("privilege", "microaggression", etc.). So I would believe that there's some original version of "tone policing" that's applied in a more sensitive and nuanced way. But now these punk kids have stolen the Death Star and are using it to extort lunch money and the best thing to do is blow it up.

If “reverse racism isn’t real” means anything, it means that power structures in society have always and still do favor whites. That arguments like the one the Supreme Court just used to strike down various voting maps are disingenuous because black people aren’t fully enfranchised if you look at the data. All of which is clearly true!

It doesn’t mean it’s impossible for a black person to be prejudiced against white people. To think we’re dumb, lazy, or innately, creepily cruel. That’s still possible and that’s still mean.

It just doesn’t have the same broad societal effects.

Doesn’t mean it’s not bullying. Doesn’t mean people deserve it.

Being mean is still bad, even if (even THOUGH) oppression is worse.

Because that method of trying to "unmask" will always fail, bc it hinges on the assumption that there is a core underlying Self that is being Covered Up with the mask.

In reality, one does not have a chance to develop a true "self" due to the circumstances of their development. this is broadly true for almost all humans (SHOW ME AN UNALTERED TRUE HUMAN SELF,) because of the heavily social nature of how our selfhood intersects with other people's perception of us, but in some people it is much more marked and detrimental than others. What I think is the issue at hand is not the Self, but rather the internal experience. The Self is a construction we build to understand ourselves as beings, and it is heavily informed by our understanding of our own experiencs. understanding of those experiences is the actual issue. Being able to identify and name the effects that moving thru the world have on you. And teasing out how those acknowledgements of one's internal experience have been punished out of us.

I actually think that, for some reason I have guesses at but don't know for sure, I act a little more neurotypical-esque now because I'm more comfortable doing it.

I used to go out of my way to avoid eye contact because it made me uneasy. Now I look at people's faces, but not their eyes--and well, sometimes their eyes, because those muscles make expressions and it's useful to catch them if I can sometimes.

I used to not make small talk because I didn't see the point. I still don't, and I'll skip it if I'm tired or absorbed in thought or something.

But when I'm not tired? It makes people feel good. I can see them relax.

So... am I "good at masking?" Or am i just more aware that other people aren't me, because I grew up and thought about them?

I dunno. I definitely feel like masking, the thing with the negative connotation, exists and is exhausting.

But I don't know what to call the other thing. It's not exhausting in the same way. It's more like... translating?

Thank you. All I ever saw was “if I’m marginalized in a way you’re not, you have to sit there while I insult you.”

To the point where I dated a woman who happened to be black, and who also happened to be abusive, and would reply to me saying, “hey. If you really do like me enough to want this relationship with me, please stop calling me names,” with “lol white girls.”

I left only when I realized her escalating to physical violence wouldn’t shock me.

I dunno. I still very much think the left has more correct than the right does. I still absolutely think societal position matters. A LOT.

But… never forget that there are people everywhere who, if you give them a bazooka, even if you very clearly indicate it’s only for use in specific situations…

The norm in progressive spaces in that era was that the highest-status* person in the room can harass anyone and nobody was allowed to push back in any way.

"Tone policing" was part of the structure enabling that bullying. The game was that the bully would call someone the worst thing they can think of, wait for them to respond, and then throw a fit about tone policing. Because the community knows that tone policing is a bad thing that bad people do, the bully will gain status for bravely standing up to the tone police, and their target will receive no help. After a few rounds of this, the group will learn that it's safer to just not respond to their attacks, and they win.

This whole subculture was built on bad popular understandings of academic concepts ("privilege", "microaggression", etc.). So I would believe that there's some original version of "tone policing" that's applied in a more sensitive and nuanced way. But now these punk kids have stolen the Death Star and are using it to extort lunch money and the best thing to do is blow it up.

I feel like I’m misparsing this somehow.

Does “in community with feminists and lesbians” mean shaving because they put you down if you don’t? Or are you talking about someone who shaves but hides it from the “feminists and lesbians” so as not to be judged?

And when you’re watching tv and going on instagram, that’s watching people who do shave saying they like it, or that it’s no big deal?

I think the feminist is saying the shaver is ugly and the tv person is saying the shaver is pretty? Which doesn’t help the shaver because the shaver wants the feminist to say they’re pretty?

I don’t know, I think my parser is broken. I THINK you’re agreeing with me?

In any case, my point is that whining that people shave on TV reminds me of whining that people say “lame” and “idiot.”

In the sense that, sure, there’s a valid reason to look askance at someone doing that, if you really want to go deep into where it comes from.

But that a lot of people look deep into where those things come from not because teute passionate about linguistic determinism or pubic grooming, but because it doesn’t cost them anything. If they pickaxed their own curb cuts or took their friend out of state for an abortion, they might suffer consequences from the kind of people who hate people who do the right thing.

If they mouth off about the word “lame” or scream about razor commercials, people are just gonna roll their eyes and block.

There’s no actual risk that The System might crush them, but they get to feel like they did something to it.

The original post has reblogs turned off, so I couldn't add my 2 cents there, but here they are:

Yes, technically shaving is "antifeminist" in the sense that it conforms to what patriarchy expects of women. But being a feminist does not necessitate women always make the most feminist choice regarding their bodies or lives. You know what else is technically antifeminist? Having long hair. Wearing dresses. Being in a traditionally female career. Getting married. Having children. Being a stay-at-home mom. Accusing women of being responsible for the continued existence of patriarchy if they make a decision that aligns with patriarchy's expectations of women is just victim-blaming. Women choosing to remove their body hair are not morally responsible for the continued existence of patriarchy.

Thanks for asking! That alone puts you ahead of a lot of people who’ve gone quiet or gotten weird.

Small things:

Check in on your Jewish friends. Not to make it about you, not to ask them to explain things. Just a thinking of you or you crossed my mind and I hope you're hanging in.

If you're in progressive spaces, watch for the silencing. Are Jews being interrupted, sidelined, or interrogated more than others? Are Jewish speakers only invited when something antisemitic happens? Are they being required to perform the right sort of Jewishness or the right position on Israel's right to exist? Slap that shit down

Learn the basics of Jewish history outside of crisis. Jewishness is more than trauma. It's culture, language, ritual, music, food, texts. You can’t be an ally if all you see is a wound.

Medium things:

Push back when antisemitism shows up in your circles, even when it’s subtle, coded, or disguised with cause-language. You don't have to give a lecture. "Hey, that's not okay" or "That framing feels off" is much more than we're used to seeing. Ask if they'd say the same thing if a different tribal identity was involved. Underline the hypocrisy.

Don't use Jewish pain as a rhetorical prop. If you're quoting statistics about Jew hatred, make sure you're also listening to actual Jews.

Get comfortable holding space for complexity. If you care about human rights, you can care about Palestinians and Israelis without erasing either one.

Big things:

Make space for Jewish voices even when it's not convenient, appreciated, or applauded. Invite Jews into coalitions, panels, projects, not just as the antisemitism rep, and not just Jews who are willing to be tokens and condemn Israel's right to exist.

Show up when no one else is looking. That means speaking out before things get uglier. That means backing Jewish colleagues and classmates even when it's awkward and uncomfortable.

Let go of the idea that being a good ally means being perfect. A good ally is present, accountable, and willing to grow. (Seems like you're at least most of the way there, Anon.)

You don't need to do everything.

You just need to start somewhere and keep showing up.

Let's assume for a moment that this question is asked in good faith.

The Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group. They share both ancestry/ethnicity and religious tradition. This is why someone can be Jewish without practicing the religion, and why "Jewish" isn't simply a religious category like "Christian" or "Muslim." Jews are descended from the ancient Israelites of the Middle East. They've maintained distinct cultural and genetic continuity for thousands of years despite diaspora and persecution.

Jews are an ethnic group (with diverse appearances and distinct ancestry), not a racial category that fits neatly into "white" or "non-white."

Nazi fascism specifically targeted Jews as a racial/ethnic enemy, not just as members of a religion...which is why secular and converted Jews were murdered in the Holocaust as readily as any other.

Fascism is a specific far-right authoritarian political system.

Core elements:

dictatorial power

violent suppression of opposition

extreme nationalism

belief in natural hierarchies where some people are inherently superior to others.

Fascists typically scapegoat minorities and use them as enemies to unite the majority. Nazi Germany is the paradigmatic example.

Just so people know "white" is not a race, ethnicity, or skin tone.

The term white was used in 16th century western europe to mean pure, it was used in reference to angelo saxton privilege and how they are seen as "pure" compared to other people's even with the same skin tone.

Then that term was used adopted by language again mainly in 18th century europe as a sign of what is called "white supremacy". It was created to be a hiarchy for slaves/ slave owners. Contrary to popular belief most slaves used in western Europe were also Caucasian in appearance, but were not seen as "pure" due to [mostly] religious, ethnic practices, region, and race.

Then in the late 19th and through until today the term white is still used for race superiority, and is now unable to be parted from the "white supremacy" and racism.

Therefore the term white is not a race, or ethnicity, not even a skin tone. The term has remained for hundreds of years rating humans on a hiarchy of privilege due to race, religion, and ethnicity. I believe people would truly be suprised to know that many people who are referred to as "white" would on fact not be considered white according to the proper defined term. People who still carry this term and use it, have a white supremacy hiarchy in their heads.

Therefore using the word white shows we have not truly moved on from that hiarchy, so that thinking pattern is still living and shows how much humans worth depending on their place in that hiarchy of privilege.

these are two entirely contradictory lines of logic, but they lead to the same conclusion. because the conclusion is the point. its a backformed theory of gender. people believe, for whatever reason, that "trans guys have it easier" is an objective fact, and then storytell an explanation for why that is that sounds right to them. and this isn't necessarily something that's done maliciously, which is key. its not about people twiddling their fingers and thinking about how to contribute to a massive conspiracy against transmascs. its about people just feeling, on a gut level, that trans guys must have it easier, by which they really mean, transmasculine suffering isn't socially visible, and it isn't natural for me to imagine it, therefore it must not exist; yet, trans suffering in general clearly exists, so there must be some reason that transmasculine suffering feels so abstract and immaterial to me and others.

even though the explanations are entirely flipped (one relies on male gender performance being highly policed and that affecting trans people assigned male more than those assigned female, the other relies on female gender performance being highly policed and that affecting trans people transitioning towards femininity more than those transitioning towards masculinity), they are both trying to take the model of "women suffer because they are women and men benefit because they are men" and contort it to explain transmasculine experiences.

this is why these explanations make very little sense when you really look at them. when you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail; when you can only analyze gender through a cissexist lens, everything looks fundamentally cis.

cisfeminism struggles greatly to actually deal with social hatred for androgyny and intersexuality and transness, because you can make feminist arguments and feminist theory that can explain many (though clearly not all) women's experiences without ever questioning the binary.

See, if women aren't real people, then the things that gender-mark women are real gender markers that identify them as not-people, but the things that gender-mark men are just normal people things, not gendered. Because the male gender doesn't exist, it's just women and people.

So you can't be gender-euphoric about becoming a man; all you're doing is shedding gender and becoming a genderless "normal person", because normal person is male.

It is really really weird that misogyny against women ends up, through a circuitous route, as redefining men as genderless, but this is the effect of generations of men being "normal" and women being "gendered".

Trans men, of course, know better; they can clearly see the gender marked-ness of masculinity, and feel euphoria when they reach it, because they're specifically looking for it. But cis men don't see it because women are the gender-marked class, and trans women might not see it for that reason and because they've been trying to achieve gender-markedness. Maybe they haven't put enough thought into the construction of the gender they're trying to leave behind to recognize that in fact masculinity is marked. (Any enby could have told them that, but it can be genuinely hard to recognize how marked masculinity is because even feminism falls into the trap of "women are the gender marked class and everyone else is just a person".)

Given how hard people have to fight to be seen as "manly" you'd think we'd all understand how very gender-marked masculinity is... but the fight to be manly is often constructed as the fight to not be womanly. Like, this is how normal people behave, and this is how girls behave, and you don't want to be a girl, do you?

Aro and ace activism is healthcare reform, so that no one needs to rely on a spouse for health insurance, so that healthcare is available to everybody regardless of income, so that no one’s lived experiences or basic dignity are dismissed or overridden by doctors

Aro and ace activism is well-funded and expansive public transit, so that you don’t need to have someone on hand to drive you places if you are incapacitated, so that you don’t have to pay for an ambulance if you need to get to the hospital quickly

Aro and ace activism is disability and elder care services, so that no one needs a spouse to care for them, so that no one needs children to care for them, so that marriage is not a bind for disabled people, so that people on disability who want to and can live alone can

Aro and ace activism is community-building, it’s public events, it’s free social activities, it’s mutual aid, it’s activities that bring community members together without socializing relying on just a romantic partner

Aro and ace activism is developing a culture of believing when people tell you who they are and what they want rather than assuming you know them better than they know themselves

this person blocked me before i could respond (and to be honest there's no good faith or polite attempt at discussion being made here so i likely wouldn't have anyway), but - okay! did any of you guys know trans men have thousands of years of male privilege under their belt, because all trans men are and have always been able to pass the moment they come out as trans and no cis people can ever tell the difference between them and cisgender men? did you know no trans man has ever put in any effort to work against gender discrimination, misogyny or patriarchy? did you know trans men are too stupid to realise a misogynistic, transphobic, patriarchal society is the reason they're oppressed?

i don't think this person is trying to be actively malicious - or at least they weren't when they initially came to believe this line of thinking. i think it's another case of good intentions combined with a staggering lack of self-awareness, or awareness of the world at all outside of trans spaces on the internet. because they and their friends believe trans men are men (as they should!), then that of course means all of the rest of society sees and has always seen trans men as completely indistinguishable from cis men in every single way. for thousands of years. obviously.

it frustrates me to no end. this was on a post of mine about the lack of transmasculine history we have, the gaping void of thousands of years of emptiness from which only a few scattered fragments survive. insisting all trans men historically passed as cisgender men and implying that's the reason so little of our history survives is... a very strange new kind of erasure, but it's erasure nonetheless.