I'm wondering at what point does the cost to incarcerate people become unmanageable. Suppose that 25% figure referenced in the LAT article increases to 50%?

Um, couple of years ago now?

There's a lot of effort to not have war be carte blanche either.

Well, sure, but innocent people will still die. That's a given. It just means that more innocent people mightn't die, or they'll die cleanly, or ... but they still will.

I'm wondering at what point does the cost to incarcerate people become unmanageable. Suppose that 25% figure referenced in the LAT article increases to 50%?

Prisons are profit makers. They bring jobs to depressed areas, bring governement funding by shifting racial demographics, are a good opportunity to get various government contracts... and its almost a blank check because nobody demands cuts in incarceration funding like they do schools or anything else. Heck, the state of New York has a contract with MCI and makes a killing on the collect calls prisoners make to their families.

There is some sentiment that the whole growth of the prison industry is a big fat scam.

ita, that is why while refusing to call myself a pacifist in principle I usually end up refusing to support actual wars in practice. My argument is that I would support a true defensive war; these people are trying to kill you so you kill them first. WWII springs to mind. Not that it was a "good war" in spite of being called that. There were plenty of allied atrocities. Just that having Hitler in charge of a large part of the world would have been worse. But that excuse gets used for too much. Every tin pot dicator gets called Hitler.

The key distinctions I make are emergency and choice. In a true defensive war, or a cop really acting in her role as defender the other choices are all worse. If someone is invading other countries to try and take over the world, killing his fighters, even sometimes his innocent civilians is a lesser evil than letting him kill even more, and enslave people besides. If you have a defeated evil dictator isolated with a weakened military in his own country, or a murder who has been caught and locked behind bars, murder on your part is no longer a neccesity. You have a way of stopping the evil without committing murder yourself. It is no longer a lesser evil and there is no excuse. I think the bar for killing another human being is a very high one. And no merely moral justification will work. You have to show a high probabability that your act of murder save more lives than it takes. I'm not saying that by itself is a justification; I'm just saying that if that is not the case, you are not justified in even considering it.

Just ONCE I'd like to hear a "we're bombing so-and-so" announcement preceded by "this is a tragedy, we're taking human lives, unfortunately we feel it is the only option." Instead it's all 'we will be all glorious and victorious."

IMO opinion that is because most of the time when the U.S. drops bombs we are the greater not the lesser evil. And I don't confine this to bombs dropped when Republicans are in office.

IMO opinion...

Yeah, I agree. We don't even attempt to live up to any sort of standard on this. We wag the dog again and again.

I'm wondering at what point does the cost to incarcerate people become unmanageable. Suppose that 25% figure referenced in the LAT article increases to 50%?

I would hope that before we got to 50% somebody would say, "Hey, you know, maybe if the system results in this large a population going to jail... there's a problem with the system? Maybe?" Of course, many people are saying that already. But maybe at some point it'll be somebody in power?

Okay, probably not so long as it makes money.

The cost of incarceration is pretty unmanageable now, to the tune of $7.1 billion.

This is where I know I'm in the minority.

I have a very simple viewpoint; Murder, rape and anything that endangers or harms children (and this was a "thing" with me even before the Punk came along) and I believe you are no longer fit to be with human society and a bullet is cheaper than feeding you.

I understand that it is a stance that many can jump at and point out the holes and flaws and hypocrisy. This is not a stance that comes from an entirely rational place, however, so all I can do is shrug and say "Yeah, I know...what you say makes sense. And yet...we put down rabid dogs. To me, it's the same thing."

Your Morality May Vary (and, of course, still Be Valid)