Brillant. Unlawful, but brilliant.

Wow. You’re like my polar opposite. Code is a sign of rising depression for me. When I start working on my projets, it’s time to worry because it means I’ve lost all taste for human interaction, or food, or… sleep.

It was, but actually, gatekeeping as you defined it fits the kind of situation I broadly wanted to refer too. This example is a little extreme, but yeah. Thanks for the definition, btw!

My pleasure, really! Ruth Morris and Kaba are, for me, the two insisting the most on the link between first nations practices of restauration and possible ways to start an abolitionniste strain from there, if you’re interested in these…

As for the movement in general, it started to grow in the 60’s. Mainly driven by professors of law and critical criminology, on the one side, prisoners movements and unions on the other side. A great deal of anarchists, a lot of religious people, a few moral radicalists. Many had a common experience of nazi camps. That may be too simple of an explanation, but some of them explicitly state that to account for their interest in prison and hatred for the penal system.

I don’t know the word “gatekeeping” well but maybe that’s it. I was specifically thinking about a situation I had to witness. Two men, one of them being my friend, celebrating about a political action that went well. Except one of the group, a woman, got caught and was facing prison charges. The two men started to rejoice about how the trial would be a great place for her to claim their ideas in front of the judges and the press, make it a political trial. All this time, the woman was literally trembling for a very good reason : she was afraid of going to jail, she didn’t want that.

This scene made me realize if there’s some kind of collective emancipation to be find somewhere it’s not in this kind of act of purety. People should do what they want and can at a certain point in their lives. Not me forced into becoming the martyrs they don’t want to be because it’s a good thing to do “for the cause”.

Wait what does libertarian mean in English. Because with use two words, “libertaire” and “” libertarian" in French and although I’d gladly identify as the first, I have nothing but contempt for the second.

Among penal abolitionist, there are minimalists and maximalists. To better understand how some abolitionists can think that in some residual cases, a segregative solution may be used, one needs to keep in mind that penal abolitionism wants the abolition of the penal system, i.e. a special form of cooperation between police, courts and prison.

Some others would disagree, though. I would personally disagree, but with fellow abolitionist, I try to keep an open mind and understand we basically strive for the same thing.

One important thing : it is commonly accepted among abolitionists that one is stuck with what tools are at their disposition to seek justice. As such, no abolitionist will ever tell a victim what he or she should do. Even one of the most radical contemporary one, like Mariam Kaba, seeks to set up transformative justice devices for people who don’t want to engage with the penal system for various reasons (for example, secondary victimization)

I would suggest this article as an introduction to penal abolition.

But, to sum some common abolitionist answers, I would say :

• Replace the penal system with an appropriately modified version of civil law (Hulsmann)
• Transformative justice (focus on the needs of the victim, apply peer pressure and other non segregative means of social control on the perpetrator, while taking in account the needs of said perpetrator) (Ruth Morris, Mariam Kana)
• Community mediation with a fallback segregative solution (Christie)
• Tackling the needs of the population to reduce violent crime (all of them)
• The list goes on and on! I can point you to other resources if you’re interested.

• Anyone who says ‘science doesn’t care about your feelings’ likely has a very limited understand of science
• There should be no prison but no penal system altogether
• Vote, don’t vote, do whatever the hell you want but don’t shove it into people’s face
• Aiming to be politically 100% pure and judging those who can’t be as pure boils down to chasing political activism cookies/elo. The only useful thing is doing one’s best.

I just realized that feelings are, in fact, facts. On what level, that would need to be determined.

Oh, not them. I suppose they meant among non-right wingers. I always found quite explicit they aren’t welcome here. Not today, not ever.

Also from H2G2, behold the majestic : " -Perhaps I’m old and tired, but I think that the chances of finding out what’s actually going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say, “Hang the sense of it,” and keep yourself busy. I’d far rather be happy than right any day.

-And are you?

-Ah. No. Well that’s where it all falls down, of course "

I like it even better in the movie, Bill Nighy embodies this sentence perfectly.

Came for the second, stayed for the first

Hmmm. I’ll try to remember this one, thank you, that’s a real gift.

A life lesson I’ll learn one day. Trying my best though, but it’ll take time. Thanks for sharing.

I like it. Remember where it’s from?

Love this one. Used to teach students in political science about the horrible thing that “political ventiloquism” is.

I suppose it’s less about the quote origin and more about what we make it to mean :)

Recently, I learned about a historical quote, from French PM Daladier on his way back from Munich where he knew he gave everything to Hitler.

He got out his plane, expecting to be lynched or thrown oranges at, and people, when he realized people were praising him as a herald of “peace”, let out this magnificent “Ah… what a bunch of idiots”.

It’s beautiful and I can understand why it sticks… Thanks for letting us know!!