Bernie Sanders: Abolish Private Prisons

a reply to: TheJourney

You're right. The labeling is a huge problem. Growing up, all I heard was how horrible this thing socialism is and how all these Jews died because of it.

Then as I got older and started becoming more educated, thinking for myself, I realized that everything that I had been taught was mostly propaganda mixed in with some truths.

The reality is that every socio-economic system is a mix of capitalism/socialism, regulation/deregulation, can/can'ts. The key is finding where socialism is appropriate and where privitazation is approprialte, where there should be regulation, where there should be no regulation.

The problem is, when people are so unreasonably freaked out by only the label, there is no good communication about where those balances should be. So Fox News tells us the free market will solve every problem known to man. Conversation over. Go back to work or go back to sleep.

originally posted by: Puppylove
a reply to: crazyewok

Been fighting this fight forever. Division, division division. It's everywhere and it's working. People will defend their division to death. It's crazy.

The fight for equality for example, a million different groups fighting for their own little slice of equality. Imagine if all of them were united instead of divided, but whatever.

Why would anyone want to be united with someone they despise? You're basically arguing against a person's right to be an individual and have their own opinion. To me, that's what seems bizarre.

originally posted by: BrianFlanders

originally posted by: Puppylove
a reply to: crazyewok

Been fighting this fight forever. Division, division division. It's everywhere and it's working. People will defend their division to death. It's crazy.

The fight for equality for example, a million different groups fighting for their own little slice of equality. Imagine if all of them were united instead of divided, but whatever.

Why would anyone want to be united with someone they despise? You're basically arguing against a person's right to be an individual and have their own opinion. To me, that's what seems bizarre.

We are arguing here over the failed system of PRIVATE FOR PROFIT PRISONS!

no wonder nothing gets done in the USA, you are too busy bicking over philosophical diffrences to deal with the REAL problems smacking you in the face.

a reply to: crazyewok

The OP may be about Sanders wanting to end for profit prisons, but as these conversations go it turns philosophical because so many argue how government can't do anything right so privitazation is the only answer.

As I said earlier, it's all about finding where socialism is appropriate and where privitazation is appropriate, regulation/deregulation, etc.

That said, it would be nice if people could set aside their ideologies for a minute, look at a particular issue and decide how it should be dealt with. Perfect world, of course..

a reply to: Reflection

While I could share my opinion on private prisons, I think posting some facts might be a better tact.

You might be tempted to say that it reflects conservative belief in the magic of the marketplace, in the superiority of free-market competition over government planning. And that’s certainly the way right-wing politicians like to frame the issue.

But if you think about it even for a minute, you realize that the one thing the companies that make up the prison-industrial complex — companies like Community Education or the private-prison giant Corrections Corporation of America — are definitely not doing is competing in a free market. They are, instead, living off government contracts. There isn’t any market here, and there is, therefore, no reason to expect any magical gains in efficiency.

And, sure enough, despite many promises that prison privatization will lead to big cost savings, such savings — as a comprehensive study by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, part of the U.S. Department of Justice, concluded — “have simply not materialized.” To the extent that private prison operators do manage to save money, they do so through “reductions in staffing patterns, fringe benefits, and other labor-related costs.”

So let’s see: Privatized prisons save money by employing fewer guards and other workers, and by paying them badly. And then we get horror stories about how these prisons are run. What a surprise!

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