No one has gone to jail for crashing the world economy, torture or unconstitutional wiretaps.
No one has gone to jail for crashing the world economy, torture or unconstitutional wiretaps. There is however room in our jails for people who share files or smoke pot. This is not a justice system. It is an exploitation system.
Thoughts? Got this off of reddit. Want to hear what the financial/prospective financial community has to say about this.
Factually inaccurate populist rhetoric.
You need to outlaw something before you can send someone to jail for it. The economic downturn (I object to the term crash - it implies that there was actual economic growth to begin with, rather than excessive leverage that was misinterpreted as top-line GDP increase) was not due to any illegal activity, and was exacerbated by government action. If you want to outlaw capitalism, have fun living in France 2.0. "Torture" is prohibited by various international treaties and the UCMJ. The guards at Abu Ghraib were answerable to UCMJ, and were sentenced under it. Obviously they were taking the fall for senior officers, and that is unfortunate, but if you expect fairness you shouldn't join the Army. Should have learned that from Pat Tillman. Actions taken by various agencies were vetted by the White House OLC, and I object to the idea that we should start sending people to jail because our politics differ from theirs. The Constitution might prohibit certain wiretaps as an unreasonable search, but it is up to Congress to write laws to enforce this prohibition, and up to the DOJ to enforce them.
Were laws broken? Probably, mostly on the last issue, where there is the most relevant legislation. I'll ask you this, though: who do you think should have gone to jail? Lloyd Blankfein, Fabrice Tourse, some random MBS trader? Every banker who earned a bonus from '03 to '07? John Yoo, Jay Bybee, Michael Hayden, every NCS operative? George W Bush, Porter Gross, Condoleeza Rice, specific NSA operators?
Unfortunately if we throw Wall Street in jail we should also throw all the people who lied on their mortgage apps in jail...fair's fair...
Let's put Clinton in jail, too, for giving these people the opportunity to lie on their mortgage apps and others the opportunity to take advantage of shitty legislation. Dumb article.
the comments on that thing are absolute garbage
I see this ending badly as a bush bashathon
Douchebags dont go to jail either, but thats also not illegal.
To be correct, it's not a justice system - it's a power management system. There is an element of justice, but in the big picture it's about who's in charge and that's it. If we don't like it, then we have only ourselves to blame, because this country was built from the ground up and is the creation of its citizens.
See what I am talking about!!!! I've been bitching about the shit site for a while now.
Shit lets throw everyone in jail while we are at it. According to the laws in this country "conspiracy" is the act of conspiring, aka thinking about, doing something. So under these rules anyone who has ever thought about buying a house that was too expensive has committed conspiracy.
Not even that. It's not like we turn a complete blind eye towards guys who completely game the system in a completely illegal manner. Maddoff is a perfect example. Should Dick Fuld join him? Probably, but the justice system is not a 100%. The Enron guys, WorldCom guys, ALL got charged with various crimes and many of them did (and are doing) time. So to say idiots who destroy the world economy always get off scot free is complete bullshit and factually incorrect populist rhetoric. Same with torture. The Abu Ghraib guys clearly committed a crime and were accordingly punished for it. Did EVERYONE who deserved to be jailed get jailed? No, but this happens in any complicated crime. You never catch or convict 100% of all criminals because what is legal and illegal is not completely black or white.
As for file sharing... NO ONE HAS GONE TO JAIL FOR FILE SHARING. Not the guys who downloaded the music, nor the guys who facilitated downloading the music by providing a platform to do so. Do you see Sean Parker in jail? No. He never even faced a serious threat of prison time. They were sued and fined, but never went to jail. So to say that we have room for those guys in jail is stupid, because none of those guys are in jail in the first place.
As for smoking pot... smoking pot is pretty black and white. Either you are smoking pot or you are not. Smoking pot is illegal, period. Whether it SHOULD be is a completely different debate in and of itself, but the point is that if you are smoking pot and you don't have a prescription or if you are selling pot and you are not a licensed seller, you are committing a crime. Very simple. Creating, buying, and selling shitty ABSs is in hindsight super stupid, but it not clear that it is illegal. It's not like our justice system simply decided not to investigate our investment banks for possible criminal activity and move on to arresting potheads. They did (and are doing) their due diligence.
The idiots making love to this stupid ass incorrect coat hanger abortion of a sentence on reddit are just mindless trout who get hooked on every catchy phrase any moron pulls out of his ass. And they wonder why politicians like to talk, rather than do.
I had to scroll down half the fucking page to find a comment that can be deemed halfway intelligent.
I hate reddit.
^^
Just wanted to point out that actually, the guys who founded Pirate Bay were sent to jail. You might have meant no one has been sent to jail in the US for file sharing, but I wanted to make sure you got your facts right
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