News Roundup

[pyrephox]

From a quick look on CNN:

Aid Workers and Sexual Abuse. The article focuses on the sexual abuse of children, but of course, there's certainly sexual abuse of grown men and women going on, as well. This highlights one of the things that we cringe to acknowledge in our discussion of the sexual abuse of children, though: it's not about pedophilia. Abuse of children, by and large, comes from opportunism, not pathology or fetishization. In any given population of humans who are placed in a position of dominance or monopoly over another population, there will be a certain number who will use this power to exploit those beneath them. A lot of time, the sexual abuse is not even about /sex/; like most forms of sexual assault, it's about power and control. And the people who do it are often not cackling villains who look and act obligingly creepy; they're ordinary people who are given power without adequate supervision, in a culture which encourages or ignores abuses. The way to combat this is not to try and 'weed out' the 'bad apples', because just about anyone can be a bad apple under the right circumstances, but rather to work hard to ensure that the culture is intolerant of any sexual abuses, and that supervision is adequate, clear, and unyielding on the subject.

McCain Doesn't Support GI Bill because he believes that it hurt the effort to recruit/keep noncomissioned officers. This is, quite possibly, one of the more stupid things I've heard this month. Aside from being a way to honor those people who choose to sacrifice a portion of their autonomy to protect our country, the GI Bill has been one of the ways by which we have boosted our country's level of achievement and social mobility, things which are certainly /at least/ as important as having a steady supply of noncoms. If you really want to boost career noncomissioned officers, improve conditions and benefits, try not to get them killed in stupid penis-waving invasions, and support them with more than words and cheap, Chinese stickers.

Are We Executing the Innocent? Answer: almost certainly. The prosecutor here says: "We tried at least 60 capital murder cases, and I think we got the death penalty in 54 of them," he said in a telephone interview. "The only time you get the death penalty is when you have greatly cruel, sadistic-type crime." But he left a little something out, namely that minorities (particularly minority men) are far more likely to get the death penalty, on more dubious evidence, than whites are, for the same crimes. Additionally, that recent DNA evidence tests have found /several/ death row inmates over the years who turn out to be innocent of their crimes; it thus becomes disingenious to suggest that, "Nobody has ever been able to produce irrefutable proof that any innocent man was executed in recent U.S. history..." considering that the definitions of 'irrefutable' and 'recent' are certainly up for grabs. I don't support the death penalty, precisely because of the inequalities inherent in USA's arrest, conviction, and sentencing make me entirely uneasy about how many /actually/ guilty people are being sentenced to death.

Comments

[cpip.livejournal.com]

Aid Workers: So is there evidence to suggest that there ARE lines that won't be crossed if you make it an allegedly intolerable offense? I have a hard time believing that people, given power and a chance to exploit others, won't do so to some degree. It's basic fundamental human nature: give someone a chance and they'll slowly dance down that garden path and merrily rationalize it all to be A-OK, because none of us, in our hearts-of-hearts, are bad people to ourselves.

GI Bill: I can understand McCain's line of thought -- that increasing the muster-out benefits rather than the stay-in benefits naturally would lead folks to, well, muster out. I'm not sure it's necessarily born-out in actual practice, but I see the "idea" underlying it.

The Death Penalty: Sadly, the death penalty is one of those things I love in principle -- some folks really do need to be put down like rabid dogs -- and can't stand in practice, for all the reasons you put forth concerning the balance of the criminal justice system.

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

Yeah, actually. You can build and maintain non-exploitive cultures of aid, but it's hard. It requires, among other things, the willingness to be open about what you're doing, what the accusations are, and what the consequences for those. (And, of course, you have to take the 'allegedly' out of 'allegedly intolerable', because the moment you start allowing wiggle-room, you're opening the road for corruption.) And, of course, aid workers suffer the same sorts of burn out that members of the military or law enforcement do, so they really should be getting rotation out of duty assignments to the same degree, to keep them from becoming inured to the suffering of others.

I think even the idea is pretty silly, since the GI Bill is a huge /draw/ in getting people to enroll in the first place, and any of them who choose to stay past the required four or six year tour are a bonus that you would not have gotten without it.

Yeah. I actually don't have a problem with the death penalty as an ideal; although only under /very/ strict conditions, including a formal and enduring diagnosis of sociopathic personality disorder, combined with capital crimes, and further violent offenses while incarcerated or in rehabilitation. But I can't support it at all in practice, just because our incarceration system is so buggered up.

[cpip.livejournal.com]

Of course, one of the reasons you don't rotate aid workers as much is that most places simply don't have the personnel to do so.
(Now convince me you /can/ take the allegedly out -- I have a hard time believing it; but, well. I think we've had that discussion about human nature before.)

I'd have to agree to some extent; of course, I'd also want to see moves towards encouraging staying in, too.

Hell, I wouldn't mind if it came up randomly. Spin the wheel; hey, look! Execution! (And make them public spectacle again, why not?) I dislike a deck that is stacked in this fashion, however.

GI Bill, redux.

[cpip.livejournal.com]

Re-reading the article, I note that McCain is co-sponsoring an alternative bill -- so at the least, one can note that he is offering his own solution to the problem. I'd want to look over both bills first.