We, as a society, have decided that loosing some rights is a valid punishment for crimes.
Arguing that we shouldn’t do something because it’s an example of something we already do is a weak argument.
People hear that argument and say “well, loosing the ability to participate in democracy is just part of the punishment, like being locked in a cell. They shouldn’t have committed the crime if they wanted to vote”.
The better argument is that it doesn’t make sense to cut people off from something we want them to be better engaged with.
I’m not saying don’t let them vote, I think we should. I’m saying you won’t convince people by saying it’s a violation of their rights because we’ve already decided that they have less rights as a punishment.
So it’s not a question of if we can violate their rights or not. That’s settled. We can and we will. So we need to argue that as a policy, this right should not be restricted because it’s counter productive.
I didn’t miss your point, you made a statement about ethics that was wrong and then just ignored everything else. The right to vote is an ethical one and should not be abridged. Other rights are lost either because retracting them is essential to protecting society and encouraging rehabilitation or because we just want to make them suffer. The former is ethical, the latter is not, and in the latter category few are as fundamentally unjust as removing the right to vote, particularly because extending or expanding this deprivation can and is used for political oppression against entire categories of people.
Arguing that we shouldn’t do something because it’s an example of something we already do is a weak argument.
This is literally the argument you’re making, jfc.
You’re very much missing the point.
We, as a society, have decided that loosing some rights is a valid punishment for crimes.
Arguing that we shouldn’t do something because it’s an example of something we already do is a weak argument.
People hear that argument and say “well, loosing the ability to participate in democracy is just part of the punishment, like being locked in a cell. They shouldn’t have committed the crime if they wanted to vote”.
The better argument is that it doesn’t make sense to cut people off from something we want them to be better engaged with.
I’m not saying don’t let them vote, I think we should. I’m saying you won’t convince people by saying it’s a violation of their rights because we’ve already decided that they have less rights as a punishment.
So it’s not a question of if we can violate their rights or not. That’s settled. We can and we will. So we need to argue that as a policy, this right should not be restricted because it’s counter productive.
I didn’t miss your point, you made a statement about ethics that was wrong and then just ignored everything else. The right to vote is an ethical one and should not be abridged. Other rights are lost either because retracting them is essential to protecting society and encouraging rehabilitation or because we just want to make them suffer. The former is ethical, the latter is not, and in the latter category few are as fundamentally unjust as removing the right to vote, particularly because extending or expanding this deprivation can and is used for political oppression against entire categories of people.
This is literally the argument you’re making, jfc.