The highest rated comment is this:
As a physician who has worked with prisoners, what bothers me is how many medical amenities Chelsea is getting compared to the average prisoner. Prisoners show up with horrific late stage disseminated cancers because of staff apathy. If a patient shows up struggling to breathe or talk because there's a laryngeal mass in their hypopharynx closing off their airway and they had to wait 2 years to be seen, why should Chelsea Manning get speech therapy? The system is struggling to have life threatening conditions treated, it is not justified to spend resources on elective therapy.(According to the article, Chelsea Manning receives "speech therapy to feminize the tone and pitch of her voice.")
Next highest:
Maybe he shouldn't have committed a crime. We're 20 trillion in debt why are we paying for prisoner sex changes. Real vets, who served with honor and distinction, who are wounded need care, can't get it, commit suicide at alarming rates and we waste money on prisoner sex changes. This is insane. What happened to common sense.The next comment takes the position than Manning shouldn't have been arrested, followed by a comment with an equal number of votes:
Wow! I am not sure I even speak the same language as the Times anymore. He is not a whistleblower. He is a member of the military who knowingly committed treason. His, or her, gender status has nothing to do with his conviction for treason. If military prisons have to make accommodations for every prisoner's personal issues there is no point in prison anymore.5th:
News Flash: "Life in a prison is bleak." Film at 11. Seriously, they are taking away health care from tens of millions of Americans and you are writing front page news that "Chelsea thinks prison is bleak"?6th:
Some what overwrought report by the NYT. He/she was tried and convicted. Perhaps 35 years is extreme, but enough of reporting on Chelsea Manning, please. We are a nation of laws. Rules breakers know what is coming when they violate them. Sure, it is natural for her to try to obtain a reduction in her sentence, but NYT you need to stop promoting the cause.7th:
Manning was Army intelligence analyst who betrayed that roll [sic]. Period. Everything else is superfluous.8th:
Manning committed treason. Thirty-five years is a light sentence compared to the firing squad. If you can't do the time don't do the crime.The 9th comment takes the position that Manning shouldn't have been arrested. The 10th blames the Army for not dealing with the way "some soldiers" are "in over their heads emotionally." Here's the 11th:
I would like to thank the Times for highlighting the suffering of this prisoner. I hope it stands as a stark lesson for others who might consider betraying their country. When you assume a position of trust, that comes with great responsibilities. Betraying that trust comes with grave consequences.12th:
Ms. Manning should serve her full sentence. Her gender issues have no impact on her guilt or innocence.
I cannot get over the fact we are footing the bill for a transition of a traitor.13th:
Mr. or Ms. Manning is a traitor. I really don't care about his gender problems.14th:
Chelsea's crime is for treason and not for being transgender. While she gets the counseling she clearly needs, she also must pay the price for her misdeeds. The president should be more concerned with commuting the sentences of inmates who have truly turned their lives around and not to give Chelsea the opportunity to leave freely as a woman.15th:
I am sure there are mitigating psychological factors at play, but the fact remains that what transpired was a breach of security and trust. Actions have consequences. A reduced sentence perhaps but betraying your nation is a serious offense.16th:
"Plaintiff feels like a freak and a weirdo"17th:
Bradley Manning IS a freak and a weirdo! He had emotional issues and recognized them, so he should have sought treatment for them. Instead, he emails military secrets to a website. This is not just a grave error or judgement - it's an outright violation of the law and his duty as a member of the military. I don't care if he's transgender or gay - if you can't do the time. don't do the crime.
Let HIM rot in prison and serve out his full sentence.
Chelsea Manning is being *punished* for being a traitor to the USA.....why shouldn't we want her to be miserable? I do.18th:
If going to jail is not a deterrent to committing a crime, we are in deep trouble as a nation.
As far as I'm concerned we have already gone way beyond the call of duty by arranging and paying for her sex change. Let's move on from this "low-lie" who betrayed us!
Manning was a serving soldier, in the field, in time of war. He was not a whistle-blower. He was a traitor to his country, and to fellow soldiers. He put lives in danger. He betrayed the enormous trust that had been to him.
Posts
139 comments:
In 1966 my 7th grade history teacher made us read and report on NYT articles. This noted disjuncture was evident to me then.
The NYT will write anything to continue to beat the transgenderism horse. The NYT and its crowd have won all the other battles of the culture wars and transgenderism is the final frontier. Also expect more global warming fake news as the new EPA chief cuts off the money. Maybe Elon Musk will convert to a woman; that's a two-fer.
Methinks after reading the top rated comments, the basket of deplorables is continuing to enlarge.
(According to the article, Chelsea Manning receives "speech therapy to feminize the tone and pitch of her voice.")
That really is absurd.
I have empathy for Edward Snowden, because he did at least reveal information that we citizens had every right to know.
Manning, not so much. But I don't see how the left can be simultaneous championing Manning and claiming Wikileaks is a Russian front that interfered with our elections so much that Donald Trump isn't a legitimate president. There seems to be a disconnect there.
My father always bought the Herald Tribune, and only brought home a NYT in addition if there was a train crash with good pictures somewhere, for me to look at.
With apologies to Jim Croce:
All I can is shake my head
Cause you might not believe it's true
I got them steadily depressin', low down, mind messin'
Readin' NYT comments blues.
And you have to be a paying NYT subscriber to comment, right?
Speech therapy? Is that how all the dudes on NPR came to sound like maricones?
@David Begley, please repeat after me. THERE ARE. NO FINAL FRONTIERS IN THE CULTURE WARS! The culture wars are never ending.
Hence Trump.
Sorry to shout but in fifty years we've gone from an honorable fight for civil rights to a dishonorable campaign against devout Christians and in favor of men having around inside women's rest rooms merely on their say so that they "identify as women." Why? Because culture wars are so much fun, especially for Times writers who don't expect to have to personally deal with the consequences of the policies they push. To end the culture wars we have to take away the fun somehow.
Big Mike beat me to it.
"transgenderism is the final frontier"
As if. There will always be another fragment of Western civilization to tear down; always other class enemies to grind under the boot.
The struggle is the goal.
"(According to the article, Chelsea Manning receives "speech therapy to feminize the tone and pitch of her voice.")"
They're teaching her to whine and bitch?
Waiting to see if Obama will pardon her or commute her sentence. This article was probably part of the campaign to have that happen, but looks like it might have the opposite effect.
People need to quit calling HIM "Her"
My comment was #2!
Normalizing pedophilia is the next cultural goal. Trangender issues are the magician waving his hand so you don't notice the trick.
One word: execution.
One sentence: Hang by the neck until dead.
She has chosen a hard life. The Transgenders have chosen to go through a fight similar to cancer survivors fight. In their minds their own body is attacking them and must be surgically removed, followed by a difficult Chemo-Therapy period and a long recovery . So maybe we should feel sorry for them and provide intense support systems.
Meanwhile Vets who lost body parts in the Muslim Wars are told their lives have been discontinued and to go away and die.
The NYT, these days, is read by intelligent people for the entertainment value. If at all.
It's not every newspaper that prints its comic section on the front page.
Liberals.
Ingmar Bergman Unfinished Script “Wheat and Oranges” —Excerpt”
“Olaf, the bleak winter is playing tricks on my mind. I believe I want to be a woman.”
“It is a bowl of soup, Sven. Gender is a bowl of pitiful radish soup.”
“Why would God give me the body of a man if he gave me the Soul of a woman?”
“It is because God payed attention to you, Sven. Most people God has ignored in abject apathy. But you: He chose you to have a special burden. Like the buggerer. Or a leper.”
“So God only pays attention by creating misery, Olaf?”
“If there IS a God, Sven, then Yes. He has put the worm in your apple. He has put the weevil in your wheat.”
“Perhaps when Spring finally comes the warmth of the Sun will awaken the Man inside me again.”
“A childish fantasy is that, Sven. You were meant for Sorrow. And buggery.”
“I would give anything to eat an orange right now.”
“That is the woman in you speaking, Sven. Only a woman would be so frivolous as to desire an Orange in winter.”
“You have given me much to think about, Olaf. Perhaps I shall wander out into the snowy forest and lose my way, beneath an uncaring sky.”
“Remember this Sven: the bare trees do not care your gender, Sven, nor do the wolves…”
I am Laslo.
With respect to Manning, I don't want to "pile on." But I will say this:
In the 70s show MASH, they had a harmless, funny character named Corporal Klinger, who dressed up like a woman, because he wanted a section 8 discharge (crazy) to get out of the Army. Who'd a thunk that Klinger would become genuine role model for some treasonous nut in the Army?
The US Army - because it is so large and powerful - has the luxury of tolerating and absorbing all these left wing sexual fads. But there is a breaking point. If the standard fighting man moves closer down the spectrum towards the Manning archetype and away from the Bud Day archetype, our Army becomes much weaker, and innocent people will get hurt. Another reason to vote for Trump.
Scientific definition of absolute zero: the likelihood any NYT editor does anything other than dismiss these commenters as trolls".
The VA angle is the best one--we have wounded and chronically ill veterans who struggle to get the care the nation promised and is obligated to provide, meanwhile traitorous prisoner Manning consumes excess resources (including money spent on "cosmetic" speech therapy, for God's sake) and finds Media support for complaints about even that lavish treatment.
I'm pretty sure this isn't even a Left-Right issue, which these days is notable itself!
Chelsea Manning is the metaphor for the waste that IS the democrat party.
The comments could have been written by the commenters of Althouse, if I'm not mistaken.
And you have to be a paying NYT subscriber to comment, right?
No.
Laslo! Another gem! Thank you.
Manning should be allowed to put on its makeup, have its hair done and wear its prettiest dress to a date with a firing squad.
What happened to common sense?
Liberals have uncommon sense that allows them to choose the winners and losers. Manning, traitor that he is, has been designated a winner. His cause elevates him above the rest of the prison population and entitles him to drain off the limited resources of the penal system.
Ordinary thugs are designated losers. Except those who are serving long drug related prison terms, in which case Obama will pardon them.
Similarly, those in Gitmo who have sworn Jihad against America are winners and will be released.
It is all very nuanced. We deplorables, lacking the ability to internalize contradictions, can't possibly understand.
Curious George said...
"(According to the article, Chelsea Manning receives "speech therapy to feminize the tone and pitch of her voice.")"
He could, and should, just watch some M. Python videos.
My money is on commutation. Manning will get a book deal and blame Bush.
"But I don't see how the left can be simultaneous championing Manning and claiming Wikileaks is a Russian front that interfered with our elections so much that Donald Trump isn't a legitimate president."
-- You know how Republicans and Democrats magically switched which one was racist in the South? Well, the same sort of magic happened to transform Wikileaks right when it started to be inconvenient. I assure you, the wizard will do his thing again once Trump is president and Wikileaks takes aim at the new administration. Strange New Respect and all that.
Why are we required to play along with Bradley Manning's delusions? If he self-identified as the Messiah, would the NY Times call him "Lord and Savior Manning"?
Encouraging mentally ill people in their insanity is not helpful.
"Real vets, who served with honor and distinction, who are wounded need care, can't get it, commit suicide at alarming rates and we waste money on prisoner sex changes."
Ann, it isn't insane, nor against 'common sense'. THEY WANT THE VETS TO DIE. They want people to shun military service.
What else could it be Ann? The people in power, real power, just don't want them.
Matthew Sabian used the term 'magic' and I truly believe that 'magical thinking' is responsible for the mass affliction of the left.
Dan, your point is excellent. Usually, when a man identifies himself as Christ, he is diagnosed with psychosis or drug-induced delusions. But a man who identifies himself as a woman is encouraged and assisted in the delusion. We have a very sick society on our hands.
Yep. For some reason sexual "medical" care is in a special category for Dems. Can you imagine someone suggesting that dental work or colonoscopies could be performed with little or no oversight like abortions are? Birth control MUST be covered by medical insurance, but Obamacare taxed medical supplies like diabetic supplies. Sex-change surgery is elective. Elective surgery should never be covered for prisoners. Speech therapy???? Seriously?
They are completely insane.
Tommy Duncan,
"His cause elevates him above the rest of the prison population and entitles him to drain off the limited resources of the penal system."
LOL!
I am surprised at the dichotomy between being dumb enough to still read the rag that the NYT has become and having the sense to up vote that list of reasonable comments.
I also note the NYT doesnt have a Defense reporter who understands what a SCIF is. Must have been a reporter from the Fashion Section doing the Manning story.
Army built a special secure information facility
Sensitive Compartmented information facility
@MayBee: "But I don't see how the left can be simultaneous championing Manning and claiming Wikileaks is a Russian front that interfered with our elections so much that Donald Trump isn't a legitimate president. There seems to be a disconnect there." Easy. For the left, logic and ethics are all situational. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of deplorable minds. Transgenderism trumps treason. Dem political interests require vilification of Russian "hacking" and denial of Trump legitimacy. Which of course displays a foolish metaconsistency of its own.
I woke up feeling all disjunctive and now this!
"Real vets, who served with honor and distinction...."
Excuse me, miss, But Bradley/Chelsea Manning is a real vet, and he served with great distinction and honor, certainly far greater distinction and honor than that of those helicopter pilots revealed in the video Manning made public where they gunned down, with great avidity, a group of unarmed citizens, including two journalists, walking in the streets of their own city...and then shot up and killed the man who pulled up in his van to try to drag the wounded to safety. A kid was in that van who was wounded and possibly killed. One of the pilots said something like, "Well, you shouldn't bring kids to a war zone." Well, dumbshit, the warzone is their home, and it's a warzone to a great extent, if not entirely because of us.
Perhaps Manning shouldn't expect any better treatment than he's getting, especially given the atrocious conditions and treatment that millions of incarcerated Americans must endure daily. However, Manning is a great patriot and hero, and he deserves every hero's honor, certainly more so than most of the Generals and civilian architects of our murderous war of terror.
Curious George said...
"(According to the article, Chelsea Manning receives "speech therapy to feminize the tone and pitch of her voice.")"
"They're teaching her to whine and bitch?"
If one has followed the Chelsea Manning story, "it" has been whining and bitching since childbirth.
Anyone knowing prisoners in Leavenworth know it's not Attica, the healthcare there is above average.
"Normalizing pedophilia is the next cultural goal."
Spoken like an idiot.
I think I would feel more masculine with a cleft chin, like Robert Mitchum or Kirk Douglas.
Are you going to make my day and oppress me, punk?
So instead of providing him with the mental health care he so desperately needed, they surgically mutilated him and forced him to wear women's clothing? Kind of makes waterboarding look like tough love by comparison, doesn't it?
I confess that I do not understand the "logic" of the transism agenda which adheres to strict subjective stereotypes of sex behavior and mannerisms and looks as if they were objective, while at the same time rejecting objective indicators of the true sex of a person in favor of arbitrary subjective feelings.
If having a "feminine" voice and breasts and a faux vagina are necessary to be a real woman, then what does that say about people who by nature have a "feminine" voice and breasts and a real vagina? Does that not say that they are women even if they insist they are men?
Of course it does. But now people are going to be more free to say out loud what is obvious to all -- that the emperor is butt naked. Manning can call himself whatever he wants -- Bradley, Chelsea, whatever -- and personally believe himself to be a woman who is black/Asian/Martian mixed and over seven feet tall, but the rest of the world has no obligation to cater to his fantasy and can instead live in truth.
especially given the atrocious conditions and treatment that millions of incarcerated Americans must endure daily.
Oh, my heart aches for those poor, incarcerated Americans. By the time any of them gets a prison sentence he/she usually has an extensive record as a habitual criminal. Many of them should have been executed long ago.
So you think prisoners should receive gender change surgery and treatment, along with all the cosmetic accoutrements on the taxpayer's dime? Like Richard Speck? Cookie, I honestly thought you had more sense. But the truth is, there is no sense in the knee-jerk leftist agenda.
Is Meadhouse on the road?
I think the majority of people just don't buy into transgenderism. They just don't want to speak up about it because the media will brand them as bigots. Which is why you get Trump.
When the majority of people are afraid to speak their minds regarding a subject because they think they will be persecuted for it by a small minority that happens to control the government and media you have the makings of a populist revolt. Especially if those people are also suffering economically.
I have stopped reading National Review for the most part. I occasionally follow a link there though. Which is how I learned they were running a 4 part series on the "real" reason Trump won.
I didn't make it through the first article. It totally discounts actual discontent on the part of the voters for the status quo and mostly assigns the cause to historical forces. Trump won because the party in power for two terms usually loses to the party out of power and other such reasons.
The point of the articles seem to be to reassure themselves and their ever dwindling number of readers that nothing has changed, no adjustments are necessary for Conservative Inc., all is well.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=animal+house+all+is+well+video&qpvt=animal+house+all+is+well+video&view=detail&mid=82392886C0208253417482392886C02082534174&FORM=VRDGAR
But of course something has changed. After all Donald Freakin Trump has been elected POTUS.
I far prefer Trump to Hillary Clinton who would have been an epic disaster as POTUS, combining naked greed with utter incompetence as she does. However, the fact that Trump was elected shows that something is wrong with the people who can be called the political class, at least on the national level. They simply aren't representing most people. And yes, I know Hillary won the popular vote, with most of that margin from California, where they give illegal aliens drivers license, which is all the ID needed to vote. And no GOTV effort by the Republican party in their stronghold states.
Instead, they seem to view most Americans as recalcitrant children needing correction. Which is of course what technocratic government is all about. People don't like being treated like that and thus there is a backlash against the technocracy.
The technocracy, what some people are calling the "Deep State" is of course fighting back. But the gatekeepers are bypassed and people can communicate with each other and realize that transgenderism is weird and while those so afflicted deserve compassion, they are, in fact, afflicted.
I guess what I'm saying is that people are starting to declare that they see four fingers, not five, and the technocracy is losing the ability to stop them.
http://www.george-orwell.org/1984/18.html
"So you think prisoners should receive gender change surgery and treatment...."
Did I say that?
As for your callousness toward the misery in which incarcerated Americans live, consider first that most prisoners are there for non-violent offenses, and consider also that the Constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. Mandatory minimum sentencing laws certainly violate this prohibition, where many have received 15 or 20 years for a first-time offense, (if the offense involves drug sales, for example), or three-strikes states where someone convicted of three felonies--even if they're low-level non-violent felonies--is automatically sentenced to prison for life. I know someone well who was a career cop and he thinks it's not just cruel but crazy.
Beyond that, in prison, individuals are subject to torture and brutal violence, (including rape) from their fellow prisoners and from prison staff. If we are a just and humane nation--this is rhetorical, of course, because we manifestly are not, but we flatter ourselves we are--we would not tolerate the daily horrors to which many prisoners must resign themselves.
Should prisoners receive gender change surgery and treatment? Good god, no.
Most of these are mentally ill.
Robert Cook: Hating America since before it was cool.
Remember the "missing" wife of the Orlando shooter, and how nobody in the media seemed to care?
She's been "found":
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/16/us/politics/noor-salman-arrested-orlando-shooting-omar-mateen.html
mockturtle said...
Oh, my heart aches for those poor, incarcerated Americans. By the time any of them gets a prison sentence he/she usually has an extensive record as a habitual criminal. Many of them should have been executed long ago.
Robert Cook said...
As for your callousness toward the misery in which incarcerated Americans live, consider first that most prisoners are there for non-violent offenses, and consider also that the Constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.
This is the problem. Robert Cook advocates for policies that leave people poorly educated, poor, dependent, and desperate. mockturtle advocates for policies that punish people that act out of poverty and desperation. Neither of you appear to actually want to help them.
Maduro and Castro approve of both approaches.
One of the more entertaining things to do when reading the NYTimes is comparing the 'NYTs Picks' with the 'Readers Picks'. Quite often it's like visiting two different planets.
And I'm of the school that He/she should still be referred to as Bradley Manning when discussing the charges. He was Bradley when he did it.
Achilles, I do not subscribe to two of the premises you offered.
1. That crime is a result of poverty and desperation.
2. That the function of prison is rehabilitation.
No, I don't want to 'help' career criminals. I want to keep them off the street.
For some reason sexual "medical" care is in a special category for Dems.
This is the weirdest damn thing. It's an altar at which they worship.
When I was growing up in Washington state, I had the right from the age of 14--14!!--to receive medical care related to my sexuality up to and including receiving an abortion with zero involvement from my parents. No parental consent; not even notification.
My daughter, 15, was nearly suspended from school last year because she was discovered carrying a tube of chapstick in her pocket, which is considered and OTC medication.
So she's not mature enough to manage chapstick use, but she is completely capable of managing surgically ending a pregnancy.
Makes perfect sense to me!
A better way to act out of poverty and desperation is to ask for help rather than commit crimes. Just sayin'.
Cookie, do non-violent criminals always deserve easier sentences than violent offenders? What about a con artist who cheats people out of their life savings and ruins lives in the process? Don't they deserve harsh punishment for their non-violent crime? How about someone caught robbing an apartment complex for the 8th time? Don't they deserve harsh punishment even if they never physically hurt anyone in the commission of their crimes? When people break the law, they need punishment of some kind, whether monetary or through incarceration or enforced community service. If you continue committing crimes, or commit serious ones, you deserve more punishment. How is this hard to grasp?
Cookie reminds us: the Constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.
Yes, Cookie. Like drawing and quartering, for instance. When the Constitution was written, criminals were, quite properly, hanged.
Bradley Manning is a traitor. Chelsea Manning is a whiny traitor. Way to live up to worst stereotypes of the alternative lifestyle - attention whoring and untrustworthiness. I'd be quite happy not hearing a peep out of that traitor ever again.
Also - considering that members of the military must sometimes deal with extreme stress while wielding powerful weapons, does anyone think it's unfair to have this question on an application to join the armed forces:
"Did you ever require coloring books, play-doh or a petting zoo to cope with a current event?".
I take that back. A minor in Washington may receive an abortion at ANY age without parental notification or consent.
I imagine that will be updated soon to include gender reassignment, if Olympia hasn't done so already.
Yes, Washington State exemplifies the kind of idiocy that has become our legal system.
Robert Cook:
'those helicopter pilots revealed in the video Manning made public...'
You know, if this were the only information Manning revealed, I'd actually be somewhat sympathetic to the case for clemency.
What he seems to have done, however, is to round up absolutely every piece of secret information he could lay hands on and dump it out there. You've just described a motive. It's one I can sympathize with while still saying, Lock him up for a very long time.
Because guess what? Not all information gets classified because someone's trying to cover up U.S. wrongdoing. Sometimes information gets classified because its release would get people - ours, or local allies who live in those war zones - killed. (Asked about those allies, Julian Assange seemed to say that if they'd sided with us, then they had it coming.) Did Manning not stop to think about that? Or did he not care? I'm still on our side. He decided he wasn't. "You make your choices, AND you live with them."
(I realized only after writing all this that I'm supposed to say "she," but the name and the identity were Bradley when he did these things.)
Robert Cook said...However, Manning is a great patriot and hero, and he deserves every hero's honor, certainly more so than most of the Generals and civilian architects of our murderous war of terror.
Oh, Robert. I sometimes think the cliche "they're not anti-war, they're just on the ohter side" is unfair, but, you know.
Points for forthrightness, at least.
[Also, just to help, saying "he" is doubleplusungood. It's she always she or your fellow Lefties will come after you.]
mockturtle said...
Achilles, I do not subscribe to two of the premises you offered.
1. That crime is a result of poverty and desperation.
2. That the function of prison is rehabilitation.
No, I don't want to 'help' career criminals. I want to keep them off the street.
In some cases you are right. In some cases you are wrong. Some of the best soldiers I knew made some bad choices earlier and life and managed to get into the army and do better.
A lot of kids are growing up without parents. Their only other role models come from peers and the public education system. Most people would turn out poorly at least at the start in this situation. Pretending otherwise is ridiculous.
Robert Cook: "... our murderous war of terror."
Robert Cook is if the opinion that the other side gets no vote in whether there is a war. He's not on the other side. He believes there is no other side and America is a force for bad.
Oddly, his Ameri-centrism is very provincial and denies agency and humanity to the rest of the world. Robert Cook is a good old fashioned moral supremacist who sees the rest of humanity as something less than human.
#LeftistArgumentationIsFun
Bradley Manning is a badly confused young man.
Force feeding his system with female sex hormones is not going to help him with his neuroses.
"Yes, Cookie. Like drawing and quartering, for instance."
They didn't specify what punishments fell under "cruel and unusual."
Is Meadhouse on the road?
Super icy here today. Hope not.
"(According to the article, Chelsea Manning receives "speech therapy to feminize the tone and pitch of her voice.")"
No access to youtube?
Prisons used to be called "penitentiaries." With good reason.
So here's a question. Lot's of leftists like Cook here moan and whine about our current penal system.
There IS an alternative, you know, to our current prison system. Locking people up for crimes is a relatively new innovation in human affairs. Despite stereotypical "dungeons" in medieval castles, most castles didn't have them, because prison just didn't happen.
Back in Jewish times, and the ancient middle east, justice was what was known as "talonic." You were punished as closely and in a manner as possible to the crime you committed. Thus, thieves lost a hand, if you murdered someone by fire you were burned at the stake, etc. Thus the famous "eye for an eye" saying from the Old Testament. In fact, that was a significant legal reform, because it limited justice to only an eye for an eye, instead of being hung if you put someone's eye out.
Typically, lashings and beatings were given out, and then the criminal was let go.
Now, is that a more barbarous, or unjust system than our current one? Yes, much more physical punishment... but no loss of liberty; no ending of employment/earning ability, etc. Prison was used for some purposes (Jeremiah was put into prison, for instance), but very few people were put in jail.
I don't know which system would be worse. Certainly a sentence of a lashing for minor drug offense in lieu of jail time might be a good solution.
--Vance
Just an FYI for those who say "In California they give licenses to illegals and that's all you need to register to vote." it's not quite that insane. the licenses for illegals have a marking on them to indicate that they are not the usual license for citizens. So the illegals' licenses should not be good enough to register to vote.
I don't want anyone to walk into that trap when arguing with a liberal.
Robert Cook: They didn't specify what punishments fell under "cruel and unusual."
This is true. There seems to have been a lot of assumptions by the authors of the Constitution that their text was obvious as to meaning and no one of right mind and good faith could misunderstand. There was push back on the Bill of Rights on the grounds that they were unnecessary. Obviously, it was necessary.
That said, "cruel and unusual" should be interpreted as what was the standard in the late 18th century. Given that the punishment for most serious crimes in those days was "death" it is somewhat difficult to argue that getting 10 years for a serious crime is cruel or unusual. They would have thought that lenient. I think they had things more like crucifixion in mind. Of course, we the people have the right to redefine "cruel and unusual" as we see fit through our normal democratic processes.
For example, forcing somebody to read and decipher Robert Cook's anti-American bull shit might be cruel and unusual. Also, making Robert Cook confront his own cramped view of the moral agency of non-Americans could be cruel and unusual.
Robert Cook cannot decide if he hates Americans or non-Americans more. I vote both!
@johns
Thanks for the info. I did not know that.
"As a physician who has worked with prisoners, what bothers me is how many medical amenities Chelsea is getting compared to the average prisoner."
This.
Not only that, but look at all the medical amenities Manning is getting compared to the average person on the outside. How many trans people can shell out the money for feminizing speech therapy? Probably not many. An hour with a speech pathologist costs upwards of $100.
The article says Manning is entitled to the same care military personnel are eligible for. Why?! This is not a person serving the country. Manning shouldn't get the same benefits as our soldiers. Manning is a traitor.
johns:
Do the illegal aliens have to announce their own illegal status? Can anybody ask them about their status? Is there any investigation?
Explanation: The average age of a Times reader is over sixty.
There is a small percentage of the population born with indeterminate sex chromosomes. Very small. Some have ambiguous genitals. That is a difficult medical problem. They should have access to medical care. A similar situation is the option for healthy women to undergo breast augmentation, it is out-of pocket, but many insurance plans pay for augmentation if a woman has had breast cancer or abnormal breast development, because they have an actual medical problem.
If someone decides they are the opposite gender, they have body dysmorphia, the same as people who are anorexic or people who believe they are a lizard. They need mental health treatment. If they want to use personal funds for mutilation surgery, they can certainly do that. If the left wants to set up an organization call "Planned Genital Mutilation" they are welcome to do so, without tax monies. Why does the left believe rights are restricted if taxpayers or employers don't pay for something?
Where I live you have to show ID to vote. I'm thinking that isn't true in California. Is that so. Because I just did a little research and California has a motor voter ID law. If you get a drivers license in California, you are automatically registered to vote, unless you opt out.
So, an illegal could get a drivers license, be automatically registered to vote, and then show up at the polling place and vote. Is that a plausible scenario?
Johns - how is legal status verified by CA driver's license authorities? Do you think election officials in San Francisco, Berkley or LA would stop someone with a license marked that they are not a citizen?
I have never had to show an ID to vote in California, and I've been voting since 1984.
Part of the problem with violence in prisons, beyond the obvious one of the company one is obliged to keep, is that the necessary measures to prevent it are extreme and likewise unacceptable to the public.
This has a long history in California.
It was found that it was necessary to build maximum security prisons like Pelican Bay to keep the extreme predators in isolation. The regime in those places makes it unacceptable to the influential portion of the concerned public, so many mistreatment claims and scandals have come out of that. So this sort of separation/isolation can only be done in extreme cases.
Likewise the breaking up of gangs (black vs hispanic) is unacceptable to their political affiliates on the outside - yes they do have them.
Prison violence still exists because the public does not have the stomach for the extreme measures it would take to prevent it.
So, an illegal could get a drivers license, be automatically registered to vote, and then show up at the polling place and vote. Is that a plausible scenario?
Entirely, and almost certainly happening millions of times every two years.
Ron W, yes it is a likely scenario.
When registering for a regular DL its perfectly possible to use fake documents, which are easily available and the State is in no rush to verify.
JPS,
"(I realized only after writing all this that I'm supposed to say "she," but the name and the identity were Bradley when he did these things.)"
Nope. Manning can change his name to whatever he wants, and it's only polite to refer to him by his chosen name. But his DNA has not been altered, so "he" is the only suitable English pronoun to use when referring to him.
I think it's illegal to have to show ID to vote in California.
Just have to sign your name in the box on the printout the poll workers have.
(been voting in CA since 1992 when I turned 18)
Per johns: Just an FYI for those who say "In California they give licenses to illegals and that's all you need to register to vote." it's not quite that insane. the licenses for illegals have a marking on them to indicate that they are not the usual license for citizens. So the illegals' licenses should not be good enough to register to vote.
I don't want anyone to walk into that trap when arguing with a liberal.
You mean IF they declare that they are illegal. There is, to my knowledge, no verification of status. All that is required is a residential address.
I don't think you need an ID to vote in California. What the Libs have done is made registration laughably easy and unverifiable. So, any illegal can "swear" they are a citizen, and become registered, without documentary support. Once registered, the community organizers round up as many mail-in ballots as they can from these folks - and voila, the rest is history.
Again, woulda coulda shoulda.
I think it's illegal to have to show ID to vote in California.
I think it's illegal everywhere. Didn't some circuit court decide that it was racist to require voter ID? After all, we know that 'people of color' are quite incapable of obtaining ID. /sarc
Explanation: The average age of a Times reader is over sixty.
How do you know, and is that older or younger than Althouse's?
Transgender/crossover. Manning's libido would be buoyed by incarceration in a women's prison. So would all of his cellmates.
I'd bet money that you have to show ID to get into Pelosi's office in CA.
After Chelsea is sprung, she could make a lot of money with this outfit.
How do you know, and is that older or younger than Althouse's?
That fancy new google software. I would guess the age demographics are about the same.
Prisons are filled with high-level members of members of drug gangs who have been convicted of "non-violent offenses" only in the sense that they were convicted of selling large quantities of drugs. These gang leaders order low-level guys to commit violent crimes and that is really why they are in jail. Saying jails are filled with non-violent almost innocent people is liberal fake-facting.
As for "Corporal Klinger's" despair at prison life and her feeling that it is not fulfilling, that despair is shared by all his fellow prisoners. (Even those who sold large quantities of drugs and ordered up murders.) But "Klinger" didn't like the Army or being a man or being an American or America and won't like being a woman or a pardoned traitor or a lefty mascot or living in the city or the country or with a man or without a man or with a woman or with a sex robot either. What he or she really is now is a celebrity-nobody and no one cares what is really going on with such - a celebrity-nobody is just an item (neither male nor female) on the agendas of real agents. A no body nobody in the case of Bradley/Chelsea.
True about liberal fake-facting about people in prison.
They certainly arent full of people guilty only of holding a couple of joints.
If this is to be believed, Althouse's readers skew way older
http://www.ibtimes.com/audience-profiles-who-actually-reads-new-york-times-watches-fox-news-other-news-publications-1451828
The late Joan Rivers knew the reason(s) for this great miscarriage of justice but she did not live to explain it.
Why do bad things always happen to him ?
"Chelsea Manning Describes Bleak Life in a Men’s Prison.""
The psychotherapist says: I have two patients. One man thinks he is an elephant. The other man thinks he is a woman. We call the first man delusional. We call the second man, "Chelsea".
HT: Newspapers have more incentive to lie about their readers’ age than Norma Desmond has to lie about hers. The Times itself says “the median age of the digital subscriber is a graying 54, not much younger than the median age of the print subscriber, which is 60.” But that does not adjust for all the bogus short-term college-age digital subscriptions.
Interesting. I couldn’t find that link on that fancy software.
This site says 42
http://www.megamediamarketing.com/demographics.html
“The average age of the Times print reader: 52. The average age of the Times digital reader: 47.” http://newsonomics.com/the-newsonomics-of-the-new-york-times-paywalls-2-0/
I Have Misplaced My Pants said...
My daughter, 15, was nearly suspended from school last year because she was discovered carrying a tube of chapstick in her pocket, which is considered and OTC medication.
I graduated HS in 1973. Kept a bottle of aspirin in my locker for the all too frequent headaches I got. (And only recently learned why...) Even gave some to other students if they needed some. And, NOBODY CARED!
Teenagers, actually any kid 10 or older, should have enough knowledge to know how to self medicate with OTC drugs. And be trusted to do so.
The treatment might be a practical matter relating to psychological health as rehabilitation should be on the radar given the early-ish potential parole date.
It's called 'zero tolerance' drug policy. In other words, zero common sense.
HT: Here, let me google that for you.
If the New York Times says on its own editorial page that the median age for its print and digital subscribers is 60 and 54 respectively, you can be certain that’s the most optimistic reading possible of its true demographics, since every year younger means millions of dollars in advertising revenue. I take it you haven’t seen the ads in the print edition lately.
Subscribers. There must be a lot of people who read who aren't subscribers. But thanks. I didn't use the word subscriber in my google search. I wonder why those other sites have such different numbers.
HT: Nonsubscribers may read ten online articles each month before the paywall kicks in, and sneaky nonsubscribers know ways around that, but face it: we're all getting old.
Gotcha. You just referred to them initially as readers, perhaps that's what threw me. Then you cited statistics from subscribers. It's fairly easy to get around the firewall, and yet, I do and still consider myself a NYT reader, who's not 60.
Wait a second! The cut Bradley Manning's dick off?
Jesus that's harsh. In jolly olde England they used to draw and quarter people for treason, but even they wouldn't cut a traitor's dick off.
@Lewis Wetzel, sorry to disabuse you, but in Olde England emasculation was part of the show when a traitor was hanged, drawn, and quartered. The criminal was dragged on a wooden sled around the streets of London, hanged until unconscious, revived, castrated, then his guts cut out of him and burned in front of him. Whether he was still alive or not, he was then beheaded and cut into four pieces (quartered) and the pieces sent to the "principal cities of the realm."
I would think a hot chick like Chelsea Manning would be getting lots of action in a men's prison.
And after all that, nobody called him 'Big' Mike again...
"transgenderism is the final frontier"
Oh I sure there are many more.
“Please Chelsea, No!”
“Oh — so now you want compassion? It’s just you and me now, Brady, just the two of us alone behind this prison kitchen.”
“Chelsea, I was just kidding, I swear.”
“Yeah, yeah: just kidding, right? You told everyone you were going to make me your bitch.”
“It — it was just funny, that’s all — you trying to be a girl and all — I didn’t mean anything…”
“I AM a girl, Brady: I am a girl who is going to fuck you in the ass with my girl-cock!”
“Please, Chelsea, just let me go…”
“Oh, I will let you go, all right. But only after I make sweet sweet hate to your sad ass.”
“Oh God…”
“You ever been fucked by a girl, Brady? Have you ever been fucked by a girl-cock?”
“No, Chelsea, I haven’t…. please….”
“Tell me I’m pretty.”
“Uh… what?”
“Tell me I’m pretty, Brady.”
“Sure, yeah: you’re a pretty girl Chelsea — in fact, that’s all I meant by what I was saying — you’re a pretty girl!”
“That’s right, Brady! Now: tell me I’m a pretty girl and you want to suck my girl-cock!”
“What?”
“Tell me I’m a PRETTY GIRL and you want to SUCK MY GIRL-COCK!
“Okay, okay! I want to suck your girl-cock, Chelsea!”
“Louder, Brady!”
“I WANT TO SUCK YOUR GIRL-COCK, CHELSEA!”
“That’s better. I’m glad we had this chance to talk.”
“Uh… that’s it? Is this a trick?”
“This is it, Brady. All I wanted to do was for us to talk, like two people, able to share our feelings honestly.”
“Okay…”
“I feel like this has REALLY helped our relationship grow, Brady. Remember: we might have cocks, but we think with our
hearts….”
“Oh Lord, Chelsea, you really ARE a girl…”
I am Laslo.
Thanks Laslo for bringing the term Girl-Cock to light.
Laslo. You rock.
Blogger Big Mike said...
@Lewis Wetzel, sorry to disabuse you, but in Olde England emasculation was part of the show when a traitor was hanged, drawn, and quartered.
Well, that was just ludicrous!
It's Quiet... Too Quiet.
Must've been an EMP attack.
No kidding. It's a cold night, my firewood is wet, Althouse isn't posting anything and I don't have all you goofballs to keep me entertained. Hope this doesn't last long.
The peasants are revolting.
Great Discounts On AMZON ! Hurry Up
http://amzn.to/2jui3zT
Jon Ericson, since I am two hours behind PST, and I am still awake and sober, as well as being a champion of Middlebrow culture, I will push this link to BBC 4's In Our Time: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qykl
The Nietzsche program was good, but I think the host was clueless on an important point about when Nietzsche thought that the conflict between overman and underman was decided. Nietzsche was writing about psychology, not history.
Excellent.
Nice resource too.
Thanks.
@Freeman Hunt: The Manning creature is still in the army, until the creature completes the sentence. When it is released, it will be discharged. Thus, it still gets medical care at the level of any other soldier.
Is Althouse ok?
"Maybe he shouldn't have committed a crime."
This isn't really the key part of the argument--after all, having committed a crime does not mean we should starve a prisoner to death or refuse medical treatment when they're dying. What makes prisoners different is they're under government control, so unlike private citizens they're prevented from getting any treatment the government will not give them, so we have an obligation to give them a basic level of care. They don't deserve wonderful meals, but should be fed; no sex change surgery but stitch them up if they're bleeding.
The issue here is that Manning committed a crime, and while the authorities should give him/her a basic level of medical care, that does not extend to gender reassignment. How do we justify going so above board if, as the commenters note, VA hospitals are backed up and we cannot get people the treatment they genuinely need? Unless there's something we don't know (e.g., is Manning's family paying for the surgery?) this seems absurd.
Gordon, are you saying that the Army pays for gender-change surgery/therapy? If that is the case, we have some significant problems with our military budget. Perhaps we should throw out the whole system and start over.
Because of his/her, um Private Manning's actions my personal information was leaked. It wasn't much: first, last and last 4 of Social Security number. Still annoying to worry about this data breach IN ADDITION TO my entire private records being leaked through the OPM hack.
Worst mistake of my life? Joining the military, under the assumption that the average citizen or my government cared one tiny bit about my welfare. Then I met the VA... And got screwed out of $50,000 in casualty payments after my back was broken by shrapnel in Iraq.
Better off with a more stable career choice. Such as cooking meth or selling my body in Tenderloin.
Now I am forced to engage an information security firm. $40 a month, at least, for life. I sleep easy knowing that Private Manning is getting all the help to be as much of a cross-dressing freak as he wants to be. That helps me cope.
This, right here, is how you get Trump.
mockturtle, IIRC the Department of Defense recently announced that sex change crap is now allowed in the active duty force. I suspect this is one policy that will change very quickly under Trump--because people who want to whack off their dick are crazy, as Johns Hopkins concluded. And despite what modern Hollywood suggests, you don't want crazy in the platoon.
You might not be wrong about needing to throw out and start over. It's a different world and old ways of doing things need to be updated.
Peter Bland, I'm sorry for what you've endured. I've had good luck with the VA myself. But I think a lot depends on which hospital system you're in.
Unknown (or Vance) wrote at 1/16/17, 11:48 AM:
> Back in Jewish times, and the ancient middle east, justice was what was known as "talonic." You were punished as closely and in a manner as possible to the crime you committed. Thus, thieves lost a hand, if you murdered someone by fire you were burned at the stake, etc. Thus the famous "eye for an eye" saying from the Old Testament. In fact, that was a significant legal reform, because it limited justice to only an eye for an eye, instead of being hung if you put someone's eye out.
Umm, no. No no no. In Jewish law that phrase has always been understood to mean monetary compensation. See this Orthodox site for a very traditional explanation. See Wikipedia for a nuanced view of the subject.
Peter Bland: Thank you and bless you for your service. If you're in San Francisco (as I infer from your reference to the Tenderloin), you have the misfortune of being on a desert island, but around it is a sea of people who appreciate you and are grateful to you.
Yes, the VA sucks, but there's not much we the People could do about it for the past eight years.
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