I remember years ago when the “three strikes” law was being debated in California. For you out-of-towners, the proposed law would put repeat criminals (those convicted three times) in jail for exceptionally long sentences. The statistics showed that the repeat offenders committed a huge chunk of the overall crimes.
Here’s the funny part. Many people argued that jailing the people who commit repeat crimes would have no impact on the crime rate. I guess they figured that non-criminals would sense the void and jump in and keep that crime rate high.
I respect (but disagree) with the opponents to the three strikes laws who said we shouldn’t do it because it was inhumane. That’s an honest difference in opinion. But it’s just poor math skills to argue that eliminating crime-doers doesn’t reduce crime.
I see this same thing happening with the Iraq debate. I keep hearing people saying, “If WMD was really the reason for attacking Iraq, why don’t we attack North Korea? Huh? Huh? Answer me that!!!”
That’s a case of bad math skills too. I’ll be generous and assume that even the dumbest among us think it would be a bad idea to attack a country like North Korea that already has both functioning nukes and missiles to fire them. That leaves only the math question:
What is the larger number of insane dictators?
a. One
b. Two
To me, it seems safer to have one America-hating nut job with WMD compared to two. And since zero isn’t an option, it makes sense to whack the guy whose WMD and army are still somewhat dysfunctional. That cuts the risk in half.
Of course we now know that Iraq had no WMD, and I doubt it was ever the only reason to begin with. I’m just answering the “Why not North Korea” question because it keeps bugging me.
Update: Every time I post there is at least one comment that renews my complete lack of faith in humanity. Today it was this one:
—- an actual comment —–
So how did the “three-strike” law work for California? Did it noticeably drop the crime rate?
Seems like that law would face the same tough challenge of the death penalty: actually DETERRING someone. How many criminals really consider the consequences while committing their crimes?
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