1910

I think you are inferring a lot that isn’t there.

1911

Why?

45

1912

I’m reading his answer. Why doesn’t he want to restore voting rights to convicts? Because it is “part of the punishment when you were convicted of a crime and you’re incarcerated.”

1913

In the same blurb he also notes that in prison you tend to lose a lot of rights when you go to prison, too. Which is sort of the intent of prison. He also then states that once a prisoner has served his prison time, voting rights must be and should be restored immediately.

In prison, should you be subjected to rape, violence, and acts of random cruelty?

Certainly not.

In prison, should rehabilitation, including substance abuse treatment, education, and counseling be part of the package?

Absolutely, I think so.

Are there rights you surrender? Unfortunately yes. That is part of the penal phase of criminal justice. It’s hard to figure out a way to square incarceration and the maintenance of all rights of the incarcerated, such as freedom of movement and freedom to assemble.

1914

He does. Once they’ve served their sentence and have been paroled.

1915

Yes, I understood that, sorry if it wasn’t clear.

Edit: I think it’s long past time to reconsider the idea that conviction necessarily trumps all your rights. I get that if you’re going to imprison someone you’re necessarily curtailing their freedom of movement etc, but why can’t they vote, and why should people on the left be pro- no voting prisoners?

1916

Various state lotteries and sweepstakes have proven this is a terrible idea.

1917

Not on this planet they have not.

1918

What an insane situation and what a joke the US can be, in certain situations. Here in Germany, a similar degree would cost nothing for similar results in regards to the quality of the education. The network you create during the studying years would probably be less useful and perhaps the job offers less plentiful compared to certain parts of the US. But you start at zero debt so you’re free to do as you please, including re-skilling if your choice wasn’t fortunate. A 90k debt for one degree is unbelieveable, you could start a solid basic commerce business with that kind of money to set you up for life.

1919

An actual, real reason to look askance at Mayor Pete:

Mitigated perhaps slightly by:

But still. Maybe not the best look.

1920

Oh it’s worse. It’s a $90k debt after a decade of paying off.

Student loan debt is a major obstacle. My sister had nearly $150k in debt after completing her bachelors.

1921

That just sounds like insanity to me. I thought I was shackled with $25k.

1922

You are shackled. She’s buried, by the sound of it.

1923

Good Christ I’m thankful I got a free tuition ride

1924

Yeah, she definitely made some mistakes along the way (having to do extra years as well as putting some living expenses on there). But this was even at a state school, though one out of state.

But this was her taking tuition and room and board with no real discounts or grants for 5.5 years.

1925

I had ~$100k in scholarships to cover tuition and still came out with mid-upper five figures of debt. Schools have started building these resort-esque dorms, charging insane rent, and forcing students to live on campus for at least one year so they can advertise lower tuition and make it up somewhere else.

College is simultaneously a great experience and a goddamn racket.

1926

I came out with $12k debt for various expenses, but also had help from my parents. I made payments for quite a few years but the bills were never onerous. Sounds like I got off extremely light by today’s standards.

That does sound like a racket. Tiny spartan dorm rooms are part of the experience, dammit!

1927

Same deal. I paid something like $100 a month for less than a decade after I graduated. Glad I had my tiny concrete block dorm room! My parents helped some, I had some small scholarships that helped some, and I focused on getting through school in 4 years. This was 10+ years ago now, so I assume doing those things today would have left me in a worse spot.

1928

I think I saw a chart that showed college expenses moving up in lock-step with the increases in loan availability and maximums. It turns out that giving lots of people access to lots of money makes the thing they’re buying rocket up in cost.

I wonder what making state colleges free of charge would do to the demand curve for the rest of the college industry. I gotta think it’d cause costs to go down across the board.

If Joe Smartguy has a choice of going to University of Michigan for free, or Stanford for $80k/year, I feel like the free choice is going to get some serious consideration.

1929

He was talking about voting specifically, not the areas where criminal justice reform generally focus (chiefly sentencing). It’s not a package deal.