I picked Scalia on purpose. Dan Rather could have been anybody, but Fate picked him for this case. I didn't pick a liberal.

People are sent to prison because they committed a crime have a better chance of coming out better criminals than better people. What I see with juvenile offenders who have been to juvenile detention is that they come out meaner, for sure. This is why people who work in juvenile justice are so eager to find alternative ways for offenders to work out their sentences.

I never said that society "forces" all perps to become career criminals. It's not too much to say that, unless one grows up in a criminal family or is mentally ill, some trigger or group of triggering incidents cause the development of criminal tendencies. Often these are free market pressures, i.e., why should I work at McDonald's for pocket change when I could deal drugs and make a fortune? I could make a fortune doing illegal things too, but I value other things more, such as the respect and support of my community. Somewhere along the way, criminals get the message that either they haven't got the community's respect or support so why bother, or that the community's respect and support isn't equal to the rewards of illegal behavior. (See "white collar crime" for example of the latter.)

It's equally naive to believe that everyone who commits a criminal act is a psychotic time bomb waiting to go off. And it's no safer: set up the expectation, and you create the condition. Treat somebody like a potentially homicidal loon, and pretty soon he'll be talking to himself.

Our crime rate is going down. Why? Because the kids who were left to raise themselves in the '70s are getting older -- in some cases wiser, but uniformly more tired. It has nothing to do with liberals or conservatives.

Maybe you would have given the kid a break. I don't think Antonin Scalia would have. This is my impression of the man.

And truthfully, I don't care if you're tired of liberal attitude anymore.

Kindest regards--
Mary Anne