Great Quote on Plea Bargains (Graded Online Discussions are My Favorite Thing To Read)

Just a little late night fun as I am grading...

Generally speaking I subscribe the liberal view of plea bargains.  Namely they are taken by (forced upon) the poor and disenfranchised who cannot afford good legal representation.  Just another bias against the proletariat (and lumpen proletariat) in our criminal justice system.

Sometimes I am surprised by the simple logic and beauty of arguments that I would normally never agree with.  This is a good example.

The following is a mash up of the posts of two of my students from last semester on a casual discussion board.  Outstanding! 

"A person who broke the law earned their punishment.  Why should they get less punishment just to save the state money?  Obama is just going to waste it anyway".

Student Strikes in Quebec Reach 100th Day

Here is a great photo of the protest from David Ruccio's blog:
http://anticap.wordpress.com/2012/05/23/protest-of-the-day-105/

Have "victories" been won?  Yes and no.  I am not going to go with the "overdetermined" summary here, I will save that for another post.

I would suggest that similar to elimination of the penny, (see my older blog post), in the fight against high tuition at public universities Canada is again leading the way.

A large talking point in the current election cycle seems to be the lack of job opportunity for graduates in this country, and thus their inability to pay back their student loans.  Perhaps these unemployed graduates should have spent more time fighting to keep tuition, and thus their loans, at a lower, more manageable level.  Hindsight being 20/20 of course.

Of course when your income is zero, paying back even small loans can be problematic.  As more and more graduates struggle with their payments perhaps my graduate degree will indeed become a requirement for well paying bartending jobs?  Am I ready for the increase in competition?