Dungeons and Dragons banned from prison for a spell

[Ben Lahnger]

Wisconsin inmate loses Dungeons and Dragons fight

SOURCE

MADISON, Wis. - A man serving life in prison for first-degree intentional homicide has lost his legal battle to play Dungeons and Dragons behind bars.

Kevin T. Singer filed a lawsuit against officials at Wisconsin's Waupun prison after a policy was initiated in 2004 to eradicate all Dungeons and Dragons game materials among concerns that playing it promotes gang-related activity.

The 33-year-old Singer is a devoted player of the fantasy role-playing game that involves recruiting others to play as a group. He argued that his First Amendment rights were being violated and demanded that Dungeons and Dragons material confiscated from his cell be returned.

But the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday that the prison's policy was reasonable.

Ben - Next week they're taking cola off the menu amidst concerns it might be a gateway beverage! But that's alright ... Kevin is working on a teleportation spell so he can leave all these sorry suckers behind!

[Despanan]

Guy beat a man to death with a sledgehammer.

Kinda fucks with the sympathy don't it?

Also:

Linky

[Ben Lahnger]

Who was being sympathetic? I was lampooning his lame ass. I also found the judgement that D&D promotes gang activity to be laughable. Gangs promote gang activity.

So, sarcasm and parody, yes. Sympathy? What, are you kidding?

[Still Jack]

I think what Desp is getting at, is that the people running the joint want to make his life unpleasant because he smacked someone to death with a sledgehammer, I mean, he's not exactly doing time for Tax Evasion.

[Ben Lahnger]

Well, the article I quoted said he was in for "first-degree intentional homicide." I didn't have to go any further to not give a flip if the guy was having a good time or not. But the statement was ridiculous and deserved to be made fun of. I also should have, if I was doing due diligence, made fun of his first amendment argument, but I figured the idiocy of that was obvious.

[Lochnar]

yes,yes...prison should be prison...blah blah blah

*the sound of "Can-O-Wormz" opening*

If you kill someone without good reason (I do believe in "good reason" but define it at your own risk) then you are a murderer. As such you belong in a special class of sub-humans along with the likes of rapists, corrupt politicians, child pornographers, wealthy lawyers and L. Ron Hubbard, just to name a few. Such people, and I use the term loosely, should not be afforded the rights of "good citizens".

To me this makes sense because by engaging in the activities of these group members (murder, r a p e, abuse and so on) you reject the basic foundation of our society, law. Law, or rather the respect and/or fear of law, is the only thing that protects most of us from the rest of us. Without law there would be only Darwinism in it's purest form. So, in rejecting the foundation of society, law, one rejects society and so rejects the protection of society. While this sounds like the beginning of an argument for the death penalty, it is not. That comes later, after I talk about empathy.

Empathy (identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another) is a key factor in a society. It is as important as law, if not more important. Law without empathy leads to petty dictators. When a society's members have the correct level of empathy the need for law is diminished. People do things for the right reason (because it is right) rather then fear of the law. It is my opinion that our society lacks the proper level of empathy as is evident by the way we treat one another, but that is different topic.

The arguments for or against the death penalty vs imprisonment most often evoke one or more of the following: deterrence, retribution, discrimination and innocence (or question there of). I think that (on a case by case bases) each of these are needed to determine the penalty for murder (or even the decision of if a murder has occurred) but they must be harshly governed by empathy in addition to law. This would necessitate a long and drawn out process but, shouldn't it? A decision and penalty of such a magnitude must have exactly this kind of process and the members of the society must be unified in their dedication to see it through and provide the best quality of information on which to base the decision.

In using this process we would find that in some cases murders should die and in other cases they should be imprisoned. We would also find that as our prisons stand today they are the more cruel of the options. Not because some choad can't play D&D but because of the animalistic situations they put people in thereby forcing people that already may not be as human as they could be to become less human then they should be. As it stands now, I think that in more situations then not the more humane choice is the death penalty.

Just my two bits on the treatment of murders and a comment on our society.

[Lochnar]

Originally Posted by Lochnar

So, in rejecting the foundation of society, law, one rejects society and so rejects the protection of society.

A part is missing here, about how we have no rights outside of freewill and that all the things we think of as right are gifts given by our society and protected by our society. The idea being that once we reject society we reject the gifts, what most call rights, that society gives us.

Pardon the omission.

[Ben Lahnger]

Dude, that probably should go in the Politics section.

What would have been good would have been something like: "Next, they're gonna take away his slip-n-slide!"

[Ben Lahnger]

Despanan, I missed your second link, but I was thinking before I saw it if they'd have said the D&D materials (pencils, graph paper, etc.) might promote role-playing and planning escapes, I'd have been less inclined to make fun of their statement.

But it's still funny!

[Lochnar]

Originally Posted by Ben Lahnger

Dude, that probably should go in the Politics section.

What would have been good would have been something like: "Next, they're gonna take away his slip-n-slide!"

LOL! Yeah, maybe it should go in politics...or whining but I'm lazy and so it's not 8-p

Ready to make me dictator yet?

[Ben Lahnger]

Well, asking for my vote and the term "dictator" don't really suggest the same political system, but promise me free tequila and you're a lock!

[Lochnar]

Done. Fuck the short post bullshit!