[0720] Diamonds Are A President’s Best Friend
└ posted on Monday, 21 September 2015, by Novil
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- Journalist: Mr. President, what’s your stance on the SnapPic scandal?
- President Parker: I – like all righteous Americans – am relieved that these dangerous perverts have finally been taken off the streets!
- Journalist: But don’t you think that sending 47 million Americans to prison for the possession of child pornography could have a negative impact on the economy?
- President Parker: Maybe at first. But let’s not forget that America will also experience an unprecedented construction boom. After all, we’ll need up to 50,000 new prisons to house the delinquents.
- Journalist: Mr. President, is the CEO of Corrections Corporation of America currently shoveling diamonds into your jacket pocket?
- President Parker: Of course not! Did the opposition put this ludicrous idea into your head?
![[0720] Diamonds Are A President’s Best Friend](/comics/2015-09-21-0720-diamonds-are-a-presidents-best-friend.png "[0720] Diamonds Are A President’s Best Friend")
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I was actually content with the storyline ending with Larisa being scolded by her counseller. This is just over the top preachy, and I hate it when this comic does that. Political satire isn’t what I’m following this comic for, to be bluntly honest.
I find this path, of arresting everyone who got the picture, ridiculous.
This is actually a fairly pointed joke for me, as a friend of mine is in a similar situation. There is no protection in the law for incidental or accidental exposure to “child pornography”.
Say for example you work with special needs kids. One of those kids is a teenage girl with Aspergers. She’s intelligent, very intelligent, but just does not comprehend social interaction and “appropriateness”. She starts crushing on you, and you find she’s emailed you a naked picture of herself.
You are in trouble no matter what you do. If you try to report it, you’re charged with possession of child pornography. If you delete it, but the mother reports it, you are charged initially with sexual assault of a minor and then it gets downgraded to possession of child pornography with a little flavor added by “obstruction of justice” or “destruction of evidence”. Or any number of other ways the situation could play out.
Sexual assault cases are also often Prosecution Traps, where the accusation itself is taken by the general public and judicial system as evidence of guilt. This is especially true of cases involving minors. Such is the case of a friend of mine, currently sitting in jail up north waiting for trial.
Odd that the German version is not up yet. What social-political symbolism can we see there?
probably none
I hope Landon doesn’t get caught up in this. Him being arrested would put an actual damper on Larisa’s day.
Well I guess that explains it then.
Yeah, unfortunately, accidental possession can still mean a lot of problems – as Taolan mentionned it – and even if you report it (ex, you found some slipped within an unrelated downloaded file)
http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2013/09/is_there_any_wa.htm
Still, i hope the president will realise that he’s about to jail 1/5th of his potential electors 🙂 (with around 245 millions of people over 18 in the US in 2014) (well, if he’s on his first mandate – else, guess wanting to line his pockets with diamonds near the end of his second mandate is a possibility – though his political wing might still disapprove 😉
Larisagate scandal incoming ? 😉
I agree. This is ham-handed at best.
@ Sgt_flyer:
That article seems to imply that you can only be convicted if you intentionally downloaded a file while having reason to believe beforehand that it contained child porn.
So technically the people in the situation shown here are innocent. Well, most of them anyway.
The country would collapse if they tried imprisoning that many people at once.
That’s more than 21 times the current prison population.
Oh, and 47 times as many police as there are in the country.
@ Ajed32:
For the intentionality yes – but the article also talks about what would happen if you delete the non intentionally got file / or report it (as in, they would still seize and search your equipments for other stuff – reporting it basically flags you for the off chance that you might be one, so you’ll still have to face inquiries and searches – and if you delete it and it’s later restored during an investigation, then you’ll face additional charges of proof destruction. Still quite harsh (i can understand they want to prevent true culprits to escape justice, but it’s still quite disruptive for non culprits)
It’s 8pm on the 20th. How far ahead of new york is germany?
@ NewEraOutlaw:
Oh no! A comic isn’t pandering to someone’s desires. Whatever shall be done about it?
So many people with their undies in a bunch. This is hilarious though. I lolled!
@ Dra:
Excuse me. My opinion. I have a right to it. Just because you don’t agree doesn’t mean I have less of a point.
@ Sgt_flyer:
1/5 of population being not free is not unprecedented for USA.
Here’s a notion; what if the 47 million people who got sent to prison aren’t the only ones who got the picture? They’re simply the ones that didn’t delete it after receiving it? That would make more sense.
Aside from all the serious problems with the clumsy, foolish writing involved in this heavy-handed conclusion that makes this arc more harmful than helpful to the author’s intentions due to its blatant ineptitude…
No one in a position as high as president, or even anywhere near that level of social influence, would ever be bribed by diamonds. They’re intrinsically worthless. Git gud at common, rudimentary socio-economic knowledge, plz.
Is it just me does that guy look Donald Trump? Is that what it is, President Trump?
If so I can believe this happening for realsies.
@ C:
“They’re intrinsically worthless.”
That’s not really true, diamonds have a number of industrial uses so, they always have inherent value. Are they worth their high prices in jewelry? No, but then again just because their inherent value is low, doesn’t mean the market value is low. Diamonds are often used in criminal deals inside 1st world countries because they hold their value and are generally easy to launder, easier than cash would be. Diamonds are often used in smuggling, and in drug trafficking deals for that specific purpose.
@ Darkarma:
Based on…?
Please, direct me to any evidence at all that supports your perception.
I like how this comic is also calling out a certain real life, balding, supervillian CEO; and I don’t mean Donald Trump. Do yourself a favor and google the CEO of the very real Corrections Corporation of America.
even before the comments loaded, i could see the tag “politics” and thought “Yep, the comments are going to suck today”
@ NotASpy:
I’m not too entirely sure this would be out of the range of possibility for a guy currently running on the campaign promise of deporting 11 million people.
So let’s see: so far we have:
– a software glitch which sends nude Larisa pics to 47 million users
– a TV Tropes-ian “Un-reveal” of Larisa’s diagnosis
– Landon’s parents getting divorced
– Lily allowing Larisa to play with her kits
– corny political satire.
It’s obvious that we’re being trolled, folks, and that this story arc will end with Larisa waking up and saying “Darn, that is totally not the right way to reveal my secret. Wait for another 333 strips, will ya?!” =)
Mr. President, admittedly it isn’t my field and this is just back-of-the-envelope, but doesn’t creating more jobs when the problem is a labor shortage just make things worse?
Taolan wrote:
Yes, good old asperger’s making creepy geniuses everywhere :/
It’s not fun to have it.
Unfortunately, this is exactly what happens in reality. Sure, the comic book version is ridiculous. It’s meant to be. It’s called hyperbole.
This is nonsense. The news is already owned by the businesses. The supporters would steadfastly ignore any evidence of wrongdoing, and the opposition wouldn’t even need to see it to say it was there. Either way, nobody would notice the guy with the shovel.
mutedajar wrote:
Behind actually. mutedajar wrote:
Six hours.mutedajar wrote:
6 hours currently.
Next scene is the president getting arrested for recieving it ?
Novil, I am very disappointed with the turn this comedy comic has taken. I do not know how to take a joke, so this Internet page has ruined my entire day….no wait, my entire month. I am sobbing, cuddling a pillow pet while prone on my bathroom floor now.
Cyggles wrote:Either way, nobody would notice the guy with the shovel.
Lol, I got you, fam.
@ jy3:
Labor shortage? You have 47 millions of “workers” that are going to build whatever you tell them.
He’s obviously shoveling them OUT of his jacket pocket.
IIRC, tha jails in the USA are for profit.
This means and empty cell will lose them money.
Might explain why so many people get jailed.
Our fictional President ladies and gentlemen! Round of applause!
Seriously though, politics, real or fake, just suck. They always start small wars in conversations.
Guy, Goldman Sachs didn’t appear yet. So, just wait and see. Maybe, at the beginning, it started with a little pic of Larisa accidentally send somewhere, then 47 Million got arrested, which has a bad effect on economy (sic!), Goldman Sachs declares the USA bankrupt and in the end, there will be World War III.
Have you ever heard of the word subtle ?
Why did you give us a white president…oh
@ Asrial:
Only some of the prisons are for-profit, but yes, that is a problem we have. As I recall, the for-profit prisons started because we had too many prisoners and now, for some reason, the prison industry is lobbying for tougher criminal penalties and even bribing state and local officials for higher conviction rates and tougher sentences.
C wrote:
what if he has a mistress that has a diamond fetish? a pile of diamonds like that might be useful if she wants to recreate the end of Die Another Day
I actually know two guys who were jailed this year (and I’ve never been able to make that statement before): one for walking into a church and ransacking it for money, the other for getting in a domestic argument with his mom and stabbing her.
Welcome to Incarceration Nation.
@Darkarma
No, that does not look like the Trump. It looks like generic white guy fat cat president. As for believing this if it is Trump, you make no sense. He may be a megalomaniacal narcissist, but he’s not the man who can be bought, he is the man who buys. He even admitted to buying politicians (if you read between the lines) in the debates, and said that he knows how that game is played and that everyone should vote for him because he is not bought for, and because he knows how that game is played and has all the ‘experience’ of the other politicians, just from the buying side as opposed to be being bought side.
USA: Modern Rome, right down to the dudes with power who only care about themselves.
@ Penpencilandbrush:
Well, with slightly less lead poisoning, although the mercury poisoning probably makes up for that.
Alakaslam wrote:
I have Asperger, and I do not mind. It is a part of who I am. But then again, I can not speak for everyone.
By the way, from what I understand of it, the asperger diagnose has been removed. It is now just caled Autism.
@ Book Bails:
If you want to see the german version and germn is your language then googel “Operation Himmel”. 🙂
@ Martin Cohen:
I agree.
IRL, it’s more likely that Larisa would have been arrested for possession and distribution(having intended to send it out, not to mention it HAS happened before) than any recipient be arrested for possession, given the that the dissemination of the photo to such a wide degree was unintentional, and the recipients could not control receiving it. It would be like a cop throwing a bag of weed at a random pedestrian then arresting them for possession