I'd just like to point out that for all your apparent frustration directed towards certain reviewers for "not saying anything about the issue", you didn't even mention the content of this issue until the 2nd to last line of your incredibly detailed review of America's prison system. Just an observation.

My frustration towards certain reviewers here was not because they said very little about the issue, but rather that what they said was objectively wrong. And I believe that you shouldn't let this sort of thing slide, especially in such a tiny community as comics, where inclusivity is key.

Could you point to something in one of their comments as an example of what you consider to be objectively wrong?

Sure. DoorMan's review says, "Yes Chip, the prison population keeps growing...because people continue to make bad choices. Those people who make bad choices need to be supervised, Chip. Hence the jobs. The prisons do not create prisoners, those making bad choices create the prisons." This is objectively wrong if you understand anything about sociology and our prison system.

So, I'm going to assume that by "bad choices", DoorMan means decisions to break the law. So would you say that the people choosing to break the law are not responsible for their choices? Or would you say that they should not face consequences (jail time) for those choices?

There are many unjust laws with absurd sentences, like most drug charges. We know that decriminalizing and legalizing drugs, as well as providing rehab for drug addicts actually has the intended effect of lessening drug use. Look at Portugal. Whereas the current drug war just exasperates the problem, and leads to the incarceration of many, and typically makes them more likely to commit harsher crimes in the future.

Private prison companies such as GEO spend hundreds of thousands of dollars each year to continually push the prohibition of drugs. This is because they have a profit incentive for incarcerating and keeping prisons for as long as they can. They make money off of each person imprisoned. This is just one example of how prisons create prisoners.

They have a vested interest in recidivism and therefore make no attempt to rehabilitate the prisoners they do have. This is what the comic is about. DoorMan saying that it is simply people making bad choices ignores the systemic structures put into place and kept there by prisons that leads to more incarceration in America than nearly any country on the planet. Is it just that Americans are more violent and prone to committing crime? The crime data doesn't support that.

Ok, so you may be able to make the argument that drugs should be decriminalized, or that sentences for certain crimes should be reduced, or that prisons should pour more funds into rehabilitation programs, but I think those are separate issues.

Whatever your opinions are about all the above things, I don't think you can argue that just because a law is unjust, or carries a sentence that's too harsh, or because the prisons don't have adequate rehabilitation programs, that people aren't still responsible for their actions when they willfully break the law. It's still a choice that they make and it can't be blamed on their environment or the prison system.

Our decisions are influenced by our environment. The prison system encourages over policing and recidivism as a profit incentive. You can act like everyone makes choices in a vacuum, or that unjust laws are naturally occurring, and not the outcome of lobbyism. But that'd be ignoring reality.

Our decisions may be influenced by our environment but they're not controlled by it. At the end of the day, whatever the system looks like, whatever the laws look like, every decision to break the law is a conscious choice. I don't think we can pretend like people are absolved of all responsibility for those choices just because the system isn't what it should be.

Every decision to break the law is not a conscious choice. People break the law all the time without knowing it. It's established that ignorance is no excuse for breaking the law for a reason. I think we should understand why these laws are unjust, why people break these laws, instead of pretending it's black and white.

I've noticed that instead of addressing these problems, you instead decide to shrug them off by essentializing a very complex societal structure to an infantile degree.

I think it would be pretty hard to argue that the majority of people who break the law do so because they're ignorant of it. I'd say most people committing a crime are aware they're breaking the law.

I'm not trying to shrug off the problems that I'm sure exist in society and America's prison system. But I also don't think we can shrug off the fundamental truths that people are responsible for their actions and that certain actions (ones that violate the law) ought to carry consequences.

But by essentializing the issue the way you have, you're ignoring one side of it in favor of the other.

The societal and systemic issues in America, as well as the prison system, contribute to more people choosing to break the law. People don't make decisions in a vacuum. Prisons are set up to punish people instead of rehabilitate them, despite the evidence being clear that punitive justice does not work, while rehabilitation does. There's a profit incentive in ensuring there's a robust prison population.

There's no point in pretending as though America's incarceration rates are a product of bad decision making, like DoorMan says. Reality is much more complex.

I would argue that you've done the same thing that you've accused me of doing (ignoring one side in favor of the other). You admit that there are two sides to the issue, but I can actually acknowledge that there are likely significant flaws in the prison system, and that more rehabilitation programs in prisons would be a good thing, but not once have you agreed with me that as a general principle, people have control over their own actions and they should be held responsible for them.

Regardless of how the system operates, if a person knows the law, and they willfully break the law, those people deserve to face some sort of consequences for their actions. I don't understand why we can't agree on that.

It doesn't really matter if you agree with the law or not. If you know what it says, and you violate it anyway, you're committing a conscious, willful crime and there does need to some sort of repercussions for that decision. Sure, fight for a change in the system, fight for more rehab programs, but you can't say that the system forces people to commit crimes and that it's unjust to punish them because of that. That's ignoring basic human responsibility.

People make their own decisions, yes, but those decisions are influenced by their environment, which in the case of recidivists is shaped by the current justice system's failings.

The prison system has a definitive role in shaping these inmates' futures, and they make a concerted effort to not reform them and instead keep them in the system to gain profits.

The actions of people are influenced by the system; there is no separation there. Mass incarceration is a huge problem in the US even though we don't have the highest crime rates to go along with it. That speaks to a systemic issue that needs to be acknowledged, and is ignored by essentializing the way DoorMan did.

I feel like we're going in circles here so unless you're going to cop to the idea that the system affects the decision making of the people, we should just end it with an agree-to-disagree.

Fair enough. I appreciate the mostly respectful discourse at least. I think it's important for people with differing opinions to be able to have polite conversations about their respective views, even if they fundamentally disagree (though perhaps without anyone being accused of being objectively wrong for their different perspective). As you said: "Inclusivity is key."

No, I still think DoorMan and you are objectively wrong. We make things inclusive by not allowing bad opinions and views to become respected, as those views are typically indication of exclusionary opinions. Can I just say, I really do not find this sort of tact of yours appealing. You are clearly biased towards one side of this argument, and this attempt at respectful discourse comes across in bad faith.

I'm just trying to wrap my head around the concept of "inclusivity by exclusion". And let's be real here, we're both biased towards our positions. We've each come to a different conclusion on this subject, and honestly, at the end of the day I'm fine with that. I won't try to shut you down or keep you from expressing your opinions if you so choose. I'd rather be inclusive to all views, rather than only inclusive to those who agree with me. To me, that's not true inclusivity.

Opinions are subjective by definition. When you call my opinion a "bad opinion", that's your subjective opinion about my opinion. Not respecting my opinion because it differs from yours is not being inclusive and tolerant, it's actually being rather exclusive and intolerant. You can vehemently disagree with someone and still respect their opinion as well as them as a person. I feel as though I've been mostly respectful throughout this conversation, so I'm sorry you don't think so.

Anyway, as you pointed out, it seems like the only thing we're going to agree on is that we don't agree. So it would probably be best to end this conversation here. Cheers.

It's inclusive the same way that a racist not being allowed at a multi-cultural event would be inclusive. There's this concept called the paradox of tolerance. Basically, you have to be intolerant of intolerance, or else the intolerant will spread intolerance, thus dismantling tolerance. That's what I mean. I'm not inclusive to all views, because some views, like DoorMan's essentialization are bad and make people less aware of the issues, and leads to a dehumanization of the incarcerated.

If you extrapolate it further, you could use DoorMan's essentialization to explain away police brutality, or any abuse by authority. This is why it's a bad opinion. It's short-sighted, stupid, not based in fact, and dangerous. And yeah, I've got no respect for people with bad opinions. You came into this conversation hostile, let's not forget that first message.

You came into this conversation with a conclusion about the issue already cemented in your mind, and then put the onus on me to somehow change your mind despite you never intending to. That's what I mean by you being bad faith.

You realize you can like a book that has characters you disagree with right?

Yeah. I know. Is it compulsory to rate it higher? I don't think so. Rating is based on my personal experience after reading issue.

Fair enough

I had same view as yours. I rated higher because of art which looks damn good. Looking back, Bullseye loockdown is definitely a parallel to COVID Lockdown. A lockdown not shown in any other book. Wierd.

I mean, I saw it from the first issue, it was pretty obvious but people here called me insane because apparently if you try to read the messages that writers put between the lines you're nuts. Oh well. I've seen this happening more than once in comics but it was usually just artists drawing masks on characters' faces in situations when they weren't really necessary. Apparently Chip went all in.

What I don't get is why would you be so sadistic to remind people of all this horror instead of helping them escape it? We deal with this daily, we need to try to escape from it at least in fiction, why would you be so petty to remind people of this even in something they read mostly to escape from it. I just don't get it, you'd have to be a pretty shitty person, from my point of view, to do that.