The poor are an easy target for governments and private entities, simply because they are easy to abuse and there are so many of them.
Unlike the wealthy they simply do not have the time, money, resources, ability to unify and fight back as a single block (save some outraged protests and rioting resulting from attack or mistreatment by police, but those one can argue do more harm than good). If they don't have an extra $20/month, chances are they will not have time to sit and write a letter to a senator, or to call a lawyer or organize campaigns.
As the article put it, adding these fees and doing this is really an administrative step, it's just too easy not to do it. If they, say, tried to raise taxes on top tax bracket, that would turn into a long uphill battle probably. There would be local town meetings, letter to legislative representatives, calls to country club networks of friends and so on.
So as a result there are lots of payday loans places, high fees for courts, jail time (unless fee is paid on the spot), for the poor. Even once they go to prison they are turned effectively into slaves, they can't even call home because they nickle and dime there as well.
I'd add the amorphously defined 'weak' to the things that make people targets. News media, for example, has long been exploiting the basic human weakness of having an appetite for sensational news even if it contradicts facts. The absence, in people, of various types of self-control drives profit in entire industries: collection agencies, banks and credit, dietary plans, fitness centers (people not cancelling memberships), pretty much every marginally useful subscription-driven product or service, alcoholic beverages, pubs, etc. One of the downsides of capitalism is that it is often considered perfectly acceptable to capitalize on these basic human defects. What makes the whole thing worse is that, many people don't have a choice over self-control. Research, in behavioral economics, for example, has established that some flaws are so basic to human behavior that they are hard to overcome.
Obviously, the democratic state, being a highly regulated not-for-profit (for the large part) entity answerable to the people, has no business exploiting people's weaknesses!
State lotteries are a scam and a tax on the poor. They should be made outright illegal by the federal government. The money collected by them is usually earmarked for one thing, used for that purpose for a while, and then raided for some other pet project.
Add to this the fact that lottery winners are usually no better off a few years after winning and I can't see any reason why the state should sponsor them.
I think the idea is that if you legalize games of chance and have them run by the state, the rules are at least fair and there is some level of oversight that prevents people from being completely taken advantage of. The games of chance are still fundamentally unfair, but it's a 60/40 kind of unfair instead of 80/20.
In the absence of state lotteries, people with gambling problems would just find another way to gamble that supports organized crime rather than the state.
>I think the idea is that if you legalize games of chance and have them run by the state, the rules are at least fair and there is some level of oversight that prevents people from being completely taken advantage of.
In California the mob "numbers racket" had a better payout (as a percentage of ticket sales) than the state lottery does.
Even the mob takes lottery ticket money up front. That's not really an issue unless you're borrowing from them to play. But if you're borrowing to play you could just as easily be borrowing for the state lottery.
> I think the idea is that if you legalize games of chance and have them run by the state, the rules are at least fair and there is some level of oversight that prevents people from being completely taken advantage of.
In NL we just had a huge scandal with the legal lottery being essentially a rigged game with far less chance of paying out than they would have you believe. (This does not affect me because I've never put a red cent towards a lottery but I can see how those that felt that the state could be trusted in this respect feel more than a little let down).
It's kind of the opposite actually, if you have a state lottery, there's not really any incentive to make the payout rates favorable. Whereas if you have multiple competing lottery companies then hopefully they would be forced to have reasonable payouts at the risk of having customers go to their competitors.
Of course they would have to be regulated, the mob will just do whatever they want.
>The money collected by them is usually earmarked for one thing, used for that purpose for a while, and then raided for some other pet project.
I thought the common plan was to shift other sources of funding for what ever the lottery is meant for. Money is fungible so the end result is basically the same, but they technically are allowed to claim the lottery money is going to where it is supposed to. Lawmakers just never mention that for every dollar the lottery makes, they take a dollar out of the normal budget allocation and put it somewhere else.
If I want to spend a few bucks on the lottery every now and then where do you or the state get off telling me I'm not allowed to do that? It's a private transaction that has nothing to do with you.
The lottery should be illegal, full stop. It's a tax trap that launders already-taxed money from the poor in to high-marginal-rate taxable income for the government, using a method of fraud (read: gambling) that's illegal for most individuals to engage in or set up on their own.
1) It's not a tax. The IRS does not start sending you nasty letters if you don't play the lottery.
2) It's not fraud. Gambling is not fraud.
3) Yes, it would be illegal for you to set up your own lottery. But the state does a lot of things you would be arrested for doing, so that's not a very compelling argument.
Furthermore, a lot of people get genuine enjoyment out of playing the lottery. Who are you to say that's not worth the cost to the people who play?
I think OP is saying the money used to buy the tickets is taxed, then the payout is taxed again (at a higher rate). Not that the lottery itself is a tax.
Not defending the double taxation, but I just wanted to point out that it's not limited to the lottery. We are taxed on what we earn (multiple times even: State taxes, Federal taxes, FICA, and municipal income tax in some places). Then we are taxed on what we spend (sales tax). Sometimes the state gets to tax the same transaction twice or more; if I sell a car to another person, I pay income tax on what I get, and she must also pay title tax, which here in Georgia is 6.5% of the value of the car. If I buy a car from a dealership, I pay sales tax as well as title tax.
Pretty much all tax systems are double-dipping, corrupt cesspools. But what's the alternative?
The fraud: the government is using its advantageous position to aggressively market a get-rich-quick scheme that has a virtually zero chance of ever getting you rich. You could play a million times and not win. It then benefits from direct profits and taxation of winnings. This all has demonstrably negative effects on public health in the form of addiction and exacerbation of poverty.
I'm skeptical this has any effect on poverty. Poor people who buy lottery tickets wouldn't spend the money on job training if they couldn't buy lottery tickets. They'd find a bookie and bet on sports, or they'd play the horses.
And I don't find your argument characterizing lotteries as fraud persuasive in the slightest. People who buy lottery tickets are well aware they're chances of winning are pretty close to zero. Yes, they have to pay taxes if the do win, but that's not exactly an overriding concern.
There's no such thing. Money isn't taxed by income tax, (some) events in which money changes hand are taxed.
The idea of "already-taxed money" is silly, and makes sense if your premise is that each dollar created should be taxed once and then never again, which would be a novel model, but its not something the existing model even pretends to be, and without an argument as to why such a system is obligatory, criticizing something on the basis of it creating a taxable event from "already-taxed money" is just stunningly bizarre.
Not worded well, admittedly, but IMO removing "already-taxed" from the parent doesn't change the original point.
The government has a conflict of interest here: it benefits tremendously from direct profits and the top-marginal-rate income tax assessed on winnings, but at the same time causes damage to public health via addiction, poverty, bankruptcy, and foreclosure. There is no useful real-world activity associated with the prize money itself: you're collecting peoples' money and giving it back to someone, then collecting income tax on that amount. Lottery profits beyond that are often promised to schools or public works projects (which would be economically useful), but that money is often redirected elsewhere [1].
Lotteries are marketed aggressively, often with depictions and/or anecdotes about what you'll get to do with the winnings. Some lotteries go as far as installing games in grocery stores. Odds of winning are almost always buried in fine print or glossed over. Lotteries are disproportionately played by the poor. In some lotteries, 80% of sales come from 10-15% of the players [2].
Gambling isn't inherently a method of fraud. By definition it can't be so long as you know going in that you are in fact gambling and there is no attempt at deception occurring.
I've personally never met someone that played the lottery that thought they had tremendous odds, or otherwise failed to understand the nature of the lottery.
Would you mind explaining the fraud that is occurring?
>I've personally never met someone that played the lottery that thought they had tremendous odds, or otherwise failed to understand the nature of the lottery.
This is besides the point. Even if you believe it's not the government's responsibility to improve the lives of the poor, I think we can all agree that the government has no business actively making the lives of the poor worse, which is what the lottery does. It uses the public's trust of the state to promote a get-rich-quick scheme that a.) people have almost zero chance of winning and b.) will most likely not even improve their lives past the first few years even if they do win.
The fraud being committed is the state using its advertising and trust to convince people that they could be a winner, when they basically can't. Whether people 'understand the odds' is irrelevant. The government is convincing people to divert what little money they have into a bottomless pit.
Many individuals can read the odds right back to you, but that doesn't imply they have a great grasp on what those odds actually mean. It may not be legally wrong under any current law, but give the commercials that make a very emotional appeal (you can never win if you don't play, he look at all the stuff someone one... except they choose not to play), it has the same stink as offering a child a trade that is not in the child's interest. The latter is illegal because we can draw an easy to draw line using age, but it is just as hard to say what is the... whatever... needed for a child to agree to a trade not in their favor that they don't have but that an adult has.
That doesn't account for federal taxes, but the less than $100 billion of lottery revenues mentioned in the FiveThirtyEight article aren't going to really swing that needle.
If e.g. the state spends $10 million on the poor with the lottery illegal, then the lottery is made legal and $5 million from it is earmarked for the poor, what's to stop the state from lowering the previous $10 million to $5 million, which would mean the poor are getting no more money than before the lottery was made legal?
You're right, is it a logical outcome. Its inevitable if you let market forces dictate everything. There is a such a strong anti-government 'libertarian' streak to US domestic policy, that is essentially anarchism though. Which quickly defaults to oligarchy / despotism.
One of the primary purposes of nations and governments is (or ought to be anyway) to protect the poor and powerless from the excesses of the rich and powerful, to level the playing field somewhat and ensure some modicum of fairness.
Those in the US should look to extremely well run countries like Denmark with more socialist governments and strong legislation protecting its citizens. That is how a country ought to be.
I know of very few libertarians who support private prisons. The private prison movement is definitely part of the crony capitalism/fascism trend here that most libertarians hate with a passion.
Don't believe me? Check out this discussion on /r/Libertarian, featuring comments from many /r/Libertarian habitues:
As a rule of thumb, if a "capitalist" business depends on the largesse of and/or connections/bribes to the government, it's not really engaging in capitalism, at least not the capitalism that the libertarians I know promote.
I think many people who disdain libertarianism view it as a more extreme version of free market conservatism. But the two are in fact very different.
> As a rule of thumb, if a "capitalist" business depends on the largesse of and/or connections/bribes to the government, it's not really engaging in capitalism, at least not the capitalism that the libertarians I know promote.
That is why I don't think Libertarianism is viable. It is just as a nice fantasy ideology, much like Communism is. It looks good on paper, if you remove lots complications -- such as how the real world works.
They keep talking how they believe Libertarianism would be great if just government stayed away. Communism is just like that, it is perfect, if everyone just worked consciously, without cutting corners and so on.
In the real world, the shortest and quickest way to make a profit and rise to the top is regulatory capture and lobbying. For a mere couple of million it is possibly to buy state and federal legislators. It is just stupidly profitable to promise executive position to those in regulatory agencies after they quit. How many revolving doors there are between FCC and Verizon, or FDA and drug companies and so on...
It does but I think there is some connection to the line of thinking employed by libertarians and those who champion free market principles. At the base of such philosophies, in the United States, is the notion of every man for himself.
I've noticed over the years such people ridicule things like "It takes a Village" and other notions of community involvement. We've gotten to a point where a Vice Presidential candidate laughed at the notion of paying taxes as patriotic whilst her son was in the military receiving his training, equipment, and pay from taxes. Taxes are labeled theft by many on the far right. The political climate is such that raising taxes is automatically considered bad and hence municipalities resort to non-taxation means of raising money. When that happens the poor get targeted as they are an easy target. It's expensive being poor in the U.S.
Well a lot of it because the prison system in the US is often privatised and run for profit, as is the parole company in the article. Everyone (including the local government) is incentivised to fleece the poor and there is nothing to protect them. Things that would solve this (based on other countries that dont suffer from these issues)
1. Tax corporations and rich people more. Then the local government wont be reduced to fleecing the poor, also it would make the government stronger relative to large corporations and reduce their clout and lobbying power.
2. Dont let private corporations run prisons for profit. (I dont think I need to explain why)
3. Provide stronger legislation protecting the poor and services such as legal advice to make preying upon them less lucrative.
> 1. Tax corporations and rich people more. Then the local government wont be reduced to fleecing the poor, also it would make the government stronger relative to large corporations and reduce their clout and lobbying power.
Government is a lot like any other entity. It will grow as big as it can. Even if you tax corporations and rich people more, the math for government promises still doesn't work out, government will still fleece the poor.
What definition of 'often' are you using? 84% of Federal prisoners and 94% of state prisoners are in public "non-profit" prisons. [1] I don't know what percentage of probation services are conducted by private organizations, a quick search showed it's only done in 10 states, so not a majority. It also seems to be a symptom of mass incarceration - didn't really start to increase until early 90s.
1- Most corporate and income taxes aren't at the state or local level. Cities that find themselves trying to increase taxes too high find themselves in situations like my city (Baltimore) or Detroit, etc - a taxbase that flees to counties with lower rates, and the very people we're trying to help trapped in what are now sprawling cities that lack the ability to maintain their infrastructure and institutions. I would consider taxing 'correctly' an unsolved problem, especially at the local level where they have to actually convince businesses and individuals to stay in their area.
2- I'm not necessarily in favor of 'for profit' prisons but I don't believe the opponents have either a) established the connection between private prisons and increasing incarceration rates, or b) shown that states without private prisons are more willing to decrease prison populations. It's not clear to me that the voting population has required significant convincing to stay 'tough on crime'.
3- Sure and of course we continue to overburden public defenders resulting in what ought to be considered unconstitutionally deficient 'access' to legal counsel.
>It's not clear to me that the voting population has required significant convincing to stay 'tough on crime'.
That's the key. Ultimately it's the public which decides how tough sentencing is. People who are trying to blame shadowy capitalists or (laughably) libertarians are really barking up the wrong tree. We have a whole bunch of people in jail because the public wants them there.
> It takes a bit of rhetorical agility to blame "Government officials fining the poor and imprisoning them when they fail to pay" on libertarians.
Not that far fetched. Libertarians here is probably used loosely, I think it is supposed to mean free market capitalists.
I guess many Republicans and (conservatives in general) will identify themselves as being for free markets, for trickle down economics, for "small government" etc. It sounds good paper, sure. But that is just PR, in reality they are just "pro-power". In America it is easy to get power and a good solid following by saying you identify with those concepts. (Read it is easy to get a lot of poor people to vote against their own interests by invoking those concepts, it would be stupid not to use that tool!).
Later on while in power, it is easy to say in power by again applying those principle. Talk about "Wealth-fare queens", "cheap handouts", "not poor but lazy" and so on, to justify pretty much all the thing done to the poor in this country, got school programs,
Again the PR spiel is "free market capitalism", "small government" in reality that is used to pray on the poor for fun and profit.
There's a pretty direct line between libertarian political ideology and government officials who subscribe to it privatizing portions of the justice system and pushing for police departments to be self funding. Seems to me like a rhetorical klutz could get there easily.
Perhaps a 'republican' or conservative political ideology?
Certainly there aren't many (if any?) self-identified libertarians at any level local/state/federal of our government. And it's not particularly libertarian to maintain the same punishment structure while handing out government contracts to well connected profiteers?
Are the poor treated better by the criminal justice system in states with no privatized justice systems and strong correctional officer unions?
>There is a such a strong anti-government 'libertarian' streak to US domestic policy, that is essentially anarchism though.
This is patent nonsense. "Anti-government" libertarian types (who aren't actually anti-government, by the way) have no interest in throwing masses of people in jail. Only 10% of the prison population is housed in a private prison - if the libertarians were in charge they'd all go broke.
No, the problem is the big government people who want to incarcerate everyone who spits on the sidewalk - the very antithesis of a libertarian.
>>One of the primary purposes of nations and governments is (or ought to be anyway) to protect the poor and powerless from the excesses of the rich and powerful
That is not the primary purpose of government at all, nor should it be I would argue. Government primary purpose is to be the enforcer of laws and rules ( as well as the entity responsible for the maintenance of the existing code of law).
Shouldn't the laws and rules allow for fair opportunities for all? If the laws overwhelmingly favour the rich and the government is primarily concerned with maintaining those laws then you have a tyrannical, unjust government.
I suggest the following amendment to your statement:
Government primary purpose is to be the enforcer of laws and rules in the pursuit of fairness.
You need to look no further then America's bail system to see that our justice system favours the rich.
The people in the US are the ones being ground under the thumb of big business.
People in Denmark are not obedient they are just not being horribly oppressed.
And yes, the US is comparable to the EU, being composed of many different states with varying policies. But overall, the US is far more anarchistic (or libertarian if you like) than the EU in its domestic policy.
Europeans seem to need to believe that Americans are horribly oppressed, but of course that is laughable in the same way as thinking they will be carjacked if they come to the US. Watching too many American movies maybe. Americans pay little attention to Europe while Europeans obsess over America, which sets an odd dynamic because Europe is larger and richer yet somehow ineffectual in comparison.
This exceptionalist view about America is as common as it is laughable. We're not the only way to live, even (or especially) as a wealthy nation. The US is growing more corrupt, and the decline of civic society is being actively driven by a cynical agenda of ultra-wealthy people and the corporations which they control.
The result: depending in which state you live, the US is becoming more like Brazil or Mexico (fast) or like Denmark (slowly, but it is happening).
>that is laughable in the same way as thinking they will be carjacked if they come to the US.
Allow me to paraphrase a former acquaintance from college who was a night shift custodian and admitted part-time crack dealer.
>"I lock my doors before I get out [of] my driveway. Those crazy n-----s will kill you."
I spent many evenings playing CS with this person in IEEE labs late at night. He very rarely spoke with the tone and seriousness as during that conversation. He lived a few blocks from the university.
Off the top of my head, we've had a record number of police misconduct prosecutions this year. The FCC weighed in against gouging prisoners for phone calls. This fight against debtor's prison issue is gaining traction.
#BlackLivesMatter and the riots that kicked it off have been extremely succesful so far.
I don't know about you, but the riots have very much turned me off to activism lately. There were riots single-digit blocks away from my Oakland apartment where people smashed up businesses that were innocent of any wrongdoing. Anything those people want and advocate now makes me think "Fuck you, more $$$ for da popo".
I don't care what they want, what they think, or what their grievances are.
I don't support the rioters. However they faced the exact same treatment from those who were supposed to protect them. They were fucked over and abused and had their lives smashed simply because they were poor or black or different.
The message that they wanted expressed is being effectively expressed at the cost of innocents just like they were innocent and abused.
And the riots have put me in an awkward position. I can say I don't support the rioters while still supporting and pushing for what the rioters want. However, if I do this, any successes can and will be treated as successes by the rioters. The predictable result will be more riots, because people will conclude that riots get them what they want. Alternately, I can refuse to advocate for policies called for by rioters, because under no circumstances do I want to encourage riots.
That's the bind I'm in. I'm erring on the side of personal safety, because I'm not real interested in having my face smashed in with a crowbar for the cause of today's riot.
I share your dislike of riots and the of the idea that they're an effective form of protest, but you might like to reflect on why our Oakland PD has been under federal supervision since 2003, although use of force has declined precipitously in the last couple of years (http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Sharp-downturn-in...).
Because of the history of radical politics in Oakland, and because the OPD is basically on federal probation, whenever there's cause for a protest quite a lot of people from outside the area converge on Oakland because it's relatively easy to run wild here and not get caught.
I live near the Children's hospital so when you saw that TV coverage of the police and would-be rioters trying to outflank each other to get access to Telegraph or the freeway ramp night after night, you also get a good look at my front yard. Be assured that I am as fully aware of the local impact as it is possible to be.
People don't like rioting either it isn't going to happen forever. Also people aren't stupid though some of them might actually think that most won't and it will (hopefully) fall apart.
It's a common article of faith in some of the politically leftist circles I move in that riots further the cause of justice (for the contexual value of justice).
You move in a circle of fools. For every person cheering the rioters there are ten people turned off to anything with which the rioters are associated.
If anything, the riots (along with the recent surge in violent crime) are going to end the nascent sentencing reform efforts that have been wending their way through Congress. We may have to wait another generation before we can try again.
I tend to agree that there are a lot of fools there. I think most of them are just romantics who haven't learned that what feels right and what is right are not always the same.
Maybe some people think that trying to play to upper middle class sensibilities all the time has gotten us to a bad place and it's time to ignore them.
Be careful as you judge the quality of the issues based upon what the news and local police call "riots" and "rioters". The media hasn't always been reliable or objective in applying those labels, and law enforcement officials have also been unable to resist editorializing or even telling outright lies. Police as well have been caught instigating disturbances and antagonizing protesters.
>Anything those people want and advocate now makes me think "Fuck you, more $$$ for da popo".
There are many more people who are opposed to injustice, and who deserve fair treatment than the group of opportunistic assholes who take advantage of these situations for criminal ends.
The riots I am thinking of happened precisely when a peaceful demonstration got away from its police escort. To repeat, it was peaceful so long as the police were present. Can't blame the police for this one.
And I'm talking about things that happened two blocks from my apartment here. I saw the wreckage. It was several months before all the damage was repaired.
> There are many more people who are opposed to injustice, and who deserve fair treatment than the group of opportunistic assholes who take advantage of these situations for criminal ends.
Yes. There are. I feel empathy for them, because my desire to not give rioters propaganda fodder comes at their expense. Come up with a way for me to support fighting injustice that cannot and will not be turned around to argue that riots fix injustice, and I'll be there with bells on. Otherwise, I'm put in the position of being asked to encourage riots and measurably sacrifice my personal safety and well-being.
>Come up with a way for me to support fighting injustice that cannot and will not be turned around to argue that riots fix injustice,
One way to fix that is fair governance, or you know, work to stop injustice before anyone riots. One thing that's pretty clear now is that the government can treat groups of people pretty badly and for a long while before anyone will lift a finger.
>I'll be there with bells on.
No, sadly it was predictable that people would not tolerate endless systemic corruption and injustice, yet very few people were working to change it, or in most cases even aware of it before the "riots".
It sounds almost like you want obvious injustice to be allowed to continue just to spite the relatively small number of violent protesters; lest people might be encouraged to use violence to gain attention for their political ends. The answer to injustice is when it becomes apparent to end it, full stop. It doesn't require you to endorse rioting, either.
You're asking me to take actions that can be reasonably portrayed as riots garnering political support. It's abundantly clear that riots are commonly portrayed as yielding this positive effect. You can see it right here in this discussion.
Why would I want to encourage this by taking actions entirely consistent with it?
You aren't asking me to endorse rioting. You are asking me to act in a way externally indistinguishable from rewarding rioting. That, I've found, is a thing easily rationalized from a distance.
I think there's a meme that riots yield political concessions. I also think that acting in a way that suggests this meme is true is unlikely to have the effect of discouraging riots as a means of gaining political concessions. I think that in an environment where peaceful protest is perceived as without value and riots are perceived as efficacious, people will tend to make the rational choice.
Is that a sufficiently clear statement of my position?
Perhaps I should say that I view riots as a form of injustice unto themselves. I am attempting to take action to stop injustice by demonstrating the scope and negative impact of injustice.
>I think there's a meme that riots yield political concessions.
I think that unfortunately it may be correct.
>I think that in an environment where peaceful protest is perceived as without value and riots are perceived as efficacious, people will tend to make the rational choice.
I think that's a pretty obvious and logical path of escalation, but I still do not believe that most people would begin a protest with the intent that it become violent, nor that most people would rationalize the use of violence in that manner. If they are so rational, they surely would not choose the police or potentially the nat'l guard as opponents in a brawl.
>Perhaps I should say that I view riots as a form of injustice unto themselves.
Agreed.
>I am attempting to take action to stop injustice by demonstrating the scope and negative impact of injustice.
And demonstrating a marked lack of sympathy for others in doing so. You are not particularly concerned with injustice or violence as long as you remain personally unaffected.
Personally, I believe the meme to be a case of people choosing their beliefs for the purpose of emotional satisfaction rather than truth value.
> And demonstrating a marked lack of sympathy for others in doing so. You are not particularly concerned with injustice or violence as long as you remain personally unaffected.
Would you be more willing to listen if I had written a teeth-gnashing litany about how much I sympathize with the grievance(s) in question first? I suspect most would not. The prevailing thought is that in such a scenario as this, I should subordinate my grievances to those of others. You can see this on display when others tell me "get over yourself". In other words, I am to disregard one injustice in the supposed interests of addressing another injustice.
I am concerned with injustice and violence. I am also concerned with not perpetuating them in an effort to address them. I do not consider making the problem worse to be an acceptable manner of attempting to solve the problem.
I also wrote this:
> And the riots have put me in an awkward position. I can say I don't support the rioters while still supporting and pushing for what the rioters want. However, if I do this, any successes can and will be treated as successes by the rioters. The predictable result will be more riots, because people will conclude that riots get them what they want. Alternately, I can refuse to advocate for policies called for by rioters, because under no circumstances do I want to encourage riots.
> That's the bind I'm in. I'm erring on the side of personal safety, because I'm not real interested in having my face smashed in with a crowbar for the cause of today's riot.
Perhaps that's not considered sympathy. I should think it makes clear where my personal sympathies lie. Perhaps a more strident declaration of loyalty to The Cause is required?
That said, I'm also bothered by the idea that I have to express sympathy before being permitted to be displeased with an injustice. Can I criticize attempting to assassinate the POTUS without commenting on the cause of independence for Puerto Rice?
>For starters, the meme is demonstrably incorrect.
I'll bet you that black people in general in Ferguson, Mo. would tell you that they are better off now then they were before the protests. Since there was also rioting and looting and vandalism and violence, there are also probably people who believe that the rioting and looting and vandalism and violence are what's responsible for their improved status. It may well be that the rest of the country became more conservative after watching it; that would be a shame, and I'm still not convinced about that, either.
>I am to disregard one injustice in the supposed interests of addressing another injustice.
What injustice? You saw where some vandals in Oakland vandalized some stuff? We as a society mistreat a group of people until they take to the streets in protest, and when a few of them get too rowdy, people such as yourself get uptight about that (the protest, not the decades of injustice). Also, note the ease with which agents provocateurs can derail any social justice protest/movement merely because people such as yourself can't/won't distinguish between the two.
>Perhaps a more strident declaration of loyalty to The Cause is required?
That kind of wit might be why people tell you to get over yourself.
>That said, I'm also bothered by the idea that I have to express sympathy before being permitted to be displeased with an injustice. Can I criticize attempting to assassinate the POTUS without commenting on the cause of independence for Puerto Rice?
Let me cut to the quick: I believe it it possible to be dissatisfied with both racism and riots. I also believe it is possible to be dissatisfied with racism without being morally obliged to support or encourage riots. Perhaps you differ.
Come up with a way for me to support fighting injustice that cannot and will not be turned around to argue that riots fix injustice, and I'll be there with bells on. Otherwise, I'm put in the position of being asked to encourage riots and measurably sacrifice my personal safety and well-being.
In my view, your demand is unreasonable and un-achievable, on the face of it. Nobody can control what rhetoric or narrative emerges from events.
Protest is a necessary ingredient of society. There is always the risk that protest will turn violent, just as there is always the risk that a plane will crash. This is even if nobody condones violence or plane crashes, and we all extend our sympathy to the innocent victims.
In a society where people glorify plane crashes, not all innocent victims receive sympathy. Instead, we tell them that they don't deserve it because there are larger issues at hand.
Police actions may have directly caused the first riot. I'm talking about the decision to discontinue bus service, shut down the Metro station and detain teenagers in the streets while police faced off with them in riot gear. It's not clear that police had any plan other than "respond to the riot", as if it was an inevitable event even before the riot existed (even though threats of a "purge" existed). How did they expect the kids to get home from school after police denied them access to every available form of transportation? It appears that police actually compounded their problem by confining all of the students into a large crowd, (and we know a few things about how crowds/herds behave). According to the Wiki it apparently took a half-hour before someone threw a brick at police, who shortly began throwing bricks themselves.
Also, as far as I can tell, most of the vandalism in Baltimore was initially directed at the government (not that it's an excuse). It got out of hand and unfortunately once the real jerks got involved turned into a spate of blacks vs everyone else racism/vandalism/violence/etc, but again it was a tiny fraction of the people involved in protesting. It's not even clear that the ones primarily responsible for the vandalism/violence were even involved in the protesting. What is clear though is that many of the protesters were among those harmed in the violence, and were also in the much larger groups of people who helped clean up the mess.
About a week ago, tens of thousands of black people peacefully gathered at the Washington Mall. Their reasons for coming together were not too dissimilar from the rioters of past incidents.
Nary a peep was heard out of the mainstream media about this peaceful march.
Riots, on the other hand, seem to cause the media hordes to descend and at least draw attention to the cause. It's hard to argue the fact that they are at least useful for consciousness -raising.
I apologize for making a generalization, but whenever I see anyone of any political alignment suggesting that their issue of choice is being ignored/suppressed the mainstream media, the claim is almost invariably without merit.
Well, let's just take a closer look at Google News, shall we?
Google News has a handy feature: when you search for a topic, under the first result is an option to explore in depth, and it shows you the number of additional articles you'll find on said topic. There may be more besides, but let's take this as a reasonable proxy of media interest.
Let's assume that, for any given an event, the height of news coverage occurs the day after the event.
The march was on Oct. 10th, so we would expect "peak news" to be on Oct. 11th. I adjusted your search to focus only on Oct. 11th, and Google News's Explore in depth showed me there were 1,076 more articles about the topic. It's true: not altogether absent.
To the Ferguson riots. Wikipedia pins the start date on 8/9/14, so let's take peak news date as 8/10/14. (However, given this was a multi-day narrative, we know that news coverage did not end after 8/10/14, but continued.)
How many Explore In Depth articles does Google News tell me were available for search term Ferguson riots on 8/10/14? 13,445.
The evidence is overwhelming: the media is far more interested in the riot narrative than in the peaceful march narrative.
It should be noted that, for millennia, violence and destruction are considered perfectly acceptable means for accomplishing political objectives. But only when performed by state actors, of course.
IMO: the riots start out as protests. Then a minority of people choose to cause mayhem. Another minority are criminals and they do what criminals do, which is act opportunistically. And yes, agents provocateur do exist.
But sure, I can understand why people who are directly affected would prefer to have no protests at all out of fear that a riot might happen. They love order more than justice, an attitude which, ironically, has helped to create the very same conditions that people are protesting.
It's much easier for people to be principled when their self-interest is not at stake.
I'm not opposed to peaceful protests. I've been in some myself. I am very much against riots and romanticizing riots as a form of productive protest. Agent provocateurs do exist, but I think it's unreasonable to pretend (as some do) that all riots are due to such.
It's not so much inequality as injustice. Belief in the system is what keeps the violent mob at bay. When that's destroyed, it's clear they're going to run into trouble sooner or later. So they might as well get something for it.
The injustice of the broken court system is more widespread than the hashtags would lead you to believe. You just get more benefit of the doubt if you look like the judge/persecutor, and it's easier to avoid serious harm if you have better-paid representation.
It's not about what they want, it's what you get, post-riot. You have roughly three choices: move avay and incur a longer commute, pay more for (private) security, or continue living where you are with an increased risk of violent crime. Things shouldn't have been allowed to escalate that much.
OK. It's about what I get, post-riot. What I've got, post-riot, is an inclination to support Oakland PD - horrifying record and all - over possibly-well-meaning rioters.
Reforming OPD seems much more tractable than addressing issues over which local politics hold little to no sway.
So when a small group of individuals riots that somehow validates, for you, the injustices experienced by the larger majority? That suggests a pretty shallow commitment in the first place.
Look, I'm a Baltimore resident and I hated to see the rioting that occurred here back in the summer. I understand why it happened and what motivated it, but it didn't really move the ball forward for anyone that cared about fighting for justice. However, in the days and weeks leading up to the riots, there were large scale, peaceful protests in the city involving many, many more people then rioted. (A fact the national media paid virtually no attention to.) Most people out there don't think activism = violence or necessarily leads to violence. It's quite possible to make a distinction between rioting (and I think most of our Baltimore rioters were just using the situation as a pretext to rob and loot anyway) and activism.
Social unrest is supposed to make you feel uncomfortable. The same way chemotherapy drugs are supposed to make you feel sick.
Government overreach and police abuse are comparable to cancer. In both cases you have a part of a system that when functioning normally will maintain stability. But the local components become confused about their instructions and act in a way that is counterproductive to the health of the larger structure. The malady will spread and convert nearby healthy cells into cancerous cells. Because the culprits are normal parts of the body it is difficult to isolate the good from bad and the cures that are good at removing the bad cells have the side effect of damaging or disrupting good cells. But a temporary manageable pain is better than allowing a destructive impulse to destroy the body from the inside-out.
You missed the analogy so I'll summarize it again. Crime is infectious disease. The law is an immune system. Injustice is leukemia. Revolution is chemo.
They don't give a shit that you don't care. From their perspective, you don't get to have a peaceful middle class life if they don't get to have any peace.
They very idea of a "social contract" is a model that implies a state with authority over its citizens. Somehow, I don't think people automatically regress to "perpetual war" without the existence of a state.
And using words like "justified" to describe regressive, destructive behavior is utter nonsense.
The rioters usually are not rioting in middle class neighborhoods. They usually are rioting in poor neighborhoods--and those usually aren't their neighborhoods.
The way it usually works is that you have people from a neighborhood protesting, fairly peacefully, about something they are upset with that occurred in their community, and then outsiders come in and turn it into a riot.
The people usually most harmed by the rioters are the poor people who live in the neighborhoods the rioters trashed. They are the ones who have to take long bus trips to go shopping because the stores they could walk to got destroyed. They are the ones who will be paying the higher prices when those stores re-open and need to pay off their debt from rebuilding.
The ACLU has been fighting similar problems in Georgia. They have won settlements for some of those affected, and have been a significant factor in getting reforms passed in the Georgia legislature addressing these issues.
"All of which means that because Anderson was too poor to pay his $170 fine, his overall debt ballooned to $580. His fine more than tripled, solely because he was too poor to pay it."
This seems pretty much like the status quo. If you default on your credit card bill, and ultimately choose minimal payments until it's paid off, rather than bankruptcy, you'll end up paying several times the value of the original loan.
That said, if you go to the Biloxi court house's web site, they offer people the ability to do a payment plan for tickets, but they explicitly say "Remember that release on a payment plan is a privilege afforded by the Court and a violation of the payment order will result in your immediate arrest." I think that's pretty terrible since in this post-6th-amendment society, "arrest" is frequently indistinguishable from "imprisonment". Debt, especially something so trivial, should be a civil matter.
There's a significant difference, in that you choose to take on credit card debt, but you don't choose to be fined. I don't have much of a problem with credit card debt ballooning if you screw it up, but state-mandated punishments shouldn't be that way, especially if failure to pay is because of an inability to pay rather than simply not wanting to.
(To head off any "don't commit the crime, then" replies, do keep in mind that traffic enforcement is extremely arbitrary, filled with cases where following the law is substantially less safe than breaking it, and rife with profiling.)
Many people do not have a choice over taking on credit card debt, in at least two ways:
1. Expenses over which they have little or no control, like health, addictions, etc.
2. Behavioral modifications are necessary to get out of debt, and often that is more than just a simple choice that people can easily make. The allure of credit cards for banks is that too few people are thoughtful enough to know that borrowing from the future is equivalent to spending money in the bank, unless you are anticipating an increase in your income, etc. So in a meta sense, they don't have a choice over how wisely they use their credit cards.
> The allure of credit cards for banks is that too few people are thoughtful enough to know that borrowing from the future is equivalent to spending money in the bank
Which is why I take full advantage of that 1-month $3k interest-free loan the bank is giving me, while keeping the $3k in a savings account which does have some positive interest. It's not much positive interest, but it's some.
Micro optimization, yes. One I can only afford because I have that money anyway, yes. But it makes me feel so shrewd and that feeling makes it worth it.
If you have a cash back card or one with points, you could even say it's more than a micro optimization. I put everything through a credit card and pay it off monthly. I get protections offered by the CC company AND cash back or travel reward points. A little discipline goes a long way.
Well I have one of those credit cards that stops working if you don't pay it off at the end of the month. So it doesn't even require that much discipline. Just some cashflow management in that I have to make sure that there is money on the bank account before the credit card charge happens.
That may be true, but it hardly supports the claim (at the start of this subthread) that it's ok for a fine to be like a credit card balance. At best it's an irrelevant tangent.
Well, hold on now. There isn't a 1:1 correlation between credit card debt and poor spending choices. Someone who'd never charge more on their card than they could pay off at the end of the month might do it, for example, if they just got a speeding ticket and didn't have any cash to pay for it. (I'd certainly take that route long before a pay-or-get-arrested plan from the court.)
In the case of traffic law, yes, you do choose very much to be fined.
What the law says or doesn't say is irrelevant in that distinction, it takes conscious choice (or carelessness: also illegal) to blow through a red light, or to park in a non parking area, or to drive over the speed limit. The law in general is extremely arbitrary, and you run the risk of penalties when you choose to break it.
The case of the guy in the article was the victim of an extremely broken system (outsourcing of payment plans? WTF?), but that doesn't mean the law he broke is somehow invalid.
In general, a failure of enforcement does not render the relevant law invalid.
It does not take carelessness to park in a no-parking zone where the signage is illegible, yet people still get fined for it, and there is typically no recourse.
It does not take carelessness to drive at the speed of traffic rather than turning yourself into a hazardous obstacle by driving 20MPH slower than everybody else, yet in many places this is a speeding violation.
It does not take carelessness to drive through a red light when the yellow is set so short that you don't get enough warning to stop for it.
Inconsistent enforcement may not render the law invalid in terms of whether it can be enforced on those who get unlucky, but it does have major effects on the law's legitimacy in a moral and public opinion sense.
It is basically impossible to live life without violating traffic laws. So "you choose to violate them" is at best meaningless and really is just plain wrong. If we're all going to violate them then we need to at least make sure the punishment isn't completely crazy.
> What the law says or doesn't say is irrelevant in that distinction, it takes conscious choice (or carelessness: also illegal) to blow through a red light, or to park in a non parking area, or to drive over the speed limit.
What about errors on behalf of the government? I have been fined mistakenly for parking without a valid sticker, even though the (correct and valid) sticker had been affixed to my car for months. Did I choose to be fined in this case?
Like so many things in life, this is so much easier said than done. The city that I live in has occasionally street cleaning days during which you can't park on certain streets, and in the winter it can be extremely difficult to find a parking spot that's within safe walking distance from my residence.
Things aren't so bad for me b/c I have an extremely flexible job, so I can leave early and get a good spot when everyone else is still at work. And I'm fairly fit and young, so if I get home at 1:30pm and there are no free spots (this happens...) I can walk a mile or two in cold temperatures without worrying about my health. Or, worst case, I can take the $30 fine.
It's not hard for me to imagine a large class of people for whom none of these options is a real option.
Well, I am sure that there are many people here for whom a $170 could be seen as a reasonable expense to get to an important meeting on time. Does that entitle the wealthy to speed with impunity?
> There's a significant difference, in that you choose to take on credit card debt, but you don't choose to be fined.
You choose to buy things on a credit card, sure, but you also choose to do the acts for which you are fined. And you can say that traffic enforcement is arbitrary, so that the costs may not be predictable -- but, then, the same is true of post-transaction changes to credit card policies and interest rates which impact the degree of indebtedness you actually end up with. (And, of course, since in many cases fines can be paid by credit cards, any arbitrariness and involuntariness that applies to fines can potentially directly produce credit card debt, so...)
I don't see how credit card policies are arbitrary in anything like the same way traffic enforcement is. The policies are explicitly spelled out and in my experience they are enforced pretty much uniformly. Make a late payment, get charged. Pay less than the full amount on the card, get charged interest based on a rate that was listed when you signed up. It's easy to have a credit card and avoid the fees, and if you do something wrong then it's predictable what will happen.
With traffic citations, it's nearly impossible to go somewhere without violating the law in some way and even more impossible to do so safely. Your odds of getting caught are slim, and your odds of being punished depend entirely on the discretion of the officer who caught you.
Further, it's possible and not even very difficult to go through life without ever having a credit card, whereas it's impossible to go through life without ever being subject to traffic enforcement. (Even if you never drive or bike, there are crazy laws for pedestrians too.)
"since in many cases fines can be paid by credit cards".
Less and less so, actually. "We accept only cash and check (or even cashier's check". On one hand, I realize that there's a merchant fee involved in payment by card, but it's also a convenient way to make payment inconvenient.
Actually, I have a traffic violation in the mail I need to resolve. The letter from the city says "YOU MAY PAY BY CHECK OR MONEY ORDER ONLY. WE DO NOT ACCEPT CREDIT OR DEBIT CARDS. DO NOT SEND CASH IN THE MAIL."
Yeah, the whole problem here is that there is a pipeline from non-criminal traffic violations to jail. Traffic tickets are one of those things that poor people should be able to get dismissed out of hand if they show an inability to pay. But in many departments, the fines have changed from a punitive measure to a revenue generator. So they prey on people who don't have enough money to get out of the system by trapping them inside it.
IMO police departments should only be able to acquire revenue from the city/state budget. Any money collected as fines should go directly into a national victims compensation fund (used to pay for medical bills and property damage done by poor criminals to innocent people). That would fix a lot of this mess -- like anything else, it's all about the money.
I think there's a craziness inherent in any system that says that the result of non payment of a $170 civil violation could mean you spend a year on probation and paying multiples of that (note that in your quote, the $580 is the court alone - collection fees get added to that, and his fees to the 'probation company' for supervising him, which he is subject to arrest if those aren't paid - huh, you outsource to a private agency probation supervision, but they get the weight of arrest behind their billing powers - nice little gig).
And for many of these things, they are civil violations that aren't subject to criminal sanction.
In theory.
In reality, there's a nice little way around that. You are not allowed to be jailed for the infraction, but if you don't pay the fine, you are able to be arrested, and taken to court, where the judge will order immediate payment of that fine and a further fine, and if you can't pay both, then you'll now be found in contempt of court, and held in jail (or put on probation, where now you owe two fines, court costs, arrest costs, and ongoing probation costs, the missed payment of any one of which can lead to your immediate re-arrest and a compounding, repeating scenario).
In multiples of these cases, people were not made aware of how they could pay. In some cases, as part of the probation paperwork they were offered to avoid -immediate jail time-, they had to waive the right to counsel (not sure how, or why that should be considered appropriate or legal - "here's your legal situation, you have options X, Y and Z. But only Z is open to you right now. Unless you decline the right to get advice on what the best option is for you") seems extortionate, especially since it is used as a method to corral and railroad people into what isn't necessarily the best option for the person, but the option that is the highest revenue generation stream for the city / county (and indeed, this is why the ACLU is involved).
I can't find the reference now, but the stats from a California government investigation showed that ~90% of people (i.e. men) not paying child support simply couldn't afford to pay. They were charged 20% interest, too.
It's a common abuse of poor people: make them pay for being poor. Pile on interest, charges, fees, etc. to double or triple their debt.
Social Justice is a big part of who I am. I get so mad when i read it and read this
> This means that poorer counties are more reliant on fines and fees produced by municipal courts, which inevitably come from the poor residents of those areas. Those governments then put pressure on police departments to generate revenue by targeting residents for traffic offenses, jaywalking, and other misdemeanors and petty crimes...
> The city got poorer. That meant less revenue from other sources. So the city sought more revenue by imposing more fines and fees on its citizens. Which of course only makes them poorer.
> Private probation companies have a strong incentive to keep people on probation for as long as possible.
I live in a poor city with a school district where 90% of the students qualify for free lunch. We are privatizing Public Education to also feed off the poor take the money out of the community and are rewarded if the Public School system does poorly.
The uncomfortable question that needs asking here is why are all these cities hurting for money so badly and the answer is us. We as taxpayers are constantly demanding and electing politicians who promise (and deliver) tax cuts. Then we turn around and bitch because potholes don't get fixed.
If you want your Government to run well, you need to goddamn pay for it. People need to grow up.
If you look at Federal revenues in constant dollars, other than three years during GWB's first term and the crash of 2009, tax revenues have risen steadily. We don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem. Average spending per person when you combine Federal/State/Local is over $20K.
You think $20k is enough for every road, electrical line, sewer and misc. utilities that serve your home? Not to mention paying the officers that protect you (in theory anyway), the firefighters that are ready 24/7 to put your house out, the teachers who educate your children, on and on and on? Federal spending is out of control (mostly in defense) but local spending, the spending that actually matters? You think the measly share of that $20k that your local town gets is nearly enough to cover all that?
Oh I pay for my utilities as well, those aren't payed by the government. And as the downvotes rain upon my karma, so be it. Yes, $20k per man, woman, and child is plenty for the government to have. And if you think the problem with the Federal budget, you need to take a closer look at how much we're paying in entitlements...
Except "entitlements" refers to everything from welfare (which is what I'm assuming you're REALLY talking about) to insurance for Government employees, not the least of which are our soldiers, benefits to veterans and all the systems they rely upon, etc. etc. The other thing, Defense, goes to a 12 billion dollar plane that's never flown a single mission, a shitload of the most sophisticated and expensive armaments known to mankind, and on and on. One of these is necessary, the other is really up for debate.
When the really big criminals (corrupt bankers and wealthy businessmen) cant pay fines they just declare bankruptsy (or their corporations do) and nothing happens to them. Afterwards they seem to be perfectly well off.
If these fees were tied to income, we might not have a problem in a few months.
Yes, when a rich man gets a ticket; he laughing tells his wife over dinner.
A poor man gets a ticket; he could be at risk for being homeless.
Since they started to raise fees at every level of government about 15 years ago, I felt it's time to equate fees to income.
When the Rich guy comes home with a $7000 speeding ticket; the laws/fees will change--fast. I think they tie income to fee in Switzerland? Unless the rich are effected nothing will change, or at least that's been my experience.
(To all you think the poor never learn their lesson, there could be a quota system. For example, if the poor Speeder abuses the system, they would go back to paying these currently rediculious amounts.)
The more I think about it, the more I believe that the United States is the worst place to live if you are poor.
There are places that are poorer, hell I'm from a third world country. But I've never seen anyone in the third world show utter contempt for the poor. No one keeps reminding the poor that it's their fault. We call them "unfortunate", Americans call them "losers".
The US is the only place where being poor is not just a material failing, but also a moral failing. Perhaps it is a natural outcome of lionizing your winners that you absolute hate your losers, but this is fast becoming a heartless society where one wouldn't want to live unless one is rich.
I think that last sentence is spot on. It's an extension of the American Dream: "those who deserve reward will be rewarded." The problem is that many people also believe its insidious contrapositive: "those who are punished are deserving of punishment." This leads to a constant reinforcement of the status quo.
> During a single week in 2011, Joseph Anderson, 52, suffered three heart attacks and a stroke. The latter left the left side of his body partially paralyzed. Later that year, he suffered a fourth heart attack. Prior to his health problems, Anderson worked as a mechanic at a local Best Western. After that disastrous stretch, he has been unable to work, and struggles to get by on the less than $10,000 per year he gets in various forms of public assistance
$10k/year is below the poverty level for a single person household. It is shameful that in a first world country someone can still be knocked into poverty by losing the ability to work due to medical problems.
It isn't just judicial fines and such that are the problem, government as a whole has turned lower income into a debtor prison. They provide some food assistance, maybe living assistance, and such, then take away the free cash and even ability to drive with fee after fee after fee. Throw in sales taxes in some cities and the burden is greater.
However what this article points out is just flat out abuse and should result in government officials locked up. Just like previous stories about deals states cut with prison phone companies we have a justice system, if not most of government, which only exists to keep people poor and more controllable
A few years back I met a kid in rural Michigan who was ticketed for driving without his glasses which had broken. When he was unable to pay the ticket he was fined in excess of the ticket by a judge. He had to drive to work to make the money to pay the ticket and buy glasses. And of course when he raised some money he paid the fine first rather than buying glass because it kept him out of jail.
Judges are supposed to have leeway to take these kinds of things into account.
There's nothing religious in this article at all, and speaking as a Christian jailing people for being too poor to pay an arbitrary fine is nothing close to what we'd encourage in our public officials.
It's just greed, good old fashioned greed. Greed from the municipalities that want more money, and greed from the taxpayers who constantly demand more services for less money out of their paychecks.
A small group of individual rioters two blocks from my home. You'll have to pardon me for not wanting to encourage a repeat of this by sending a message that rioting near my home garners my political support.
Since when does supporting the righting of an injustice require you to also support rioting? I'm sorry, that just doesn't logically follow. You're confusing the tactics of a tiny minority with the substance or a huge movement.
Since riot-supporters consistently use political successes to advocate for more riots. This is a thing that happens consistently, reliably, and regularly. You see it right here on HN, where people argue that riots raise awareness and are thus a positive.
> Riots, on the other hand, seem to cause the media hordes to descend and at least draw attention to the cause. It's hard to argue the fact that they are at least useful for consciousness -raising.
It's a loaded word. A massacre on TV highlights the plight of the people under attack, be it genocide or otherwise. Would you describe the raising awareness from the descending media as a positive thing?
It's possible to separate the benefit of increased awareness from the negativity of the event in question. Your spin is more akin to "people think riots are good".
I think people wouldn't make a habit of arguing that riots help solve injustice if it was very clear that riots solved nothing. I, personally, believe that people who think riots help solve social problems are more likely to riot than people who do not hold that belief.
For what, exactly? Someone else's windows being smashed?
I've actually had my car window smashed. I assure you, it is a minor inconvenience compared to what black people often experience interacting with law enforcement.
What exactly do you think you deserve empathy for? And how long have you lived in Oakland? Were you aware you moved to the city where the Black Panthers were founded or are you just thinking you have the right to complain just because you decided to move there?
My personal well-being is not at needless risk by living in Oakland. My personal well-being is at needless risk by riots occurring in close physical proximity to my location. My apologies for my lack of clarity.
No it is not. You continue to be more at risk of dying while crossing a street than you are by being near or even in a riot in Oaklamd.
Your lack of clarity has nothing to do with quibbles over location and everything to do with assessment of risk.
Also, if you dislike riots so much and dislike policies which you think might reward them, should San Francisco ban the Giants from competing in the World Series?
It's always amazing to watch modern-day "educated" New York liberals discover things that every 12-year-old with a basic education in civics understood 100 years ago.
The lesson of this article: Government has only one means to carry out its policies: force (more precisely, threat of force). When you vote for a new tax or fine (cough Obamacare cough) you are voting for rough men with guns to take stubborn objectors away to prison. Period.
This is at the heart of the libertarian argument: government should be used cautiously, and the default position should always be not to impose a law unless you're sure that force is justifiable and necessary.
> The lesson of this article: Government has only one means to carry out its policies: force (more precisely, threat of force).
This is simply factually false. Government has all the means available to any other institution or person available.
You seem to have reversed the common definition of government as whatever entity or aggregate of entities exercise a monopoly on legitimate use of force into the idea that the government somehow magically loses access to every other tool that people and groups of people have.
All right, I revise my statement to "government has only one means to enforce law: force"
I suppose there are some "policies" (not laws or taxes) which can be encouraged or enacted by spending money. Doesn't detract from my point though. This is still a humorous case of some over-credentialed nitwit at WaPo "discovering" what most educated children should be able to tell you about the rule of law.
On the contrary: the issue is that we are being encouraged to see this case as a moral injustice not based on any principle or law, but because the protagonist is portrayed sympathetically. If this were reported in a neutral tone of voice the story would be simple: guy breaks law, fails to pay fine, goes to jail.
I wasn't trying to make any argument, but if you want one, I guess it's this: that in a nation ruled by law, adults who vote for laws and punishments in the abstract ought to be mature enough to face the fact that there are hard consequences.
The writer wants to denounce the lawful punishment, but imply that it's caused by racism or something, so that he doesn't have to stake his credibility on arguing for a change to the law. This kind of sob-story approach is used by those who do not respect the danger of law, are willing to vote for anything that sounds "nice", and want someone else to be blamed for the downsides.
What makes me skeptical of articles like this is the case studies seem to focus on people who appear to be behaving in the most ridiculous way possible. Taking a joint to court? Running stop signs on a suspended license?
If the situations profiled are commonplace, it should not be hard to find more sympathetic victims. That said, it is true that even if this is going on infrequently it is still an injustice and should be corrected... But the headline and article would seem to want to have us believe that we have whole prisons filled with debtors.
If, by 'taking a joint to court', you mean, 'had a joint in her purse, whilst being a passenger in a car that committed a minor traffic violation, and having the police officer demand she identify herself (why? She was the passenger in a traffic violation), arrest her, and take her from there to the County Courthouse', sure.
I was mistaken. The way the paragraph read seemed to state that she told the judge she couldn't pay and was fined, then fined for a joint found in her purse; I did not see the joint was actually discovered during a previous instance.
Still, if you are already in trouble with the law, it seems incredibly foolish to continue to willfully break it by carrying around illegal substances with you.
Unlike the wealthy they simply do not have the time, money, resources, ability to unify and fight back as a single block (save some outraged protests and rioting resulting from attack or mistreatment by police, but those one can argue do more harm than good). If they don't have an extra $20/month, chances are they will not have time to sit and write a letter to a senator, or to call a lawyer or organize campaigns.
As the article put it, adding these fees and doing this is really an administrative step, it's just too easy not to do it. If they, say, tried to raise taxes on top tax bracket, that would turn into a long uphill battle probably. There would be local town meetings, letter to legislative representatives, calls to country club networks of friends and so on.
So as a result there are lots of payday loans places, high fees for courts, jail time (unless fee is paid on the spot), for the poor. Even once they go to prison they are turned effectively into slaves, they can't even call home because they nickle and dime there as well.