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Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread |
On July 15 2023 01:31 Sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On July 14 2023 13:55 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 14 2023 13:14 Sermokala wrote:
There is no less persuasive argument in all of politics than "You need to do the reading ". The sheer arrogance and elitism to tell people they need to do homework before their opinions and thoughts are valid are only rivaled by what happens after you do the reading and get told "You just don't get the reading you need to do more reading".
You are not going to convince anyone you are right by simply insisting that you're right. They could start by reconciling this: On July 14 2023 08:07 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 14 2023 07:57 Djabanete wrote:+ Show Spoiler +GH, most people don’t read this thread as a rational and concerted effort to solve the world’s problems (re: “you read plenty of this thread”), we read it because we need a break and it’s interesting enough and we’re screen addicted.
That doesn’t mean that you can’t bring valuable thoughts to the thread. It just means that if you want to use it as a venue to change anybody’s mind, you have to get a lot better at explaining things in your own words, a few paragraphs at a time.
You’re far more likely to make a socialist out of ChristianS by outlining an example socialist solution to a real-world problem — and then outlining more examples over the following weeks — than by assigning him outside reading. What’s more, you’re also more likely to make socialists out of the rest of us in that way than by assigning reading to ChristianS. If somebody wanted to know what was so good about calculus, you wouldn’t tell them to go read Newton. You would walk them through the solution to a worthwhile problem that couldn’t be solved without calculus. As I mentioned earlier, basically all the remotely good things Democrats have accomplished going back to the New Deal were coopted/bastardized socialist policy they had to be dragged to kicking and screaming by socialists* and basically all the parts people (that don't identify as centrist Dems/on the Right) don't like are direct results of said cooption/bastardization. I think that's pretty plainly obvious with even a rudimentary comprehension of socialism, the history, and/or the social democrat thinking that ostensibly guides the Democrat party. with their refusal to recognize socialism as the "lesser evil" framework to work within and the necessity to comport themselves as socialists to change the status quo instead? They could start and so should you. The biggest problem in selling socialism is the image it has in america and europe that its actualy communism or is just for the academic types to look down on the poors for what they "should be" for.
+ Show Spoiler +Socialism is unions, its farmers coops, its farmers markets, its the things that make the material conditions for people better. If you're telling people to do homework before they can argue with you they're not going to argue with you and think less of you.
Your constant bitching about the democrats just comes off as you bitching about democracy. Accelerationism just makes things shittier in a system that desires stability and continuity over everything.
Just so you know, Freire (probably my most frequently referenced socialist) specifically addresses the invaluable contributions poor and uneducated people make to the process (they basically lead it) and I wholeheartedly agree with it.
If folks engaged it they'd know that and could use it to make their argument and I'd obviously be more receptive too it than strawmen about accelerationism
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It was a few years ago now, but the killing of Michael Reinoehl was, I think, about as blatant a case of extrajudicial killing as you could ask for, and, I think, clarifying about the whole issue in general. Notably, Trump bragged about it, with such quotes as
This guy was a violent criminal, and the US marshals killed him. And I’ll tell you something — that’s the way it has to be. There has to be retribution when you have crime like this.
and
We sent in the U.S. Marshals, it took 15 minutes. We got him. They knew who he was, they didn’t want to arrest him. Fifteen minutes, that ended.
Now, on the one hand, Trump is a notorious compulsive liar and braggart. His fans will object to that characterization in some contexts, but I think it’s pretty clear even they know the score. So you *could* make a case, if you were so inclined, that maybe the cops really did think they saw the guy raise a gun, and they were scared for their life, and Trump’s bragging is just a macho act. But come on, what the fuck are we doing here? They wanted to kill the guy so they killed the guy. “I thought I saw a gun” is in that lexicon of magic spells like “furtive movements” or “smelled marijuana” that cops utter to disappear any pretense of accountability.
Liberals might want to point out Trump’s hypocrisy in defending Kyle Rittenhouse while openly endorsing extrajudicial killing of Michael Reinoehl. But that’s boring, we all already know Trump’s full of shit at any given time. What I think is more useful to talk about is the fact that the right-wing reaction ranged from shrugging to cheering. If they really believed our honorable boys in blue would never abuse their use of lethal force – except for “a few bad apples” that they’ll happily condemn – wouldn’t they be troubled by this? Their very own dear, trusted leader is telling them in no uncertain terms that it was not self defense; wouldn’t they at least want an investigation to find any “bad apples” in the mix?
It is, I think, obvious to everyone that cops can abuse their position of authority and kill people, if they want to, likely without consequences (and almost *certainly* without criminal prosecution). It’s not a limitless power – I bet there’s at least a few cops who wouldn’t mind shooting some Democrat politicians, but think they wouldn’t get away with it – but it’s clear that they can. How often they do is pretty impossible to know; last I checked, data operations tracking police use of lethal force of *any* kind, let alone “unjustified” use of force, are pretty lacking.
So either you think that should change or you don’t. The right is mostly in the latter camp these days. That could be for a couple of reasons: either they don’t think it *can* be prevented – “it’s not really possible to impose rules on the guys with the weapons” is a sentiment dating back to at least Roman times – or they think it’s good. If the former, when Trump brags about this they shrug; if the latter, they cheer.
So all the talk about “Did they reasonably fear for their life in this instance?” is kind of a red herring. It might impact your moral judgment of that cop specifically, but who gives a shit about that cop specifically? Systemically, you either think something should change or you don’t; the rest is distraction.
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On July 15 2023 00:08 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On July 14 2023 13:35 cLutZ wrote:
The cop has a right to use all possible force to stop that, because one cannot count on a violent person to not use their newly procured handgun on you. The inverse also applies. The police shoot innocent compliant people frequently enough that a reasonable person could suspect a cop of planning to illegally kill them. As such when a cop shows up brandishing a firearm and shouting about his intent to use it a reasonable person cannot count on the cop not to use it. Therefore they have a right to use all possible force to end the illegal threat to their person.
I am fine with this idea. I don't particularly care for cops. I am more irked by the naive people who dont understand the nature of street violence and think it is reasonable to expect people (particularly non-police in the NYC context) to titrate their response to crazy people.
https://abc7ny.com/upper-east-side-pedestrian-killed-deadly-car-crash/13497017/
Unless the facts are MUCH worse than this article portrays them as, I find this case being brought to be appalling. A knife is deadly when someone is that close.
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Norway28553 Posts
@ChristianS Yeah. That's exactly why the focus on individual cases is a distraction. Those either become technical discussions about what actually transpired, or get explained away as incidents of individual bad apples.
But if you look at the larger statistic and you see the discrepancy in a) police killings b) crime rates c) incarceration rates between the US and other countries of similar wealth, you'll more clearly see the real differences in attitudes. 'Police kill so many more because the population is much more likely to be armed' is a reasonable explanation, however, only occasionally do you see people who subscribe to this argument argue for disarming the population (or even stuff like mandatory registration of all firearms, which would at least let police know whether a suspect is likely to be armed before going on home visits). Seemingly, for some second amendment fans, the 1000+ yearly police killings come off as collateral damage to preserve their right to own weapons. Might be callous but I guess that's fair.
Crime rates can certainly explain part of the difference too. The US has 5-10x the intentional homicide rate of wealthy western european countries. Here, though, you will clearly see another difference in attitude: regarding the idea of whether criminals and in particular murderers 'deserve' to die. This is an uncommon point of view in Europe. Capital punishment does however, enjoy majority support in the US, even if 'only' 35% of Democrats support it. If you support the idea of some criminals deserving to die, them dying without a trial ends up being less problematic, too.
Incarceration rates per capita also has the US at between ~4 and 10x the rate of wealthy western european countries, but actually, it more closely matches the intentional homicide rate than I expected it to. That said, this also reflects a similar difference in attitude; more Americans believe it is just that people who commit crime (even non-violent crime) deserve to be punished. And while there's a partisan divide on this question, just as on the previous question, I don't think there's widespread support for a Norwegian penal system even among democrats either. I mean, there's clearly more support of a 'let's fix the reasons for crime' (where traditional conservatives don't necessarily like the medicine offered by the left), but the belief in 'just retribution' seems like a pretty strongly held feeling.
(To be fair, I actually think the atlantic is a bigger divide in terms of policy than in terms of attitudes. Plenty Norwegians think we're too lenient, but the 'tough on crime' parties have never enjoyed a parliamentary majority.)
Anyway, I think the more relevant questions are thus, essentially:
a) how harsh punishment do criminals deserve (this is more philosophical)
b) to what degree does harsh punishment work as a deterrent (this you can to a greater degree find data on)
c) to what degree can you reduce crime through, for example, creating a more egalitarian society (perhaps mapping gini coefficients against crime rates will offer some insight, but it won't be a perfect match), and to what degree is crime rate more dependent on 'culture'? (Disclaimer - while this could be considered a 'racist' point, I'm not talking about differences between different cultures found in the US, but on a more overarching 'the competitiveness of the US makes people more desperate' - point.)
however, to be fair, d) to what degree can crime be considered a cost of having a less homogeneous society is also worth debating. There's certainly an impression through much of western europe that we've experienced more crime as a consequence of more immigration. I believe some of that is grounded in truth, while there's also a rose-tinted view on the past, but here, I'm sure there's a ton of regional variety.
Then there's a subset of to what degree is the police racist or classist questions that I feel less qualified to opine on but my impression is 'racist attitudes are present to a significant degree through most of the american penal system all the way from deciding who is going to be subject to a traffic stop through what sentence is given for similar crimes' and that this goes beyond 'lives in neighborhoods more subject to violent crime'. But I'm going out and feel like pressing post so I'm not gonna elaborate on that. 
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People's obsession with punishing criminals is a strange quirk of the human mind. There are so many obvious and less obvious problems with the concept, like the severity of the crime, false convictions, lack of rehabilitation efforts, moral ambiguity of punishment, and many more.
I understand punishment as a concept, but I consider it archaic. It's not even as useful as the concept of justice. In many cases it's unproductive to think in terms of punishment. The goal in my view should be protection of the innocent, not punishment of the guilty, and the latter often does not lead to the former.
If we take a case like Charles Manson, there are good reasons why he was kept alive despite being a monster.
In contrast, Hitler would've gotten the rope because he was too great of a threat to humankind. He had too many dangerous followers.
It would be very interesting to hypothesize how various democratic countries would handle the Nuremberg trials if they were held today in 2023. Would a country like Germany once more condemn the accused men to death or instead imprison them for life? What would the reasoning be? Meanwhile if the trials were held in the US, we'd already know the outcome.
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On July 15 2023 02:19 ChristianS wrote:+ Show Spoiler +It was a few years ago now, but the killing of Michael Reinoehl was, I think, about as blatant a case of extrajudicial killing as you could ask for, and, I think, clarifying about the whole issue in general. Notably, Trump bragged about it, with such quotes as This guy was a violent criminal, and the US marshals killed him. And I’ll tell you something — that’s the way it has to be. There has to be retribution when you have crime like this. and We sent in the U.S. Marshals, it took 15 minutes. We got him. They knew who he was, they didn’t want to arrest him. Fifteen minutes, that ended. Now, on the one hand, Trump is a notorious compulsive liar and braggart. His fans will object to that characterization in some contexts, but I think it’s pretty clear even they know the score. So you *could* make a case, if you were so inclined, that maybe the cops really did think they saw the guy raise a gun, and they were scared for their life, and Trump’s bragging is just a macho act. But come on, what the fuck are we doing here? They wanted to kill the guy so they killed the guy. “I thought I saw a gun” is in that lexicon of magic spells like “furtive movements” or “smelled marijuana” that cops utter to disappear any pretense of accountability. Liberals might want to point out Trump’s hypocrisy in defending Kyle Rittenhouse while openly endorsing extrajudicial killing of Michael Reinoehl. But that’s boring, we all already know Trump’s full of shit at any given time. What I think is more useful to talk about is the fact that the right-wing reaction ranged from shrugging to cheering. If they really believed our honorable boys in blue would never abuse their use of lethal force – except for “a few bad apples” that they’ll happily condemn – wouldn’t they be troubled by this? Their very own dear, trusted leader is telling them in no uncertain terms that it was not self defense; wouldn’t they at least want an investigation to find any “bad apples” in the mix? It is, I think, obvious to everyone that cops can abuse their position of authority and kill people, if they want to, likely without consequences (and almost *certainly* without criminal prosecution). It’s not a limitless power – I bet there’s at least a few cops who wouldn’t mind shooting some Democrat politicians, but think they wouldn’t get away with it – but it’s clear that they can. How often they do is pretty impossible to know; last I checked, data operations tracking police use of lethal force of *any* kind, let alone “unjustified” use of force, are pretty lacking. So either you think that should change or you don’t. + Show Spoiler +The right is mostly in the latter camp these days. That could be for a couple of reasons: either they don’t think it *can* be prevented – “it’s not really possible to impose rules on the guys with the weapons” is a sentiment dating back to at least Roman times – or they think it’s good. If the former, when Trump brags about this they shrug; if the latter, they cheer.
So all the talk about “Did they reasonably fear for their life in this instance?” is kind of a red herring. It might impact your moral judgment of that cop specifically, but who gives a shit about that cop specifically? Systemically, you either think something should change or you don’t; the rest is distraction .
Thinking (or rather saying) it should change is the easy part. Getting Democrats to do something like pass a law that police have to report who they kill to the FBI is the hard part.
People can come up with perfect policy (not that US politics is anywhere near those) but if you can't (over the course of a decade) even get Democrats you vote for to track how many people the police kill (this is a no brainer necessity that they easily could have done), anything remotely resembling an adequate remedy will be unbelievably faaaarrrr out of the range of what Democrats can ever do.
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On July 15 2023 04:18 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On July 15 2023 02:19 ChristianS wrote:+ Show Spoiler +It was a few years ago now, but the killing of Michael Reinoehl was, I think, about as blatant a case of extrajudicial killing as you could ask for, and, I think, clarifying about the whole issue in general. Notably, Trump bragged about it, with such quotes as This guy was a violent criminal, and the US marshals killed him. And I’ll tell you something — that’s the way it has to be. There has to be retribution when you have crime like this. and We sent in the U.S. Marshals, it took 15 minutes. We got him. They knew who he was, they didn’t want to arrest him. Fifteen minutes, that ended. Now, on the one hand, Trump is a notorious compulsive liar and braggart. His fans will object to that characterization in some contexts, but I think it’s pretty clear even they know the score. So you *could* make a case, if you were so inclined, that maybe the cops really did think they saw the guy raise a gun, and they were scared for their life, and Trump’s bragging is just a macho act. But come on, what the fuck are we doing here? They wanted to kill the guy so they killed the guy. “I thought I saw a gun” is in that lexicon of magic spells like “furtive movements” or “smelled marijuana” that cops utter to disappear any pretense of accountability. Liberals might want to point out Trump’s hypocrisy in defending Kyle Rittenhouse while openly endorsing extrajudicial killing of Michael Reinoehl. But that’s boring, we all already know Trump’s full of shit at any given time. What I think is more useful to talk about is the fact that the right-wing reaction ranged from shrugging to cheering. If they really believed our honorable boys in blue would never abuse their use of lethal force – except for “a few bad apples” that they’ll happily condemn – wouldn’t they be troubled by this? Their very own dear, trusted leader is telling them in no uncertain terms that it was not self defense; wouldn’t they at least want an investigation to find any “bad apples” in the mix? It is, I think, obvious to everyone that cops can abuse their position of authority and kill people, if they want to, likely without consequences (and almost *certainly* without criminal prosecution). It’s not a limitless power – I bet there’s at least a few cops who wouldn’t mind shooting some Democrat politicians, but think they wouldn’t get away with it – but it’s clear that they can. How often they do is pretty impossible to know; last I checked, data operations tracking police use of lethal force of *any* kind, let alone “unjustified” use of force, are pretty lacking. So either you think that should change or you don’t. + Show Spoiler +The right is mostly in the latter camp these days. That could be for a couple of reasons: either they don’t think it *can* be prevented – “it’s not really possible to impose rules on the guys with the weapons” is a sentiment dating back to at least Roman times – or they think it’s good. If the former, when Trump brags about this they shrug; if the latter, they cheer.
So all the talk about “Did they reasonably fear for their life in this instance?” is kind of a red herring. It might impact your moral judgment of that cop specifically, but who gives a shit about that cop specifically? Systemically, you either think something should change or you don’t; the rest is distraction . Thinking (or rather saying) it should change is the easy part. Getting Democrats to do something like pass a law that police have to report who they kill to the FBI is the hard part. People can come up with perfect policy (not that US politics is anywhere near those) but if you can't (over the course of a decade) even get Democrats you vote for to track how many people the police kill (this is a no brainer necessity that they easily could have done), anything remotely resembling an adequate remedy will be unbelievably faaaarrrr out of the range of what Democrats can ever do.
Yeah, to the extent liberals congratulate themselves for the moral stance “it should change” without any further reflection, they shouldn’t (Edit: including me). It’s easy to look at the world and say “seems fucked up imo”, much harder to actually do anything about it. I don’t mind passing judgment on people openly cheering for extrajudicial death squads, but beyond that there are fundamental questions I think people aren’t addressing (ones I don’t have confident answers to).
At its heart is this (just to get the obvious out of the way): crime really is devastating to communities. Depends on the crime, obviously, and I don’t want to accidentally fall into the right-wing propagandist trope of talking about a rise in shoplifting or w/e like it’s Mad Max. But, like, a single murder in a neighborhood? Completely destructive to any sense of community or social trust. People aren’t gonna let their kids play outside if they think there’s even an outside chance “something could happen.” There’s a little town in CA called Chowchilla that had a bus full of kids kidnapped in 1976. Only for a few days, nobody was hurt (at least physically), they caught the guys that did it, and yet it still scarred those kids for the rest of their lives, and defines life in that town to this day. If that article I linked is to be believed, parents *around the world* got scared to leave their kids alone for even a second when news of that kidnapping went out.
So people need to feel safe, and it’s the government’s job to make that happen. But if you start recruiting for a job that involves carrying a gun and “protecting” society from vaguely-enumerated threats, the people you get signing up tend to be authoritarians. That’s not just true in the US – cops are like that, with some variety in presentation, around the world and throughout history. The specifics in the US are often particularly atrocious, and I’d guess there’s probably a fair bit of room for incrementalist-type reforms if people were actually inclined to implement them. But fundamentally, as long as your plan for preventing crime is “send agents of the state to threaten people with lethal force if they don’t follow the law” you’re going to have cops in some form.
And nobody actually wants the reforms, either. Not Democrats, not Republicans, and I don’t just mean elected officials. In both red states and blue, when crime is high people just want it to stop, and consistently, they vote to achieve that with mandatory minimums, bigger police budgets, and three-strike laws. When crime is low, they think it’s because the brutality is working, or they wonder if it could be lower. When you create Citizen Review Boards to “hold police accountable” the cops say “I turned off my badge cam and then I thought he pulled a gun” and the CRBs say “hmm, okay.” Maybe because they believe them, maybe because they think there’s no way to stop them, or maybe because the idea of cops breaking the rules to brutalize the “bad guys” still makes them feel safer.
I think the best-case normie liberal position would be something like “If we have to hire guys with guns like this, at least we’re gonna keep them on a tight leash.” Make them report every death with severe penalties for failure to report; make the badge cams “always on” whenever they’re on-duty and automatically uploaded to some state or federal oversight organization; make any authority “off-duty” cops wield contingent on them keeping the badge cam with them and turning it on before policing. But I don’t think I need to belabor just how much those kinds of solutions are simultaneously totally infeasible politically, both with politicians and voters, and at the same time how inadequate they would probably be anyway.
But I also don’t know what a justice system would even look like that didn’t enforce laws using some version of “agents of the state armed with lethal force.” I want to believe it’s possible, I just can’t picture it.
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Norway28553 Posts
I mean, this is an area where there's a whole shitton of room for 'incremental improvement' while still allowing for 'agents of the state armed with lethal force'. But it requires a holistic approach to the issue, and frankly, I believe that when dealing with crime, the adage 'an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure' is even more true than it is in the world of medicine. We know a lot about what type of life experiences lead someone towards a life of crime. We know that certain approaches give lower recidivism rates than other approaches. Crime rates are not constant across all societies ever, thus, it's not a case of 'some people are just born bad' - it's a 'certain societies produce more crime than others'.
However, even knowing this, and knowing that for example Norway fares much better than the US in this regard, it's not like you can simply export/import the Norwegian penal system as it is. (Which doesn't mean there aren't things you could adopt.)
Like if there's a Mexican cartel established in some area, I honestly don't know how you combat that without some degree of armed forces, however at the same time, legalized and regulated sale of drugs could also be part of the holistic approach to dealing with crime, as so much of it is connected with just that. But I don't think you can be entirely naive about it either.
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Yeah Ive seen that ad making the rounds, incredibly good ad, they basically found the perfect Creepy Palpatine Republican without actually grabbing Mitch himself.
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On July 15 2023 03:48 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Incarceration rates per capita also has the US at between ~4 and 10x the rate of wealthy western european countries, but actually, it more closely matches the intentional homicide rate than I expected it to. That said, this also reflects a similar difference in attitude; more Americans believe it is just that people who commit crime (even non-violent crime) deserve to be punished. And while there's a partisan divide on this question, just as on the previous question, I don't think there's widespread support for a Norwegian penal system even among democrats either. I mean, there's clearly more support of a 'let's fix the reasons for crime' (where traditional conservatives don't necessarily like the medicine offered by the left), but the belief in 'just retribution' seems like a pretty strongly held feeling.
That's a really an English Common Law thing rather than an uniquely American thing to be fair. I believe the obsesssion with "punishment", which a lot of the time comes across as a general bloodlust for retribution rather than the dishing out of justice, is pretty similar across all of the United Kingdom's former colonies. Can't remember the reasoning why but its sort of built in how justice is administered in countries that base their legal system off English Common Law.
Incarceration and recidivism are all ultimately tied to poverty. Countless studies have proven than crime is a symptom to aspects such as unemployment, poor residential location (which is tied to wealth obviously), instability in personal life, poor access to economic and social resources, and so forth.
Which, you allued to, is a problem because all of the proper solutions require everyone else to pitch in. Solutions like mixed public/private housing environments are great but have you seen how nimby private home owners are? Its way easier just to believe all you have to do is punish people harder.
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On July 15 2023 07:00 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On July 15 2023 04:18 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 15 2023 02:19 ChristianS wrote:+ Show Spoiler +It was a few years ago now, but the killing of Michael Reinoehl was, I think, about as blatant a case of extrajudicial killing as you could ask for, and, I think, clarifying about the whole issue in general. Notably, Trump bragged about it, with such quotes as This guy was a violent criminal, and the US marshals killed him. And I’ll tell you something — that’s the way it has to be. There has to be retribution when you have crime like this. and We sent in the U.S. Marshals, it took 15 minutes. We got him. They knew who he was, they didn’t want to arrest him. Fifteen minutes, that ended. Now, on the one hand, Trump is a notorious compulsive liar and braggart. His fans will object to that characterization in some contexts, but I think it’s pretty clear even they know the score. So you *could* make a case, if you were so inclined, that maybe the cops really did think they saw the guy raise a gun, and they were scared for their life, and Trump’s bragging is just a macho act. But come on, what the fuck are we doing here? They wanted to kill the guy so they killed the guy. “I thought I saw a gun” is in that lexicon of magic spells like “furtive movements” or “smelled marijuana” that cops utter to disappear any pretense of accountability. Liberals might want to point out Trump’s hypocrisy in defending Kyle Rittenhouse while openly endorsing extrajudicial killing of Michael Reinoehl. But that’s boring, we all already know Trump’s full of shit at any given time. What I think is more useful to talk about is the fact that the right-wing reaction ranged from shrugging to cheering. If they really believed our honorable boys in blue would never abuse their use of lethal force – except for “a few bad apples” that they’ll happily condemn – wouldn’t they be troubled by this? Their very own dear, trusted leader is telling them in no uncertain terms that it was not self defense; wouldn’t they at least want an investigation to find any “bad apples” in the mix? It is, I think, obvious to everyone that cops can abuse their position of authority and kill people, if they want to, likely without consequences (and almost *certainly* without criminal prosecution). It’s not a limitless power – I bet there’s at least a few cops who wouldn’t mind shooting some Democrat politicians, but think they wouldn’t get away with it – but it’s clear that they can. How often they do is pretty impossible to know; last I checked, data operations tracking police use of lethal force of *any* kind, let alone “unjustified” use of force, are pretty lacking. So either you think that should change or you don’t. + Show Spoiler +The right is mostly in the latter camp these days. That could be for a couple of reasons: either they don’t think it *can* be prevented – “it’s not really possible to impose rules on the guys with the weapons” is a sentiment dating back to at least Roman times – or they think it’s good. If the former, when Trump brags about this they shrug; if the latter, they cheer.
So all the talk about “Did they reasonably fear for their life in this instance?” is kind of a red herring. It might impact your moral judgment of that cop specifically, but who gives a shit about that cop specifically? Systemically, you either think something should change or you don’t; the rest is distraction . Thinking (or rather saying) it should change is the easy part. Getting Democrats to do something like pass a law that police have to report who they kill to the FBI is the hard part. People can come up with perfect policy (not that US politics is anywhere near those) but if you can't (over the course of a decade) even get Democrats you vote for to track how many people the police kill (this is a no brainer necessity that they easily could have done), anything remotely resembling an adequate remedy will be unbelievably faaaarrrr out of the range of what Democrats can ever do. Yeah, to the extent liberals congratulate themselves for the moral stance “it should change” without any further reflection, they shouldn’t (Edit: including me). + Show Spoiler +It’s easy to look at the world and say “seems fucked up imo”, much harder to actually do anything about it. I don’t mind passing judgment on people openly cheering for extrajudicial death squads, but beyond that there are fundamental questions I think people aren’t addressing (ones I don’t have confident answers to). + Show Spoiler +At its heart is this (just to get the obvious out of the way): crime really is devastating to communities. Depends on the crime, obviously, and I don’t want to accidentally fall into the right-wing propagandist trope of talking about a rise in shoplifting or w/e like it’s Mad Max. But, like, a single murder in a neighborhood? Completely destructive to any sense of community or social trust. People aren’t gonna let their kids play outside if they think there’s even an outside chance “something could happen.” There’s a little town in CA called Chowchilla that had a bus full of kids kidnapped in 1976. Only for a few days, nobody was hurt (at least physically), they caught the guys that did it, and yet it still scarred those kids for the rest of their lives, and defines life in that town to this day. If that article I linked is to be believed, parents *around the world* got scared to leave their kids alone for even a second when news of that kidnapping went out . So people need to feel safe, and it’s the government’s job to make that happen. But if you start recruiting for a job that involves carrying a gun and “protecting” society from vaguely-enumerated threats, the people you get signing up tend to be authoritarians. + Show Spoiler + That’s not just true in the US – cops are like that, with some variety in presentation, around the world and throughout history. The specifics in the US are often particularly atrocious, and I’d guess there’s probably a fair bit of room for incrementalist-type reforms if people were actually inclined to implement them. But fundamentally, as long as your plan for preventing crime is “send agents of the state to threaten people with lethal force if they don’t follow the law” you’re going to have cops in some form. And nobody actually wants the reforms, either. Not Democrats, not Republicans, and I don’t just mean elected officials. + Show Spoiler + In both red states and blue, when crime is high people just want it to stop, and consistently, they vote to achieve that with mandatory minimums, bigger police budgets, and three-strike laws. When crime is low, they think it’s because the brutality is working, or they wonder if it could be lower. When you create Citizen Review Boards to “hold police accountable” the cops say “I turned off my badge cam and then I thought he pulled a gun” and the CRBs say “hmm, okay.” Maybe because they believe them, maybe because they think there’s no way to stop them, or maybe because the idea of cops breaking the rules to brutalize the “bad guys” still makes them feel safer. I think the best-case normie liberal position would be something like “If we have to hire guys with guns like this, at least we’re gonna keep them on a tight leash.” + Show Spoiler +Make them report every death with severe penalties for failure to report; make the badge cams “always on” whenever they’re on-duty and automatically uploaded to some state or federal oversight organization; make any authority “off-duty” cops wield contingent on them keeping the badge cam with them and turning it on before policing. But I don’t think I need to belabor just how much those kinds of solutions are simultaneously totally infeasible politically, both with politicians and voters, and at the same time how inadequate they would probably be anyway. But I also don’t know what a justice system would even look like that didn’t enforce laws using some version of “agents of the state armed with lethal force.” I want to believe it’s possible, I just can’t picture it.
Pulled out what I see as some key takeaways:
1. Democrats and their supporters need to do some serious reflection/introspection about the chasm of contradiction between their own rhetoric/ostensible desires and their own actions/the actions of those they empower.
2. I believe if/when they do they will also conclude that basically nobody actually wants the reforms (this isn't unique to policing).
3. Even if they did/when they do, they are grossly inadequate, counter-productive, and so on.
4. Leading to the conclusion that anything resembling even the bare minimum of reformist reforms is well beyond the capabilities of the Democrat party indefinitely.
5. In this particular example the issue is a deplorable "justice" system, and more specifically, the brutality of policing. You know I support abolishing the police, and you struggle with that conceptually.
6. Once someone is on board with 1-4, 5 is a lot easier to wrap one's head around imo.
With that said, the first question I would ask anyone that isn't advocating for abolition from a socialist perspective is: What's your currently more appealing alternative path? If they don't have one, I struggle to see how they can conscientiously reject being a socialist.
As we covered with 1-4 for most Democrats/their supporters it's congratulate themselves for taking the moral stance that "it should change" and then vote (and/or shame/threaten others into voting) for politicians that make sure it doesn't (this is pants on head stupid imo). The example here is the greater public of the US "discovering" that the US doesn't even know how many people its police kills ~a decade ago under the Obama administration (and still don't know) and Democrats turning around and nominating the 2 most "tough on crime" deplorables they had on the bench. The current Democrat president being instrumental in enacting some of the most draconian laws that are still devastating families across the country to this day.
I'd argue abolition from a socialist perspective is hands down at minimum a "lesser evil" framework than that.
So what's that mean? Well, it starts with the realization that we can't fix this overnight. It's going to take time, but that isn't an excuse for endless kicking of the can like Democrats are known to do. It means that instead of targeting typical liberal reforms they may or may not ever actually enact, socialists target non-reformist reforms. What those look like in the realm of policing evolves with time, study, and circumstances but the core aspect is that they not only provide equitable relief for those suffering, but that they do so while undermining the status quo rather than entrenching it.
As for imagining a justice system without "agents of the state armed with lethal force" just think of it as aspirational if that's easier. As in one aspirational goal is to get the required number of "agents of the state armed with lethal force" as close to zero as is humanly possible (obviously not in isolation from other considerations though).
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The last time Democrats had a (very slight) majority you got the ACA and Gay marriage, while the Republicans (and a few democrats) were kicking and screaming all the way.
Saying there is no will to reform anything on the Democrat side is just not true.
Bidens Infrastructure bill or the green new deal could also be named. You can moan about how that stuff is too small but if you consider that just about every republican is fighting as hard as possible against everything the Democrats bring forward, it's probably a realistic assessment that more isn't possible with your elecotrate atm.
What should the Democrats actually do in your mind? By this I mean things they actually can achieve in todays political climate. Oh and pls remember, they are not socialist, so expecting "truely" socialist policy from them is plain stupid.
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On July 18 2023 18:57 Velr wrote:
The last time Democrats had a (very slight) majority you got the ACA and Gay marriage, while the Republicans (and a few democrats) were kicking and screaming all the way.
Saying there is no will to reform anything on the Democrat side is just not true.
Bidens Infrastructure bill or the green new deal could also be named. You can moan about how that stuff is too small but if you consider that just about every republican is fighting as hard as possible against everything the Democrats bring forward, it's probably a realistic assessment that more isn't possible with your elecotrate atm.
What should the Democrats actually do in your mind? By this I mean things they actually can achieve in todays political climate. Oh and pls remember, they are not socialist, so expecting "truely" socialist policy from them is plain stupid.
Overturning the overturning of Roe v Wade would be among the top priorities. It's fairly absurd that a president can just install a few judges who then overrule a landmark ruling without substantive reason. The ruling in 1973 was 7-2. In 2022 it was 6-3. The new ruling represents the exact opposite of what the American population wants, proving that there's no accountability by the SC to the people of the US.
ACA and gay marriage are both supported by the people, although the former is relatively close.
It should go without saying that a popular decision is not necessarily the right decision, but it also can't be acceptable that popular demand is struck down willy-nilly as it was the case with Roe v Wade. They did it because they could and for no other reason.
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On July 18 2023 18:57 Velr wrote:
The last time Democrats had a (very slight) majority you got the ACA and Gay marriage, while the Republicans (and a few democrats) were kicking and screaming all the way.
Saying there is no will to reform anything on the Democrat side is just not true.
Bidens Infrastructure bill or the green new deal could also be named. You can moan about how that stuff is too small but if you consider that just about every republican is fighting as hard as possible against everything the Democrats bring forward, it's probably a realistic assessment that more isn't possible with your elecotrate atm.
What should the Democrats actually do in your mind? By this I mean things they actually can achieve in todays political climate. Oh and pls remember, they are not socialist, so expecting "truely" socialist policy from them is plain stupid.
That's partially GH's point. Trusting the Democrats to fix stuff is useless, because they aren't going anywhere near far enough with their fixes.
That said, we were talking about police reform, and from this side of the pond, it is fairly obvious that police shoot their guns a lot because other people also shoot their guns a lot. There's a whole load of other problems that are adjacent, but really the one thing that is almost guaranteed to work is to simply have fewer guns. While police do shoot people who are waving a knife around, the big problem you cannot just take police's guns away is because everybody else has guns. Training and education will help up to a point, but realistically if you want guns shooting fewer people, you will need to disarm the society at large. And every attempt at that will be trashed by the SC for the next 30 years or so, so without nixing the 2nd amendment, you're stuck with guns everywhere. So any non-reformist reform of police is doomed to fail due to the constitution. Yes, you can nibble around the edges with better training and education, and ensuring there are better (any) programs for mental illness, and drug abuse, and you can stop waging a war on drugs, etc. All of that will no doubt help, but at the end of the day the police shoot lots of people because people shoot lots of people. A problem that is unique to the USA in western society.
So maybe police reform isn't the right place to start. Lets try election reform! Oh, you have a constitution that explicitly says very little except mandating the electoral college, and the general shape of Congress, the two things that would actually need to change to have proper representation. So once again, you'd need a serious amendment to the constitution.
What about healthcare? ACA was already limited by a non-super-conservative SC due to states' rights, and its more far-reaching points were nixed. So how do we move beyond that without once again bumping into the constitution? What "serious" progress can we make within the system without needing the support of a super majority of both houses AND 75% of the states?
Here in Spain, non-reformist reforms happen. While we'll see next weekend if Perro Sanche's gamble paid off, if it did, it'll be due to a resurgent Sumar, led by an unapologetic communist. She has a bunch of plans I vehemently agree with and a few that I think are ridiculously stupid, as opposed to the PSOE's rather milquetoast "try not to offend anybody" program. It's safe to say that just like the last 4 years, any governing by the PSOE will be in coalition with communists and will get another round of non-reformist reforms to housing, labor rights, healthcare and education.
Spain has its own constitutional problems, but they seem nowhere near as large as the USA's, and I say that despite living in Catalonia, where every election those constitutional problems are brought up by the independentists.
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Northern Ireland23763 Posts
On July 18 2023 18:57 Velr wrote:
The last time Democrats had a (very slight) majority you got the ACA and Gay marriage, while the Republicans (and a few democrats) were kicking and screaming all the way.
Saying there is no will to reform anything on the Democrat side is just not true.
Bidens Infrastructure bill or the green new deal could also be named. You can moan about how that stuff is too small but if you consider that just about every republican is fighting as hard as possible against everything the Democrats bring forward, it's probably a realistic assessment that more isn't possible with your elecotrate atm.
What should the Democrats actually do in your mind? By this I mean things they actually can achieve in todays political climate. Oh and pls remember, they are not socialist, so expecting "truely" socialist policy from them is plain stupid.
Pick a couple of subject areas with a large degree of support and go all out to achieve them
You can’t get em done? Well you tried
Most Dem rhetoric is basically the below
youtu.be
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The only way you guys get any of your problems fixed is if you lose a war to a country, unconditionally surrender and have the winner give you a modern constitution. I volunteer Canada.
Of course afterwards you have to fight the civil war 2: fake news bogaloo because there is no way your society would simply heal once all the stupidity from your old constitution/election system has left and people would have to do a real democracy, because the same stupidity is currently overtaking all other states with modern democracies that aren't already completely paralyzed by their political system.
Honestly, we have to hope that some generation in the future just becomes better than we are, but i believe that old generations make it intentionally hard for new ones so that they become grumpy and defend what they have with the same stupid ferocity that they hated about their parents.
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And again we have calls to abandon democracy, the only tool available to solve problems. Revolutionary socialism only provides a framework to help republicans win elections and make things worse in america and the world.
At some point you need to embrace reality and recognize that the only way to avoid things getting worse is by participating in the system. You cannot realistically expect to derail a system that has been going on for more than 250 years by complaining things arn't happening fast enough for your liking.
Have you ever thought that centrist dems never do anything the left wants beacuse they can't expect leftist dems to actualy go out and vote to support them? Surrendering your power to get anything done for the sake of your ideals helps no one. The real useful idiots in american politics are the far left.
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EPT
