It's no body else's business, especially the power hungry federal government, to know if I own a firearm. If you want to see what happens when you disarm citizens there are plenty of examples through history. You can look at Australia during covid and the camps they setup. The citizens could do nothing. The government should always be kept in check and having armed legal citizens is a wonderful thing for freedom.
How does private gun ownership check the government?
How would the government act differently if citizens owned fewer or different or no guns? Where does the fantasy that the everyone is out to get you and you had better be armed and ready come from? Cowboy movies? The whole idea of the cowboy is myth[0].
If you want to see real power hungry government in action, don’t think SWAT coming for you, look at the Missouri State Health director keeping a spreadsheet of women’s menstrual cycles, in order to make sure that if any became pregnant the state could intercede [1].
If you’re reading HN, you’re probably some kind of engineer. So tell me, how is a problem which is itself generated by the accumulation of brute power solved by a countervailing accumulation of brute power? Which then just becomes an arms race. Which is objectively insane. It is an infinite loop. How do you break it?
> How does private gun ownership check the government?
It raises the stakes for oppression. How would Hong Kong look right now if the population were lightly armed? Instead of a civilian police force repressing millions the Chinese military would have had to occupy its own territory. That has political and international consequences.
I believe in gun regulation. But I recognise the civic core of the opposition’s argument.
> How would Hong Kong look right now if the population were lightly armed?
Let’s be honest, if they were armed and gun ownership weren’t already against the law, the Chinese government would sweep in and pass a law that day and start going door to door, seizing weapons, take the people from their families and send then to reeducation camps. It wouldn’t forward their cause at all.
The word “civic” is odd here too (I recognize that your comment is about the intent of the parent comment’s argument), because the opposite pole to political violence is… civil discourse. There is an unavoidable incoherence to the idea that gun ownership is about civic responsibility.
During the start of the coronavirus pandemic Minnesota enacted a stay at home order. Protestors arrived at the governor’s residence armed with guns after the lockdown order was extended. The stay at home order was modified to be less restrictive THAT DAY by the governor. He claimed that the modification was unrelated, but everybody knows that’s not true.
So you're saying that rather than communicating our will to our elected officials with ballots and phone calls, we should use the threat of violence against them?
Great idea, let's apply it in other contexts. Next time I get a parking ticket, I'll follow around the traffic cop with an assault rifle until they lower the fee.
The GP asked “How does private gun ownership check the government?” The government of Minnesota was checked by private gun owners in 2020.
You may think that waiting to vote at the ballots or having your phone calls dumped to a voicemail and never returned is an appropriate response to being locked up in your own house against your will with the threat of state action if you leave; however, a few people in Minnesota did not think that it was appropriate. So they showed up and they showed up armed.
That’s their right and it’s the right the second amendment protects. You may not like it, but that’s just because you haven't disagreed with the government hard enough yet.
> The government of Minnesota was checked by private gun owners in 2020.
Sure, if by "checked" you mean "threatened with violence." My comment is intended to question whether or not that's a good idea, by attempting to applying the same principle to other walks of life.
> being locked up in your own house against your will with the threat of state action if you leave
You mean the usual way of dealing with the outbreak of a deadly contagious disease?
> That’s their right and it’s the right the second amendment protects.
The answer to your question is obvious: gun owners buy into a fantasy, probably inspired by action movies, that they will one day be able to use their weapon "righteously" against another human being. Possibly in simple self-defense from a crime, but especially in a poetic-heroic setting, such as defending their god-given rights from an oppressive government.
Never mind that gun owners in America don't have the organization, training, resources, or equipment to effectively combat a police department, much less the US army quelling an armed insurrection, even if their rights ever were legitimately threatened. Never mind that private gun ownership as it currently exists would never be a realistic check on any government. The macho fantasy endures, and colors so much of our discussion on gun rights.
The other missing datum from the macho fantasy is under what conditions is armed revolt justified. The sibling post mentions Hong Kong as an example. So what if, on the other hand, the government wants to compel citizens to vaccinations? Are the citizens justified in murdering cops and healthcare workers in order to avoid mandatory vaccination? What if the citizens believe that an election was fraudulent? Are the citiens (legally, ethically) justified in raiding the Capitol to forcibly overthrow the government?
There are no good answers to these questions because the justification for gun ownership is not based in any real-world conditions: it's purely a fantasy.
>Never mind that gun owners in America don't have the organization, training, resources, or equipment to effectively combat a police department, much less the US army quelling an armed insurrection, even if their rights ever were legitimately threatened.
This is a common argument, but completely ignores what the Taliban/Iraqis/ISIS did to the best and most well funded military for 20 years. What the Vietnamese did 40 years before that; completely ignoring 60 years of actual events.
The Taliban were repelling an invading army. The Viet Cong were strictly trained.
Do you think ordinary Americans have the skill or appetite to take up arms against other Americans? Especially better trained and equipped Americans?
How far do you think the Jan 6 insurrectionists would have gotten had the capitol police taken the threat at all seriously?
The argument that "America's armed forces have lost wars" does not support your conclusion that "ordinary Americans are capable of defeating America's armed forces."
And you also conveniently ignore the rest of argument, pointing out that a democratic government doesn't need armed insurrections.
>Do you think ordinary Americans have the skill or appetite to take up arms against other Americans? Especially better trained and equipped Americans?
IDK. Ask the Irish.
The Taliban, VC, etc, had basically ZERO ability to mess with the invading army's supply lines or the political process keeping those supply lines open. Furthermore, the martial law steps taken in places like Iraq to stem the violence would be much more politically costly domestically. I can crap out plenty of non-US examples of this kind of thing if that helps.
This shit is all basic stuff covered in Armchair General 101. Educate yourself.
> This shit is all basic stuff covered in Armchair General 101. Educate yourself.
Based on the snide tone of condescension, this response sounds like it was written by precisely the kind of delusional macho wannabe who fetishizes firearms and dreams of one day murdering someone.
>this response sounds like it was written by precisely the kind of delusional macho wannabe who fetishizes firearms and dreams of one day murdering someone.
Or maybe I've read just a little bit of history and think you're the delusional one.
Civil wars don't go down like foreign occupations. If this nation breaks down into widespread violence (I don't personally think it would, I think it would balkanize before we ever got to that point) I hope that you live long enough to be subject to is so that you may learn an important lesson and that some future generation may be spared the task of mopping up the mess.
The point wasn't how much I've read. The point was that "just a little bit" is the threshold amount of knowledge above which people stop spouting the kinds of things you're spouting. Nobody from armchair generals all the way up to real professionals says the hand-wavy things about foreign war tactics being portable to domestic wars without losing substantial efficacy like you're saying.
> You can look at Australia during covid and the camps they setup.
What camps? At some points, some international arrivals were quarantined in "camps" and, interstate or international travellers were variously required to isolate in hotels. The US had a range of at-home and government supervised quarantine too.
TO say they "set up camps" is disingenuous.
Having armed citizen is terrible for freedom. It means that the kind of person willing to use violent force against another person has power.
Yeah exactly. Can't fathom using it as an argument. The terrible consequences of Australians not having firearms: drastically lower COVID deaths per capita. Also, no mass shootings this century.
Gun ownership has to go into the calculus of making a decision like this. Government officials will have to ask themselves what they are willing to tolerate in terms of armed resistance. Even if it's just one loon with a gun killing whatever officials try to get him out of his house, the ends have to justify that occurrence.
The idea that the person your forcing to do something (anything) may be armed makes the government less likely to force people to do things.
Sometimes we all need to heed the rules of the society in which we live.
If an elected government cannot make rules because "someone might get shot" then the government needs to control the guns. Otherwise we're all at the mercy of those willing to kill so they don't have to abide by the rules.
Government officials already need to worry about the political implications of their actions, they shouldn't need to worry about being murdered by a loon with a gun who disagrees.
I don't need to look up what happened in Australia because I live there. The "covid camps" were illegal border crossing camps. So all an American has to do to fully understand this event is look into at US border detention and the way that guns have, or have not, prevented these from ever being created.
> The "covid camps" were illegal border crossing camps.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights says "Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country." Australia was violating human rights every time they made it illegal for one of their citizens to enter the country. Don't lump these "illegal border crossing"s in with foreigners trying to illegally immigrate.
There is a large gap between "I like what the government is doing right now" and "time to keep the government in check with guns".
In other words, just because guns aren't being used to keep the government in check right now doesn't mean there aren't valid situations where they could be. I'm not entirely sure if your comment is insinuating that. If it's not, sorry for misinterpreting it.
So if an election were believed to be fraudulent, for example, that would be a legally/ethically justified opportunity to raid the Capitol building in an armed mob? Inquiring minds want to know.
In other words, can we have some concrete example when, in your opinion, it is appropriate to shoot a cop?
Any time it would be appropriate to shoot not-a-cop. Cop with his knee on someone’s neck where that person is obviously suffocating? It’s appropriate to shoot that cop.
Why is suffocation a prerequisite? Why shouldn't I be able to shoot a cop any time they abuse their authority? For example, if violence is appropriate in defending individual liberty, then by your argument I should be able to shoot a cop if they arrest for me a crime I'm innocent of. Or for a crime that I'm not innocent of, but feel that I would not get a fair trial for. Or if a cop inconveniences me by pulling me over when I'm in a hurry. Basically, it sounds like you're supporting a principle of violence left at the discretion of the individual.
I’m supporting a principle of violence against police any time it would be justified against an ordinary person. False arrest where you fear for your life? Yes. Arrest for a crime you’re not innocent of? No. Pulling you over in a hurry? No.
The government wants to maintain a monopoly in the use of force and violence. I don’t think they should have that option. Call me a libertarian.
> I’m supporting a principle of violence against police any time it would be justified against an ordinary person.
This does not clarify the issue. When is violence justified against an ordinary person in your opinion? If you're proposing a legal principle, there should be a clear line.
Moreover, who gets to decide when violence is justified? Are we leaving that up to each person's own sense of justice? Or does everyone have to use your standard? How do we resolve post-facto disagreements about the justification of use of violence?
What punishment would you support for someone who uses unjustified violence that they feel is justified? What if they disagree with that punishment?
Self defense and defense of others is a clear line with case law and statutory interpretations going back centuries. I refuse to be pulled into your argument and its attempts to recast my position: police should have no privileges above an ordinary citizen when using force. Use of violence is justified in a court of law subject to a jury of your peers.
I recognize that what you term "refusing to be pulled into my argument" is a standard libertarian motif of pretending that a complex subject is very simple.
"Defense" is not a simple idea. Proving self-defense in court is quite difficult. Self-defense has not ever been in the US a legal defense against the charge of resisting arrest. We currently discourage violence against cops by giving them the benefit of the doubt that they are acting in the best interests of the law; we may in fact give them too much credit, but to give them no credit at all would turn any arrest procedure into a brawl.
Allow me demonstrate: if a cop A wants to arrest person B, rightly or wrongly, A is using physical coercion, which is violence. By your argument, under ther principle of self-defense, any citizen has the legal/ethical right to oppose use of violence. So now we have a situation where two people simply have differing opinions: A thinks that B should be arrested, and B thinks that B should not be arrested. In your argument, the way to resolve this dispute is not in courts, but immediately, with violence. Either way, someone will get hurt or killed.
Another aspect: if a person's legal justification for resisting arrest depends on their guilt or innocence, why would anyone voluntarily submit to arrest, since doing so would be interpreted as a sign of guilt? If only guilty people can be arrested, then what is the point of courts?
I fail to see how this legal framework would not lead to massively escalating violence everywhere in society. Your worldview is juvenile.
>> we may in fact give them too much credit, but to give them no credit at all would turn any arrest procedure into a brawl.
This is possible and I accept this end point. My worldview is consistent, yours is bound up in perverse gotchas and outs for when force that is otherwise unjustified has to be justified or else "bad things" will happen to society. You assume that my framework ends with "massively escalating violence everywhere in society" but you haven't proven that and, more importantly, your worldview (assuming it's the current one) has resulted in the same problem. Or are we to take George Floyd's death and the related national civil unrest as not a massive escalation of violence everywhere in society?
> You assume that my framework ends with "massively escalating violence everywhere in society" but you haven't proven that
Come on man. You're arguing like a 12 year old here. "You can't prove that!" is not an argument. Try to at least form a cohesive logical defense of your position.
> Or are we to take George Floyd's death and the related national civil unrest as not a massive escalation of violence everywhere in society?
Overall, violent crime is massively down since the 1990s. George Floyd's death and the resulting civil unrest highlights important problems in our society nonetheless, and should result in reforms. The fact that those reforms have been weak or non-existent is a result of regulatory capture by the police, the unjustified strength of police unions, a judiciary that gives too much credit to police, the police culture of protecting each other, and other issues. Hopefully, we will, through legislatively-enacted reforms, reach a position where the actions of those police officers are sufficiently disincentivized that they will become rare. I don't think that an appropriate resolution of the George Floyd incident would be for by-standers to execute the cops.
> bound up in perverse gotchas and outs for when force that is otherwise unjustified has to be justified or else "bad things" will happen to society.
Yeah. What you call "perverse gotchas" is what I call "necessary complexity," because human society is complex and the rules regulating is are complex. I understand the allure of using simple rules at all costs, but thousands of years of jurisprudence suggest that humans are too complex for that; that's why we have thousands and thousands of laws. Understanding that a complex system requires complex rules is not hyprocricy, it's just good engineering.
And the laws still apply to them. They are not allowed to sell to anyone not allowed to legally own a firearm, e.g. under 18, felon, out of state. If they do they are committing a crime.
And they will need an FFL if they make a business of selling privately.
>The law also says they need to file taxes on that purchase, but what is required and what people actually do often differs
I think you inadvertently hit on why people are opposed to further gun regulation. The people committing the crimes aren't gonna follow the law and it stands to only further burden regular citizens.
There is more than one kind of regulation. Regulating people with an incentive to obey (professionals running businesses, like stores or shows) makes it harder for criminals to obtain guns they aren't allowed to possess.
>Regulating people with an incentive to obey (professionals running businesses, like stores or shows) makes it harder for criminals to obtain guns they aren't allowed to possess.
Can you give me an example of how this would work?
Just to clarify, private sellers couldn't perform a NICS check even if they wanted to. There were some proposals to open the system up to regular people (kind of akin to my understanding of how Switzerland does BG checks), but they never passed.
Anyways, it's kind of a moot point in California because that's a felony here.
The fees from that are rather exorbitant. At least around me, most FFLs charge $100-$200 since they'd rather you buy from them directly (except for PPT transfers, where the cost is legally capped at like $50). IMO people should be able to run BG checks at cost.
One issue is having an open border that allows trafficking of deadly drugs.
"Between 2020 and 2021, nearly 79,000 people between 18 and 45 years old — 37,208 in 2020 and 41,587 in 2021 — died of fentanyl overdoses, the data analysis from opioid awareness organization Families Against Fentanyl shows."
We also push vaccines during a pandemic that was primarily killing the obese in the greatest numbers but no mention of exercise and a reasonable diet.
>One issue is having an open border that allows trafficking of deadly drugs
By this logic the US should have higher life expectancy than the countries it's being compared to.
>We also push vaccines during a pandemic that was primarily killing the obese in the greatest numbers but no mention of exercise and a reasonable diet.
When you're trying to explain differences you should focus on things that are actually... different. Obesity, maybe. Vaccines, not so much.
My point was the messaging from the various "authorities" in the US. They only pushed vaccines, they never said that it's time to focus on your weight and exercise.
Saying "lose weight" doesn't work. Ask some doctors—once their eyes stop rolling, they'll tell you how rarely counseling patients about weight loss has any effect. Further, it certainly won't help much when you're dealing with a timeframe best measured in months.
It's not the accessibility of deadly drugs as much as the unknown variability in the drugs addicts use, causing them to unexpectedly overdose. One could make a compelling argument these drug deaths are actually because the borders aren't freely open to wholesale lab produced narcotics.
The War on Drugs has to be one of the biggest blunders of the 20th century. Attempting to block fentanyl at the borders is a fool's errand and blaming Mexico for supplying US demand is misguided and unjust.
The reason the pandemic is winding down is thanks to the vaccines being pushed. Exercise and a healthy diet was Michelle Obama's pet cause, but that didn't get picked up during the next administration.
Not a parent, but I’d personally be more proud as a parent of a Taco Bell cook than, e.g. adtech or a high frequency trading firm (of course, sometimes these places are great for training or getting a name on a resume, but if that was my child’s career ambition I’d be sad). The only issue I would have would be whether they’re making enough to support their other goals.
I'm a parent. Yeah, Taco Bell isn't "ideal". But hey, is my kid happy? Are they keeping their life together? Are they staying out of trouble? Are their bills paid?
If the answer to all of those questions - especially the first - is yes, then I am happy. Of course I will push them to strive for more than that, but what they do with their lives when they leave the house is up to them, and at a bare minimum, I just want them to be happy with whatever they choose.
We homeschool our three children and put in a lot of time and effort to prepare them to provide for themselves. Do I care of they become the CEO of a company? Of course not but I do want them to achieve what they are capable of. I know my kids and their abilities. Taco bell is not their pinnacle.
They wouldn't be able too. It's a great job for a high school kid or one with a low IQ that has limited options to start with. But it should be temporary to teach you how to be responsible, show up on time, do your job correctly, etc.
Unless you live in the countryside, there's plenty more noise coming from other sources - including delivery vans, cars, lawnmowers, etc. Drone noise is only audible when they are close. If they get authorization to fly sufficiently high(and it doesn't need to be that high) the only noise you'll ever hear is when there's a delivery next to you. Some would think that's an advantage.
At 100m high, noise varies between 50dB to 55dB, depending on drone size. That's for current drones. That is below daytime noise levels in many places.
That's not even accounting for specific measures to decrease their sound levels. Those are going to be delivery drones, after all, not racers. They can use larger, slower and specifically designed propellers.
I order less from amazon because of the noise. Probably wouldn't if a kid got run over once, but if it happened multiple times that would be a problem. Nobody else uses the noise amazon does, and I don't hear about people being run over by delivery vans ever, so it doesn't really seem like an issue.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3018517/
"Still another alternative is the broadband beeper, a device that has the same cadence as the conventional beeper but broadcasts a “white-noise, whooshing sound,” says Thalheimer, who has no financial interest in or affiliation with Brigade Electronics, the manufacturer. He explains the sound is still readily audible behind the vehicle and is more easily localizable than a single-tone beeper, but the white noise is masked by community noise, so it is much less annoying to the public."
If a van reversed over a child but no one is around to hear it, did it really happen? On the other hand, I put up with delivery van noises constantly in my town, especially during church hours.
Is there a legitimate reason why, like the annoyance is related to the frequency response? Or is it just because we've become accustomed to internal combustion engine noise?
Saving energy is less important than cutting out human labor (drivers).
For context, the global average cost for electricity is about $0.13 USD per kWH. From wikipedia, "Over an 8-hour work shift, an average, healthy, well-fed and motivated manual laborer may sustain an output of around 75 watts of power." [0] So, from a purely mechanical perspective, a human can only output about 0.6 kWH of work per day, which is only worth about $0.08 of electricity per day. And yet, in states like California, where this test is being done, human labor costs a minimum of $15/hour, or $120/day.
Energy is not the limiting factor. We could use drastically more energy and still save gobs of money if we can cut the cost of employing a human out of the loop.
I think this analogy is flawed. It's more apropos to the "John Henry" comparison, but most of human labor is not of that type since the industrial revolution. Humans are not walking packages the entire distance; we've already implemented mechanical and energy advantages in the form of road vehicles.
Say someone drives a 200 horsepower car. That's roughly 1200 kWh/day of available mechanical power.
What about the US being large requires one to frequently traverse it? Europe is large. And people don't frequently drive from one end of Spain to the other. And when they do, they have 200+mph trains to do it relatively quickly and cheaply.
....What? Why is that relevant? Europe is bigger than the US. Norway is bigger than New Jersey! Croatia is bigger than Massachusetts! Germany is bigger than Florida! Are you suggesting that because some arbitrarily-chosen borders from one are larger than other arbitrary borders on another somehow negates my point? Why does the size of the land-mass you live inside dictate the distance you need to travel day-to-day?
People live in New York City. It's in the US. Those people tend to drive a lot less than those living in, say, Los Angeles—who also unambiguously live in the US. Why?
< Are you suggesting that because some arbitrarily-chosen borders from one are larger than other arbitrary borders on another somehow negates my point?
Yes. Except that I'm not "suggesting" it. I'm stating it as a fact.
Note that "Europe" is also defined by an "arbitrarily-chosen border".
Maybe? It depends on the situation! There exist situations where cars are the best option. The point is: they don't need to be the only option because the US is big.
The only reason that gas prices are this high in the US is a direct result of the democrat party. They LOVE high gas prices. The elite brag how they aren't concerned as their expensive Tesla doesn't use gas. They believe that the same people that can't afford these high gas prices are going to go out and buy a 60k dollar EV. They believe that everyone can switch to driving an EV and the power grid will some how be able to handle it.
There is no reason the US should not be completely energy independent. There is plenty of oil to drill, if the democrats would allow it.
To believe that there is a single, easily-distillable "reason" to a very complex, country-wide (or wider) economic concern, should be an indicator to re-examine one's own depth of understanding on said issue.
Their are plenty of EVs that cost less than $60k. And plenty of used hybrids that cost a fraction of that.
High oil prices do push consumers to choose more efficient vehicles. They also benefit the US by sending way less money to countries that want to harm us - especially Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia etc.
The median US household income is around 60k. The average consumer in the US cannot afford an EV as well as the cost to maintain one. Not to mention the very limited charging options available for travel.
Once EVs are produced in the same volumes as combustion cars today then the price for an EV will be the same, and probably lower as EV cars are much simpler and contain less components. Right now there is probably also some markup added just because the manufacturer can charge more for an EV (status, more demand than production capacity etc).
The charging time will likely also go down further which could allow for the batteries to become smaller for most use cases and thus the price come down even more.
And on top of that, if energy prices continue to stay high, the SUV/Truck era might slowly die away and smaller/lighter/aerodynamic cars with better mileage will become the norm. Less metal and smaller motor needed means cheaper car.
High gas prices will be used as a talking piece against the Democrats if they continue through the mid-term elections… not sure your point of view makes a lot of sense.
Biden has blocked oil contracts in the US but supported other countries to produce oil, it is very clear the democratic parties plan. There is no reason for oil prices to be this high. It's clearly by design.
Has that actually happened though? In his first year in office, Biden approved more oil permits than Trump. Biden's continued to approve more permits recently. Obviously many of his supporters (including myself) don't like this. However the reality is that Biden has done more than Trump did to keep oil prices low, he just got hit with an unlucky set of geopolitical events.
But that’s not really what’s happening. The administration prevented the creation of the Keystone XL pipeline which everyone has known is a terrible idea for years. Meanwhile, they’re pursing alternate options to increase oil supply.
I'm guessing you live in Texas (as do I), not San Francisco or California, and this is an expression of the "Everything in California is terrible" meme that's popular here.
I lived in California, near San Francisco. Not everything is California is terrible, but everything to do with SF DA is. SF got really really terrible - and it wasn't like that a decade ago. There are many opinions why that happened but I think "progressive" social engineering experimentation played a large role. I mean, if you decriminalize theft, you get a lot of theft. Who could have thought?
Corruption in Texas is super interesting in fact! The lengths that all of the segments of government seem to be taking in order to avoid taking the indicted Attorney General to trial is probably not unique but it’s interesting to see in real time.
I’m guessing he’s from Texas because his username says so.
But I’m from the SF bay area and he’s spot on. We have massive social issues here (homelessness, drug-related crimes, urban blight, etc.) which are being made worse by so-called “progressive” policies.
False dichotomy. There’s a whole universe of policy options.
But to answer your question as posed, conservative policies will probably get us out of the mess we’re in, and then we can have the luxury to consider what smarter long-term progressive policies could be enacted.
Example: there is now an organized crime theft ring coordinating smash-and-grab thefts from storefronts in San Francisco because the DA’s so-called progressive policy of excessive leniency for misdemeanor theft. To the point where stores like CVS are abandoning the city. A “conservative” policy of harsh law enforcement is probably needed to reverse this trend. (That’s not the same as saying we should have harsh punishment for misdemeanors as a general rule forever though.)
Some of them - like prosecuting crime and dealing with rampant homelessness - would. Some - like restricting hard liquor sales - probably wouldn't. The key is not to choose correct tribe, the key is to choose correct policy. SF - and CA - government has been consistently terrible at that for years.
Singapore and Tokyo are large, densely-populated cities that don't have the public-order problems that California cities do. I can't say if their policies are "conservative" or not based on the US understanding of the word, but they do seem to work...
California cities very recently didn't have the public-order problems that California cities do. It's a pretty recent phenomenon, and it's hard not to attribute it to the novel ideas of legalizing theft and "reforming" criminals by just letting them go.
In the case of the former, caning is a widely used form of corporal punishment. That is extremely conservative and not something we should re-create in the US.
I don't think that we should institute caning, but I do think that new forms of punishment are needed.
Jail and prison are terrible forms of punishment. Someone who goes to prison is going to lose their job, maybe lose their house and possessions, and be away from their family. And that's all to spend time hanging out with convicted criminals all day and learn nothing of value.
Compared with this, caning actually starts to look not so bad. It sends a clear message "don't do that again" without destroying someone's life.
Now, caning also can cause serious damage to your body, so I don't think it's an acceptable punishment, but it would be good to have a better method of punishment that sent a clear message but didn't wreck someone's life and leave them with little alternative but to resort to crime again.
Think hard on the developmental stage of the person behind the wheel of the car. Which do you think will have a more lasting effect on him; camp...or a whipping?
Do you think the woman in the article is wrong for being outraged at the original sentence?
I draw the line, myself, at permanently maiming people for petty crime, so the Saudi method of handling thieves is off the table. Birching or caning was used successfully in anglophone countries for years.
Alternatively, something distasteful and uncomfortable, like being dressed in an orange jumpsuit, shackled to other ne'r-do-wells, and forcd to police the side of a highway for litter for 12 hours a day for a month would also work, if it could be applied with dispatch.
There are plenty of boneheaded policies in CA, but I'm not sure what's so "progressive" about cutting tax just because you've owned the house for longer.
The argument I've heard is seniors getting priced out, and having to move. Considering what happens when a senior has to move away from their social group, doctor and other resources they know, I can see why that would be bad.
But this leaves them as NIMBYs, preventing more housing. Without more housing, there are fewer people to charge property tax. So you're hit with the double whammy of less taxpayers, and less income from many of them.
As another resident, I can vouch there are serious issue but the DA is largely being successfully scapegoated by the troubled police department. Pretty much all the reasons the police cite for their chronic issues and ineffectiveness are utter BS but they seem to have successfully shifted all the blame onto the DA. With the serious police dept issues, pandemic, national trends, and lopsided analysis it’s hard to say how much role the da has had but it’s easy to tell it’s nowhere even close to what most attribute. I think the recall will succeed and the supporters will find nothing changes because he wasn’t the issue.
For folks who think SF and Oakland PD issues are limited to their systemic violence against minorities, video documented violence against protestors & intentionally making current levels of crime seem worse to help the recall it’s worth looking into some of their darker crimes.
Check out their abuse of Celeste Guap, how long it took for anyone to do anything, the number of DAs, prosecutors and AGs that looked the other way, the charges dropped and finally the lone officer to actually face charges and the plea deal they received.
Police in the bay area have been able to do anything they want for a long time. The campaign against the current DA really just stems from him doing what is still far below the bare minimum to e remind police that they are not above the law.
More like they’re both terrible. But the police were smart enough to figure out they can blame the DA (who deserves blame, but not alone) and avoid accountability for themselves.
Yeah the pandemic does throw a wrench in the assessment. But letting the police so successfully push all the blame onto the da is only going to embolden them and reward bad behavior. If the option was to recall the top police leaders plus the da, then I’d vote yes. Punishing only one side will make the situation worse.
Can you provide some more details about the types of issues the PD has shifted onto the DA?
As an outsider, the only real issue I'm aware of is the refusal to prosecute theft under $1k (edit: $950), which seems like something that is completely out of the police's hands.
That $950 limit is a widespread but, to be blunt, nonesense talking point that is a great example of how the police absolve their hands of their inaction and how a lack of nationwide context creates myopic assessments.
For example, In the great progressive bastion of Texas the felony theft limit is $2,500, and also the current DA didn’t make the law.
The police have been caught many times simple spectating crimes in action. That’s not the da, that’s cops on strike.
Example: the DA won’t prosecute theft under $950, as you say. So the police will literally stand across the street and watch a street vendor get robbed and do nothing.
Just because the DA will refuse to press charges doesn’t mean they couldn’t have still arrested the guy for the night and returned the property, not to mention intervening in a potentially dangerous situation for the shop owner and customers.
> So the police will literally stand across the street and watch a street vendor get robbed and do nothing.
Are you saying that SFPD is not stopping crimes that are occurring in front of them because they believe that the suspect will not be prosecuted? The police are not prosecutors - if they are failing to stop crimes, the fault lies squarely with them.
Can you provide some examples of when this has happened?
There was also a video of cops pulling up and watching a dispensary get robbed
There was another account on next door of a neighbor pursuing a robber after a home invasion and had to pleas with the police to even approach the guy, and they basically just got him his stuff back and tainted all the evidence so no DA would be able to actually prosecute. Not even sure if they actually arrested that guy.
The police choosing to do nothing because the outcome may not be as they desire is ridiculous. Imagine trying that excuse at your work.
Not to mention the progressive solutions are all half-measures. Where are the solutions to the homelessness and poverty? Just reducing criminal punishment and enforcement does nothing.
Uvalde is currently at the top of that list and the power problems from last winter. And while I know it's largely dependent on one's political leaning, the Texas laws against books, abortion, immorality (e.g. sex toys), and LBGT issues, among others, don't speak "most free" to me.
I'm sure someone will counter with "but in California..." and the objections will all be true, which is why I stand by my original opinion: neither one is obviously better run than the other.
It's clear that TX has been run better than CA. Many large corporations have left CA for TX. Crime in CA is significantly worse and you are not allowed to protect your life or property. You are free to steal and no one does a thing about it, plenty of examples in the news of this happening in the middle of the day. You have celebrities saying "no big deal" about getting your car broken into, just part of life in CA. Look at all the businesses shutting down, Wallgreens for example. TX isn't covered in homeless camps, drugs and feces. TX's economy is strong and will remain strong due to a business friendly environment. Housing is more affordable (though less than it used to be in metro areas) in part due to less regulations.
And the items you point to as negatives are positives for me. I'm against abortion, sexualizing children (including books). Not sure what you mean by "sex toys". Plenty of those shops around if you are in need of some.
And I've visited CA a few times and have seen it first hand. It's not a place I'd want to take my family for vacation, let alone live. I wish that wasn't true, weather is wonderful.
Applying what we could call progressive ideas without thinking them through is a problem. IMHO we should vote for smarter politicians who don't have ideological baggage limiting their decision making.
> Politicians claiming to be be progressive then pandering to corporate interests has.
That doesn't have much to do with SF's problems as far as I can tell. Quite the opposite actually.
All politics is ideological but to blame a single progressive DA for the entirety of the current crime problem in SF without realizing that much of what is happening today is more likely the result of past decisions than one guy actually doing what he said he would do to me is just ridiculous but if you feel that way then convince me in the next election with whatever platform you run on, not telling me I should recall someone so you can just put in your preferred puppet without having to say what you’ll actually do and how it would be better.
> All politics is ideological but to blame a single progressive DA for the entirety of the current crime problem
Isn't that a straw man though? No one reasonable is saying that this DA is responsible for the entirety of the crime problem, and of course this uptick in crime is a nationwide problem! However, the DA isn't doing enough to make things better, and putting people in jail who are committing crimes repeatedly because they've realized there are no consequences for their actions is probably the smarter thing to do ATM. So let's instead elect a DA that will do that (like we did here in Seattle, it won't solve the problem...but it is a start).
If you listen to the recall pushers it doesn’t sound like much of a straw man to me and the idea that the DA isn’t doing enough to prosecute isn’t a new concept here but if you actually look into the details of what Chesa is trying to do there is more method to it than just a blanket non-prosecutional ideology. It doesn’t mean that people don’t face any consequences at all if they fail to meet the standards laid out for them but they are given a chance. But this idea that a progressive ideology isn’t what is needed now because we’re in some nationwide uptick in certain crimes strikes me as odd because if not now then when? And to your point, a recall isn’t an election - the appointee doesn’t have to say anything about what they’re going to do and as it stands now they get to run as an incumbent in the next election which gives them a big advantage. So people are just presuming that whoever is appointed will be the “tough on crime” DA that they presumably want without actually knowing who they’re going to get.
> ut this idea that a progressive ideology isn’t what is needed now because we’re in some nationwide uptick in certain crimes strikes me as odd because if not now then when?
People are simply fed up right now. Even the most liberal progressive will flip to a tough on crime attitude after they reach their breaking limit. If they don't see results, they will keep swapping out people until they get them. The problem perhaps is that the DA's methods would require decades to show some results, but they aren't going to be given that much time.
> So people are just presuming that whoever is appointed will be the “tough on crime” DA that they presumably want without actually knowing who they’re going to get.
Isn't that what an election would get us anyways? We would swap out something we don't think is working for something different, that might still not work, but will at least lead to a chance of an improvement.
“ The problem perhaps is that the DA's methods would require decades to show some results, but they aren't going to be given that much time.”
Or they may not take that long to show results but if we simply allow people to swap out a known for an unknown each time they’re fed up with the apparent lack of action or results of something then that just rewards those that benefit from it without having them have to do the work of convincing anyone that their person will do better because of what they’re promising to do rather than just “we’re not that guy.” I’m not convinced that things have gotten bad enough in SF that “anyone but Chesa” is a strong enough argument and I think he deserves to be allowed to work out the remainder of his term and be judged on that basis. Any opposition after that can come in the form of an actual candidate that has to run an actual campaign to at least give the people some chance of understanding what that candidate’s stances are.
Could you explain how enabling current crime wave is "pandering to corporate interests"? Corporations didn't demand to defund the police or stop prosecuting crime or develop a homeless camp on every major street, as far as I know. Did they?
By people who don't just ignore several thousand years of how various "not too dysfunctional" societies ran themselves for a few quick ideological virtue points.
Much of the shitting on "progressivism" is misguided. There's just as much progressivism and liberal ideology on the other coast and they don't have the same dysfunctionality and failings to nearly the same extents. These kinds of clowns are everywhere but at the end of the day it's the California public who is responsible for electing them and tolerating their poor job performance.
In California, excepting some rare corners, there's only one party. California has a lot of Republicans, in numbers, but they don't have any power in any major city, let alone on the state level. So your idea has already been implemented.
