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"I’ve heard some suggest that the recurrent problem of racial bias in our criminal justice system proves that only protests and direct action can bring about ch

"I’ve heard some suggest that the recurrent problem of racial bias in our criminal justice system proves that only protests and direct action can bring about change, and that voting and participation in electoral politics is a waste of time. I couldn’t disagree more. The point of protest is to raise public awareness... But eventually, aspirations have to be translated into specific laws and institutional practices — and in a democracy, that only happens when we elect government officials who are responsive to our demands." Laws are just a consequence of an actual cultural change, and can only succeed (and not precede) the conversion of hearts and minds. Voting and democracy should not become a device to placate the dissatisfied masses into silence, make them lineup for ballot, to choose a lesser evil who, in most likelihood, will turn out to be a egotistical power-seeker. We shouldn't conflate voting with "will of the people."

jakkyboi 6y ago
They're both necessary for change, it's just often that direct action forces policy
- kajumix 6y ago
  A policy or law that enforces a certain behavior that contradicts culture, would, by definition be undemocratic. A policy or law that enforces a certain behavior that is already present as a strong cultural norm, would be redundant.
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    There is an extremely strong cultural and behavioral norm against murder. I do not find laws against it to be redundant.
    - kajumix 6y ago
      Fair. Although, my point was to suggest checking the tendency of rushing into legislation. Laws are discovered, not made.
systemvoltage 6y ago
One big problem is that the elected after being elected, choose to not follow or dilute those promises. There is no accountability. So time and again, democracy fails as they just change their minds after being elected. There is this "damping" factor like a mechanical system, that takes the energy out of the people's hands and dampens it with lobbying, dishonesty, unaccountability and complete neglect for public interest. The response of the system is now steady state with little change. We need a public roster of each politician and their promises written in notarized documents, that can be used to strip them of relection and penalize them in some way so that future politicians cannot weasel their way out of promises. I would also vote for public presentations with slides + data by each politician instead of these stupid debates and speeches. They should be documented and scrutinized for accuracy of data and their claims. We have startup decks, but yet politicians don't have to make presentations. Instead they trade blows on a debate stage with polished repertoire which has now become an entertainment show, at least at the presidential level.
- Avicebron 6y ago
  I like this idea of a transparent democracy. It seems that if we are to be surveilled and held accountable by inscrutable decisions. Then we should have the right to surveil back. Heck, maybe to be elected one has to wear a body cam in all non-top secret non-personal decision making sessions of legislating. Might end lobbying pretty quick.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  I’m not sure it’s quite so simple as “they change their mind”. In a republic where deal-making has to happen, if you ran on W, X, Y, and Z, you might have to compromise on Z to get W, X, and a watered-down version of Y. Doesn’t mean you changed your mind on Z or strict-Y, but you can’t get everything you want because other Americans want other things and they can’t get everything they want either. Maybe a lesser politician would only have gotten W and half of X... I’m not sure what penalty would be appropriate that would be better than standing for re-election and having the people weigh in. Voters who were strict-Y or any-Z might choose to not vote to re-elect. Voters who care about and got more X than par and a little bit of Y would be inclined to re-elect.
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
There's plenty of laws out there that are wildly unpopular and only exist because the people who make up the legislature wants them to even if the people represented don't. Legislatures can get away with doing this because no one law is enough of an affront to enough people to justify voting for "the other party". Most laws making moderately dangerous things illegal or hard to get fall into that category.
austincheney 6y ago
> Voting and democracy should not become a device to placate the dissatisfied masses into silence, make them lineup for ballot, to choose a lesser evil who, in most likelihood, will turn out to be a egotistical power-seeker. What else should you expect when people are limited to only two political parties? It could be worse with only one political party.
- Avicebron 6y ago
  I'm not sure we just need more political parties, yes it would be nice. But we really need to work on disentangling how deep economic anti-humanist incentives and policy have embedded themselves within both parties.
  - AlexandrB 6y ago
    But with a 2-party system, how do you do that? As a Canadian, I've seen disaffected factions of our major parties splinter off and create viable alternatives. Often they don't get elected, but they attract enough votes to make the mainstream left/right party take notice and move in their direction.
- Press2forEN 6y ago
  I think the real problem is that those two political parties represent factions of the population with incompatible values. We don't need more political parties, we need solutions to manage the incompatibility.
  - Consultant32452 6y ago
    There was nothing incompatible about our values regarding what we saw in that video. The idea that there was a political divide about this incident is a myth. Even the openly racist people I know were saying it was fucked up.
    - throwaway894345 6y ago
      Even the police unions condemned it. It's literally the only thing we agree on, but certain people keep holding up this obviously false dichotomy that we can only care about this political violence or the Floyd murder.
Consultant32452 6y ago
I would agree with you except basically everyone was on the same side as soon as the video was released. Everyone, right, left, and center agreed there was a serious problem. So what are we raising awareness about?
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  I don't think everyone knew that everyone agreed that there was a serious problem. The media were really boosting the usual divisive narrative, but I won't speculate here as to why.
  - Consultant32452 6y ago
    If it wasn't for social media you would only see what the corporate press wanted you to see, framed how they wanted it framed, blamed on who they wanted it blamed on. We're winning. (paraphrased from Michael Malice)
  - D-Coder 6y ago
    As for your first sentence, that's very true. A lot of white people think that since Obama was elected, there are no more racial problems.
- bsder 6y ago
  > Everyone, right, left, and center agreed there was a serious problem. Sadly, no they didn't. It took until the pictures of uninvolved white women bleeding from rubber bullets for a whole lot of people to say "Holy shit. That could happen to ME!" In addition, you had videos of cops with their badge numbers covered and press getting arrested. These protests threw the fact that the police do this all the time and expect to get away with it into the faces of people who don't normally see it. It also showed that certain police departments can handle this and really do function better thus undermining the arguments of police departments who refuse to change.
dfxm12 6y ago
We shouldn't conflate voting with "will of the people." Especially when races can be so close and you have to wait up to 6 years to vote someone out. 6 years is a much different time frame politically today than it was in the 18th century. A term that long doesn't shield senators from political pressure, but it allows lobbyists to get more bang for their buck and further the power imbalance between rich and the rest of us.
evmar 6y ago
MLK gave a speech at Silicon Valley's own Stanford and touched on this subject (the same one with the "riot is the language of the unheard" quote you might have seen circulating). https://www.crmvet.org/docs/otheram.htm https://www.crmvet.org/docs/otheram.htm See the bit starting with: "Now there's another notion that gets out, it's around everywhere. It's in the South, it's in the North, it's In California, and all over our nation. It's the notion that legislation can't solve the problem, it can't do anything in this area. And those who project this argument contend that you've got to change the heart and that you can't change the heart through legislation." To summarize it, he disagrees with you.
- nickthemagicman 6y ago
  You didn't post the most badass part. "Even though it may be true that the law cannot change the heart, it can restrain the heartless" I never read MLK much and just realized how awesome of an orater he was.
  - evmar 6y ago
    If you have the time to read one more thing, I recommend https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham....
- neonate 6y ago
  It's uncanny how perfectly of this moment many of those quotes are. Of course that's because these are very long-term issues. But it's still uncanny.
  - evmar 6y ago
    Alternatively, it's extremely sad, because it means we haven't made progress on the issues of 50 years ago.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
arnvald 6y ago
I can't find the numbers right now, maybe someone else has them, but if I remember correctly, 2 examples - interracial marriage in late 1960s and same-sex marriage in 2010s - show that support for these kind of relationships grew much faster after they were made legal in all states in US. So I partially agree with you - there must be a certain culture change happening, but it can and it should be supported by law in order to happen faster.
- dsfyu404ed 6y ago
  >show that support for these kind of relationships grew much faster after they were made legal in all states in US. Because the people who were on the "no" side of things weren't really affected by it (because the were never going to do those things anyway) and the sky didn't fall when other people did. You see this same thing happen every time a state loosens its abortion, gun, alcohol, drug, etc, laws. People say the sky is gonna fall and then it doesn't.
- nostromo 6y ago
  Is this true? According to Pew, gay marriage was supported by more people than opposed it in 2010, a full five years before legalization. Not even leaders for the liberal party, like Obama and Hillary Clinton supported it until a few years later. https://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/changing-attitudes-on-gay-marriage/ https://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/changing-attitudes-on-ga...
localhost3000 6y ago
did you just "actually" Barack Obama on how change happens in a democracy?
- pluto9 6y ago
  What if he did? Is he not allowed to have his own opinion? Do you agree with Barack Obama on everything?
weaksauce 6y ago
there are tangible ways that laws could be setup and practices adhered to that would make cops more accountable and, while maybe the same level of racist in some parts, help ensure that they get held accountable more often than not. mandatory body cams rolling at all times unless they are in a bathroom. turning off or a malfunctioning camera during the act of a police brutality event immediately pierces the qualified immunity defense and they are tried as citizens. have an outside investigative body that has zero ties to the police department investigate any reports of abuse. have another outside investigative body that has zero ties to the police department randomly sampling police stop footage to see if there are any instances of impropriety. I am sure this list is non-exhaustive but it's a start. also, while we are here, fix the issue of civil asset forfeiture. the clear "we get to take your money because it looks suspicious and then keep it for the police department" is a huge conflict of interest.
- tareqak 6y ago
  I personally think body camera footage should be public. I would even go as far to say security cameras owned by public institutions should also be public. I think the answer to “who watchers the watchers?” should be a group of trustworthy people beyond reproach, but the absence of such a group necessitates that this responsibility fall upon the public at large [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quis_custodiet_ipsos_custodes%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quis_custodiet_ipsos_custodes%...
  - nyhc99 6y ago
    I don't know about you, but I don't really want my various encounters with the police to be broadcast to the public. They would need to algorithmically blur out all of our faces or something in order to make that palatable.
    - weaksauce 6y ago
      i'd be ok with at google maps street view approach where they blur out the faces. the original unadulterated should still be available though when the time comes for using it.
marcusverus 6y ago
The only reason that "the will of the people" isn't interchangeable with voting is the two party system. Unfortunately the mechanisms that drive US politics into a two party system are baked into the constitution, which means this flaw is an inseparable part of the United States Federal Government.

jakkyboi 6y ago

They're both necessary for change, it's just often that direct action forces policy

kajumix 6y ago
A policy or law that enforces a certain behavior that contradicts culture, would, by definition be undemocratic. A policy or law that enforces a certain behavior that is already present as a strong cultural norm, would be redundant.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  There is an extremely strong cultural and behavioral norm against murder. I do not find laws against it to be redundant.
  - kajumix 6y ago
    Fair. Although, my point was to suggest checking the tendency of rushing into legislation. Laws are discovered, not made.

systemvoltage 6y ago

One big problem is that the elected after being elected, choose to not follow or dilute those promises. There is no accountability. So time and again, democracy fails as they just change their minds after being elected. There is this "damping" factor like a mechanical system, that takes the energy out of the people's hands and dampens it with lobbying, dishonesty, unaccountability and complete neglect for public interest. The response of the system is now steady state with little change. We need a public roster of each politician and their promises written in notarized documents, that can be used to strip them of relection and penalize them in some way so that future politicians cannot weasel their way out of promises. I would also vote for public presentations with slides + data by each politician instead of these stupid debates and speeches. They should be documented and scrutinized for accuracy of data and their claims. We have startup decks, but yet politicians don't have to make presentations. Instead they trade blows on a debate stage with polished repertoire which has now become an entertainment show, at least at the presidential level.

Avicebron 6y ago
I like this idea of a transparent democracy. It seems that if we are to be surveilled and held accountable by inscrutable decisions. Then we should have the right to surveil back. Heck, maybe to be elected one has to wear a body cam in all non-top secret non-personal decision making sessions of legislating. Might end lobbying pretty quick.
sokoloff 6y ago
I’m not sure it’s quite so simple as “they change their mind”. In a republic where deal-making has to happen, if you ran on W, X, Y, and Z, you might have to compromise on Z to get W, X, and a watered-down version of Y. Doesn’t mean you changed your mind on Z or strict-Y, but you can’t get everything you want because other Americans want other things and they can’t get everything they want either. Maybe a lesser politician would only have gotten W and half of X... I’m not sure what penalty would be appropriate that would be better than standing for re-election and having the people weigh in. Voters who were strict-Y or any-Z might choose to not vote to re-elect. Voters who care about and got more X than par and a little bit of Y would be inclined to re-elect.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago

There's plenty of laws out there that are wildly unpopular and only exist because the people who make up the legislature wants them to even if the people represented don't. Legislatures can get away with doing this because no one law is enough of an affront to enough people to justify voting for "the other party". Most laws making moderately dangerous things illegal or hard to get fall into that category.

austincheney 6y ago

> Voting and democracy should not become a device to placate the dissatisfied masses into silence, make them lineup for ballot, to choose a lesser evil who, in most likelihood, will turn out to be a egotistical power-seeker. What else should you expect when people are limited to only two political parties? It could be worse with only one political party.

Avicebron 6y ago
I'm not sure we just need more political parties, yes it would be nice. But we really need to work on disentangling how deep economic anti-humanist incentives and policy have embedded themselves within both parties.
- AlexandrB 6y ago
  But with a 2-party system, how do you do that? As a Canadian, I've seen disaffected factions of our major parties splinter off and create viable alternatives. Often they don't get elected, but they attract enough votes to make the mainstream left/right party take notice and move in their direction.
Press2forEN 6y ago
I think the real problem is that those two political parties represent factions of the population with incompatible values. We don't need more political parties, we need solutions to manage the incompatibility.
- Consultant32452 6y ago
  There was nothing incompatible about our values regarding what we saw in that video. The idea that there was a political divide about this incident is a myth. Even the openly racist people I know were saying it was fucked up.
  - throwaway894345 6y ago
    Even the police unions condemned it. It's literally the only thing we agree on, but certain people keep holding up this obviously false dichotomy that we can only care about this political violence or the Floyd murder.

Consultant32452 6y ago

I would agree with you except basically everyone was on the same side as soon as the video was released. Everyone, right, left, and center agreed there was a serious problem. So what are we raising awareness about?

throwaway894345 6y ago
I don't think everyone knew that everyone agreed that there was a serious problem. The media were really boosting the usual divisive narrative, but I won't speculate here as to why.
- Consultant32452 6y ago
  If it wasn't for social media you would only see what the corporate press wanted you to see, framed how they wanted it framed, blamed on who they wanted it blamed on. We're winning. (paraphrased from Michael Malice)
- D-Coder 6y ago
  As for your first sentence, that's very true. A lot of white people think that since Obama was elected, there are no more racial problems.
bsder 6y ago
> Everyone, right, left, and center agreed there was a serious problem. Sadly, no they didn't. It took until the pictures of uninvolved white women bleeding from rubber bullets for a whole lot of people to say "Holy shit. That could happen to ME!" In addition, you had videos of cops with their badge numbers covered and press getting arrested. These protests threw the fact that the police do this all the time and expect to get away with it into the faces of people who don't normally see it. It also showed that certain police departments can handle this and really do function better thus undermining the arguments of police departments who refuse to change.

dfxm12 6y ago

We shouldn't conflate voting with "will of the people." Especially when races can be so close and you have to wait up to 6 years to vote someone out. 6 years is a much different time frame politically today than it was in the 18th century. A term that long doesn't shield senators from political pressure, but it allows lobbyists to get more bang for their buck and further the power imbalance between rich and the rest of us.

evmar 6y ago

MLK gave a speech at Silicon Valley's own Stanford and touched on this subject (the same one with the "riot is the language of the unheard" quote you might have seen circulating). https://www.crmvet.org/docs/otheram.htm https://www.crmvet.org/docs/otheram.htm See the bit starting with: "Now there's another notion that gets out, it's around everywhere. It's in the South, it's in the North, it's In California, and all over our nation. It's the notion that legislation can't solve the problem, it can't do anything in this area. And those who project this argument contend that you've got to change the heart and that you can't change the heart through legislation." To summarize it, he disagrees with you.

nickthemagicman 6y ago
You didn't post the most badass part. "Even though it may be true that the law cannot change the heart, it can restrain the heartless" I never read MLK much and just realized how awesome of an orater he was.
- evmar 6y ago
  If you have the time to read one more thing, I recommend https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham....
neonate 6y ago
It's uncanny how perfectly of this moment many of those quotes are. Of course that's because these are very long-term issues. But it's still uncanny.
- evmar 6y ago
  Alternatively, it's extremely sad, because it means we haven't made progress on the issues of 50 years ago.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]

arnvald 6y ago

I can't find the numbers right now, maybe someone else has them, but if I remember correctly, 2 examples - interracial marriage in late 1960s and same-sex marriage in 2010s - show that support for these kind of relationships grew much faster after they were made legal in all states in US. So I partially agree with you - there must be a certain culture change happening, but it can and it should be supported by law in order to happen faster.

dsfyu404ed 6y ago
>show that support for these kind of relationships grew much faster after they were made legal in all states in US. Because the people who were on the "no" side of things weren't really affected by it (because the were never going to do those things anyway) and the sky didn't fall when other people did. You see this same thing happen every time a state loosens its abortion, gun, alcohol, drug, etc, laws. People say the sky is gonna fall and then it doesn't.
nostromo 6y ago
Is this true? According to Pew, gay marriage was supported by more people than opposed it in 2010, a full five years before legalization. Not even leaders for the liberal party, like Obama and Hillary Clinton supported it until a few years later. https://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/changing-attitudes-on-gay-marriage/ https://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/changing-attitudes-on-ga...

localhost3000 6y ago

did you just "actually" Barack Obama on how change happens in a democracy?

pluto9 6y ago
What if he did? Is he not allowed to have his own opinion? Do you agree with Barack Obama on everything?

weaksauce 6y ago

there are tangible ways that laws could be setup and practices adhered to that would make cops more accountable and, while maybe the same level of racist in some parts, help ensure that they get held accountable more often than not. mandatory body cams rolling at all times unless they are in a bathroom. turning off or a malfunctioning camera during the act of a police brutality event immediately pierces the qualified immunity defense and they are tried as citizens. have an outside investigative body that has zero ties to the police department investigate any reports of abuse. have another outside investigative body that has zero ties to the police department randomly sampling police stop footage to see if there are any instances of impropriety. I am sure this list is non-exhaustive but it's a start. also, while we are here, fix the issue of civil asset forfeiture. the clear "we get to take your money because it looks suspicious and then keep it for the police department" is a huge conflict of interest.

tareqak 6y ago
I personally think body camera footage should be public. I would even go as far to say security cameras owned by public institutions should also be public. I think the answer to “who watchers the watchers?” should be a group of trustworthy people beyond reproach, but the absence of such a group necessitates that this responsibility fall upon the public at large [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quis_custodiet_ipsos_custodes%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quis_custodiet_ipsos_custodes%...
- nyhc99 6y ago
  I don't know about you, but I don't really want my various encounters with the police to be broadcast to the public. They would need to algorithmically blur out all of our faces or something in order to make that palatable.
  - weaksauce 6y ago
    i'd be ok with at google maps street view approach where they blur out the faces. the original unadulterated should still be available though when the time comes for using it.

marcusverus 6y ago

The only reason that "the will of the people" isn't interchangeable with voting is the two party system. Unfortunately the mechanisms that drive US politics into a two party system are baked into the constitution, which means this flaw is an inseparable part of the United States Federal Government.