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It boggles my mind that there’s any debate about whether there are systemic issues with police when we literally have laws on the books that explicitly allow co

It boggles my mind that there’s any debate about whether there are systemic issues with police when we literally have laws on the books that explicitly allow cops to steal from civilians.

dylan604 6y ago
A law meant to deter crime instead gets used as a budget booster. Proposing to change that law in support of personal property rights and nothing else, and you will immediately be tagged with supporting de-funding of the police. They will cry about how they use this system to prop up their budgets when the local governments fail to adequately fund them.
throwaway894345 6y ago
In fairness, "systemic" is not well-defined, and it's routinely used as a weasel word. For example, if we're talking about police shootings of Black Americans, and I invoke "systemic racism" to imply that police are prejudice against blacks in their killings and thus America is a racist ethnostate, you could point out that police kill whites and blacks at comparable rates when accounting for crime rates, at which point I would retreat to "'systematic' refers to whatever system is causing blacks to commit crimes at elevated rates, i.e., legacy of slavery and racism" which is probably correct but supports an opposite set of moral implications and solutions. In my experience, people who are willing to be honest, precise, and consistent in their terminology tend to have more reasonable and productive debates. They can often agree on many things with the people who are supposed to be their enemies and the disagreements are more understandable. Notably, most Americans probably agree that this law is heinously unjust. EDIT: People are fixating on the example and assuming that crime rate disparities are manufactured or a result of law-enforcement bias, but that doesn't hold up to the criminology literature, which controls for LEO bias in a number of ways, including by comparing data sources against victim surveys. So while it's fair to argue that criminologists are failing to account for something, we're not talking about ignorant people making stupid extrapolations. If we're going to go off-topic, then let's at least make it a productive, enlightening digression.
- frazbin 6y ago
  I'm not coming into this as an expert, but I smell a weasel in the phrase 'crime rate', because law enforcement is discretionary and also/therefore racist... I mean it is not by accident. There was a concerted effort to consolidate white power after the civil war, and police were always part of that. Divide and conquer.. restrict where they can live, police their neighborhoods, put them in jail. Criminalizing blackness and then calling 'blacks' criminals was literally and explicitly part of the plan. Obviously not part of everybody's plan, but it's a continuation of the devil's bargain in our constitution: loyalty from the south in exchange for chattel slavery in our city on a hill. It's disgusting but ofc history is dead people, we can choose to recreate these institutions or dismantle them... but... Being honest, precise, and consistent in your terminology isn't too helpful if you choose to ignore american history. 'Systemic' racism is the appropriate term because it must be understood as a whole for the parts to make sense. Your misunderstanding kinda illustrates this. Cause really the remedy for police killings and for high "crime rates" among "blacks" are in fact the same, and relate to the manner and amount of policing.
  - RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
    > but I smell a weasel in the phrase 'crime rate', because law enforcement is discretionary and also/therefore racist This is why homicide rates are useful. For most cases, it is pretty obvious a crime of some sort occurred.
    - jakelazaroff 6y ago
      Okay, but you can't extrapolate homicide rate to find the rate of e.g. drug use. This is a complicated issue with many interwoven contributing factors. There's no one magic figure you can point to that explains or disproves everything.
      - throwaway894345 6y ago
        It doesn't disprove anything, but it puts the onus back on those who claim that the police are racist, that we live in a racist ethnostate, and that we've improved very little with respect to institutional racism since the antebellum period.
Shivetya 6y ago
It isn't just the police. The government at all levels has laws which allow it to seize property from Americans and in most cases without recourse. Welcome to big government, where government officials and politicians do not have to answer for the laws and regulations they put forth. It is the regulatory state that is even more daunting as unelected officials can set rules and fines that are never voted on A recent famous case was seizing and selling a persons house over an eight dollar tax payment.[0] Through forfeiture and excessive fines government routines takes millions, tens of millions per year, from Americans each year. From losing your property over tax issues, forfeiture from police stops, excessive fines for property violations[1], to just simply losing money for trying to fly with it [2] Why doesn't this get more attention here? Simple, this site seems to have a poisonous view of Libertarian issues and links to sites which cover these transgressions daily but are on Libertarian sites get flagged or down voted into oblivion. [0]https://reason.com/2020/07/24/county-wants-answers-from-treasurer-who-seized-mans-home-over-8-tax-bill/ https://reason.com/2020/07/24/county-wants-answers-from-trea... [1] https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/politics/2019/07/19/florida-city-hits-homeowners-massive-penalties-supreme-court-excessive-fines/1691703001/ https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/politics/2019/07/19/f... [2]https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/the-dea-seized-her-fathers-life-savings-at-an-airport-without-alleging-any-crime-occurred-lawsuit-says/2020/01/15/1d9986e6-36e6-11ea-bb7b-265f4554af6d_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/the-dea-s...
lhorie 6y ago
IMHO, the problem is that americans have gotten used to taking things too literally and being overly nitpicky, rather than look at a big picture. The right to bear arms, for example, was originally put there with the intent to allow the people to violently defend against an oppressive regime, if they felt that was what was needed to defend their rights and freedoms. It's since been reduced to nits on the interpretation of "the people" as individuals vs their state, and nowadays, it's been further reduced to nits on rifle sizes, open carry virtue signaling, whatever. This whole thing fits the Benjamin Franklin quote to a tee: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety".
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

It boggles my mind that there’s any debate about whether there are systemic issues with police when we literally have laws on the books that explicitly allow cops to steal from civilians.

dylan604 6y ago

A law meant to deter crime instead gets used as a budget booster. Proposing to change that law in support of personal property rights and nothing else, and you will immediately be tagged with supporting de-funding of the police. They will cry about how they use this system to prop up their budgets when the local governments fail to adequately fund them.

throwaway894345 6y ago

In fairness, "systemic" is not well-defined, and it's routinely used as a weasel word. For example, if we're talking about police shootings of Black Americans, and I invoke "systemic racism" to imply that police are prejudice against blacks in their killings and thus America is a racist ethnostate, you could point out that police kill whites and blacks at comparable rates when accounting for crime rates, at which point I would retreat to "'systematic' refers to whatever system is causing blacks to commit crimes at elevated rates, i.e., legacy of slavery and racism" which is probably correct but supports an opposite set of moral implications and solutions. In my experience, people who are willing to be honest, precise, and consistent in their terminology tend to have more reasonable and productive debates. They can often agree on many things with the people who are supposed to be their enemies and the disagreements are more understandable. Notably, most Americans probably agree that this law is heinously unjust. EDIT: People are fixating on the example and assuming that crime rate disparities are manufactured or a result of law-enforcement bias, but that doesn't hold up to the criminology literature, which controls for LEO bias in a number of ways, including by comparing data sources against victim surveys. So while it's fair to argue that criminologists are failing to account for something, we're not talking about ignorant people making stupid extrapolations. If we're going to go off-topic, then let's at least make it a productive, enlightening digression.

frazbin 6y ago
I'm not coming into this as an expert, but I smell a weasel in the phrase 'crime rate', because law enforcement is discretionary and also/therefore racist... I mean it is not by accident. There was a concerted effort to consolidate white power after the civil war, and police were always part of that. Divide and conquer.. restrict where they can live, police their neighborhoods, put them in jail. Criminalizing blackness and then calling 'blacks' criminals was literally and explicitly part of the plan. Obviously not part of everybody's plan, but it's a continuation of the devil's bargain in our constitution: loyalty from the south in exchange for chattel slavery in our city on a hill. It's disgusting but ofc history is dead people, we can choose to recreate these institutions or dismantle them... but... Being honest, precise, and consistent in your terminology isn't too helpful if you choose to ignore american history. 'Systemic' racism is the appropriate term because it must be understood as a whole for the parts to make sense. Your misunderstanding kinda illustrates this. Cause really the remedy for police killings and for high "crime rates" among "blacks" are in fact the same, and relate to the manner and amount of policing.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
  > but I smell a weasel in the phrase 'crime rate', because law enforcement is discretionary and also/therefore racist This is why homicide rates are useful. For most cases, it is pretty obvious a crime of some sort occurred.
  - jakelazaroff 6y ago
    Okay, but you can't extrapolate homicide rate to find the rate of e.g. drug use. This is a complicated issue with many interwoven contributing factors. There's no one magic figure you can point to that explains or disproves everything.
    - throwaway894345 6y ago
      It doesn't disprove anything, but it puts the onus back on those who claim that the police are racist, that we live in a racist ethnostate, and that we've improved very little with respect to institutional racism since the antebellum period.

Shivetya 6y ago

It isn't just the police. The government at all levels has laws which allow it to seize property from Americans and in most cases without recourse. Welcome to big government, where government officials and politicians do not have to answer for the laws and regulations they put forth. It is the regulatory state that is even more daunting as unelected officials can set rules and fines that are never voted on A recent famous case was seizing and selling a persons house over an eight dollar tax payment.[0] Through forfeiture and excessive fines government routines takes millions, tens of millions per year, from Americans each year. From losing your property over tax issues, forfeiture from police stops, excessive fines for property violations[1], to just simply losing money for trying to fly with it [2] Why doesn't this get more attention here? Simple, this site seems to have a poisonous view of Libertarian issues and links to sites which cover these transgressions daily but are on Libertarian sites get flagged or down voted into oblivion. [0]https://reason.com/2020/07/24/county-wants-answers-from-treasurer-who-seized-mans-home-over-8-tax-bill/ https://reason.com/2020/07/24/county-wants-answers-from-trea... [1] https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/politics/2019/07/19/florida-city-hits-homeowners-massive-penalties-supreme-court-excessive-fines/1691703001/ https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/politics/2019/07/19/f... [2]https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/the-dea-seized-her-fathers-life-savings-at-an-airport-without-alleging-any-crime-occurred-lawsuit-says/2020/01/15/1d9986e6-36e6-11ea-bb7b-265f4554af6d_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/the-dea-s...

lhorie 6y ago

IMHO, the problem is that americans have gotten used to taking things too literally and being overly nitpicky, rather than look at a big picture. The right to bear arms, for example, was originally put there with the intent to allow the people to violently defend against an oppressive regime, if they felt that was what was needed to defend their rights and freedoms. It's since been reduced to nits on the interpretation of "the people" as individuals vs their state, and nowadays, it's been further reduced to nits on rifle sizes, open carry virtue signaling, whatever. This whole thing fits the Benjamin Franklin quote to a tee: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety".

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]