7 ms·

This country was founded on checks and balances. Without adversarial checks on the police, our country is literally done for.

111111IIIIIII 3y ago
[flagged]
- devsegal 3y ago
  From someone who's curious, why would the concept of "checks and balances" appear juvenile? Do you find it represents an ideal without possible application in the real world? Genuinely interested in hearing the why behind your statement.
  - 111111IIIIIII 3y ago
    Basically yes. It's only useful in the idealistic universe of grade school political science. In actual politics, collusion, careerism, bribery, etc. will persist. A different set of official rules is only a different starting point for the same inevitable behavior. Furthermore, in America's case, the ultimate check will always be the check the capitalists are writing to the politicians.
    - gottorf 3y ago
      > In actual politics, collusion, careerism, bribery, etc. will persist. Hence the whole idea behind checks and balances, i.e. "ambition must be made to counteract ambition". The founders were well aware that any system of government that depends on an unbroken chain of decent people is bound to fail, and fail much sooner rather than later. By decentralizing power and slicing and dicing it into many layers and segments (local vs. state vs. federal, executive vs. judicial vs. legislative), the damage done by collusion, careerism, bribery, etc. will be more limited and easier to be balanced out by the other forces in government. Systems must be designed so that individuals trending towards fulfilling their own incentives nevertheless generate positive outcomes for the system as a whole. American government does a pretty good job at that. So does capitalism as a whole; as Adam Smith put it, "it is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest".
  - Eddy_Viscosity2 3y ago
    Not my comment, but I would say its because the checks and balances on people in power are also performed by people in power so many times its just a bit of theatre. Like when you see the police do something absolutely brutally and clear as day a breach of duty and violating someone's rights that should have them not only fired and barred from ever again serving in law enforcement but also put in jail; yet are 'cleared of all wrong-doing' by the police system of checks and balances.
    - NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
      > Not my comment, but I would say its because the checks and balances on people in power are also performed by people in power so many times its just a bit of theatre. This is at best naive. People in power, when not already aligned into some faction or cartel tend to be adversarial with each other. People in power like keeping theirs, but also taking others'. Thus, they are also on guard about others taking their power. When the checks and balances fail, it's usually because someone screwed up and tinkered with things they did not really understand, undermining these mechanisms. The 17th amendment comes to mind. Even if you were right, the answer to insufficient safeguards isn't "fewer safeguards". > Like when you see the police do something absolutely brutally and clear as day a breach of duty and violating someone's rights that should have them not only fired and barred from ever again serving in law enforcement but also put in jail; yet are 'cleared of all wrong-doing' by the police system of checks and balances. Two things come to mind. First, nothing you've described herewithin is even remotely a "checks and balances" system. Second, the problem with the police is that everyone erroneously believes that they want to keep the police only that the police should do what they do to some other group than that they're currently abusing. The police do not actually accomplish any objectives that anyone (non-homicidal-psychopaths) want. If your bike or car is stolen, they don't retrieve your property... they tell you to fuck off and go have insurance handle it. If you're mugged or raped or killed, they don't catch your assailant except by accident (and likely will bungle that prosecution anyway). If you're still being attacked, they're unlikely to rescue you, don't even have a duty to do so. And god help anyone who comes to their attention when they're in a bad mood. You already live in a world where the police that you want to exist in your idealistic daydreams do not exist. Neither in whole nor in part. And you survive (more or less) just fine. We could get rid of the abusive police (that's all of them), and nothing would get worse for you. Most people don't want that though. They imagine doomsday scenarios where chaos would instantly erupt.
  - 0xParlay 3y ago
    Sweet summer child. To truly "get it" you have to unlearn the years of systemic and structural conditioning from the capital class before I'd even dream of going into the nuances of vanguardism. Your struggle with False Consciousness is totally relatable but can only be overcome with the warm guidance of Lenin. Come brother, it's totally not a cult.
    - giraffe_lady 3y ago
      This but unironically.
      - 0xParlay 3y ago
        Irony is a Western frivolity. You balkanize the movement by questioning my integrity? Comrade, you will be dealt with.
      - mrguyorama 3y ago
        I mean, leninism isn't the best idea, since he was pretty into the whole "killing people is great if it collectivizes faster" which I don't think is acceptable.
        111111IIIIIII 3y ago
        [dead]
  - ROTMetro 3y ago
    In theory there is something called 'chain of custody' with criminal evidence. That is the check. But in reality, if the chain of custody is messed up, the judge will use 'good faith' to still allow the evidence. So 'chain of custody' exists to placate those that have never been through the system as a make believe check to make them complacent. Go search a case database for 'chain of custody' and 'good faith' and realize chain of custody has been made optional by the judges bench because 'good faith'.
- josephd79 3y ago
  Evansville, Indiana isn't rural. It's a city of 100,000 people. If you take the entire county it's closer to 200k. Regardless, using this software to spy on people, illegally identify people etc is just F'd up.
  - 111111IIIIIII 3y ago
    Fair enough. I've never heard of the place, but my point stands.
    - last_responder 3y ago
      No it doesn't. Your point is nonsense.
    - btilly 3y ago
      No, your point does not stand. Karl Marx asserted a bunch of things without proof. Everywhere that his ideas were tried turned into a disaster. Usually resulting in totalitarian rule. And often accompanied by mass casualties. Meanwhile countries that went to capitalism have become far more democratic than they were in Karl Marx's day. They are still not as democratic as you'd like. But read your history books. For example in Marx's day, the USA was just ending slavery. Since then we added the vote for women, made "senator" an elected position, mostly ended vote buying, and passed the Voting Rights Act. Compare and contrast with, say, Russia. Karl Marx's theories were pseudoscience that didn't work. He didn't prove anything when he said them. And all that you are prove by quoting him is that you are misinformed.
      - 111111IIIIIII 3y ago
        [dead]
  - aidenn0 3y ago
    Yeah, it's about as rural as Santa Barbara.
    - 3y ago
drewcoo 3y ago
This country was founded without police. https://time.com/4779112/police-history-origins/ https://time.com/4779112/police-history-origins/
- xhkkffbf 3y ago
  That's not exactly what the article says. It just says that the police forces were largely privatized and part-time. Naturally that changed as the country grew. This feeds a strange notion that society was just fine without police. It wasn't.
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
    > It just says that the police forces were largely privatized and part-time. That's just disingenuous. These "police forces" were nothing like anything we have today, either in degree or kind. I don't know the name of this particular fallacy, but it's when you imagine something from modern life must have existed previous to this era, if but more primitive. There just wasn't any equivalent. If we could time travel and go experience the late 1700s, we wouldn't say "oh, so those sheriffs and those US marshals were the police, I didn't recognize the uniform!". We'd be amazed and disturbed by how different life was in that regard.
marak830 3y ago
I'm sorry my man, but from the outside? That's just a thing that is said and never acted upon.
- sixothree 3y ago
  That's kind of my point.

111111IIIIIII 3y ago

[flagged]

devsegal 3y ago
From someone who's curious, why would the concept of "checks and balances" appear juvenile? Do you find it represents an ideal without possible application in the real world? Genuinely interested in hearing the why behind your statement.
- 111111IIIIIII 3y ago
  Basically yes. It's only useful in the idealistic universe of grade school political science. In actual politics, collusion, careerism, bribery, etc. will persist. A different set of official rules is only a different starting point for the same inevitable behavior. Furthermore, in America's case, the ultimate check will always be the check the capitalists are writing to the politicians.
  - gottorf 3y ago
    > In actual politics, collusion, careerism, bribery, etc. will persist. Hence the whole idea behind checks and balances, i.e. "ambition must be made to counteract ambition". The founders were well aware that any system of government that depends on an unbroken chain of decent people is bound to fail, and fail much sooner rather than later. By decentralizing power and slicing and dicing it into many layers and segments (local vs. state vs. federal, executive vs. judicial vs. legislative), the damage done by collusion, careerism, bribery, etc. will be more limited and easier to be balanced out by the other forces in government. Systems must be designed so that individuals trending towards fulfilling their own incentives nevertheless generate positive outcomes for the system as a whole. American government does a pretty good job at that. So does capitalism as a whole; as Adam Smith put it, "it is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest".
- Eddy_Viscosity2 3y ago
  Not my comment, but I would say its because the checks and balances on people in power are also performed by people in power so many times its just a bit of theatre. Like when you see the police do something absolutely brutally and clear as day a breach of duty and violating someone's rights that should have them not only fired and barred from ever again serving in law enforcement but also put in jail; yet are 'cleared of all wrong-doing' by the police system of checks and balances.
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
    > Not my comment, but I would say its because the checks and balances on people in power are also performed by people in power so many times its just a bit of theatre. This is at best naive. People in power, when not already aligned into some faction or cartel tend to be adversarial with each other. People in power like keeping theirs, but also taking others'. Thus, they are also on guard about others taking their power. When the checks and balances fail, it's usually because someone screwed up and tinkered with things they did not really understand, undermining these mechanisms. The 17th amendment comes to mind. Even if you were right, the answer to insufficient safeguards isn't "fewer safeguards". > Like when you see the police do something absolutely brutally and clear as day a breach of duty and violating someone's rights that should have them not only fired and barred from ever again serving in law enforcement but also put in jail; yet are 'cleared of all wrong-doing' by the police system of checks and balances. Two things come to mind. First, nothing you've described herewithin is even remotely a "checks and balances" system. Second, the problem with the police is that everyone erroneously believes that they want to keep the police only that the police should do what they do to some other group than that they're currently abusing. The police do not actually accomplish any objectives that anyone (non-homicidal-psychopaths) want. If your bike or car is stolen, they don't retrieve your property... they tell you to fuck off and go have insurance handle it. If you're mugged or raped or killed, they don't catch your assailant except by accident (and likely will bungle that prosecution anyway). If you're still being attacked, they're unlikely to rescue you, don't even have a duty to do so. And god help anyone who comes to their attention when they're in a bad mood. You already live in a world where the police that you want to exist in your idealistic daydreams do not exist. Neither in whole nor in part. And you survive (more or less) just fine. We could get rid of the abusive police (that's all of them), and nothing would get worse for you. Most people don't want that though. They imagine doomsday scenarios where chaos would instantly erupt.
- 0xParlay 3y ago
  Sweet summer child. To truly "get it" you have to unlearn the years of systemic and structural conditioning from the capital class before I'd even dream of going into the nuances of vanguardism. Your struggle with False Consciousness is totally relatable but can only be overcome with the warm guidance of Lenin. Come brother, it's totally not a cult.
  - giraffe_lady 3y ago
    This but unironically.
    - 0xParlay 3y ago
      Irony is a Western frivolity. You balkanize the movement by questioning my integrity? Comrade, you will be dealt with.
    - mrguyorama 3y ago
      I mean, leninism isn't the best idea, since he was pretty into the whole "killing people is great if it collectivizes faster" which I don't think is acceptable.
      - 111111IIIIIII 3y ago
        [dead]
- ROTMetro 3y ago
  In theory there is something called 'chain of custody' with criminal evidence. That is the check. But in reality, if the chain of custody is messed up, the judge will use 'good faith' to still allow the evidence. So 'chain of custody' exists to placate those that have never been through the system as a make believe check to make them complacent. Go search a case database for 'chain of custody' and 'good faith' and realize chain of custody has been made optional by the judges bench because 'good faith'.
josephd79 3y ago
Evansville, Indiana isn't rural. It's a city of 100,000 people. If you take the entire county it's closer to 200k. Regardless, using this software to spy on people, illegally identify people etc is just F'd up.
- 111111IIIIIII 3y ago
  Fair enough. I've never heard of the place, but my point stands.
  - last_responder 3y ago
    No it doesn't. Your point is nonsense.
  - btilly 3y ago
    No, your point does not stand. Karl Marx asserted a bunch of things without proof. Everywhere that his ideas were tried turned into a disaster. Usually resulting in totalitarian rule. And often accompanied by mass casualties. Meanwhile countries that went to capitalism have become far more democratic than they were in Karl Marx's day. They are still not as democratic as you'd like. But read your history books. For example in Marx's day, the USA was just ending slavery. Since then we added the vote for women, made "senator" an elected position, mostly ended vote buying, and passed the Voting Rights Act. Compare and contrast with, say, Russia. Karl Marx's theories were pseudoscience that didn't work. He didn't prove anything when he said them. And all that you are prove by quoting him is that you are misinformed.
    - 111111IIIIIII 3y ago
      [dead]
- aidenn0 3y ago
  Yeah, it's about as rural as Santa Barbara.
  - 3y ago

drewcoo 3y ago

This country was founded without police. https://time.com/4779112/police-history-origins/ https://time.com/4779112/police-history-origins/

xhkkffbf 3y ago
That's not exactly what the article says. It just says that the police forces were largely privatized and part-time. Naturally that changed as the country grew. This feeds a strange notion that society was just fine without police. It wasn't.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
  > It just says that the police forces were largely privatized and part-time. That's just disingenuous. These "police forces" were nothing like anything we have today, either in degree or kind. I don't know the name of this particular fallacy, but it's when you imagine something from modern life must have existed previous to this era, if but more primitive. There just wasn't any equivalent. If we could time travel and go experience the late 1700s, we wouldn't say "oh, so those sheriffs and those US marshals were the police, I didn't recognize the uniform!". We'd be amazed and disturbed by how different life was in that regard.

marak830 3y ago

I'm sorry my man, but from the outside? That's just a thing that is said and never acted upon.

sixothree 3y ago
That's kind of my point.