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I hate to say it this way, but it’s our own darn fault as voters… imagine a DA (or a local elected prosecuting attorney…) does that. If they stay in their curre

I hate to say it this way, but it’s our own darn fault as voters… imagine a DA (or a local elected prosecuting attorney…) does that. If they stay in their current role, now the police become hostile and unwilling to work with them. Now let’s say they want to run for higher office / get reelected. Police union comes after them, opponent calls them soft-on-crime and anti-police. The general public doesn’t have the energy to actually follow the chain of issues or understand the situation, but they do respond to sound bytes. Often, the media can’t understand the situation well enough themselves, so even in the event you still have a local news source, they are unlikely to report in a way that the public understands what’s really happening. And - the press may not want to anger the police either, as they want the inside story. So… the wheel keeps on turning.

Ms-J 3y ago
This cycle could be fixed in a few ways. One would be if a few citizens' invested some energy into creating an interesting video/sound clip of what's really happening in court and the news picks up on that. Or it spreads via social media like TikTok. It seems that quite a few people are interested in cops or court drama, and this could demystify the situation and show it for what it really is.
saghm 3y ago
So the police unions dominate the conversation to the point where they drown out all other points of view, and the press might help them, and this is our fault as voters...how? It's not like there are tons of obviously tough on police prosecutors running either; even if someone happens to get nominated saying this, there's no guarantee they'd actually follow through once in office and dealing with a bunch of pressure from essentially everyone _but_ the voters between election years. There are a ton of interests at play, and yes, voting a certain way might help, but reforming a corrupt system is definitely not as simple as "we just vote for the other guy this time".
- poulsbohemian 3y ago
  >reforming a corrupt system is definitely not as simple as "we just vote for the other guy this time". Of course not. But do you see how that DA or PA are disincentivized to take on the police?
  - saghm 3y ago
    > But do you see how that DA or PA are disincentivized to take on the police? I don't see how to elect someone who doesn't have the same incentive with regard to the police. The fact that the disincentive to take on the police is such a fundamental part of how the job works is precisely why I don't think the problem can be solved by just electing a different DA; the system itself needs to be changed, and that requires a lot of coordination across multiple fronts. Voting for different people is necessary for that sort of change but not nearly sufficient, which is why I think that saying it's purely the fault of voters for electing the wrong people is a gross oversimplification.
  - SauciestGNU 3y ago
    Look what happened to Chesa Boudin, expect that to be the playbook opposing any prosecutor working toward systemic changes. Another example is Desantis removing elected prosecutors who oppose the police/fascist agenda.
    - Tangurena2 3y ago
      > Another example is Desantis removing elected prosecutors who oppose the police/fascist agenda. The desire and laws written to do this sort of thing come from lobbying organizations like ALEC [0][1][2]. This and other similar organizations basically write "model laws" and hand them to legislators to pass. That's why all the "red" states suddenly decided to outlaw trans people at the same time. They dodge lobbying oversight laws by having legislators become "members" of their club. 0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Legislative_Exchange_Council https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Legislative_Exchange_... 1 - https://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed https://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed 2 - https://www.commoncause.org/our-work/money-influence/alec/ https://www.commoncause.org/our-work/money-influence/alec/

Ms-J 3y ago

This cycle could be fixed in a few ways. One would be if a few citizens' invested some energy into creating an interesting video/sound clip of what's really happening in court and the news picks up on that. Or it spreads via social media like TikTok. It seems that quite a few people are interested in cops or court drama, and this could demystify the situation and show it for what it really is.

saghm 3y ago

So the police unions dominate the conversation to the point where they drown out all other points of view, and the press might help them, and this is our fault as voters...how? It's not like there are tons of obviously tough on police prosecutors running either; even if someone happens to get nominated saying this, there's no guarantee they'd actually follow through once in office and dealing with a bunch of pressure from essentially everyone _but_ the voters between election years. There are a ton of interests at play, and yes, voting a certain way might help, but reforming a corrupt system is definitely not as simple as "we just vote for the other guy this time".

poulsbohemian 3y ago
>reforming a corrupt system is definitely not as simple as "we just vote for the other guy this time". Of course not. But do you see how that DA or PA are disincentivized to take on the police?
- saghm 3y ago
  > But do you see how that DA or PA are disincentivized to take on the police? I don't see how to elect someone who doesn't have the same incentive with regard to the police. The fact that the disincentive to take on the police is such a fundamental part of how the job works is precisely why I don't think the problem can be solved by just electing a different DA; the system itself needs to be changed, and that requires a lot of coordination across multiple fronts. Voting for different people is necessary for that sort of change but not nearly sufficient, which is why I think that saying it's purely the fault of voters for electing the wrong people is a gross oversimplification.
- SauciestGNU 3y ago
  Look what happened to Chesa Boudin, expect that to be the playbook opposing any prosecutor working toward systemic changes. Another example is Desantis removing elected prosecutors who oppose the police/fascist agenda.
  - Tangurena2 3y ago
    > Another example is Desantis removing elected prosecutors who oppose the police/fascist agenda. The desire and laws written to do this sort of thing come from lobbying organizations like ALEC [0][1][2]. This and other similar organizations basically write "model laws" and hand them to legislators to pass. That's why all the "red" states suddenly decided to outlaw trans people at the same time. They dodge lobbying oversight laws by having legislators become "members" of their club. 0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Legislative_Exchange_Council https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Legislative_Exchange_... 1 - https://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed https://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed 2 - https://www.commoncause.org/our-work/money-influence/alec/ https://www.commoncause.org/our-work/money-influence/alec/