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Sure, and the article here is about a standout case that deviates from the norm and was made into a national spotlight, which was then investigated and people h

Sure, and the article here is about a standout case that deviates from the norm and was made into a national spotlight, which was then investigated and people have been punished. Do you regard this as a success story too? Maybe you regard it as “small town” petty BS, but local governance is the most important impactful daily politics in most people’s lives, which is why having the democratic process involved at that level is so important. Further, the newspaper is defending their actions as “likely” legal, which suggests even if the cops had ulterior motivations, maybe the journalists in question were not saints. They did at least convince a judge to approve it, though I would agree judges often exhibit the exact same problem as the commissions you applaud. There are other examples of Australian police abuse too, of course - the Human Rights Watch report on Australian police got much less coverage.

skissane 3y ago
> local governance is the most important impactful daily politics in most people’s lives, which is why having the democratic process involved at that level is so important The US has an unusually large degree of local democracy by international standards. But, do people from other rich Western countries which have weaker local governments feel jealous of America over this? In my experience, largely no. Which calls into question how valuable it really is > There are other examples of Australian police abuse too Nobody claims Australian police are saints, but I think everyone would agree they have less of a problem with abuse and brutality than US police do. On a per capita basis, annual numbers of people killed by law enforcement in the US is over 20 times higher than Australia (28.54 per 10 million in 2020 versus 1.7 per 10 million in 2016-17 per [0]) [0] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/police-killings-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/police-ki... Edit: Wikipedia’s figures are different, and show higher rate of police killings in Australia, but still have the US at over 6 times the rate per capita than Australia - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killings_by_law_enforcement._Rates_and_counts_by_country https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killings_by_law_enforcement....
- themadturk 3y ago
  > The US has an unusually large degree of local democracy by international standards. But, do people from other rich Western countries which have weaker local governments feel jealous of America over this? In my experience, largely no. Which calls into question how valuable it really is Which, I suppose, depends largely on whether you're an American or not. Having created a polity that broke completely from the European monarchic traditions, the whole idea was to have a vigorous collection of local democratic entities. For the most part it has proven to work well over the past 200-plus years. Do we care that those who don't share this level of local democracy don't miss having it? Do they know what they're missing? No, and probably not, but that doesn't mean it's not valuable.
  - skissane 3y ago
    > Having created a polity that broke completely from the European monarchic traditions The US system is actually more monarchical than the parliamentary systems found in most of Europe and the Commonwealth, whether we are talking about constitutional monarchies or parliamentary republics such as Germany, Austria or Ireland – https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32741802 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32741802 "Great Britain is a republic with a hereditary president, while the United States is a monarchy with an elective king" (The Knoxville Journal, 9 February 1896) > For the most part it has proven to work well over the past 200-plus years When you look at various measures on which the US performs below average compared to comparable countries – such as police brutality – you have to ask to what extent this contributes to that. > Do we care that those who don't share this level of local democracy don't miss having it? Do they know what they're missing? No, and probably not, but that doesn't mean it's not valuable. What percentage of Americans think the way you do? Surely, it isn't 100%. Indeed, I wonder what percentage have ever seriously thought about this issue at all.
    - themadturk 3y ago
      I'm not sure the European nations were less monarchical at the time of the American Revolution, when the break I spoke of occurred. Most countries that are parliamentary today were monarchical in the 1770s, and many remained so until the early 20th century. If anything, the parliamentary republics we see today were products of the mid-19th century revolutions that sought to overturn those monarchies, with some inspiration from the example of the American revolution. As for local democracy, police problems are far from the only measure of success (or failure). States, towns, cities and counties in the U.S. still freely elect mayors, councils, judges, sheriffs; they vote on local taxation for schools, libraries, and city, county and state services. Police behavior and oversite are definitely a problem, but not a good example of the whole of local democracy. It's unfortunate, of course, that there are parts of the U.S. that use the democratic process to remove services as well as fund them. Locally elected legislatures, school boards and city councils use their delegated powers to defund libraries, restrict voting rights and medical services and, of course restrict abortion rights. Democracy means decisions are made you don't agree with. I would contend that not many Americans think much about this because they haven't needed to. This is the way the country has always worked. On the other hand, you're right, it's not 100%, since there's a growing number of Americans who are using the tools of local democracy to remove and restrict rights and services to citizens.

skissane 3y ago

> local governance is the most important impactful daily politics in most people’s lives, which is why having the democratic process involved at that level is so important The US has an unusually large degree of local democracy by international standards. But, do people from other rich Western countries which have weaker local governments feel jealous of America over this? In my experience, largely no. Which calls into question how valuable it really is > There are other examples of Australian police abuse too Nobody claims Australian police are saints, but I think everyone would agree they have less of a problem with abuse and brutality than US police do. On a per capita basis, annual numbers of people killed by law enforcement in the US is over 20 times higher than Australia (28.54 per 10 million in 2020 versus 1.7 per 10 million in 2016-17 per [0]) [0] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/police-killings-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/police-ki... Edit: Wikipedia’s figures are different, and show higher rate of police killings in Australia, but still have the US at over 6 times the rate per capita than Australia - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killings_by_law_enforcement._Rates_and_counts_by_country https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killings_by_law_enforcement....

themadturk 3y ago
> The US has an unusually large degree of local democracy by international standards. But, do people from other rich Western countries which have weaker local governments feel jealous of America over this? In my experience, largely no. Which calls into question how valuable it really is Which, I suppose, depends largely on whether you're an American or not. Having created a polity that broke completely from the European monarchic traditions, the whole idea was to have a vigorous collection of local democratic entities. For the most part it has proven to work well over the past 200-plus years. Do we care that those who don't share this level of local democracy don't miss having it? Do they know what they're missing? No, and probably not, but that doesn't mean it's not valuable.
- skissane 3y ago
  > Having created a polity that broke completely from the European monarchic traditions The US system is actually more monarchical than the parliamentary systems found in most of Europe and the Commonwealth, whether we are talking about constitutional monarchies or parliamentary republics such as Germany, Austria or Ireland – https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32741802 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32741802 "Great Britain is a republic with a hereditary president, while the United States is a monarchy with an elective king" (The Knoxville Journal, 9 February 1896) > For the most part it has proven to work well over the past 200-plus years When you look at various measures on which the US performs below average compared to comparable countries – such as police brutality – you have to ask to what extent this contributes to that. > Do we care that those who don't share this level of local democracy don't miss having it? Do they know what they're missing? No, and probably not, but that doesn't mean it's not valuable. What percentage of Americans think the way you do? Surely, it isn't 100%. Indeed, I wonder what percentage have ever seriously thought about this issue at all.
  - themadturk 3y ago
    I'm not sure the European nations were less monarchical at the time of the American Revolution, when the break I spoke of occurred. Most countries that are parliamentary today were monarchical in the 1770s, and many remained so until the early 20th century. If anything, the parliamentary republics we see today were products of the mid-19th century revolutions that sought to overturn those monarchies, with some inspiration from the example of the American revolution. As for local democracy, police problems are far from the only measure of success (or failure). States, towns, cities and counties in the U.S. still freely elect mayors, councils, judges, sheriffs; they vote on local taxation for schools, libraries, and city, county and state services. Police behavior and oversite are definitely a problem, but not a good example of the whole of local democracy. It's unfortunate, of course, that there are parts of the U.S. that use the democratic process to remove services as well as fund them. Locally elected legislatures, school boards and city councils use their delegated powers to defund libraries, restrict voting rights and medical services and, of course restrict abortion rights. Democracy means decisions are made you don't agree with. I would contend that not many Americans think much about this because they haven't needed to. This is the way the country has always worked. On the other hand, you're right, it's not 100%, since there's a growing number of Americans who are using the tools of local democracy to remove and restrict rights and services to citizens.