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It's exhausting that the "solution" to problems like this is getting tens or hundreds of thousands of citizens stressed until enough public attention gives some
by zug_zug 4mo ago
It's exhausting that the "solution" to problems like this is getting tens or hundreds of thousands of citizens stressed until enough public attention gives some small chance of redress. I'm not calling for violence, but if we can't get these things fixed in court there has to be a more effect and more forceful avenue for protest than venting on internet forums.
- drekipus 4mo ago[flagged]
- josephg 4mo agoI saw a clip the other day of an American comedian doing crowd work in Paris. He asked the audience what America should do, and the French said - something like - they should punch the police more and light things on fire. To me that sounds crazy! But, I can see how it works for the French. They protest all the time, and the government is very responsive to the needs of the people. Much more so than the American government sees to be.
- nicbou 4mo agoIs the French government more responsive than those of neighbouring countries?
- boricj 4mo agoProbably because we have a well established history of regularly changing regimes. Since we overthrew royalty in 1789 we've had five republics, two empires, three monarchies and a bunch of short-lived totalitarian regimes, coups and other major political events. If anything, the longevity of the Fifth Republic is starting to become unusual (only the Third Republic and the Ancien Régime have lasted longer). Maybe we're overdue to flip the table again as per tradition.
- Lerc 4mo agoHow well did they turn out for people each time?
- soco 4mo agoHealth insurance, unions, paid vacation... al in all I'd say not that bad.
- sarchertech 4mo agoPlenty of other countries have those things as well. And plenty of countries that have even more frequent political upheaval don’t have those things. I don’t know that regular political violence is positively correlated with worker protections.
- tremon 4mo ago> I don’t know that regular political violence is positively correlated with worker protections In fact, it's quite easy to find examples of political violence being used to reduce worker protections: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-union_violence_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-union_violence_in_the_Uni...
- Lerc 4mo agoalso >two empires, three monarchies and a bunch of short-lived totalitarian regimes, coups and other major political events. Do you think you'd still have the Health insurance, unions, and paid vacation after another roll of the dice
- boricj 4mo agoI'm only pointing out that ever since the French revolution, we have a rich history of regime change (and also of strikes and demonstrations). Some were due to external factors (like the Vichy régime during WW2) and some were bloodless (like the end of the Fourth Republic). Us rolling the dice whenever we have a major political crisis is a meme at this point, for better or for worse we're just not the kind of people to keep the same constitution around for 250 years.
- breezybottom 4mo agoThose two things are contradictory. Obviously the government isn't very responsive if they are constantly protesting.
- dgellow 4mo agoIt’s not contradictory, protesting doesn’t make sense as a one time thing, you have to continuously put pressure and show you have power as a group
- breezybottom 4mo agoOnly if you have a government that isn't responsive or accountable to you.
- smoe 4mo agoI don't know how effective the French protests are, since I haven't lived in Europe for a while. But even as a Swiss, at least judging from TV, protests in the U.S. generally seem very tame. Not advocating punching the police as a default, but in my opinion, protests need to be disruptive if they're going to get anyone's attention at all. I don't really see what a few people standing on the sidewalk with cardboard signs are supposed to accomplish.
- ramgine 4mo agoAmerican police are much more inclined to escalate any violence instead of trying to de-escalate.
- pesus 4mo agoAnd if there isn't violence, the police tend to escalate things and make it violent. I suspect this works to prevent/neuter any serious protests so long as the potential protestors still have something to lose, and in America there is very little in the way of a safety net, so living conditions would have to (continue to?) deteriorate quite a bit before protests started heading in a French direction.
- mc32 4mo agoI don't know if you know, but quite a few European countries are known to send police or "state" confederates into protests to give authorities an excuse to Escalate. You also see lots more water cannons being used over there. In Paris the burning and destruction typically happens in the outer "boroughs" of the city -usually by disaffected groups -sometimes they happen to be disenfranchised- though typically they harm the older generation's property and that generation typically frowns upon the destruction. Of course, in the US, we've had organizations who on paper are for justice and redress being found to foment agitation. It's a total corruption of their mandate. We had an "anti-hate" group paying hate groups to "do things"[1]. [1]https://www.congress.gov/119/meeting/house/119311/witnesses/HHRG-119-JU00-Wstate-ONeilT-20260520.pdf https://www.congress.gov/119/meeting/house/119311/witnesses/...
- LiquidSky 4mo agoI feel like in the US if you punched a cop the cop and his colleagues are much more likely to just shoot you, or at least unleash brutal violence on you and the rest of the crowd. I guess the idea is to provoke these kind of battles in hopes that the cops can be overwhelmed or at least public opinion goes to your side?
- andrepd 4mo agoI know that "French strikes" and "French setting fire to things" is a popular American trope, but things really don't work like that. If that were the case France would be a much better place than other European countries, and it really is not.
- josephg 4mo ago> "French setting fire to things" is a popular American trope, but things really don't work like that. They worked like that when I was in Paris ~3 years ago! At the time, people were rioting over the retirement age changes. I walked around the city the day after the protests. The city smelled like burned plastic. There were burned out rubbish bins and the husks of melted lime bikes & scooters all over the place. I've never seen anything like it.
- lII1lIlI11ll 4mo agoOnly if you believe that always caving in to a violent mob burning random (private citizen-owned, non-government) cars in Paris leads to better outcomes for the country.
- al_borland 4mo agoFrance is a much smaller country. When there is a mass protest in the US, it ends of being a bunch of smaller protests all over the country, which lacks the power of a single concentrated protest. These various satellite protests just end up being a minor nuisance, which don’t amount to much. The media in the US often ignores the protests they (or their owners) don’t agree with. This also weakens them significantly. I remember having to go to Twitter to see what was going on with a lot of the Occupy Wall Street stuff, because the news was acting like it wasn’t going on. Without attention, and fractured across the country, it faded out. The protest area where I was living at the time slowly shifted into a homeless encampment, before they eventually cleared them out.
- marcus_holmes 4mo agoDemocracy needs real journalism to function. Having all the rich people own all the journalists isn't going to end well. We need to find a working business model for journalism that doesn't rely on rich folks.
- al_borland 4mo agoI think news outlets need to be run as a non-profit to remove the types of people with aspirations of wealth, instead of aspirations to report and inform the public, from the sector.
- marcus_holmes 4mo agoUsually rich folks buy newsrooms not to make a profit, but to control the narrative. No journalist joins a newsroom to become rich. Famous, maybe, but not rich. The business model used to be advertising, but the internet destroyed that model. And we don't have a replacement, while democracy doesn't work without someone holding the politicians to account.
- BurningFrog 4mo agoBy what measure does it work for the French? They have 8% unemployment, 30% less GDP per capita than the US, and many other problems. Government by caving in to riots is not in general being responsive to the needs of the people.
- bumby 4mo agoWell gee, to start France has higher healthcare quality/access, higher life expectancy, much lower treatable mortality, better work-life balance (less hours worked, more guaranteed leave), lower wealth inequality, higher voter turnout (indicative of less apathy or less efforts to disenfranchise), among others. One of the problems with just using economic metrics is it seems to confuse the fact that the economy is supposed to serve society, not the other way around. So it leads one to wonder: with those better economic measures, what is it buying for US citizens?
- dghlsakjg 4mo agoMany Americans have a strong bias for measuring everything in money. If you've lived there, it can be shocking how pervasive the thinking is in EVERY decision.
- bumby 4mo agoTo quote de Tocqueville: “I know of no country, indeed, where the love of money has taken a stronger hold on the affections of men…”
- rapsacnz 4mo agoAlso France scores hugely better on the international cheese index
- WarmWash 4mo agoAll these things become meaningless when you cross the ~50th income percentile. Besides work/life balance, the US gets much better as you earn more, and frankly high earners are generally less concerned with time off work too. Also why the US enjoyed ~30 years of European brain drain, those benefits are much less enticing when you are the one paying more and getting less.
- Waterluvian 4mo agoI think it’s important that the ultra powerful never feel they’re unreachable by guillotine.
- frogperson 4mo agoThat's alot less risky in France where the police have more than an 8th grade education, no guns, and aren't jacked up on right-wing hate propaganda 24/7. You punch a cop in the US and there's more than a 50% chance, that a given cop has been dreaming of "protecting himself" by any means necessary. In other words, you are going to get shot in the chest.
- killbot5000 4mo agoOr a shot in the back.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- squidsoup 4mo agoIt is much more than that, egalitarianism is fundamental to French culture.
- whack 4mo ago> the French said - something like - they should punch the police more and light things on fire. I'm trying to wrap my head around this as well. Do these people want "punching the police and lighting things on fire" to be a freely permitted form of free speech? If so, should anyone be legally allowed to destroy any amount of stuff, for any reason they feel unhappy about? Or is this a case of "blowing stuff up should only be permitted for causes I like, not for causes I dislike"? If not, do they see the irony in endorsing behaviors that they simultaneously believe should not be legalized?
- xeonmc 4mo agoMaybe in their eyes those are the less-violent alternatives than their other options.
- RobotToaster 4mo ago> god forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion - Thomas Jefferson
- mfcl 4mo agoNo, it should be illegal, otherwise everything would get destroyed whenever someone is slightly destroyed. Illegality serves as a kind of filter so that when enough people risk jail or death for a cause, that's because they really had enough. I haven't given that a lot of thought, and it feels weird to say, but maybe the opinion that an act should be done and should be illegal can be true at the same time. When a citizen commits a crime, they messed up. When ten commit a crime, they messed up. When half the village destroys the chief's home, the chief messed up.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- anigbrowl 4mo agoI think you've misunderstood. Such things are also illegal in France. But there are times you need to be prepared to break the law to bring about political change, eg if a government repeatedly demonstrates indifference to public concern. Suppose you are living under very corrupt or autocratic governance, and you protest in the conventional way (marching, waving signs and banners and so on) bu the government simply ignores it, or slanders the protestors for having a different opinion. What do you do then?
- beloch 4mo agoIn Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy, he reviewed Roman records and compared provinces with heavily fortified seats of power to ones that weren't as fortified. The ones that were more fortified tended to be governed in a way that was more callous, less efficient, and less popular. He concluded that it was good for governors to have a reasonable fear of those they governed. The U.S.'s institutions of power are heavily fortified. Political leaders of most countries travel about with a security detail of a few cars at most. The U.S. president has a gargantuan motorcade that's only rivaled in size by those of third world dictators. Arguably, the U.S. president doesn't hold power so much as wield it in the interest of oligarchs, who are even more insulated from the public. If Americans want better government, what they really need to do is make oligarchs and politicians feel like they might actually be made to feel the consequences of their actions. That doesn't necessarily have to mean violence though, if people are creative enough. e.g. Elon Musk wants so much to control what the world thinks of him that he bought Twitter and had Grokipedia made in an attempt to kill Wikipedia, since they have honestly reported on his misadventures with the same standards of rigor applied to other public figures. If you want to make Elon Musk feel consequences, just never let up on him. The dude made Nazi salutes during Trump's inauguration twice. His DOGE idiocy is why Texas livestock is being banned in other countries because of screwworms. Keep talking about that and don't stop.
- ranger_danger 4mo agoThat only works for the French because they're afraid to disappear their own citizens. US has been doing it for the last year and a half.
- themaninthedark 4mo ago>US has been doing it for the last year and a half. Individual jurisdictions have been doing that for much longer than a year and half. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/24/chicago-police-detain-americans-black-site https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/24/chicago-poli...
- tremon 4mo agoYou are basically admitting that the US is already past the point of no return on the road to full-blown oppression: too many government workers not accountable to the people.
- toasty228 4mo ago[flagged]
- sharts 4mo agoCorrect. Leaders not afraid of their constituents are prone to resume driven decision making.
- fylo 4mo agoYou're edging on terrorism
- diordiderot 4mo agoPeople have weird kinks these days
- fwip 4mo agoIf a government does not respond to the wishes of its people, violence is an inevitability. It is in the best interest of the state to be accommodating enough to placate the citizens.
- diordiderot 4mo ago90s medical advertisement disclaimer voice Only if what those people want is something I agree with otherwise I think the state holds the monopoly on violence and we need to mobilize it against the wrong thinker.
- bcrosby95 4mo agoThe funny thing is it's neither terrorism nor illegal if you're just lobbying the government to do it on your behalf.
- hilbert42 4mo agoWhat is left when all other options are exhausted? The American War of Independence, French Revolution and English Civil War were acts of terrorism. Were those acts justified? Not if you're the ones who were initially holding the power.
- Aloisius 4mo agoCalling the American Revolution terrorism, in the modern sense, is a stretch. It was a war waged primarily between soldiers and materiel with the goal of ending the enemy's ability to wage war. Systematic use of terror as a policy to induce fear in the general public to push them to coerce their government's policy was not widely used.
- SecretDreams 4mo agoIt certainly feels like we need a reset on the expectations placed upon politicians at all levels of governance. Somehow. I think politicians have completely lost the plot in their job and who they represent. Instead, they seem all ideologically or financially motivated, and largely seem to get their marching orders from select wealthy CEOs. It's a very bad look that will get worse since trust in govern being so low goes hand in hand with voted apathy. And voted apathy means we get more of the same. It's a bad cycle and I think we'll land on a civil esque war sooner or later.
- wat10000 4mo agoSociety's elites have forgotten that civil institutions exist to be an alternative to resolving disputes through violence. If they completely bend those institutions to their will and leave the common people out in the cold, the result isn't acquiescence, it's revolt. I, too, worry that they're going to rediscover this the hard way at some point.
- bubblegumcrisis 4mo agoShouldn't this revolution be planned for sooner than later. I mean, after the billionaires have robot armies.. I always assumed that this was the end goal of the AI. It's not for normal people, it's for the super wealthy to magnify their power, both economically and physically.
- cyanydeez 4mo agoyeah, it's interesting how we're not allowed to call for violence, eh.
- pesus 4mo agoWe aren't, but the president and certain politicians sure are.
- Lerc 4mo agoThe problem is that, while there are times when violent acts may bring about positive outcomes, it is extremely rare for those outcomes to be in the minds of those committing the acts. It is far more common for someone to commit violence as an expression of their anger, while rationalising that it is justified because they are aware of the arguments in favour of violence apply to whatever it is that they really want to do in the moment.
- bubblegumcrisis 4mo agoDo you think that people haven't had enough time to think about wealth disparity? This argument you make is fine for spur of the moment violence, but for acts resulting from the structure violence of the super wealthy. Dunno.
- thin_carapace 4mo agoin no way does this truth imply that violence is an invalid response, merely that preconsideration is required to determine whether a violent act is morally just
- mystraline 4mo agoWe absolutely CAN call for violence. And especially political violence. Theres even a TV show with it as a name. Its calling for "Law and Order". Its violence against the 'correct group'. You absolutely can call for violence (now) against protestors, ANTIFA, anti-surveillance (DEFLOCK), unionists, homeless, drug users, and other deemed by federal, state, and local officials as undesirable. You cant directly call for violence to black people by name, but eupamisms are still fine to allude to. "Those people", "ghetto", etc. And the violence BY police and government way exceed the violence by the public they target. Also, thou shalt NEVER advocate for violence against CEOs, business leaders, politicians, and the like. Their lives are worth like 1M of us plebes. So those who come to their defense will do so crazily and way over-respond, like cops do routinely. Thats why the feds threw threw the book at Luigi Mangione. Cause if he did it, his way is illegal but tremendously effective. And the elites have little defense against this. (Case in point. In my local area, a person took $100 from a cash register, and got arrested for a class A misdemeanor and 2 other charges. Whereas the same restaurant had their owner committed mass wage theft of 27 people to the tune of $72000, and only had to pay a fine. There absolutely hypocrisy who can advocate and not for violence.)
- protocolture 4mo agoWhats the problem here? Farmer gives land to city. City goes "We can have 10 million dollars AND a brand new data center, hot diggity" City is enriched in both money AND services. Thanks Mr Farmer.
- mystraline 4mo agoNo. Farmer SELLS land (for $10) with a deed restriction that it is to be used for a public park. Hand wavey timey wimey... Deed restriction 'magically' goes away. Gets sold for $10M.
- protocolture 4mo agoSo a city should tie its hands permanently because of a gift? Donations can now override city planning? Tired of paying property tax? Gift your house to the city with a deed that says they have to rent it back to you forever for $1 a year? Lets be clear, this wouldnt even be news if it wasnt for "Datacentre"
- DennisP 4mo ago[dead]
- bumby 4mo agoIf they don’t want to use it for the agreed upon purpose, they could either offer to pay the true value so they can use it for something else or give it back to the farmer/heirs. The real problem seems to be one city gave the land to a parks nonprofit who then sold it to another city, but the original park intent did not follow those sales.
- protocolture 4mo agoAnd if they need it for something else they could just compulsorily acquire it from themselves for 10 more dollars?
- DennisP 4mo agoThe solution here might be the appeals court, since there is a deed restriction. The city agreed to it when they paid $10 for the land. The article mentions that Texas courts tend to be pretty serious about enforcing deed restrictions.
- bumby 4mo agoThat property was transferred multiple times after the farmer gave it away. I can’t tell if that save deed restriction followed those sales
- wahern 4mo agoAFAIU, the people suing have no privity; they're just a neighbor and don't have any right to enforce the covenant. (If the covenant had granted them an interest, they could have.) Presumably the original property owner who granted the land, or their successors in interest, could sue to enforce the covenant, but they haven't.
- toast0 4mo agoI went through the deeds the other night. The first transfer from Bland to Texas Parks and Rec Foundation had a restriction to be held in trust for a city park (or for parkland or something). The transfer from tp&r to williamson county park foundation only said to be held in trust. The transfer from the park foundation to the city didn't mention it. I don't know enough about texas real estate law to know if the restriction would tend to follow or not. I also don't know if the city would have done title research to have seen the restriction, so they may not have knowingly violated it (which may or may not matter; and maybe they should have known). Also, fwiw, the 'one month later' sale reported in the article was more like a few months later, in case you date restrict deed searches.
- teeray 4mo agoEncumbrances and easements tend to follow the land even if they aren’t explicitly mentioned in the deed in question from the most recent transaction. They must be explicitly struck. Source: land attorney when asked this question about a deed restriction from a past deed. It was about NH real estate law, but I was told this was a general principle. It’s part of the reason title searches are done. The effective deed is a fold over the sequence of deeds.
- tptacek 4mo agoI am ambivalent about whatever this controversy is (taking it at face value, it seems pretty bad, I don't know all the backstory) but we have in fact in the US the exact opposite problem: tiny, nonrepresentative groups of noisy stakeholders have an alarming track record of halting development, which has been deployed in the service of keeping home prices high, neighborhoods white and/or wealthy, transportation inefficient, and the power grid fossil-based and rickety.
- nicechianti 4mo ago[dead]
- AndrewKemendo 4mo agoI’ve organized so much that I’m exhausted from organizing but if somebody else wants to organize I will 100% show up So consider me first on the list of people ready to do whatever it takes to fix this shit
- idiotsecant 4mo agoBeing 'stressed' about the corruption and ineffectiveness of governance is literally the exact and only way you make government not be corrupt and ineffective. Democracy is not a spectator sport and voting is just the polite mechanism. Mass protest and outrage is the actual mechanism of democracy - voting is just there to make them afraid of the protest so you don't have to throw moltovs.
- qsera 4mo agoIt is quite easy to get the government do if the people really want it. Just stop using a car. Stop buying gas. Stop consuming the stuff and cause business real pain. Then the government will listen. Because businesses, not people, are what governments really listen to. In India, Gandhiji made it work like 5 decades back in India against the British, where the whole country rejected consumption of foreign goods on his call.
- deaux 4mo ago> I'm not calling for violence We all know that you are, and that that's fine, and you're just hedging because you're scared of the list you'll be placed on. Do not worry, you're on it already. You would never have mentioned it if you weren't.