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Cut out the hysterics. She's a political appointee. She serves at the pleasure of the president. And the public is asking for her removal. Remember when Bush s

by jordanb 14y ago

Cut out the hysterics. She's a political appointee. She serves at the pleasure of the president. And the public is asking for her removal. Remember when Bush sacked a bunch of US Attorneys for insufficient ideological purity? If not, this might joggle your memory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dismissal_of_U.S._attorneys_controversy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dismissal_of_U.S._attorneys_con...

brudgers 14y ago
My spouse has spent most of the past twenty years as a clinical social worker at hospice agencies. Stints in between include geriatrics, oncology, and Alzheimer's patients. I've spent some time talking about people's reactions to death and disease. It's not the sort of stuff one leaves at the office. That office includes phone calls at 3am on a Thursday to attend a death. Getting someone fired won't honor Swartz - at least that's my opinion. It won't change the law - and that's a fact. I remember the Bush era firings. I didn't think they made a positive change in America. I don't think firing Swartz's prosecutor will either. I think we are better served by people who learn from their mistakes.
- pstuart 14y ago
  Other than protest, what might get the attention of the powers that be that such prosecutorial overreaching is unacceptable? They have no impetus to change until there's enough anger to make them afraid.
  - brudgers 14y ago
    Prosecutorial over-reach is a byproduct of the particular structure of our adversarial system and current views on the role of our legal system. This was not one rogue individual, it was the execution of an institutional mindset that has given us the highest incarceration rate in the world. Pinning all that on one person allows something to be done without causing change.
- adventured 14y ago
  Getting the appropriate person or people fired in this case is clearly about accountability, not spite / vindictiveness. These people have a lot of power, and that power was abused. There's nothing that guarantees any of the people involved will learn from their mistakes, but what we do know is that their actions were a terrible injustice. America isn't going to magically become a better place because one person gets fired, but I don't see anybody arguing otherwise. I see people arguing that such a dramatic abuse of power should have consequences, and that is the point.
  - brudgers 14y ago
    Reasonable and thoughtful people can disagree about what constitutes abuse. My opinion, though certainly not expert, is that there is nothing unusual about the tactics used in Shwartz's case - they are typical for the agency and prosecutors in general. This didn't come about overnight. The Feds were sending people to jail for conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine based on the argument that two lovers must have shared it with each other twenty years ago - and those people are only out of prison if they're dead. It's not dramatic. It's ordinary. Prosecutors treat the courtroom the same way some people treat the golf course - as a place to demonstrate their skill.

by jordanb 14y ago

brudgers 14y ago

My spouse has spent most of the past twenty years as a clinical social worker at hospice agencies. Stints in between include geriatrics, oncology, and Alzheimer's patients. I've spent some time talking about people's reactions to death and disease. It's not the sort of stuff one leaves at the office. That office includes phone calls at 3am on a Thursday to attend a death. Getting someone fired won't honor Swartz - at least that's my opinion. It won't change the law - and that's a fact. I remember the Bush era firings. I didn't think they made a positive change in America. I don't think firing Swartz's prosecutor will either. I think we are better served by people who learn from their mistakes.

pstuart 14y ago
Other than protest, what might get the attention of the powers that be that such prosecutorial overreaching is unacceptable? They have no impetus to change until there's enough anger to make them afraid.
- brudgers 14y ago
  Prosecutorial over-reach is a byproduct of the particular structure of our adversarial system and current views on the role of our legal system. This was not one rogue individual, it was the execution of an institutional mindset that has given us the highest incarceration rate in the world. Pinning all that on one person allows something to be done without causing change.
adventured 14y ago
Getting the appropriate person or people fired in this case is clearly about accountability, not spite / vindictiveness. These people have a lot of power, and that power was abused. There's nothing that guarantees any of the people involved will learn from their mistakes, but what we do know is that their actions were a terrible injustice. America isn't going to magically become a better place because one person gets fired, but I don't see anybody arguing otherwise. I see people arguing that such a dramatic abuse of power should have consequences, and that is the point.
- brudgers 14y ago
  Reasonable and thoughtful people can disagree about what constitutes abuse. My opinion, though certainly not expert, is that there is nothing unusual about the tactics used in Shwartz's case - they are typical for the agency and prosecutors in general. This didn't come about overnight. The Feds were sending people to jail for conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine based on the argument that two lovers must have shared it with each other twenty years ago - and those people are only out of prison if they're dead. It's not dramatic. It's ordinary. Prosecutors treat the courtroom the same way some people treat the golf course - as a place to demonstrate their skill.