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Stop-And-Seize Turns Police into Self-Funding Gangs

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Re: Stop-And-Seize Turns Police into Self-Funding Gangs

#221

Post by bmelton »

merpnderp wrote: post #219
bmelton wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rousseau's social contract, while a fine piece of work, would almost certainly advocate a monarchy for a state the size of America. Its use here seems to be an appeal to authority, which seems odd as there are no mentions to it anywhere within our governing documents, upon which a less spurious legitimacy is bestowed. Beyond that, categorizing anything as "inherently legitimate" is fraught with peril. One could perha…

I'd say that the tautology of what the system agrees is legitimate is what is legitimate (no less useful than gravity pulls things together because it pulls things together). Laws promoting racism were broken in the US, and the law-breakers were quickly recognized as legitimate. Perhaps some types of tax dodgers might be considered legitimate. The beauty of a democracy is that if you can convince enough people that s…

> I'd say that the tautology of what the system agrees is legitimate is what is legitimate

And which is inherently fallacious, even going against Rousseau. Slavery as an institution was systemically agreed upon by the institution. There is no inherent legitimacy in violating the liberties of others, and while I agree that any such comparison is flawed, agreeing on slavery as an institution is no more or less legitimate due to populist demand than the insistence of taking some people's money and giving it to others.

Are there benefits? Undoubtedly; but even something mathematically proven as "good" (as if we could do such a thing) is not necessarily legitimate, however well founded the idea or the intent. That said, this is all philosophical, to be sure, but since we're waxing, may as well get fully waxed. (Don't ask me what that means, cause I have no idea.)

> And I believe many founders leaned heavily on Rousseau's work

No argument there.

Re: Stop-And-Seize Turns Police into Self-Funding Gangs

#222

Post by drdeca »

asmithmd1 wrote: post #149
cft wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A suspected bank robber gets arrested when the money is kept. The outcome of the arrest is a conviction or an acquittal, which (automatically) determines the fate of the money. That's different from what is described in the article

Forfeiture was designed for cases like this: A bank robbery suspect is arrested with cash on him. The police have no evidence against the suspect but obtain a written confession - the trouble is they did not read him his rights. The confession is inadmissible, the suspect goes free. Do you hand him his money on the way out of court? In anti-trust cases damages are tripled as a deterrent, why not institute the same pe…

Maybe the additional value that must be paid should increase with the time that it is held?

To pay for the opportunity cost of the person not having access to the money for the period of time.

Also, forbidding the police from keeping the items.

Re: Stop-And-Seize Turns Police into Self-Funding Gangs

#223

Post by fineman »

humanrebar wrote: post #78
geon wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As George Carlin said; your rights can be taken away whenever convenient. Thus, they are not really rights at all, but temporary privileges. http://youtube.com/watch?v=m9-R8T1SuG4

Some rights are inalienable, so they cannot be taken away, just violated. The right to justice is one of those. The right to life. The right to free expression. It's pretty obvious that they exist, otherwise nobody would really care about murder, rape, theft, fraud, lying, etc. So the burden of proof is on those that want to limit or deny inalienable rights. George Carlin is hilarious (at least in general), but ironi…

The thing is, saying "X is inalienable" doesn't help anything either. In fact, I feel it hurts to think of it that way because rights only exist in such a way as we make them exist. Cold objective reality doesn't care, nor does a dictator.

We need to reframe rights as a promise to care and ability to help. As in, you can say you've got a right to free speech all you want but it's not until I stand with you that you're actually safer.

Human rights, if you must, would be the code that the average human would care about enough to fight for.

Re: Stop-And-Seize Turns Police into Self-Funding Gangs

#224

Post by rayiner »

MCRed wrote: post #172
Fezzik wrote: post #106

Ugh, so much misinformation. Having lurked here for a while HN seems to think civil forfeiture is the boogie man. To clarify a few things, at least on the county level: 1) There are always drugs when property is seized this way. I review every single civil forfeiture in a rather large county, and the affidavits officers submit read something like: "I stopped Bob after an informant purchased a large amount of heroin f…

> There are always drugs when property is seized this way. Nope. Several years ago the FBI stole $6M in Platinum, Gold and Silver. Some of the theft was of protected political speech-- literally copper & silver pieces with Ron Paul's picture and a campaign slogan on them. No allegations of drugs was involved, and the criminality claim -- that using gold and silver as barter threatened to undermine the US dollar -- wa…

Minting your own gold currency is illegal: http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/18/I/25/486.

Re: Stop-And-Seize Turns Police into Self-Funding Gangs

#225

Post by drdeca »

Spooky23 wrote: post #176
asmithmd1 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forfeiture was designed for cases like this: A bank robbery suspect is arrested with cash on him. The police have no evidence against the suspect but obtain a written confession - the trouble is they did not read him his rights. The confession is inadmissible, the suspect goes free. Do you hand him his money on the way out of court? In anti-trust cases damages are tripled as a deterrent, why not institute the same pe…

I think a better approach would be to turn the money to the state's general fund. That way you avoid the problems with cops loading up with overtime and buying fancy cars. The problem with the direct seizures going to the cops is that the local government underfunds the overtime budget -- that affects the policeman's pocket and is a powerful motivator.

What about sending it to the Fed to be recycled or distributed however newly printed money is distributed?

I think that to avoid bad incentives, No part of government should receive any benefit from the seizure?

Re: Stop-And-Seize Turns Police into Self-Funding Gangs

#226

Post by bionsuba »

commentzorro wrote: post #213
bionsuba wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As the nation moves farther and farther to the right What country do you live in? Surely it can't be the US, who has been enacting very leftist policies for a while now, who has had a leftist president for almost eight years now, whose youth is advocating for a self-identified "democratic socialist" for president, and the country where the most popular republican candidate by far is a centrist RINO.

Another Example of ObamaCare Nazis wiping their butts with our Constitution and taking away our guns so they can force us into gay marriages while Jesus weeps.

Nice straw-man, but I'm an anarchist and an atheist.

If you believe it's heading right, I would love to see your arguments, or you can choose to stay at the kids table and continue calling people names.

Re: Stop-And-Seize Turns Police into Self-Funding Gangs

#227

Post by FireBeyond »

tptacek wrote: post #175
rayiner wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Proof" by evidence is an inherently statistical process. E.g. cops find a DNA match between a suspect and skin cells found under a murder victim's fingernails under circumstances where it is clear she tried to fight off her attacker. Does that "prove" guilt? No, it proves that under similar circumstances, guilty is highly likely. The problem is not that the justice system is statistical. That's unavoidable. The prob…

FWIW (Rayiner knows this, but maybe everyone else doesn't): The concept of "proof of innocence" does not appear in the Constitution; it derives from common law, and the Latin word it comes from doesn't mean "prove" in the mathematical sense. Which makes sense, because "innocent until formally proven guilty" doesn't make sense in a sentence that proceeds to "beyond a reasonable doubt".

And it's interesting, too, how often people go in the other direction, and seem to think "any shred of theory, however improbable, means you can't be found guilty", and attempt to try to classify it as "beyond any/all doubt".

Re: Stop-And-Seize Turns Police into Self-Funding Gangs

#228

Post by heapcity »

cryoshon wrote: post #142
heapcity wrote: post #79

I was arrested while hiking and acquitted because I did nothing wrong. But the police never returned my expensive sun glasses or my expensive optical water purifier. "We don't have them."

Ah, sorry to hear the pigs robbed you. Happens to the best of us. I'll also observe that you probably had to spend cash on a lawyer in order to prove your innocence.

Making a call from the jailhouse is exorbitantly expensive too.

Re: Stop-And-Seize Turns Police into Self-Funding Gangs

#229

Post by Spooky23 »

rayiner wrote: post #183
Spooky23 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a low standard for the government to meet. "Preponderance of the evidence" means that the government doesn't need to prove the property is subject to forfeiture, just show that 50% of the evidence indicates that it could be. (guy in car from out of state at night, guy fits the profile of something, road is a "drug corridor", guy had alot of cash, guy was speeding) It's hard to convict you of a crime for drivin…

It's the standard civil burden of proof. If I say I own Blackacre and you say you own it, I just have to present enough evidence to get over the 50% mark.

If you're being sued to turn over The property I would say no problem... but you're not, it's being confiscated

Re: Stop-And-Seize Turns Police into Self-Funding Gangs

#230

Post by impossible34 »

bionsuba wrote: post #226
commentzorro wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another Example of ObamaCare Nazis wiping their butts with our Constitution and taking away our guns so they can force us into gay marriages while Jesus weeps.

Nice straw-man, but I'm an anarchist and an atheist. If you believe it's heading right, I would love to see your arguments, or you can choose to stay at the kids table and continue calling people names.

and you can't write what you wrote and expected to be treated as anything other than a useless wingnut.

nearly everything you wrote was specifically designed to make clear that you're a closed-minded libertarian fucknut who isn't interested in (or capable of) an intelligent conversation.

As such, you shouldn't be surprised when people respond to you in a way that makes clear that they don't respect you, they don't treat you seriously, and that they wish you'd move to Somalia where you can live your idiotic dream.

instead, you (like the rest of the libertarian scum) just complain that you aren't allowed to force your will onto the rest of us, against our will. you're just another fucking fascist. Now kindly fuck off.

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