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A 64-year-old put his life savings in his carry-on, and U.S. Customs took it

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Re: A 64-year-old put his life savings in his carry-on, and U.S. Customs took it

#131

Post by Turing_Machine »

seibelj wrote: post #41
decebalus1 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The more power you give to the government, the less power the citizenry has. Sure. So what's the solution in this particular case? Should we go full corporate and privatize border control and customs? The government has a monopoly on violence and law enforcement. Do you think privatizing this outside of government is a good idea? Do you really think this power would be less abused? Don't pick a bad example to dismi…

Giving the government the ability to seize assets without any sort of hearing or due process, with the burden on the individual to prove innocence with the assumption of guilt, is obviously a bad thing. I can only imagine that it was implemented to fight the drug war. If you agree this is a bad result, and the situation has affected lots of people, then you agree that the government is capable of doing wrong. So you…

> I can only imagine that it was implemented to fight the drug war.

No, actually it comes from English common law, and has been around a long, long time.

It has been abused in recent decades (using the drug war as an excuse), but it's far from a new thing.

Re: A 64-year-old put his life savings in his carry-on, and U.S. Customs took it

#132

Post by otalp »

seibelj wrote: post #14

It amazes me when people think the government should be the go-to solution to society's problems. The government can indeed be used for good, and it has solved many problems, and regulations can be a good thing. But government should be applied very carefully, and probably as the last solution, after we see the failures of non-government solutions. The government is all powerful. They can destroy any business, destro…

If the only presented alternative to government is private corporations how is that not much worse?

The government indeed is authoritarian and people should recognise it - but at least due to historical factors the citizenry have some control over it and how it functions. For a private corporation the general public has no voice at all. You can vote in presidents and senators, you can't vote in CEOs or executives.

The more power you give to private corporations, the less power the citizenry has.

A good analogy would be prisons: government run prisons and the penal system in the US are horrific, designed to be racist and exploit the poor. But then you look at how private prisons are run and realise that they are even worse: they have a profit motive to lock up citizens.

Re: A 64-year-old put his life savings in his carry-on, and U.S. Customs took it

#133

Post by otalp »

lewis500 wrote: post #55

Only as I get older do I realize how incredibly bad elements of law enforcement in the US can be, and legally so. Few cops and agents are bad, but it is a system with little filtering, personally or institutionally, of the bad elements. Civil asset forfeiture is overwhelmingly unpopular, but when states try to reform it the law enforcement groups rally around it mightily. Essentially they want the right to steal mone…

> it is a system with little filtering, personally or institutionally, of the bad elements

Wrong. It is a system that explicitly filters out the good elements.

"US Court Ruling: You Can Be “Too Smart” to Be a Cop. Police department disqualifies anyone whose IQ is “too high" (https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-court-ruled-you-can-be-too-...)

"Court OKs Barring High IQs for Cops"(https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/st...)

Re: A 64-year-old put his life savings in his carry-on, and U.S. Customs took it

#134

Post by gowld »

ra1n85 wrote: post #111
iforgotpassword wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't wrap my head around how you can see it as positive that these kind of actions would go unpunished, in the name of "freedom". If I were harassed and bullied I'd not feel very free, but rather anxious, threatened, depressed. I'm quite happy my government takes measures to assure a certain level of personal safety, both physical and psychological.

> I'm quite happy my government takes measures to assure a certain level of personal safety, both physical and psychological. All except for terrorist attacks, which are considered part and parcel of living in a big city[1] like London (but strangely not Tokyo which has 4-5m more citizens!). [1] https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/new-york-explosion-sad...

These things come and go throughout the world over time.

The occasional terrorist attack seems better than starting a world war that invited retaliatory firebombing and nuclear bombing.

USA is taking its turn at feeling the consequences of colonial imperialism.

Re: A 64-year-old put his life savings in his carry-on, and U.S. Customs took it

#135

Post by DoofusOfDeath »

lewis500 wrote: post #55

Only as I get older do I realize how incredibly bad elements of law enforcement in the US can be, and legally so. Few cops and agents are bad, but it is a system with little filtering, personally or institutionally, of the bad elements. Civil asset forfeiture is overwhelmingly unpopular, but when states try to reform it the law enforcement groups rally around it mightily. Essentially they want the right to steal mone…

I partially disagree with your statement that this is legal behavior by law enforcement.

It's one of those situations where IIRC the Supreme Court's relevant ruling from long ago was just plain wrong.

I think just about every sane adult agrees that this violates the Bill of Rights, regardless of any SCOTUS opinions to the contrary.

Re: A 64-year-old put his life savings in his carry-on, and U.S. Customs took it

#136

Post by opo »

arcticbull wrote: post #98
wetpaws wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would prefer being harrased and bullied rather than having to live in a country that has a legal power to punish me for what I say.

You can absolutely get punished for what you say in the US -- freedom of speech was long ago recognized as anything but absolute. You can't yell fire in a crowded theater. Obscenity (as defined in Miller v. California) is not protected by the constitution. You can't lie under oath. You can't deliberately tell lies about people (Libel). The First Amendment doesn’t protect the speech of people plotting to overthrow the…

>...You can't yell fire in a crowded theater.

Wrong.

https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-ha...

>...The only difference is they've chosen to draw the line somewhere just offset from what you're used to. There's still a line in these here United States.

It looks like the US probably has the strongest free speech protections of any country in the world - that isn't a bad thing.

Re: A 64-year-old put his life savings in his carry-on, and U.S. Customs took it

#137

Post by sshine »

romwell wrote: post #101
core-questions wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If people in America just stopped to look around at how other countries do things they'd be doubly as well run. Most parts of Europe, Japan, Canada, and many other places are well run and have a great deal of governmental involvement. One big problem with this approach is that it basically pretends that the American citizenry is interchangeable with those of the countries you mentioned. It's not. Identity politics…

>Metaphor >small network The population of the EU is 741.4 million, the area is 1,707,642 sq miles. There are quite a few things that are prevalent in the EU, and are nonexistent in the US (public healthcare and higher education, for starters; throw public transportation into the mix, and have a party). Don't pretend the EU is Norway.

Norway isn't even in the EU.

Re: A 64-year-old put his life savings in his carry-on, and U.S. Customs took it

#138

Post by stordoff »

galieos_ghost wrote: post #58
orf wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A thousand times this. I'm not saying the UK is some shining beacon of how to run a country but I do think overall our governmental systems are pretty sensible . I think being sensible might be a stereotypical English trait, but it's true. For example you have to comply with the spirit of a law, not the exact text. Also our QC's are pretty level headed and the same goes for our police force. Nobody is overly nitpicky…

>UK Your government currently arrests people for criticizing the government online, covers up child-rape gangs, arrests people for reporting on those cover ups, and mandates whether citizens should receive health care or die, regardless of whether they have the money to pay for it in a foreign country. Your government took 1984 and used it as a blueprint. Your government see you as an actual human, they see you as th…

> Your government currently arrests people for criticizing the government online

Citation needed - I have _never_ heard of this happening.

> covers up child-rape gangs

Mostly local government and the police, not central government (who organised an inquiry into it).

> mandates whether citizens should receive health care or die

For the NHS, _maybe_, and even then it is only limiting care on the very fringes. Nothing is stopping you going private.

> regardless of whether they have the money to pay for it in a foreign country

I assume you are referring to Ashya King, a child whom was moved from the country against medical advice (which is completely different to _you_ deciding to decline treatment--the decision is being made by the parents on behalf on the child). Furthermore, when the case was decided by the high court, it was ruled that the parents _did_ have the right to pursue that line of treatment:

> Having considered the evidence, I concluded that there was no reason to stand in the way of the parents’ proposal. In some cases, this court is faced with a dispute between medical authorities and parents who are insisting on a wholly unreasonable course of treatment, or withholding consent to an essential therapy for their child – for example, a blood transfusion. This is manifestly not such a case. The course of treatment proposed by Mr and Mrs King is entirely reasonable. [...] Both courses are reasonable and it is the parents who bear the heavy responsibility of making the decision. It is no business of this court, or any other public authority, to interfere with their decision.

https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/judg...

I don't see how that supports the notion that the government can mandate your treatment.

Re: A 64-year-old put his life savings in his carry-on, and U.S. Customs took it

#139

Post by gowld »

opo wrote: post #136
arcticbull wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can absolutely get punished for what you say in the US -- freedom of speech was long ago recognized as anything but absolute. You can't yell fire in a crowded theater. Obscenity (as defined in Miller v. California) is not protected by the constitution. You can't lie under oath. You can't deliberately tell lies about people (Libel). The First Amendment doesn’t protect the speech of people plotting to overthrow the…

>...You can't yell fire in a crowded theater. Wrong. https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-ha... >...The only difference is they've chosen to draw the line somewhere just offset from what you're used to. There's still a line in these here United States. It looks like the US probably has the strongest free speech protections of any country in the world - that isn't a bad thing.

Those free speech protections have been implicated in an ongoing series of terrorist murders, which is a bad thing.

https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2014/04/17/splc-report-n...

> Almost 100 people were murdered over the last five years by registered users of Stormfront, the largest racist Web forum in the world, according to a report released today by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Re: A 64-year-old put his life savings in his carry-on, and U.S. Customs took it

#140

Post by steve_musk »

orf wrote: post #77
seibelj wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Vile hate speech” can cut both ways unfortunately. Both of us agree that racism is a bad thing. But the American South during Jim Crow declared progressive speech as “hate speech” and tried to ban it.[0] So it’s better to not empower the government to decide what is hate and what isn’t, or you may elect a government that decides what you say is hate speech. [0] “As we have seen, during the days of slavery and later…

> So it’s better to not empower the government to decide what is hate and what isn’t The government cannot just arbitrarily expand hate speech to include something which is patently not hate speech. The courts would not uphold it, neither would the judiciary or the public at large.

Unless you get an extreme president who stacks the courts with extreme judges...
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