161–166 of 166 posts
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We already do it with progressive taxes. Fines are just a type of tax, so why can't they be progressive too?
"We already do it" is not really an argument. Many people (rightly or wrongly) disagree with progressive taxation so it's really just an appeal to a non-existent consensus.
And this funding is disproportionately paid for by the poor: https://gawker.com/ferguson-and-the-criminalization-of-ameri... The use of bureaucracy to funnel wealth from poor to rich also operates in the same way for private institutions such as banks. Graeber goes into this modern tendency towards bureaucratic rule in detail in his book "Utopia of Rules"
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"We already do it" is not really an argument. Many people (rightly or wrongly) disagree with progressive taxation so it's really just an appeal to a non-existent consensus.
“We already do it” absolutely is an argument. There’s a thing in law called precedent.
"Fine the rich because they're globalist pedophiles" is also an argument of sorts but not to the standard I'm talking about.
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Depending on the reason, anything from additional fines, commuting the sentence to community service, or perhaps jail. There's a big difference between someone not paying a fine because their flat-out broke and not paying it because "fuck the system, I'm above the law." Zero-Tolerance and One-Size-Fits-All policies are destructively stupid and result in bad outcomes. Context matters in a system of jurisprudence, but…
> or perhaps jail No. There should never be jail for debt. We have a lot of history seeing what debtors prison looks like and it's ugly, and also stupid because it's the government paying out a lot of money... to collect a bit of money? Usually paying out far more then the fine is anyway. Plus opportunity cost. Plus any value lost to society from whatever that person might have done outside of prison. Plus any extra…
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There aren't any Minnesota towns on the map in the article so it must not be more than 10%, presumably. It is interesting to see some towns that are famous in my local area for it: Morrison, CO (45.3%). 150,000 drivers pass through it daily, with a population of 431. It's hard to argue with as they stop people if they're going 15 MPH over the limit. [1] I think people here just get used to the lack of enforcement of…
I'm not sure if 285 technically runs through Morrison, but there are lots of tickets issued right there because it is essentially a highway but has a low speed limit. They could raise the speed limit by 10-20mph and it would probably still be safe. There are also several elevation changes that make it easier for a traffic officer to hide. Weird that Mountain View is in the mix. Maybe it's just a statistical anomaly b…
Morrison looks like a gerrymander: it runs along roads, and has some other parts that are unused pieces of land, and doesn't include private property that is being used even though it is next to it. It really does look like it was designed to cover roads that have nothing to do with the actual downtown part of Morrison.
Mountain View is between W 41st Ave and W 44th Ave (which looks like a fairly busy road). I just noticed they are only at 5.3% in the report though. [1] That's not even 10% (and a lot more than Morrison's 45%.)
Since you mentioned I-70, on the other hand there is Lakeside: Mountain View actually borders another tiny "town" (population 8), Lakeside, which consists of a lake, shopping center, and amusement park, and I-70 and related on/off-ramps. According to the map in the report [1], Lakeside is on the map but at 13.5% revenue from tickets.
[1] https://www.governing.com/topics/finance/fine-fee-revenues-s...