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Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

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Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#761

Post by ogre_codes »

djsumdog wrote: post #432
ch wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chief Carmen Best may be totally wrong or making that up. https://www.businessinsider.com/seattle-police-retract-claim... As it turns out she was, in fact, wrong or making it up.

> "We've heard, anecdotally, reports of citizens and businesses being asked to pay a fee to operate within this area." I dunno. She 'walked back' the statement. Maybe people were making that up to try to get the cops to retake the area? It could have also been absolutely true. Having lived in that area, I wouldn't put it past them. Honestly, it's impossible to know at this point.

> Honestly, it's impossible to know at this point.

What is possible to know is that she knew damned well that any statement like that would be repeated 10 times more than any later, retraction of those statements.

> Police chief Carmen Best walked back prior statements made by her own department, which have since circulated widely and attracted condemnation from conservative critics of the protesters.

Those same critics have almost certainly not retracted their comments based on her statements. She clearly understands how to effectively feed her biggest fans.

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#762

Post by [deleted] »

ChristianBundy wrote: post #693
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes these people dangerous and scary is that they're carrying dangerous and scary weapons. The flak jackets and face masks aren't making it any less scary either. Personally, I'm not afraid of the police, of protesters, of armed militias, etc. I'm afraid of people with guns. Why does anyone carry a gun, unless they intend to use it, once some set of conditions obtain? I don't want to be around people like that…

I think of it like nuclear weapons: it'd be great if they didn't exist at all, but if they do exist and are stockpiled by people who want to hurt us, then the only responsible action is to arm ourselves in self-defense. In other words: > An unarmed people are slaves or are subject to slavery at any given moment. > -- Huey P Newton

[deleted]

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#763

Post by fourcommas »

acidburnNSA wrote: post #470
djsumdog wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived there in 2016, next to the Rite Aid outside (or maybe inside?) the CHAZ. The homeless situation was absolutely terrible for an American city. Sure it's not as bad as shanty towns I've seen in India or Malaysia, but it wasn't good. Housing was/is insane with shared rooms anywhere near the city being $700 and a 1 bedroom to yourself going for ~$2k. Not as bad as SF/The Bay, but still not good by any means. Sure…

I lived 1 block from there, by Lindas until a year ago. What kind of interactions with homeless people did you have to say it is absolutely terrible? I occasionally saw a homeless person, but that was about the worst of it. And I was out on the town a lot. Oh my car got broken into once as well. Once in 11 years.

I've lived in Capitol Hill for 9 years. I've been attacked twice by crazy people. One time it was a physical attack, the other time it was a man singling me and my family out and approaching within a few feet while screaming very aggressively (my family was visiting me at the time).

I'm a large man. It's worse for people who are not physically imposing. A woman I knew worked an early shift job (leave at 3:45am to open up). She was regularly followed and harassed while walking to work sometimes by gangs of men, she left the city in less than a year.

These problems are getting worse because there's literally hundreds of thousands of citizens (you can see them in this comment chain) who will rush to disagree with anyone who raises these problems. I'm well-equipped to buy a house here, but we decided several days ago to stop looking for one. We decided we're going to leave the Puget Sound area to get away from this.

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#764

Post by thephyber »

ciarannolan wrote: post #37
dev1n wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Raz isn't a reason why the police exist. Raz is a product of a system where the police exist too much, which if given the proper social and educational services earlier in his life, his character and personality disorder exemplified here would have been nullified.

At what point are adults responsible for their own actions? This guy and his crew beat up and threatened to kill someone for a petty crime. What does that have to do with the police existing "too much"?

> This guy and his crew beat up and threatened to kill someone for a petty crime.

That's exactly what caused all of these protests.

> At what point are adults responsible for their own actions?

It's constantly of interest to me how much "free will" actually exists. The more research comes out about environmental factors, the more we realize that people who suffer {home, food, employment, physical} insecurity exhibit symptoms as if they had a lower IQ and stress which is correlated with increased mental illness, stress, blood pressure, and other health problems.

It also strikes me that the current legal corrections system really only works if we, as individuals, have significant ability to decide not to commit a crime as opposed to it being the most likely destiny based on our current {personal, environmental} state.

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#765

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

ChristianBundy wrote: post #693
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes these people dangerous and scary is that they're carrying dangerous and scary weapons. The flak jackets and face masks aren't making it any less scary either. Personally, I'm not afraid of the police, of protesters, of armed militias, etc. I'm afraid of people with guns. Why does anyone carry a gun, unless they intend to use it, once some set of conditions obtain? I don't want to be around people like that…

I think of it like nuclear weapons: it'd be great if they didn't exist at all, but if they do exist and are stockpiled by people who want to hurt us, then the only responsible action is to arm ourselves in self-defense. In other words: > An unarmed people are slaves or are subject to slavery at any given moment. > -- Huey P Newton

That's MAD, right? Mutually Assured Destruction. Well, that is the logic of a species that has gone kookoo bonkers bannanas bongos mad and thinks that "let's all threaten each other with total anihilation" is "rational". Why is it so hard to agree to not destroy each other needlessly instead?

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#766

Post by skissane »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #601
DenisM wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The police follow orders from their chain of command that goes up to an elected official. You can petition the elected official, occupy their building, grill them in the media, and vote them out if you convince the other citizens. For example the knee-to-the-neck move was a part of the "orders" in that it was part of standard procedure and it is now being revised and removed. Similarly the tear gas was part of the pr…

> This is why we tolerate the police for a few hundred years now - on occasion they cause violence that's predictable and can be influenced. The point of these protests is that the violence is not occasional. It is endemic , and attempts to stop it stretch back centuries . It has persisted across the country, under both progressive and conservative politicians, despite many, many attempts to eliminate it. If the viol…

A question – is the problem with police, or is the problem with US police specifically? Do we have the same problem with police in other countries? Canadian police? UK police? Police in EU countries?

If the US police have this problem and other (wealthy democratic) countries don't – or even if comparable countries have the problem too, just not quite as bad as the US has it – what makes US police different?

Racism and racial inequality. Yes, that's very real, but don't think for a moment other countries don't have that problem too – they do. But yes, historically speaking, the US was very much an outlier of extreme racism – few other countries ever had anything comparable to "Jim Crow laws", and the most obvious comparators (apartheid in South Africa and the Nuremberg Laws in Nazi Germany) are not what the US really wants to be compared to. On the other hand, my personal impression is that contemporary Americans are (on average) actually much more highly committed to anti-racism than people in most other countries are.

Could there be other relevant factors causing problems unique to US police? I think, everyone is (quite rightly) focused on the racial inequality issue, but could there be other causes which might be less deeply entrenched and quicker to fix? Easy short-term wins?

(My thought: US has more independent law enforcement agencies than any other country on earth – force all the smaller ones to merge – bigger police forces tend to have a more professional culture, and a smaller number of big police forces is easier for the media/NGOs/etc to hold to account than a larger number of small ones.)

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#768

Post by vertex-four »

SkyBelow wrote: post #654
woodruffw wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anarchic utopias do not stay utopic for all that long. At least one counterexample to this is Exarcheia[1] in Athens, which has been relatively unpoliced for the last 50 years. I was there about a year ago and was struck by how both peaceful and lively it was. Nowhere in Athens felt nearly as alive. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exarcheia

Does self policing constitute anarchist? The few times I've dug into the background of anarchist communities have shown they do have some enforcement of social standards, and can effectively be viewed as a smaller scale government that the larger government has decided to take a more hands off approach compare to other areas of similar size that attempt to act legally independent.

Yes! Anarchist does not imply "individuals can do whatever they like", that's more a right-Libertarian thing. Anarchism (or at least the relevant bit here) is largely the idea of challenging and trying to avoid creating persistent power structures and dynamics, so communities regulating themselves without creating a persistent, external-to-the-community police force is very anarchist.

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#769

Post by kf »

colinmhayes wrote: post #645
dgellow wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the occasional opportunity to debate such issues in an intelligent forum is something I have trouble finding elsewhere on the internet. That's maybe the good place to ask: What are other places (maybe places more open to political discussions) the HN crowd would recommend for "intelligent discussions"? Twitter and Reddit are an awful mess at the moment.

LessWrong and niche subreddits depending on the political views you hope to find.

Yeah Lesswrong has gotten good again; the coronavirus discussion has stood out. They don’t really do politics but as an old user one could probably force a discussion through.

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#770

Post by kf »

brodouevencode wrote: post #437
dang wrote: post #858

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a stub comment to collect replies in one place, so that it can be collapsed and prevent too much offtopicness at the top of the thread.

Can we have this reminder posted on every ratio'd post? (Given the circumstances) things have gotten a lot more political on HN as of late (yes, my opinion, not driven by facts) and I find myself not making my daily lunch-time visit because of that.

Ratio meaning more comments that points?

This post has been killed and unkilled, downweighted by flagging and then unweighted by mods, then after a front page surge now downweighted because it has more comments than points.

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