Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

FBI Didn't Knock Down a Suspect's Door Because 'It Was an Affluent Neighborhood'

reason.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 393 posts

Re: FBI Didn't Knock Down a Suspect's Door Because 'It Was an Affluent Neighborhood'

#131

Post by dangerface »

lordnacho wrote: post #34
seibelj wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the Soviet Union the high level apparatchiks lived in better housing, away from the common people. There will always be elite people. At least in capitalism you become rich by providing value to other people. In socialism you become elite by stealing from your comrades and forcefully eliminating the competition.

It's a common refrain that people get rich by providing value to others, and I used to think that way as well. Unfortunately I don't think it really stands scrutiny. First of all, there's no proper idea of what value is. It's a super deep conversation so I'll just leave that headline for now. Second, even without a clear explanation of what value is, we can distinguish between value created and value captured. You ca…

> Is that the system we want?

Perfect is the enemy of good, we wan't a system we can change and improve, communism failed because of the great stagnation the leaders in change had no interest in change or improving and the workers underneath them had no means to affect change.

Worker parties offer the optics of democracy that the workers have a say in their work but in reality that didn't happen the workers worked for their boss or starved. Under capitalism you have the same options work or starve but you also get a third option, you can compete against your boss it was ultimately this competition that allowed capitalism to change and improve where communism stagnated.

Does capitalism guarantee success 100% of the time? nope, but it does provide a mechanism to affect change from the bottom up, other systems don't do that.

Re: FBI Didn't Knock Down a Suspect's Door Because 'It Was an Affluent Neighborhood'

#132

Post by heavyset_go »

namdnay wrote: post #125
cyborgx7 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money is power. That is a truism everybody is aware off. But Liberalism is fundamentally incoherent if that were true. So people have been deluded into forgetting this simple basic fact.

That's jsut not true. A county sheriff has far more power than a software developer, despite being far less wealthy

The median salary for cops in this state is $105k a year. The median salary for software engineers in this state is $89k. Sheriffs make much more than your median cop does.

Re: FBI Didn't Knock Down a Suspect's Door Because 'It Was an Affluent Neighborhood'

#133

Post by newsclues »

cyborgx7 wrote: post #111
slim wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's pointing out that people in the neighbourhood are politically influent, that's why they are treated that way, not because they are rich. Which I did not get even after reading it. I'm thankful he pointed it out

Money is power. That is a truism everybody is aware off. But Liberalism is fundamentally incoherent if that were true. So people have been deluded into forgetting this simple basic fact.

Money is a measure of economic power.

Money can buy some forms of power, but as the Taliban know, money and all the technology it buys aren’t the only form of power.

Re: FBI Didn't Knock Down a Suspect's Door Because 'It Was an Affluent Neighborhood'

#134

Post by throwaway0a5e »

DoctorOW wrote: post #62
mangoTangoBango wrote: post #26

Quoted post unavailable.

> We should start over, get rid of those parasites, move the capital to the center of the USA like Lebanon, KS out of the swamp. The physical location of the capitol has been irrelevant since airplanes, cell phones, and the internet. The swamp is a metaphor, not a physical place.

That sounds at odds with "hurr durr you can only build a tech hub where all the talent is" which is the prevailing wisdom around here.

Re: FBI Didn't Knock Down a Suspect's Door Because 'It Was an Affluent Neighborhood'

#135

Post by sumedh »

Mordisquitos wrote: post #90
exogeny wrote: post #19

America is much more racist than you think, and if you don't think so, you should probably talk to more POC.

I'm betting that Tarek Abou-Khatwa, who enjoyed the privilege of not having his door knocked down by the FBI to search his home, is a "POC". I think that America is much more classist than one may think if one is distracted by the disproportionate cultural focus on racism.

> if one is distracted by the disproportionate cultural focus on racism.

Black senators and Congressmen complain that they are not treated equally as their white counterparts in the Capitol building by the Capitol police. These black politicians are literally upper class and yet they face these issues.

Re: FBI Didn't Knock Down a Suspect's Door Because 'It Was an Affluent Neighborhood'

#136

Post by heavyset_go »

MegaButts wrote: post #13
alephnan wrote: post #11

Well if the suspect was wrongly accused, they'd have to reimburse the damages. Does the FBI have a budget for such things? Does it involve extra paperwork if it passes a certain threshold? Is the issue here profiling of the demographic or the risk ( in terms of cost ).

> Well if the suspect was wrongly accused, they'd have to reimburse the damages. Do they? I'm honestly asking, but I would be surprised if most of the time the police (or any 3 letter agency) reimbursed victims for their negligence.

It doesn't happen. You could have your car torn to shreds by cops looking for drugs that don't exist and they won't owe you a dime for the damages.

Re: FBI Didn't Knock Down a Suspect's Door Because 'It Was an Affluent Neighborhood'

#137

Post by throwaway0a5e »

spacemanmatt wrote: post #117
Cipater wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope this is sarcasm.

Don't hope too hard. Lots of our dear readers think like this.

Lots of our readers would be agreeing with him if the case in question was someone with an FFL side gig getting their door kicked in for selling stuff that threads the needle of legality or some low margin small business owner getting his door kicked in over dodged taxes.

But because it's white collar fraud, the readers can empathize.

Re: FBI Didn't Knock Down a Suspect's Door Because 'It Was an Affluent Neighborhood'

#138

Post by giantg2 »

tareqak wrote: post #82
imgabe wrote: post #3

FYI the neighborhood is Kalorama in DC, where a lot of diplomats and high-level government officials live. Maybe the agents didn't want one of the neighbors to call the director of the FBI to have them chewed out for "making the neighborhood look bad", which is not an impossible thing to happen there considering who the neighbors are. I imagine if you're an FBI field agent, the last thing you want for your career is…

I'd argue that the someone in the neighborhood should call the director of the FBI for unequal treatment of suspects regardless of which neighborhood they live in and who they happen to be.

You think those people have the life experience to know that it was odd that they didn't kick in the front door? Or that they even care that others are treated worse?

Re: FBI Didn't Knock Down a Suspect's Door Because 'It Was an Affluent Neighborhood'

#139

Post by belter »

Fought Experiment:

Lets say law enforcement was given the task to examine the affairs of 100, randomly selected, poor/medium income households and 100, randomly selected, very wealthy households.

Statistically, where would they find the most amount of criminal activity? Has any similar research been done, and would you care to share the data?

Re: FBI Didn't Knock Down a Suspect's Door Because 'It Was an Affluent Neighborhood'

#140

Post by trasz »

tomohawk wrote: post #94

What's actually disturbing is that more than 90% of the time this would be a "no knock" raid with paramiliterized police smashinng down the door, tossing in flash-bang grenades - the works. No knock should be reserved for extreme situations, not the norm.

For extreme situations American police can go much further than that: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/10/move-1985-bo...
Post reply on HN