I agree that there's no difference in principle between the government of the land you live on ordering the cell phone company to send a text message to everyone about wildfire danger; and ordering the cell phone company to send a text message to honest and loyal men about confronting the traitors and criminals and protecting the people and honor of the country. This is simply what it means for a national government to exist at all - a local monopoly on the use of legitimate violence in order to enforce the law. Everything a government does, from laws regulating food ingredient labeling to collecting the social security tax from paychecks to organizing a formal military to fight a rebellion, is ultimately backed up by men with guns telling people what to do.
And then the men with guns tell you to do it anyway
31–40 of 447 posts
Re: And then the men with guns tell you to do it anyway
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Obviously the ideal number of jails is not zero, but why wouldn't the ideal number of homeless people be zero?
I’m guessing there’s a bit of breathing room at the lower end of the system - there will be people who become drug addicts or have major mental health breaks and lose everything. And ideally we have good safety nets that find these people and give them resources and treatment, but some people will refuse everything and end up in bad situations of homelessness due to their drug and/or mental health crises. And even in…
This is along the lines I mean. Or when shared households break up, and some stay, some leave, which one should you send to the asylum forever and why not both? Or to jail for the fights they both participated in? What of the deaths by a thousand cuts and no one at fault for the murder?
But the idea that jails are an unadulterated societal good, or that they are the natural only option to police, is a crazy religion. Why on earth do we have no timely resolutions but through handcuffs and jail? There is expediency, and then there is externalizing the whole of the troubles to the smallest number of people, who could never overturn a majority, even if they had the vote.
I suggest the ability to put certain people in a metal box, at least partially for losing their grasp of a better role in the world, is a big, boldface moral hazard, and self-perpetuating, but with leering cheerleaders.
Some people are wild and out of control sometimes. Treating them all as permanent bad apples is just as animalistic.
Re: And then the men with guns tell you to do it anyway
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
But we have built so many enduring systems that rely on bad apples to function the way the do. See "insurance pricing", "private prisons", and "justice enforcement". In the real world, the ideal number of jails or homeless people is neither zero nor "all of them".
Obviously the ideal number of jails is not zero, but why wouldn't the ideal number of homeless people be zero?
Housing is a privilege, not a right, and not a requirement. Except, being a free country, in jail.
Re: And then the men with guns tell you to do it anyway
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
But we have built so many enduring systems that rely on bad apples to function the way the do. See "insurance pricing", "private prisons", and "justice enforcement". In the real world, the ideal number of jails or homeless people is neither zero nor "all of them".
What is the ideal number of unhoused people? And how do you arrive at that number?
Probably "fewer", and probably by providing step-up housing for more people to whom it is out of reach.
Re: And then the men with guns tell you to do it anyway
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the ideal number of _prisons_ (as distinct from jails / pretrial confinement) is zero. This whole charade in the USA of dressing up slavery (without even a single day of interruption on January 31, 1865) as "correction" is absurd. It's obviously a way to continue an economy that relies on a supply of involuntary labor, and has nothing whatsoever to do with public safety. There are plenty of ways to implement…
Some crimes are bad enough that the perpetrators don’t deserve second chances. I’m ok with punishment for its own sake in some cases even if it would be more “cost effective” or “productive” for society to rehabilitate.
Sure, again bad apples, but one size fits sentences to the same institution? They are not all of the people ever arrested, or all of the time, or even most, and still the fundamentally medieval violence we orient by.
Re: And then the men with guns tell you to do it anyway
#36A good article, but missing one very important word: trust. Civil society only exists when there is a collective general trust that most people are trying to do the right thing. Said society also finds it incredibly important to remove or nullify those who aren't trustworthy because "a rotten apple spoils the whole bunch ". Trust is hard to earn, and easy to lose, and it only takes one person exploiting the trustwort…
Trust is a Continuum. I have relatives who grew up in places where you didn't need to lock the door at night and those who have to lock the door at night but that's enough and those for who that is not enough.
I am reminded of a story I read lately of a woman who was shocked when her passport and purse were stolen from the beach while she was swimming. Somehow she had the perception that she was in a high trust worthy zone even though she had been doing her doctoral thesis work in a low trust society.
Re: And then the men with guns tell you to do it anyway
#37Technology cannot solve social problems. Societies can solve social problems using technology, just as they can without using technology, but ultimately it is the society that solves the problem.
Hmm... technology sure seems to create, or at least to expose, a lot of societal problems, and does solve a lot of problems in exchange for a lot of money. Not sure the true rule is as stated.
Re: And then the men with guns tell you to do it anyway
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
But we have built so many enduring systems that rely on bad apples to function the way the do. See "insurance pricing", "private prisons", and "justice enforcement". In the real world, the ideal number of jails or homeless people is neither zero nor "all of them".
I think the ideal number of _prisons_ (as distinct from jails / pretrial confinement) is zero. This whole charade in the USA of dressing up slavery (without even a single day of interruption on January 31, 1865) as "correction" is absurd. It's obviously a way to continue an economy that relies on a supply of involuntary labor, and has nothing whatsoever to do with public safety. There are plenty of ways to implement…
I’d guess the downvotes are an aberration of today’s politics, because your account of the history is factually and legally valid. (keyword “restorative”)
To me, the idea that incarceration and police use of force is wrong because it is racist is backwards. It’s racist because it is wrong.
Re: And then the men with guns tell you to do it anyway
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m guessing there’s a bit of breathing room at the lower end of the system - there will be people who become drug addicts or have major mental health breaks and lose everything. And ideally we have good safety nets that find these people and give them resources and treatment, but some people will refuse everything and end up in bad situations of homelessness due to their drug and/or mental health crises. And even in…
This is along the lines I mean. Or when shared households break up, and some stay, some leave, which one should you send to the asylum forever and why not both? Or to jail for the fights they both participated in? What of the deaths by a thousand cuts and no one at fault for the murder? But the idea that jails are an unadulterated societal good, or that they are the natural only option to police, is a crazy religion.…
Just make sure after each politician serves their term they get a year in prison.
Re: And then the men with guns tell you to do it anyway
#40A good article, but missing one very important word: trust. Civil society only exists when there is a collective general trust that most people are trying to do the right thing. Said society also finds it incredibly important to remove or nullify those who aren't trustworthy because "a rotten apple spoils the whole bunch ". Trust is hard to earn, and easy to lose, and it only takes one person exploiting the trustwort…
But we have built so many enduring systems that rely on bad apples to function the way the do. See "insurance pricing", "private prisons", and "justice enforcement". In the real world, the ideal number of jails or homeless people is neither zero nor "all of them".
In the real world the jails are for holding, the prisons are for convicted criminals and the homeless people (most of them anyway, because not everybody that is homeless is derelict, and the addicts) get whatever help they need. Because we actually can afford it.