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The Criminalization of Everyday Life

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Re: The Criminalization of Everyday Life

#221

Post by CalRobert »

tokenadult wrote: post #86
afterburner wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's plenty of Western countries that are less screwed up than the US.

For example? What's involved for a citizen of the United States who would like to settle in one of those countries permanently?

Or this if you can work for yourself. The requirements are pretty easy to satisfy.

http://www.pond-crosser.com/northern-europe/netherlands/dutc...

HUGE DISCLAIMER

Pond-crosser is a site I recently started. Even so I can't imagine it being more applicable.

Re: The Criminalization of Everyday Life

#222

Post by cafard »

steveklabnik wrote: post #166
theorique wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people (and voters) don't even know how many Senators their state has Trick question. Every state has the same number of Senators - 2.

That doesn't preclude someone from not knowing that there are two.

I think that the question here is about "most people", not "someone."

Re: The Criminalization of Everyday Life

#223

Post by afterburner »

JackFr wrote: post #188
afterburner wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I made no claim that there is a small cabal of powerful people controlling everything brought down the system. There are, however, Goldman Sachs people that lied to their own customers in order to make money, for example. That is the kind of behaviour that can be persecuted, mostly along the conflict of interest or fraud lines. Those are specific laws. Oh, by the way, heard of the Libor scandal? Not specifically rela…

Fair enough -- 'cabal' was my loaded word. I have no problem with Fabulous Fab going to jail, although I don't thick it's quite as cut-and-dried as you imagine. I'm familiar with the Libor scandal. But in both those cases particular people did specific things which were actionable.

How many have gone to jail over these actionable items?

Re: The Criminalization of Everyday Life

#224

Post by steveklabnik »

cafard wrote: post #222
steveklabnik wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't preclude someone from not knowing that there are two.

I think that the question here is about "most people", not "someone."

Sure. Most people may not know that it's two.

Re: The Criminalization of Everyday Life

#225

Post by specialist »

maurits wrote: post #124
MrZongle2 wrote: post #5

When I read something like this, I always think back to when I would see some tinfoil-hat type ranting on Usenet 20 years ago about the growing surveillance/police state in America. It was generally eye-rolling or unintentionally hilarious stuff. What's depressing is that it's starting to look like they were right.

How about watching a re-run of the X-files? Apart from the little green men and the reoccurring monster, it seems rather tame in this day and age. Secret courts, secret prisons, bit of wiretapping, all part of everyday life.

Nowhere Man (TV) was more scary, by far.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112104/

Sure, X-Files had boogie men, big baddies, conspiracies. In Nowhere Man the evil was ubiquitous, bureaucratic, banal, and terrifying.

Re: The Criminalization of Everyday Life

#226

Post by nitrogen »

maxerickson wrote: post #72
iambateman wrote: post #32

If every police station in the country is equipped with military-grade weapons and vehicles, what happens in the event of despotic leadership? Suppose someone rises to power with little regard for legislative oversight and activates the sleeping military at home. It might start with a real (or faked) terror event coordinated across several major cities. It wouldn't take much at all, 5-10 cities, and suddenly: 1. Inte…

Why are the enforcers that are keeping the police in line so quick to go along with the despot? Or do you really think that the police in the U.S. are equivalent to a disciplined, no-questions-asked unit of the Federal government? (I don't think a majority of the military could be encouraged to act directly against the citizens of the U.S., never mind the police (preempting snide replies, against the people in a nati…

In that hypothetical scenario, the police would be responding to an attack (staged or otherwise). Later, the immediate security measures put in place in response to the attack simply wouldn't be wound down over time, maybe because of additional attacks against notable weak points of the existing security measures. Also, cell phone and Internet service would be shut down (ostensibly to prevent attackers from triggering remote detonators, which obviously could never have timers or dead man's switches), thus preventing the on-duty emergency security police from getting news from an outside source.

It's an interesting hypothetical scenario which exploits the good intentions of the police and military to do evil.

Re: The Criminalization of Everyday Life

#227

Post by scarecrowbob »

joe_the_user wrote: post #200
rolux wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That critique of Foucault is much too cheap. To any halfway competent theory hacker, it will sound like "But Python uses significant whitespace, and Guido van Rossum's knowledge of language design is dubious at best." It's hard to base a serious discussion on that type of argument. To me, one of the major takeaways from Foucault is his renouncement of the "repression hypothesis". In a nutshell, he proposes to underst…

To me, one of the major takeaways from Foucault is his renouncement of the "repression hypothesis". In a nutshell, he proposes to understand power not as a binary relation between oppressors and the oppressed, but as a much more molecular system that spans all sectors of society, and whose modus operandi is not primarily repression, but rather motivation (making someone speak, articulate desires, etc). I know that's…

"But it seems like not the useful insight given a state the clearly has asymetrically greater power than the populace?"

Is your assumption true? That is, leaving aside the fact that the police are ostensibly part of the populace, how would some police and a single APC pacify even a couple of blocks of citizens without the cooperation of those citizens?

Personally, and I realize that this is opinion, I do not believe your assumption is true, and as such is a pretty good example of why the ideas you are critiquing are useful- it is difficult to see the larger system of power described by the ability or inability to motivate people.

Re: The Criminalization of Everyday Life

#228

Post by peterashford »

blah32497 wrote: post #203
coldtea wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a false equivalence that keeps being brought up on HN. Yes, authoritarian government have mass surveillance, but the converse isn't necessarily true. Perhaps (which is still arguable). But that's not the case here, because we have both. From the Patriot Act to the SWAT-ization of everyday police operations, and from the TSA to the massively increased legal overload (compared to 1960's laws and practices) an…

It's not like last year they passed the evil-fascist-police bill that allows the cops to buy tanks. This is all happening within the preexisting legal framework. (The Patriot Act has been around for already 12 years) There has been no significant expansion of the power of the state over the past decade. If you think the existing framework is flawed (and I would strongly agree), then definitely fight against it. Vote…

I think it's rather more that the history of states turning fascist shows that the turn is usually proceeded by the state acquiring extraordinary powers on the basis that "insert-bogeyman-here" is out to get us (see Italy, Spain, Germany for past exemplars) and that current citizens would rather be vigilant and ensure that we don't have a fascist future than sit back and allow the possibility that it might occur.

"The fight against surveillance is essentially defeatist and fear mongering. It assumes the government will turn evil and it'll start trying to make your life miserable. It's all part of a collective psychosis. We think that it's an inevitability that one day the US will turn into an evil dystopian nazi regime."

I think that history disagrees with you. Have you ever heard the phrase: all that's required for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing? People questioning the reach of government surveillance are good people doing something.

Re: The Criminalization of Everyday Life

#229

Post by maxerickson »

nitrogen wrote: post #226
maxerickson wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are the enforcers that are keeping the police in line so quick to go along with the despot? Or do you really think that the police in the U.S. are equivalent to a disciplined, no-questions-asked unit of the Federal government? (I don't think a majority of the military could be encouraged to act directly against the citizens of the U.S., never mind the police (preempting snide replies, against the people in a nati…

In that hypothetical scenario, the police would be responding to an attack (staged or otherwise). Later, the immediate security measures put in place in response to the attack simply wouldn't be wound down over time, maybe because of additional attacks against notable weak points of the existing security measures. Also, cell phone and Internet service would be shut down (ostensibly to prevent attackers from triggerin…

Yes, I get the gist of it.

I am not convinced it is plausible.

Re: The Criminalization of Everyday Life

#230

Post by ilaksh »

Please see historical and global context related to 'police-state' and despotism in order to understand the significance of these issues. You will need to set aside your American exceptionalism.

I do have an issue with the article though. My middle school did have quite a few young criminals in it, and a zero-tolerance policy would have been beneficial for everyone. Instead, quite a lot of physical violence and theft was dismissed as 'bullying' which resulted in escalation. I know for a fact that many of the students who misbehaved in less extreme criminal ways (and were allowed to get away with it) did enter into a life of crime before they were halfway through high school.

So there is a difference between militarization and despotic control and disciplining students enough to prevent them from becoming criminals.

I think that rather than worrying about harsh penalties for vandalism etc., take issue with the propaganda being fed to students and the lack of focus on problem solving outside of narrow domains.

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