Live data from Hacker News

California Sends Democrats and the Nation a Message on Crime

nytimes.com

111–120 of 136 posts

Re: California Sends Democrats and the Nation a Message on Crime

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but the left didn't shift left in a relevant degree, they are more right then most center parties in the EU. Its right which shifted so far right that it might seem the left shifted away. A lot of things coming from the republican party, of bring tolerated by the republican party on recent years are uncanily similar to how Hitler proceeded before he started mass murdering (like in the rethoric of speach and willingne…

You should probably read some different news sources. The right hasn’t changed much other than they care less about religion/morality than before. I’d say leftists tend to be more authoritarian and less liberal in general than the right. Though the right is also full of the authoritarians who just want it for their side. What the political leaders love is when all the problems are because of the other side. Two wings…

BS. I have never seen anything like Trump’s attempt to “find” votes and install his own electors, with most of the party (implicitly or explicitly) standing behind him, in my political life.

Re: California Sends Democrats and the Nation a Message on Crime

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The way it currently looks is the right want to ban abortion no matter what context. While it's true that some republican run states are going this direction. If we look at the original case that will likely lead the SC to overturn Roe v Wade (again, it hasn't even happened yet), would be a European style ban, where abortion is allowed up until 15 weeks (this is a typical European cutoff). I believe the Mississippi…

Totally false. In most western European countries, women can trivially get approved for abortion after 15 weeks. For example, in the UK, if two doctors agree that it would be too damaging for a woman to carry a pregnancy to term, she can get an abortion even after 15 weeks. Compare that to the man you said represents the mainstream of the GOP. Ron DeSantis signed a law banning abortion after 15 weeks "without exempti…

In the United states, including in Mississippi, which started this case that went to the Supreme court, there is no government intervention at all in your approval to have an abortion. If you're past fifteen weeks and meet the criteria, your abortion is none of the government's business. That is significantly more progressive than Europe, and any other take is not in good faith.

> Ron DeSantis signed a law banning abortion after 15 weeks "without exemptions for rape, incest or human trafficking.

You are deliberately misrepresenting the law and what I said about it. Your own article says:

> The bill, which goes into effect July 1, does allow exemptions in cases where a pregnancy is "serious risk" to the mother or a fatal fetal abnormality is detected if two physicians confirm the diagnosis in writing.

And Germany has no automatic exception for rape after fifteen weeks. It's up to the government. There is no government involvement in getting abortion approval in Florida. That makes florida more progressive.

In fact, in Germany, abortion is illegal at all stages, just merely decriminalized. So again, Florida et al are more progressive. I don't understand why we have to do this pointless thing where we just pretend America is less libertine than all of Europe. In fact in Germany, their courts have ruled that unborn fetuses are innately entitled to human rights. The only reason abortion is allowed is because the courts have said it's okay for the legislature to not punish this kind of murder (that's what the German courts say it is, not my opinion)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_Germany

Re: California Sends Democrats and the Nation a Message on Crime

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So hurray, people learned from the horrors of the 20th century that socialism inevitably leads to rampant corruption, suffering and genocide? Socialism caused 100 deaths for every death the Nazis caused, I don't understand how we don't see someone advocating for it as equally appalling to someone making pro-Nazi statements. Whether you look at the Soviet Union, China, North Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Yugoslavia, Venez…

Good start mixing together communism with socialism (which can nicely coexist with capitalism). And then let me add a nice data point that won't fit your nice narrative: Sweden. While not quite as socialist nowadays compared to maybe in the sixties, but it is still quite a lot more socialist than the US and is actually a pretty decent country to live and work in.

Sweden isn't socialist.

Sweden has welfare benefits slightly more titled in favor of the benefit receivers relative to the US. California unemployment lasts 26 weeks (182 days) compared to Sweden's 300 days. The USA provides free education from K-12, and then subsidized post-secondary education. Sweden provides citizens free tuition through college (international students pay similar tuition to American universities).

Everything a Swedish citizen might receive from the government, an American would have an analogous program, it just might have a lower payout, shorter duration or have more bureaucratic hassles to get. But it's not like these are fundamentally different systems, they're the same system with some numbers tweaked.

Re: California Sends Democrats and the Nation a Message on Crime

#114

I think Democrats at the national level underestimate how much inner-city Democratic mayors, city councils, school boards, and district attorneys determine their image as a party. If suburban swing voters, when commuting into the city center to work, shop, go to a show, etc. see homeless encampments and vacant storefronts, it's going to hit the Democrats' image as a party that can run things. Republicans in city gove…

Do Republican run jurisdictions not have a problem with homelessness, or is it just less visible? Are they shifting their homeless burden to places like cities with more programs and support for homelessness? Because I've never actually heard a Republican plan for dealing with homelessness that doesn't involve criminalizing it and sweeping it under the rug where no one can see it.

I think there is both less homelessness, and also what there is, is less visible. Some of this is simply scale-dependent. If a town of 1,000 people has a homeless person, he's thought of as "that guy", not scary, and anyway he's only one. If a town of 1,000,000 has 1,000 homeless, it's an encampment, and if they all cluster in the middle of town it causes people to feel unsafe, because they're outnumbered when walking downtown.

Re: California Sends Democrats and the Nation a Message on Crime

#115
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like a huge flaw, the idea that cities and law enforcement agencies are reporting their own crime statistics. There's an obvious conflict of interest, it seems like this should be done by a 3rd party. I know it's not that simple, but at least getting some neutral indication of the level of crime in a city would go a long ways. Crime is visibly exploding, the police are only recording the most heinous/obvio…

Do you have a methodology to go with that proposal? When the paperwork is filled in, we have reported crime (because the police take a police report) and we have convictions (how many people were convicted is a matter of public record since courts are open). What we don’t have is a paper trail for all the crime that isn’t reported or when the paperwork isn’t filled out. What can a third party bring to the table that…

Axon has an app for citizens to report crime and upload evidence, that seems like it would go a really long way to get numbers that are at least correlated with publicly visible crime statistics, and I think that's the main goal. The published numbers are a function of real crimes committed plus how hard the law enforcement agencies and local government are trying to suppress those numbers. The Citizen app would give us the dot product of publicly visible crime and use of the app, but I feel like that's probably more reliable than what's currently being published.

Also, Seattle has a Find-It-Fix-It app that allows people to report various things that are broken with the city, opening up that data to the public would be great. I know it's not crime-related, but getting an overall sense of the health of the city seems correlated. This would require that the app be administered by a 3rd party though.

Re: California Sends Democrats and the Nation a Message on Crime

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good start mixing together communism with socialism (which can nicely coexist with capitalism). And then let me add a nice data point that won't fit your nice narrative: Sweden. While not quite as socialist nowadays compared to maybe in the sixties, but it is still quite a lot more socialist than the US and is actually a pretty decent country to live and work in.

Sweden isn't socialist. Sweden has welfare benefits slightly more titled in favor of the benefit receivers relative to the US. California unemployment lasts 26 weeks (182 days) compared to Sweden's 300 days. The USA provides free education from K-12, and then subsidized post-secondary education. Sweden provides citizens free tuition through college (international students pay similar tuition to American universities)…

Socialism does not require an entirely different system, one can implement it just fine in whatever democracy one happens to be operating, so large chunks of it are just tweaking some numbers. And some numbers do kinda make a large difference between having to worry about the bank account running dry before the next paycheck or not or being one fall down the stairs away from bankruptcy.

It also declined somewhat since the ~1970s when it was somewhat more socialist than today. But still it is quite a bit more socialist than the US: the points you already mentioned, plus things like universal healthcare, more employee protection, stronger unions (and unions are not a bad word), more paid vacation days (by law not because one has a nice job) and more public/affordable housing.

Re: California Sends Democrats and the Nation a Message on Crime

#117
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a methodology to go with that proposal? When the paperwork is filled in, we have reported crime (because the police take a police report) and we have convictions (how many people were convicted is a matter of public record since courts are open). What we don’t have is a paper trail for all the crime that isn’t reported or when the paperwork isn’t filled out. What can a third party bring to the table that…

Axon has an app for citizens to report crime and upload evidence, that seems like it would go a really long way to get numbers that are at least correlated with publicly visible crime statistics, and I think that's the main goal. The published numbers are a function of real crimes committed plus how hard the law enforcement agencies and local government are trying to suppress those numbers. The Citizen app would give…

I’ll give you credit, that is indeed a 3rd party addition that would bring something else to the table that I overlooked.

I can’t say I particularly like it though. I do care about suppressing crime, but not to the point of becoming a police state. That ship may have already sailed between both existing apps like the ones you listed and the prevalence of home security cameras, so I’ll say it’s at least worth considering.

> Seattle has a Find-It-Fix-It app

Is this like SF’s 311?

Re: California Sends Democrats and the Nation a Message on Crime

#118
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Axon has an app for citizens to report crime and upload evidence, that seems like it would go a really long way to get numbers that are at least correlated with publicly visible crime statistics, and I think that's the main goal. The published numbers are a function of real crimes committed plus how hard the law enforcement agencies and local government are trying to suppress those numbers. The Citizen app would give…

I’ll give you credit, that is indeed a 3rd party addition that would bring something else to the table that I overlooked. I can’t say I particularly like it though. I do care about suppressing crime, but not to the point of becoming a police state. That ship may have already sailed between both existing apps like the ones you listed and the prevalence of home security cameras, so I’ll say it’s at least worth consider…

Similar, yeah. Reports to it used to go completely ignored, but the city has recently been ramping up its efforts to pay attention to it.

Re: California Sends Democrats and the Nation a Message on Crime

#119
post #50
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Statistics are not reality. Crime stats fell because the DA was so tolerant of crime, people stopped bothering to report anything but the most serious ones.

So in this land of topsy turvy logic, high crime stats is a good thing, because that means they're being reported?

Sometimes there are two problems. In this case: (1) high crime and (2) underreporting.

Re: California Sends Democrats and the Nation a Message on Crime

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

facism is far-right authoritarian ultra-nationalism national-socialist are one movement which is fascist, they are by far not the only one. (Nazis are fascist with socialist paint coat). The US never had (internally) a problem with nazis, I think. But it does have a problem with white supremacist. It also does have a problem with religious extremist, most times Christian based. Both of this groups have quite a bit of…

-> facism is far-right authoritarian ultra-nationalism Colloquially, this is what everyone understands when using the term fascist, but it's not quite in line with the history. 'Fascism' is a pejorative dog whistle, when people hear it they think "enemy" - because in WWII the Italian and German governments were fascist. In fact, fascism, as I understand it, developed as a "third way" on the European continent. It was…

>'Fascism' is a pejorative dog whistle, when people hear it they think "enemy" - because in WWII the Italian and German governments were fascist.

>In fact, fascism, as I understand it, developed as a "third way" on the European continent.

Correct.

As you wrote, we naturally associate fascism with the Nazis invading neighboring countries and committing genocide, but its behavior was aberrant. Half of Europe was fascist/right-wing authoritarian in some form between the wars, including Poland, Austria, and Hungary, none of which started a European war; Italy only started one in Ethiopia. To put another way, Hitler's extreme anti-Semitic and anti-Slav attitudes were independent of his calling himself a fascist.

Mussolini in Italy invented fascism—the bundle of sticks and everything—but the "meh" attitude Italians have about fascism today (complete with Mussolini's granddaughter's longtime political career) is because the Italian variety of totalitarianism was never anything like the Nazis or Soviet Communists in its cruelty. Italian fascism always had substantial Jewish leadership and popular support, and Mussolini imposed anti-Jewish laws in the late 1930s only after substantial pressure from Hitler—by then clearly with the whip hand in the two countries' relationship—to do so.

Post reply on HN