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The 'Judicial Black Hole' of El Salvador's Prisons Is a Warning for Americans

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Re: The 'Judicial Black Hole' of El Salvador's Prisons Is a Warning for Americans

#161
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So easily you gloss over millions of Americans who fought to end slavery, who fought for women's right to vote, who fought for desegregation, who fought for labor rights,... The "comfortable life" in America isn't a 300 year old gift of extra judicial killings - it's a continued culture across 10 generations of individuals and communities fighting for ever fairer freedoms under a shared rule of law.

You’re retconning history from a mid-20th century civil rights lens. That lens focuses on increasing access to a civilizational order that has already been built. Its about expanding access to what white males already had. But it’s an inadequate lens for understanding how that order was built in the first place. The hard part is getting “from 0 to 1.” You need a state, the state needs to impose order and gain control…

Perhaps we agree that sustaining fair societies is a continual march of institutional and cultural building - not something imposed by a document or stamped by 1800's England. I would never argue that US-Iraq style nation building would succeed, for example. In fact, it is a counter example of violence being sufficient to get from 0 to 1. The US applied extreme violence over a population and failed to establish a persistent democratic order. The basis of civilization, as I read history, is more a consequence of surplus than violence.

I see, in the chaos of Somalia, Yemen, Iraq, as examples, the results of institutions and cultures effectively destroyed by outside violence, in many cases regressing from 1 to 0.

Thank you for sharing your point of view - certainly thought provoking for me.

Re: The 'Judicial Black Hole' of El Salvador's Prisons Is a Warning for Americans

#162
post #133

I came across this article[1] the other day, after reading about the US sending people to a prison in El Salvador and wondering what we actually know about the place. An incongruity that I didn't notice at the time but realized a bit later is that the prison is called "The Center for Terrorism Confinement" and it has a capacity of 40,000 people. Why would El Salvador or any country need a terrorist detention facility…

Did you miss the year of press cycles where this guy took El Salvador from one of the worst crime rates in the Western Hemisphere to one of the best by liberally arresting anyone he thought might be related to crime gangs? From Wikipedia: > During his presidency, Bukele enacted tough-on-crime policies that scholars have characterized as successfully reducing gang activity and violent crime at the cost of arbitrary ar…

So having a low crime rate is more important than keeping innocent people out of jail?

Re: The 'Judicial Black Hole' of El Salvador's Prisons Is a Warning for Americans

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The drug cartels are viewed as terroristic activity, so yes, there are a lot of terrorists in El salvador by that perspective. Shouldn't be too surprising when cartels commit outrageous acts like the Mejicanos massacre

Yeah anyone criticizing the mass incarceration in El Salvador as unjust should really familiarize themselves with the crimes of the gangs down there. The obliteration of a social scourge in a single presidency was nothing short of miraculous. That's why Bukele was re-elected at the highest levels in history - his people genuinely love him for it. The right to a fair trial is great in places that have law and order, b…

As someone who generally opposes Bukele on an ideological level, I'm not even that mad about the mass sweeps themselves. The way things were going before, it was obvious a drastic solution was needed.

It's the CECOT conditions and the boasting about cruel treatment that I'm unhappy about. At this point it's plain torture, and I believe it's wrong to torture people, even if those people are themselves torturers or worse.

Re: The 'Judicial Black Hole' of El Salvador's Prisons Is a Warning for Americans

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The drug cartels are viewed as terroristic activity, so yes, there are a lot of terrorists in El salvador by that perspective. Shouldn't be too surprising when cartels commit outrageous acts like the Mejicanos massacre

Yeah anyone criticizing the mass incarceration in El Salvador as unjust should really familiarize themselves with the crimes of the gangs down there. The obliteration of a social scourge in a single presidency was nothing short of miraculous. That's why Bukele was re-elected at the highest levels in history - his people genuinely love him for it. The right to a fair trial is great in places that have law and order, b…

I think anyone who is innocent but in jail probably misses the right to a fair trial.

Re: The 'Judicial Black Hole' of El Salvador's Prisons Is a Warning for Americans

#165

I don't think many people have actually contemplated what absence of law, defined as rules that apply to rich and powerful people too, is like. In a world with law, there are restriction on what society's most powerful can and can't do, because there are police officers, detectives, lawyers, and judges, who all work together to make sure there are consequences for crimes. In a world without law, the only restriction…

[flagged]

> biden imported millions of third worlders with no vetting through a combination of lack of border enforcement and wide ranging refugee and amnesty efforts.

Everyone who told you those mistruths was lying to you hoping against you’d vote against your interests. Biden not only enforced immigration laws, he was doing so at a higher rate.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/trump-dep...

Re: The 'Judicial Black Hole' of El Salvador's Prisons Is a Warning for Americans

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sending people there and then saying you don't have jurisdiction over them anymore is dysfunctional by any reasonable measure.

Writing from a country with dysfunctional judiciary, I think this is a logical way to overcome crime, at least temporarily. There isn't a "hygienic" alternative when judges are continuously bribed or blackmailed by gang members.

> There isn't a "hygienic" alternative when judges are continuously bribed or blackmailed by gang members.

None of this is applicable to the United States. It is a problem in some other countries but wasn’t the case here.

Re: The 'Judicial Black Hole' of El Salvador's Prisons Is a Warning for Americans

#167
post #4

Heh, even the extrajudicial imprisonment camps can be outsourced now. Why look bad having your military run Guantanamo when you can do the Uber model it for a cheap price. Heh, or is a pun on AirBnB the more apt name for it.. "Concrete Floor & Indefinite Detention"?

I bet you they subcontract them as slave labour to make a quick buck.

Re: The 'Judicial Black Hole' of El Salvador's Prisons Is a Warning for Americans

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Citizenship is not some indelible mark on your person. It is likely at best some ink on a piece of paper or line in a database that can be lost, stolen, "forgotten", or denied. Imagine that I were a police officer, I asked for your papers, and then immediately burnt them. How are you going to prove you are a citizen? What if I accused you of faking those documents? What is your recourse? How are you going to prove yo…

> Imagine that I were a police officer, I asked for your papers, and then immediately burnt them.

This isn't hypothetical, either. I know several US citizens whose documents are being confiscated and destroyed, because the current US regime has decided they're fraudulent. (One person had their passport printed, and then immediately destroyed.)

Re: The 'Judicial Black Hole' of El Salvador's Prisons Is a Warning for Americans

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A quotation from White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, if reports are to be believed; but you should really link to a specific source, e.g. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy73gqq64do . (LMGTFY is the most annoying form of link rot.)

I am not sure if you have seen that there's a flagging war going on on HN lately. The commenter probably didn't link on purpose to prevent that. Just saying that we need a more neutral medium for the HN crowd if that kind of discussions afen't allowed. Turning a blind eye to what's going on is what got us into this mess.

Linking – or better still, quoting – makes me more comfortable vouching for comments. (I vouched here, because the discussion below the comment is worthwhile, but the comment itself is practically unreadable.)

Re: The 'Judicial Black Hole' of El Salvador's Prisons Is a Warning for Americans

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you miss the year of press cycles where this guy took El Salvador from one of the worst crime rates in the Western Hemisphere to one of the best by liberally arresting anyone he thought might be related to crime gangs? From Wikipedia: > During his presidency, Bukele enacted tough-on-crime policies that scholars have characterized as successfully reducing gang activity and violent crime at the cost of arbitrary ar…

So having a low crime rate is more important than keeping innocent people out of jail?

I would bet it depends on the rate of each happening to the average voter.
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