161–170 of 326 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Indeed, the City of Ferguson's finances relied on the regular fining of its poorest citizens. Basically backdoor taxation.
Not unlike the lottery, which the poor regularly spent their meager pittance on. Taxation of the poor as Lincoln noted. So can be ban lotteries (and casinos, too) unless participants demonstrate they can afford the losses?
There's all this discussion of these issues, which relate to racism, economic issues, police brutality, crime, etc. They seem complicated and nuanced and people throw their hands up and say well what can we do. The answer to that question is actually so simple you can say it in four words: End the drug war. Someone far more eloquent than me, The Wire creator David Simon, can flesh that out a little: http://www.washin…
I'll agree that the drug war is out of control and as a "cure" it's worse than the disease. But people are not being locked up just because they are black, or poor. They are committing crimes, and pleading or being found guilty. The problem I have with pieces like the original article are that they are making it sound like we are engaging in a Gestapo-like rounding up of large numbers of minorities for no reason and…
There's all this discussion of these issues, which relate to racism, economic issues, police brutality, crime, etc. They seem complicated and nuanced and people throw their hands up and say well what can we do. The answer to that question is actually so simple you can say it in four words: End the drug war. Someone far more eloquent than me, The Wire creator David Simon, can flesh that out a little: http://www.washin…
The drug war is a symptom of something more basic: Americans lack compassion. Consider something in the non-drug context: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/georgia-probatio... . You can bring up private prisons and probation companies, but the fact is that these laws have been on the books all along. They were passed by part-time state legislators, who are pretty representative of ordinary people in the sta…
Really?
http://www.nptrust.org/philanthropic-resources/charitable-gi...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>>But people are not being locked up just because they are black, or poor. They are committing crimes, and pleading or being found guilty. I'd say that institutionalize/systemic racism in America makes it exceedingly more likely that a minority will end up poor and exceedingly more difficult to get out of ---> poor neighborhoods --> more crime ---> broken window policy ---> problems we've been seeing recently. Conver…
Can we dispense with "minority" and "people of color" when we're talking really about blacks and to a lesser extent hispanics? This kind of intellectual forgery is why the left (and it's prescriptions) are increasingly viewed with suspicion. Bring yourself to be honest with your words and assessments. Make sure what you say passes the smell test. Otherwise you're just preaching to the converted.
Tautology. "The left" isn't a thing, other than when viewed with suspicion by "the right".
> Bring yourself to be honest with your words and assessments.
Implying that it's dishonest to use terms like "minority" and "people of color" is a leap that you need to back up to have credibility.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The testosterone argument is a bullshit one in this context: the article you posted isn't trying to connect the dots in the disingenuous way you are, it's talking about prostate cancer . It does not attempt to suss out whether or not testosterone levels are the cause of crime, period. The misstep you are taking is assuming that testosterone causes crime, rather than correlates with it. Even this article [1], which yo…
Don't assume bad intentions. I used to think that there is a strong racial component, simply because it matched my everyday experiences. Only after I started traveling more did my opinion change - I'm now pretty sure that its mostly cultural. Your previous reply sounded a lot like those "you are not allowed to say this" stuff that does a lot of harm, because it suffocates discourse. So thanks for posting a factual fo…
> The United States has 5% of the world’s population but 25% of the world’s prisoners. This sums it up for me.
This sums it up for me.
Here in the United States, we do have issues with the justice and penal systems. But these number alone do not paint the full picture.
In other countries, if you're convicted of a crime you may have a body part cut off. You may be executed. Or you may simply "disappear". In any of these cases, you're not considered a prisoner.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The drug war is a symptom of something more basic: Americans lack compassion. Consider something in the non-drug context: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/georgia-probatio... . You can bring up private prisons and probation companies, but the fact is that these laws have been on the books all along. They were passed by part-time state legislators, who are pretty representative of ordinary people in the sta…
"The drug war is a symptom of something more basic: Americans lack compassion." Really? http://www.nptrust.org/philanthropic-resources/charitable-gi...
"Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes."
There's all this discussion of these issues, which relate to racism, economic issues, police brutality, crime, etc. They seem complicated and nuanced and people throw their hands up and say well what can we do. The answer to that question is actually so simple you can say it in four words: End the drug war. Someone far more eloquent than me, The Wire creator David Simon, can flesh that out a little: http://www.washin…
There's no drug war in the Congo, or Nigeria, Liberia, or Ethiopia. These are places, though, that most people, if they had their druthers, prefer to leave. So of course, end the drug war. But the elephant in the room doesn't go away if you ignore it harder. Eppur si muove.
If you're going to be racist might as well own it.
You were doing a better job of that in some of your other racist comments:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8970505
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8472737
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'll agree that the drug war is out of control and as a "cure" it's worse than the disease. But people are not being locked up just because they are black, or poor. They are committing crimes, and pleading or being found guilty. The problem I have with pieces like the original article are that they are making it sound like we are engaging in a Gestapo-like rounding up of large numbers of minorities for no reason and…
The problem isn't that we're throwing them in jail for no reason . The problem is we aren't throwing non-poor non-minorities in jail for the same reasons. Most friends of mine regularly do drugs. Even the self made multi millionaires. None of them have been to jail. They aren't subject to the random ass searches like the poor are. If things were different - if the millionaires were treated with the same suspect, you…
So if the police get complaints from neighbors they respond to that. If your rich neighbors tolerate your coke addiction, they don't come knocking. If you have a noisy neighbor who complains they do come knocking. Police respond very much to community complaints, from my experience with them growing up.
Whenever the police came to "bust" activities, it was mostly due to neighbors calling in "suspicious activity" I.e. Underage drinking and weed.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is ending. Legalization of marijuana is the start.
Legalizing marijuana is _very_ different from changing the policy on crack-cocaine. Crack is one of the primary issues in lower income/black communities. A good first step? Absolutely, but it will be another generation before any policy is passed that results in the taxation of other narcotics. The US needs to sell guns to someone...