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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

#191

Post by grey-area »

CapricornNoble wrote: post #134
hayst4ck wrote: post #11

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…

> Who would stop that abduction from happening with force? What if the men doing that are police officers? What if they go after your family the day after? Now you understand why the Black Panthers arose: the black community realized that it needed to arm itself to protect against the oppressive power of the state. It could be argued that modern infringements on the Second Amendment are largely a reaction of the gove…

Have you used your gun to overthrow the state?

Why not?

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

#192

Post by tastyface »

ein0p wrote: post #180
tastyface wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that people like you require the personal experience of having a loved one black-bagged in the middle of the night without recourse to understand OP's position. Every authoritarian regime ever uses the same logic to build up their police state: "for the greater good".

The US has 2.5x the incarceration rate of China, and 1.8x the incarceration rate of Russia. How's that for "authoritarian regime"? Or is this "different" somehow?

While the incarceration rate of the US is atrocious, the prisoners (for the most part) have access to the legal/judicial system and are covered by things like habeas corpus, right to a speedy trial, right to counsel, visitation rights, etc.

Also, for the most part, prisons in the US don’t practice torture and political reprogramming. Nor are there concentration camps with indefinite detention save for a handful of black sites like Guantanamo.

People have gotten years-long prison sentences (which are de facto death sentences with regularity) in Russia for donating a few bucks to Ukraine or speaking out against the war. Nothing comparable happens in the US (for now).

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

#193

Post by tastyface »

rayiner wrote: post #183
tastyface wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democracy tends to require a revolution to break free from those authoritarian regimes, to say nothing of thousands (or millions) of deaths along the way. And we're still waiting for Russia, China, Cuba, etc. to reveal their glorious democratic forms. (By your logic, communism must be one of humanity's greatest achievements since it elevated a number of feudal countries to superpower status. Nevermind the millions of…

Many countries transitioned to democracy without a major revolution. And even when they did, virtually all reused the same state infrastructure that was established during the monarchy. Communism was a failure because it was incompetent. But the authoritarian-capitalist government China has had since the late 1980s was nothing short of a miracle. In the 1970s, China was as poor per capita as Bangladesh. Today, Bangla…

Soviet Russia under its most authoritarian leader rapidly industrialized, defeated Nazi Germany, developed nuclear weapons, dramatically raised the levels of literacy and education across the entire population, and became a global superpower. That sounds like a smashing success to me.

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

#194

Post by dleary »

hollerith wrote: post #187
dleary wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the population grew from 100k in 1700 to 300k in 1750, and if the homicide rate was right around 2 per 100k, then that would mean that the total number of homicides in New England, over the 50 years span was less than 300. Do you really believe that fewer than 300 murders occurred during this time?

300 murders per year . The FBI maintains murder statistics for most policing jurisdictions in the US. Many of them are under 2 per 100,000 per year: Sunnyvale, CA; Hercules, CA; Novato, CA, Brookline, MA; the Twin Cities. The rate in Beverly, MA, is 0.946. Japan's rate is 0.4.

No, 300 murders total.

The population reached ~300k in 1750. A murder rate of 2 per 100k times 300k people equals 6 murders. Multiply that by 50 years to get 300 murders.

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

#195

Post by dleary »

poincaredisk wrote: post #185
dleary wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the population grew from 100k in 1700 to 300k in 1750, and if the homicide rate was right around 2 per 100k, then that would mean that the total number of homicides in New England, over the 50 years span was less than 300. Do you really believe that fewer than 300 murders occurred during this time?

In my country homicide rate per 100k is less than 1. Why is 2 unbelievable? Or do I understand something wrong?

He's making a claim about 1700s America. Not modern day countries.

It was a violent time.

Just one 'dataset': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indian_massacres_in_No...

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

#196

Post by hollerith »

dleary wrote: post #194
hollerith wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

300 murders per year . The FBI maintains murder statistics for most policing jurisdictions in the US. Many of them are under 2 per 100,000 per year: Sunnyvale, CA; Hercules, CA; Novato, CA, Brookline, MA; the Twin Cities. The rate in Beverly, MA, is 0.946. Japan's rate is 0.4.

No, 300 murders total. The population reached ~300k in 1750. A murder rate of 2 per 100k times 300k people equals 6 murders. Multiply that by 50 years to get 300 murders.

OK. Thanks for the correction. I aspire to make sure I understand a thread before I add to it, but I fell short of my aspiration this time.

This doesn't affect my 2nd and 3rd paragraphs though.

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

#197

Post by collingreen »

Viliam1234 wrote: post #186
CapricornNoble wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who would stop that abduction from happening with force? What if the men doing that are police officers? What if they go after your family the day after? Now you understand why the Black Panthers arose: the black community realized that it needed to arm itself to protect against the oppressive power of the state. It could be argued that modern infringements on the Second Amendment are largely a reaction of the gove…

> Well......now everyone can see how quickly state power can turn malevolent, and why the Right to Bear Arms matters. I still don't see how people are today using 2A to defend themselves against the redcaps. When the state power turns malevolent but many of your neighbors are happy about it , your gun is not going to overthrow the regime (because those neighbors have guns, too).

I think this is really important - 2A is about being able to arm a militia and only has value when a vast majority of the people are willing to put their life on the line against the military. It isn't magically an antidote to authoritarianism and it's a deep negative if too many of your neighbors don't like the look of you and don't believe in rights or the rule of law.

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

#198

Post by queenkjuul »

dawatchusay wrote: post #111
hayst4ck wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the unholy union of a new unregulated form of communication, social media, and unregulated privatized intelligence companies, such as Palantir and Cambrdige Analytica. Ironically China implemented the GFW because they correctly predicted this exact scenario being used to destabilize themselves.

I don’t think that’s why the GFW exists but ok

You think wrong

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

#199

Post by [deleted] »

tastyface wrote: post #137
xyzzyz wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do you know that the "overwhelming majority" are "bad people who prey on others" without a functional judicial system to prove it? You think the murder rate went down by two orders of magnitude by locking up good, innocent people?

If there are 10,000 murderers out there and you lock up most of them along with 20,000 innocent people, you get the same result. (Bonus points if you happen to snag some annoying journalists, activists, and civil rights leaders in your dragnet, since they can push back on your power play and cast doubt on your stats.) But you can just read the article if you don't believe me: "While polling consistently shows that Bu…

[deleted]

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

#200

Post by _DeadFred_ »

rayiner wrote: post #49

The homicide rate in El Salvador has dropped from 100 per 100,000 to 2.5 per 100,000 in just a decade: https://www.statista.com/statistics/696152/homicide-rate-in-... . The El Salvadoran government has literally brought the country to an entirely different level of development, vastly improving the lives of most of the country’s 6 million people. Disorder and dysfunction doesn’t just hurt those who are killed. It’s a…

Ah YOU are the designated speaker for the disenfranchised while all other Americans don't have the emotional intelligence/historical background needed to possibly understand. You think way too highly of yourself and your wizened worldliness and too poorly of others. You should try stopping pontificating on your inherently superior wisdom and more time conversing/engaging with others.
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