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Lawyer: ‘It’s a Free for All’ for Criminals on BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit)

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Re: Lawyer: ‘It’s a Free for All’ for Criminals on BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit)

#201

Post by pteredactyl »

diogenescynic wrote: post #177
pteredactyl wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea I'm in SF not sure how long I'll last. It's a cess pool. Criminals have more rights than children. There was a crazy homeless guy who would shit everyday in front of a school in Bernal. The police couldn't do anything about it. You are completely right about the fear of political fallout for wanting to uphold the law. It's sad.

>Criminals have more rights than children. This is the most succinct way I’ve seen it explained and it’s 100% accurate. You’re also right about the fear of upholding the law. It’s sad AND ridiculous. A relevant article about another local offender cops just ignore: https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/heatherknight/article/Co...

Thanks. It came to me when I saw a Mom with kids get harassed by a crazy person on the sidewalk. Also there's a similar story in Bernal where a crazy person kept shitting in front of a school. But nobody could do anything about it (for fear of hysterical backlash). I can't find the article though.

Re: Lawyer: ‘It’s a Free for All’ for Criminals on BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit)

#202

Post by toomanybeersies »

esotericn wrote: post #75
twblalock wrote: post #38

This is why it's hard to get support for public transit funding. People don't want to take public transit if they will fear for their lives, or be surrounded by drug addicts and mentally disturbed people yelling at and spitting on other passengers. BART trains and stations are like this on a regular basis; Muni has the same problems but not as bad. I've seen this kind of thing happen on Caltrain late at night also, b…

Is this just an American thing? Healthcare funding, or something? I've never been to SF, but I've visited NYC, and the subway there feels like stepping in to a horror movie. During a two week visit I saw people passing out and being ignored (I was the only one attempting to help), individuals swinging around bricks in socks, and various other obvious examples of severely mentally ill individuals. In London I've never…

A big part of it is that people don't want to cause themselves trouble.

It's not often that I see people having fights in public here in Australia, but on the odd occasion that people are misbehaving, I really don't want to cause myself trouble and hurt myself. I'm not inclined to get bottled or stabbed for trying to help someone out.

On the other hand, if I do come across someone passed out in public who looks a bit fucked up, I will make sure they're alive and at least vaguely responsive, and roll them into the recovery position. I wouldn't call an ambulance though because they're expensive and I don't want to cause someone a $2000 bill because they were just drunk and sleeping it off.

Re: Lawyer: ‘It’s a Free for All’ for Criminals on BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit)

#203

Post by pteredactyl »

manfredo wrote: post #185
admax88q wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're the second person I've seen to say "Criminals have more rights than children" Where do you get your talking points from?

I can't speak for the above commenter, but in a way street people in SF really are more free than employed people. If I were to break into a car and steal stuff I'd get jailed and released a couple days later, or even the same day. But I'd probably get fired. Whereas someone with no job would get jaled and released with no real consequences. Because the city refuses to enforce many crimes (basically, anything short o…

I agree. I try not to think about it. Or what I could do for myself and the community with my tax dollars. Instead of sending them 5000 miles away to DC. What a joke.

Also not to mention, if you were jailed for some reason, you'd get fired and probably fined $10,000. If you don't have the money: Well, Welcome to the streets!

People are so ego-invested in this absurd and hysterical reality. I don't get it. I will say it seems to be reinforced every minute through our tv media.

For example, sometimes when I speak with someone hysterical (80% of SF and some of my family now) they'll calm down and we'll have an open rational (non-ideological) dialogue. After, I think to myself 'ok it's not all lost'.

Then I see them again and they're back to the hysteria. It's like a robot who forgot their programming.

Re: Lawyer: ‘It’s a Free for All’ for Criminals on BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit)

#204

Post by pteredactyl »

darpa_escapee wrote: post #174
wolco wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The counterpoint is the coldwar and the threat being more powerful to the actual gun.

People aren't nation-states who take game theory to its logical conclusion.

Why wouldn't people take game theory to its logical conclusion?

Re: Lawyer: ‘It’s a Free for All’ for Criminals on BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit)

#205

Post by KozmoNau7 »

pageandrew wrote: post #198
KozmoNau7 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right to self-defense does not mean a right to use deadly force in every situation. The essence of self-defense is to use only the necessary force to ensure your safety, by incapacitating or immobilizing the assailant, until police arrives or you can make a safe escape. It is not a license to kill.

The right to self defense means that you have the right to use force, including deadly force, to stop a threat to your life. In a life or death situation, your last concern should be moderating your force against your assailant to stop the threat.

Only in the case where is is a life or death situation. The vast majority of self-defense situations involve the threat of simple material loss. Just hand it over, your wallet/phone is not worth your life.

If your life is threatened, you use the necessary force to stop the assailant. That may include the use of deadly force, but that threat of deadly force (brandishing a firearm) should absolutely not be the first cause of action.

A lot of people seem to have worked themselves into a paranoid mindset, where every unpleasant altercation is a life or death situation. That is a very dangerous state of mind, and one that results in completely unnecessary loss of life.

Re: Lawyer: ‘It’s a Free for All’ for Criminals on BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit)

#206

Post by KozmoNau7 »

pageandrew wrote: post #197
KozmoNau7 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a country, take care of your disadvantaged people, the jobless, the homeless, the troubled. Enforce a proper minimum wage, scaled as a proper living wage for a given area. Enact single payer healthcare. Stop persecuting minorities, and end the ridiculous war on drugs. Enact gun control. In the longer run, abolish (crony) capitalism, abolish lobbying and "campaign donations" (bribes) and break the military-industri…

> make the wealthy actually pay their taxes Sounds like you need to get your facts straight. > A Pew Research Center analysis of IRS data from 2015, the most recent available, shows that taxpayers with incomes of $200,000 or more paid well over half (58.8%) of federal income taxes https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjK...

They are still paying nowhere near the same portion of their income as those of less advantage are paying. Plus their disposable income is still vastly larger, and they're basically untouched by the regressive costs paid by less fortunate people.

The wealthy should pay more, that is why progressive tax systems exist. They reap the largest benefit of society's goods, by a gigantic margin.

Re: Lawyer: ‘It’s a Free for All’ for Criminals on BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit)

#207

Post by pteredactyl »

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #205
pageandrew wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The right to self defense means that you have the right to use force, including deadly force, to stop a threat to your life. In a life or death situation, your last concern should be moderating your force against your assailant to stop the threat.

Only in the case where is is a life or death situation. The vast majority of self-defense situations involve the threat of simple material loss. Just hand it over, your wallet/phone is not worth your life. If your life is threatened, you use the necessary force to stop the assailant. That may include the use of deadly force, but that threat of deadly force (brandishing a firearm) should absolutely not be the first ca…

Exactly. That's what they teach in most self-defense. Avoid situations at all costs. Run away. Hand over the money. Even if you're carrying or know how to kill with your hands.

Re: Lawyer: ‘It’s a Free for All’ for Criminals on BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit)

#208

Post by CaptainZapp »

twblalock wrote: post #38

This is why it's hard to get support for public transit funding. People don't want to take public transit if they will fear for their lives, or be surrounded by drug addicts and mentally disturbed people yelling at and spitting on other passengers. BART trains and stations are like this on a regular basis; Muni has the same problems but not as bad. I've seen this kind of thing happen on Caltrain late at night also, b…

That's a really American perspective about public transport. Here's a counter example:

While Marcel Rohner[1] was CEO of UBS he took the train from Aarau, where he lived, to UBS' head office in Zurich. That's despite the fact that the CEO of UBS has a car and driver at his disposal.

But the point is that he'd nevertheless be stuck in traffic jams like us mere mortals and taking the train is just that much more efficient.

And that's the thing. People chose their mode of transportation based on efficiency and economics. You're not, by definition, a social outcast just because you use train, trams of buses and that goes for a lot of countries outside the US, provided there's investment into the public transport infrastructure. But unless people feel safe it's a non-starter if you have alternatives.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Rohner_(banker)

Re: Lawyer: ‘It’s a Free for All’ for Criminals on BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit)

#209

Post by selestify »

rorykoehler wrote: post #186
m1sta_ wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s due to a failure to enforce the law. The reason for that failure is needs to be addressed.

Is it really though? I feel like Americans regularly say things like this (guns is another similar topic) which only reflects an inability to think many steps down the line from the outcome. There is something deeper at play and I would suspect that it has to do with economic insecurity and lack of opportunity which is further compounded by a lack of education and social cohesion in general. American values are all w…

How would one go about fixing such abstract things as social cohesion and societal values?

Re: Lawyer: ‘It’s a Free for All’ for Criminals on BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit)

#210

Post by selestify »

closeparen wrote: post #99
jblow wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original Bay Bridge was built in 3 years, with 1930s technology. We used to not be a bunch of incompetent idiots when it came to building infrastructure, but now we clearly are. I understand why people don’t want to pay large amounts of tax money to pay incompetent idiots to take a long time building tiny amounts of infrastructure.

Yep. In many ways we are simply stuck with whatever we built before we lost the ability to build things. Not because it’s the best, but because it’s no longer cost effective to improve at current efficiency levels.

How did we become so inefficient?
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