271–280 of 457 posts
It is not uncommon in certain rural Louisiana towns to have the local sheriffs/police make up some traffic offense and have you sit in the local jail for a weekend because the judge isn't going to show up until Monday if they don't like you being around there as an outsider/activist.
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Does rule of law require the same investments as healthcare? Isn't America spending the most per capita on healthcare in the world with horrible outcomes (life expectancy 4 years behind poor countries like Portugal)? Aren't there public healthcare systems outside of Europe? Doesn't America have an insane amount of natural resources and the benefit of controlling world's exchange currency to make up for any additional…
> life expectancy 4 years behind poor countries like Portugal Demographics has a big impact on life expectancies. Asian Americans have a life expectancy of 84 years for instance. Which is better than Portugal by 3 years. Comparing life expectancies on a per country basis is fraught with error if attempting to attribute differences to health systems. Genetics, climate, diet — all have huge impacts on life expectancy.…
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You forgot that the prosecution will go over the top on charges, as bargaining chips for a plea deal. None of these would ever stick in a real court, but if you're facing sexual assault charges (and a lifetime on the sex offender registry) for allegedly peeing in a park, pleading guilty to a lesser crime sounds pretty good. Everyone has a right to a trial by jury in theory, but if you waste the prosecutor's time by e…
> if you're facing sexual assault charges (and a lifetime on the sex offender registry) for allegedly peeing in a park People repeat this anecdote all the time, but I'd challenge you to find a single person who has ever been put on the sex offender registry for nothing more than public urination. (Let alone being charged with sexual assault, which is nonsensical -- look up how that crime is defined in US law.)
"[...] people regularly spend months behind bars without charges filed against them, much longer than state law allows."
In such a litigious society like the one in the USA, what stops convicts from hiring the lawyer and suing authorities, there are many lawyers who would gladly work for success fee, if indeed the law was broken and they can expect an easy win for a huge amount that people get in US courts because, say, they spilled hot coffee on their laps and it turned out the coffee is hot?
I’m sure this can be solved with voting and protesting lol
The question is, why is it important to you to try to make those powers socially outre (which is the point of using ridicule)? What do you gain?
And most importantly, cui bono? Who are you serving, intentionally or knowingly or not? I think it's probably the people with most to lose from votes and protests - those in power.
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> Just like healthcare, US justice is only for people with money. In most times and places, this is true. Ancient times, recent history, autocracies, democracies... Justice is expensive. Justice, and the legal college as an ideal often specifically negates this. Equality before the law. Blind justice, etc. That said... justice is inevitably ridden with contradiction, hypocrisy and whatnot. That's what justice is. Deg…
> In most times and places, this is true. Thankfully most of the instances of it not being true exist right now. Let's stay grounded in current reality or just agree not to discuss the topic. Saying "welp what do you expect" is downright worse than ignoring it entirely.
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> Just like healthcare, US justice is only for people with money. In most times and places, this is true. Ancient times, recent history, autocracies, democracies... Justice is expensive. Justice, and the legal college as an ideal often specifically negates this. Equality before the law. Blind justice, etc. That said... justice is inevitably ridden with contradiction, hypocrisy and whatnot. That's what justice is. Deg…
Small claims works (arbitration too), it should be used more. (But people somehow think that arbitration is fake, but of course ignore all the downsides of the public courts. And of course what people who have given it a few minutes of thought usually don't like is that there's no way to do class-action arbitration. But that's not set in stone.)
I said that it is different.
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Your making stuff up. [del: Most Russian soldiers are paid over $100,000 a year to volunteer to fight in Ukraine. :del] In contrast, most of the Ukrainian soldiers are conscripts. Here's a Youtube channel by a Brit who moved to Russia in 2002 or 2003: https://www.youtube.com/@SamsRussianAdventures/videos At the current time, the top video (i.e., the latest video) in that list is titled, "I'm Much Happier Here in Russ…
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However, my research is telling me that I was wrong when I wrote, "Most Russian soldiers are paid over $100,000 a year to volunteer to fight in Ukraine". Even the ones who signed contracts recently probably get less than half of that.
https://samhenrycliff.medium.com/tarrant-county-sheriff-bill...
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A gun is effective for suicide, yeah. We don't have suicide clinics in the states like Europe has, at least that I'm aware of. So people buy guns then off themselves. You have the causation backwards.
Yes, I agree, there's definitely that. I know I would not be alive now if I had easy access to a gun. But the parent is talking about the USA having more self-defence freedoms, and gun ownership is definitely part of that. It's not about suicide, it's that weird "you gotta protect your family" that non-Americans find a bit worrying - what are you so scared of? I've lived in a few countries and nowhere I've lived has…