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California Sends Democrats and the Nation a Message on Crime

nytimes.com

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Re: California Sends Democrats and the Nation a Message on Crime

#61

Post by mensetmanusman »

avalys wrote: post #17
ahoy wrote: post #2

This SF district attorney recall thing is a really good example of the media's power to manufacture a story. Even if you accept the premise that crime stats rise or fall in response to DA policies, those stats mostly fell during Boudin's tenure. But if you show the video of someone robbing a convenience store (in oakland! another city entirely!) enough times on loop, you can convince enough voters that Something Must…

Statistics are not reality. Crime stats fell because the DA was so tolerant of crime, people stopped bothering to report anything but the most serious ones.

Statistics are not reality.

Cites statistics.

Re: California Sends Democrats and the Nation a Message on Crime

#62

Post by [deleted] »

ahoy wrote: post #50
avalys wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Statistics are not reality. Crime stats fell because the DA was so tolerant of crime, people stopped bothering to report anything but the most serious ones.

So in this land of topsy turvy logic, high crime stats is a good thing, because that means they're being reported?

[deleted]

Re: California Sends Democrats and the Nation a Message on Crime

#63

Post by [deleted] »

Auracle wrote: post #44
ssully wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way does this give you hope that the right is moving more center?

I'm in a fairly purple state and I don't consider myself a Republican, a Democrat, or even a moderate. I have some views that align with one party and some that align with another. If anything, the right has largely shifted to the center over the course of my life. For example: they, along with Democrats for quite a while, were opposed to gay marriage. While I'm sure there's still a small contingent that would roll t…

[deleted]

Re: California Sends Democrats and the Nation a Message on Crime

#64

Post by kalleboo »

ahoy wrote: post #50
avalys wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Statistics are not reality. Crime stats fell because the DA was so tolerant of crime, people stopped bothering to report anything but the most serious ones.

So in this land of topsy turvy logic, high crime stats is a good thing, because that means they're being reported?

They never said that high crime stats is a good thing, just that the statistics are unreliable and you can't draw conclusions from them.

Re: California Sends Democrats and the Nation a Message on Crime

#65

Post by engineer_22 »

dathinab wrote: post #39
AdrianB1 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is toleration of fascism? Most people I talked to don't even know what fascism is, but they use the term very liberally. Do you have national-socialists in California?

facism is far-right authoritarian ultra-nationalism national-socialist are one movement which is fascist, they are by far not the only one. (Nazis are fascist with socialist paint coat). The US never had (internally) a problem with nazis, I think. But it does have a problem with white supremacist. It also does have a problem with religious extremist, most times Christian based. Both of this groups have quite a bit of…

-> facism is far-right authoritarian ultra-nationalism

Colloquially, this is what everyone understands when using the term fascist, but it's not quite in line with the history. 'Fascism' is a pejorative dog whistle, when people hear it they think "enemy" - because in WWII the Italian and German governments were fascist.

In fact, fascism, as I understand it, developed as a "third way" on the European continent. It was a rejection of capitalism as dominated by wealthy US, English interests, and of Communism. It's interesting that it developed in an area of Europe geographically juxtaposed in the middle of two powerful capitalist and communist fronts. Fascism was a reaction to domination by foreign power - so yes, naturally it's nationalistic. It also has a component of strong integration of nation and economy. The fasces is a binding together, metaphorically a combination of social, political, and economic institutions. Initially, it was an attempt to strengthen the nation, to reclaim power over the national destiny, and make good for the people of that country.

Of course, in hind site, we can see that some truly awful deeds were committed by some truly awful people, and we should be vigilant to prevent that from happening again. Unfortunately, it's a hard thing to predict, and even harder to prevent. It of course becomes harder if the name of fascism is misused in partisan political contexts because the nuance and history of the term is quickly lost.

Re: California Sends Democrats and the Nation a Message on Crime

#66

Post by Siddarth1977 »

pmoriarty wrote: post #43
sudden_dystopia wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the left has gone so far left that everyone looks like they are far right comparatively. So by having the left come more towards the center, the whole political spectrum would shrink back towards the middle.

"the left has gone so far left that everyone looks like they are far right comparatively." When people say stuff like this I wonder what planet they're from. It's not like the US even has a viable Socialist party, never mind a Marxist or Communist one. I've never heard a Democrat call for the abolishment of private property or a revolution of the proletariat. In America, dreams of that sort died with end of the 60's…

So hurray, people learned from the horrors of the 20th century that socialism inevitably leads to rampant corruption, suffering and genocide? Socialism caused 100 deaths for every death the Nazis caused, I don't understand how we don't see someone advocating for it as equally appalling to someone making pro-Nazi statements.

Whether you look at the Soviet Union, China, North Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Yugoslavia, Venezuela, anywhere in Africa, you inevitably find that socialism brought horrific suffering, extreme poverty and widespread death. It doesn't matter whether the country is big or small, has lots of natural resources or none, is ethnically diverse or homogeneous, in literally every single data point we have, the empirical truth is clear, that private property and competitive businesses create better outcomes than centralized socialist systems.

Re: California Sends Democrats and the Nation a Message on Crime

#67

Post by PraetorianGourd »

dathinab wrote: post #49
Auracle wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but the left didn't shift left in a relevant degree, they are more right then most center parties in the EU. This is said a lot online, but I'd like some concrete examples. Our abortion laws are (for now) more lax than almost all European countries, and the US left still wants more. Our tax system is more progressive than many European countries, but our rich still need to pay their "fair share." The left in the US…

> Our abortion laws are (for now) more lax than almost all European countries, The way it currently looks is the right want to ban abortion no matter what context. Which is far far more strict then most EU countries. And the current legality status is in a legal gray are as far as I know, which is also worse then in many EU countries, through in practice in some states might not. And sure there are EU countries which…

> The way it currently looks is the right want to ban abortion no matter what context

I will let you in on a little secret. The right doesn't actually want to ban abortions. They need the carrot of banning abortions to turn out voters, and abortion is a very powerful single issue. By this I mean, there are plenty of left-leaning folks who would abandon Bernie if he came out as anti-abortion, and there are plenty on the right who would turn on their candidates if they came out pro-choice.

By the same token, the left also needs the right to keep wanting to ban abortions (but failing) so they can turn out the vote. It isn't as binary as it seems.

Re: California Sends Democrats and the Nation a Message on Crime

#68

Post by filoleg »

ahoy wrote: post #50
avalys wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Statistics are not reality. Crime stats fell because the DA was so tolerant of crime, people stopped bothering to report anything but the most serious ones.

So in this land of topsy turvy logic, high crime stats is a good thing, because that means they're being reported?

No. High crime stats is pretty much always a bad thing (regardless of whether there is actually more crime driving it up or due to enforcement being overzelaous). But low crime stats aren't always a good thing, like in a situation when they are low because there is no enforcement prosecution happening.

To give you an analogy that might help, high covid infection numbers are bad always, but low covid numbers can be either good (if the covid numbers are truly down) or bad (if the real numbers are just not being tracked properly/swept under the rug, and people are just not getting tested enough).

But to give a direct answer to your original question, yes, low crime numbers are bad when they are the result of prosecution and enforcement not doing their job, as opposed to being the result of crime actually going down.

Re: California Sends Democrats and the Nation a Message on Crime

#69

Post by welterde »

mountainriver wrote: post #57
pmoriarty wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the left has gone so far left that everyone looks like they are far right comparatively." When people say stuff like this I wonder what planet they're from. It's not like the US even has a viable Socialist party, never mind a Marxist or Communist one. I've never heard a Democrat call for the abolishment of private property or a revolution of the proletariat. In America, dreams of that sort died with end of the 60's…

That’s really just not true overall. Bernie Sanders policies would be considered far left by even European standards, and he almost won the nomination. The abortion and social justice positions are also far left compared to Europe

Which policies do you mean exactly? Because I don't see anything on first glance or from memory that wouldn't be at home at your typical center-left social democrat party here in Europe.

Re: California Sends Democrats and the Nation a Message on Crime

#70

Post by newbie2020 »

ahoy wrote: post #2

This SF district attorney recall thing is a really good example of the media's power to manufacture a story. Even if you accept the premise that crime stats rise or fall in response to DA policies, those stats mostly fell during Boudin's tenure. But if you show the video of someone robbing a convenience store (in oakland! another city entirely!) enough times on loop, you can convince enough voters that Something Must…

This is a great case of where statistics don’t tell the whole story. I’ve seen multiple crimes in SF that I don’t bother reporting since I know the police won’t do anything about it. So up this years’ stats by at least a few notches in the vandalism, car breakin, theft, sale of illegal goods, and bodily harm inflicted upon another categories…
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