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Goodbye, New York, California and Illinois – Hello where?

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Re: Goodbye, New York, California and Illinois – Hello where?

#691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prop 47 is a ridiculous red herring. It raised the threshold for felony [whatever] to $950. To my knowledge that threshold hadn't changed in my lifetime, which is to say that the intent of the original statutes was that there should be a significant barrier to a felony charge. Meanwhile a misdemeanor can be punished by up to 364 days in jail. However police are generally unwilling to enforce misdemeanor statutes. A c…

Not enough information about your vandal to speculate on his or her motives but there are reports of gangs of shoplifters raiding shops and taking less than $950 worth of goods each e.g. https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2016/05/14/shoplifting-cal...

Oh it was one of my neighbors, not a gang. ~$800 was the quote for a car with cheaper paint. This car has metallic paint (more expensive and more difficult to respray well), I'd be very surprised if I could find a competent shop to fix it for less than a grand.

https://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/resources/criminal-def...

https://www.shouselaw.com/burglary.html#2.3

I'm not a lawyer so here's how I interpreted these lawyers:

Petty theft is up to six months in jail + up to $1,000 fine. Prop 47 added a misdemeanor shoplifting statute with a max. incarceration to one year. Previously this was considered burglary where a defendant could be charged with either a misdemeanor (up to a year in jail) or felony (up to three or so years).

The existing burglary statute (which otherwise covered what is now called shoplifting) carries a sentence of up to one year in jail (misdemeanor) or more (felony). The gangs taking less than $950 worth of goods are taking advantage of police apathy. So, sure, maybe Prop 47 resulted in an increase in shoplifting/burglary. However, if the police were to see these things through repeat criminals would still be subject to the same felony statue as before.

Re: Goodbye, New York, California and Illinois – Hello where?

#692

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not enough information about your vandal to speculate on his or her motives but there are reports of gangs of shoplifters raiding shops and taking less than $950 worth of goods each e.g. https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2016/05/14/shoplifting-cal...

Oh it was one of my neighbors, not a gang. ~$800 was the quote for a car with cheaper paint. This car has metallic paint (more expensive and more difficult to respray well), I'd be very surprised if I could find a competent shop to fix it for less than a grand. https://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/resources/criminal-def... https://www.shouselaw.com/burglary.html#2.3 I'm not a lawyer so here's how I interpreted these…

I am not a lawyer too but, from what I know, the police do not prosecute crimes. They bring their reports to a DA who decides to charge or not. And the DAs, being an elected official and seeing what is the public opinion of these crimes from the prop 47, do not want to charge them. And if the DAs are not going to charge these crimes anyways there is no point for the police to catch the criminals.

Re: Goodbye, New York, California and Illinois – Hello where?

#693

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh it was one of my neighbors, not a gang. ~$800 was the quote for a car with cheaper paint. This car has metallic paint (more expensive and more difficult to respray well), I'd be very surprised if I could find a competent shop to fix it for less than a grand. https://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/resources/criminal-def... https://www.shouselaw.com/burglary.html#2.3 I'm not a lawyer so here's how I interpreted these…

I am not a lawyer too but, from what I know, the police do not prosecute crimes. They bring their reports to a DA who decides to charge or not. And the DAs, being an elected official and seeing what is the public opinion of these crimes from the prop 47, do not want to charge them. And if the DAs are not going to charge these crimes anyways there is no point for the police to catch the criminals.

The police don't prosecute crimes, correct. As long as they're not making arrests it's not even a matter of what the DA or judge does.

And if the DAs are not going to charge these crimes anyways there is no point for the police to catch the criminals.

And there it is. There is absolutely a point in making misdemeanor arrests. Making misdemeanor arrests allows the rest of society to focus on the next step in the process.

Re: Goodbye, New York, California and Illinois – Hello where?

#694

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not a lawyer too but, from what I know, the police do not prosecute crimes. They bring their reports to a DA who decides to charge or not. And the DAs, being an elected official and seeing what is the public opinion of these crimes from the prop 47, do not want to charge them. And if the DAs are not going to charge these crimes anyways there is no point for the police to catch the criminals.

The police don't prosecute crimes, correct. As long as they're not making arrests it's not even a matter of what the DA or judge does. And if the DAs are not going to charge these crimes anyways there is no point for the police to catch the criminals. And there it is. There is absolutely a point in making misdemeanor arrests. Making misdemeanor arrests allows the rest of society to focus on the next step in the proce…

So, in your opinion, the initiative comes from the police and DAs have not changed their charging based on prop 47?

Then, why did the police change their behavior in your opinion?

Re: Goodbye, New York, California and Illinois – Hello where?

#695

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The police don't prosecute crimes, correct. As long as they're not making arrests it's not even a matter of what the DA or judge does. And if the DAs are not going to charge these crimes anyways there is no point for the police to catch the criminals. And there it is. There is absolutely a point in making misdemeanor arrests. Making misdemeanor arrests allows the rest of society to focus on the next step in the proce…

So, in your opinion, the initiative comes from the police and DAs have not changed their charging based on prop 47? Then, why did the police change their behavior in your opinion?

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. So for the police more "lenient" sentences for first time offenders is offensive. They want to crack skulls. If they can't then they don't care.

The SF POA, for instance, threw a ton of money around to defend capital punishment in California while the residents of San Francisco elected a DA (Kamala Harris) who campaigned on a platform of staunch opposition to capital punishment. It was a lot of the same crap with the three strikes law. Non-partisan analysis pointed out that the California statute was excessively punitive and expensive but police and prosecutors across the state came out swinging against proposed reform.

Same thing with the new DA (Boudin). One of his planks was focusing on gangs (a.k.a. organized crime) that are breaking into cars versus and focusing on getting addicts and homeless people into diversion/treatment programs. Of course there was plenty of outrage about how property crime was going to get even worse under Boudin's reign of apathy. Whatddya know, someone posted a video the other day of a break-in at an Embarcadero parking lot. Was it a junkie looking to score? No, it was a group of people in a car, wearing masks going about their task very methodically.

https://digital.modernluxury.com/publication/?i=360208&artic...

Re: Goodbye, New York, California and Illinois – Hello where?

#696

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For one thing, the post implied that being indoors came with the higher humidity in Texas. But assuming that the poster really did "accept a life spent indoors in air-conditioned spaces" as you reflexively assume, what is this extra high taxation paying for in California that the person wasn't taking advantage of?

I'm not going to write what amounts to a tourism advertisement here. Do you really need to be explained all the reasons California is a desirable vacation destination for the entire world? Living there without spending your time outside is missing the entire point. Many people live there just for the tech industry, and simultaneously complain about the high cost of living. Well, if you spend all your time at the keyb…

Not only did I live in California, but I lived in the middle of a national forest there. And yes, I spent a great deal of time enjoying it. The question remains, and I'll clarify: how much of a resident's taxes pay to maintain the great outdoors versus all of the other services?

Re: Goodbye, New York, California and Illinois – Hello where?

#697

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would you think so? Well asked! I've been trying to understand why I do. I think it comes to this: Good places to live come from encouraging and empowering people to make those places their own, as communities. What it means to be a democrat or a republican changes from place and decade to decade. What is effective in actualizing that community participation then also changes as a place changes over time (ironi…

If you think it's just the parties that have changed, then how about actual policies? Prop 187 has been passed in 1994 with 59% majority, can you imagine anything like that happening in California nowadays? No matter how you see DNC and GOP of 1990s, you surely can see that the California's attitude towards illegal immigrants has completely reversed now.

It's definitely not just the parties that have changed. I have no idea whether that law would've passed today; everyone hears "California" and thinks about SF/LA, forgetting about the large conservative areas. Look how long weed and gay marriage took.

Re: Goodbye, New York, California and Illinois – Hello where?

#699
post #646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what possible way does having a Cap on property taxes, and requiring 2/3 majority to increase taxes cause a Housing Crisis? >>but CA was Republican leaning until fairly recently (remember Arnold Schwarzenegger?). Arnold Schwarzenegger was a RINO, Around here we would call him a Democrat, California Democrats are the extreme of the extreme Left. So anyone Right of Stalin is a Republican in California. Further since…

It is a complicated issue and there were number of unintended consequences. But the main one is that long time property owners (NIMBYs) are insulated from (if not down right incentivized to support) anti-development measures. Because their property tax rates were frozen at time of purchase, they do not feel the impact of rising property prices. It also has a chilling effect on housing 'liquidity', because moving out…

>>And Universal Basic Income was originally proposed by none other than Milton Friedman

100% false, Friedman's negative income tax WAS NOT a UBI. it was a replacement for all welfare. It was the lesser of 2 evils and if you watch any of the talks he gave on the subject it is presented just as that. Better than massive government welfare programs

Further with UBI there are "good" ways to do it, (i.e I would be in favor of a Geo-Libertarian UBI) and there are Bad ways to do it (i.e UBI paid for with Income based Taxation)

> US. ObamaCare, the 'radical socialist left wing policy', was originally proposed by the Heritage Foundation[3]

That is 100% misleading, Some parts where yes but many parts where not. 2 of the Big Differences is that the 90's plan included Tort Reform which is need to lower costs, and did not expand medicare like Obamacare did

It was also viewed as an unacceptable compromise by many republicans, the purpose of the bill was to compromise with the Democrats that wanted Single Payer, this is the exact compromise that was made for the ACA and as predicted by the Republicans in the 90's it simply gave the democrats grounds to then claim "it was not enough" and that the only option now is single payer government run healthcare.

It has more or less removed Free market alternatives from the debate which is sad

> The current Republican party would be considered extremely right wing in any other time or in any other first world country.

Wrong actually, if you look at any data the democrat party is pulled WIDELY to the left, where the Republican Party has more or less stayed the same or has shifted slightly to the left since 2000

Republicans have not changed their principles or policies in a large number of year, it is the "left" that has changed considerably.

Re: Goodbye, New York, California and Illinois – Hello where?

#700

My wife and I moved here to California (my home state) mid-2018 from Michigan (her home state). We moved out here for a startup, but shortly after relocating the founder ran out of money and could no longer pay me. This was a huge shock because on the surface everything was fine and dandy. Got totally bamboozled. I still remember walking into our co-working spot to pick up some mail and was told that I should leave t…

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