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The privatization of policing

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Re: The privatization of policing

#91

Post by wahnfrieden »

pixl97 wrote: post #87
pmarreck wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because taxation to fund a public good is not theft in your world there are only private security firms. if you're not up to date on your dues, oh well, they'll happily watch you get robbed I guess. EDIT: I was unaware of the "wage theft" problem and assumed this was angling at "taxation is theft," my bad

What, you did not answer his question, and came up with some gibberish. https://www.epi.org/publication/employers-steal-billions-fro... >What this report finds: This report assesses the prevalence and magnitude of one form of wage theft—minimum wage violations (workers being paid at an effective hourly rate below the binding minimum wage)—in the 10 most populous U.S. states. We find that, in these states, 2.4 million…

[flagged]

Re: The privatization of policing

#92

Post by pleasantpeasant »

0xcde4c3db wrote: post #5
trabant00 wrote: post #4

> In response to calls to “defund the police,” the city government cut $15 million from the department’s budget. [...] Portland’s homicide rate rose 207 percent from January 2019 through June 2021 > those who are unable to afford private security enjoy little protection from rising crime. Security—once a public good—is being privatized. Every institution makes mistakes and has malicious actors. But you have to ask yo…

As far as I can tell, that $15 million number represents a 3% cut made as part of a larger effort to balance the city's budget, not any kind of radical defund/abolish initiative. edit: It might be closer to 6%; different articles seem to have different numbers, and it's not always clear whether the cuts are being described relative to the previous year's budget vs. the proposed budget (often a "cut" is just a smaller…

The majority of cities actually saw an increase in their police budget. LA, which had a large defund the police movement, increased their police budget by $150 million a few months after the protests.

The "defund the police" movement was a doomed endeavor with an awful name like that. I sometimes wonder if Leftists movements are purposely giving their movements god awful names like "anti-work", "quiet quitting", and even "black lives matters".

If your movement's name has to be explained, it's purpose has already failed. You shouldn't need to explain a political movements name.

Re: The privatization of policing

#93

Post by danuker »

pmarreck wrote: post #84
wahnfrieden wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

because taxation to fund a public good is not theft in your world there are only private security firms. if you're not up to date on your dues, oh well, they'll happily watch you get robbed I guess. EDIT: I was unaware of the "wage theft" problem and assumed this was angling at "taxation is theft," my bad

Wikipedia: Wage theft is the failing to pay wages or provide employee benefits owed to an employee by contract or law.

You have defended taxation, not wage theft.

Re: The privatization of policing

#94

Post by pmarreck »

pixl97 wrote: post #87
pmarreck wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because taxation to fund a public good is not theft in your world there are only private security firms. if you're not up to date on your dues, oh well, they'll happily watch you get robbed I guess. EDIT: I was unaware of the "wage theft" problem and assumed this was angling at "taxation is theft," my bad

What, you did not answer his question, and came up with some gibberish. https://www.epi.org/publication/employers-steal-billions-fro... >What this report finds: This report assesses the prevalence and magnitude of one form of wage theft—minimum wage violations (workers being paid at an effective hourly rate below the binding minimum wage)—in the 10 most populous U.S. states. We find that, in these states, 2.4 million…

Ah, sorry, I thought they were angling at the "taxation is theft" libertarian thing. Was not aware of this separate and unfortunate phenomenon.

Re: The privatization of policing

#95

Post by pmarreck »

danuker wrote: post #93
pmarreck wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because taxation to fund a public good is not theft in your world there are only private security firms. if you're not up to date on your dues, oh well, they'll happily watch you get robbed I guess. EDIT: I was unaware of the "wage theft" problem and assumed this was angling at "taxation is theft," my bad

Wikipedia: Wage theft is the failing to pay wages or provide employee benefits owed to an employee by contract or law. You have defended taxation, not wage theft.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34221450

Re: The privatization of policing

#98

Post by rootusrootus »

pmarreck wrote: post #86
detuned wrote: post #47

There was a notable absence of opposing views in the article so I looked up "echelon security portland" and found a lot of objectionable actions they've taken. According to this article https://www.opb.org/article/2021/12/02/part-two-police-prose... they've been unaccountable to the public, they've lied about what people do (pretending they've attacked them), they've lied about their use of force, and attacked people…

So let me get this straight: A few bad police apples create a mass left-wing media outrage which results in the withdrawing of a public good (police protection), which results in people needing to hire private security, which results in even more objectionable actions taken by this less-accountable private security, than there were previously by the taxpaid police force? You don't say. I guess the only relative impro…

The Portland city government cut the PPB budget by less than 10%. Yes that's a relatively large cut, but it is not the main driver of officers leaving the bureau. The underlying reason is politics.

Re: The privatization of policing

#99

Post by FooBarBizBazz »

T3OU-736 wrote: post #11
hprotagonist wrote: post #2

We don’t need any loogie guns, thank you so very much.

Unfamiliar term: "loogie gun". What does it mean? Neal Stephenson's book Snow Crash comes up from search - is that the reference?

I'm not sure if this is OP's meaning, but, in that book, the moderately-wealthy live in gated communities ("burbclaves") with private security forces, who have nonlethal weapons that trap people in some kind of sticky expanding foam. It's just a minor world-building detail. It shows up when the initial protagonist ("Y.T.") gets involved in a scuffle while delivering pizza to one of these burbclaves. Relatedly, the pizza franchise is owned by "Uncle Enzo", a likeable Italian-American mobster. So everything is in some sense a private protection racket run by one mob or another.

Re: The privatization of policing

#100

Post by nucleogenesis »

pmarreck wrote: post #88
pleasantpeasant wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author works at The Federalist Society. A conservative online magazine. Honestly, why is this article even on HN? It's copaganda but with an even worst twist of being a pro-private military force. The militarization of the police has been an on going issue since the 90s and now we're jumping to having corporations hiring random goons as a private police force for the wealthy and their corporations.

[flagged]

You’re right - whether being oppressed by people with the veneer of accountability or by a private military force without any, we should just shut up and accept it all as-is because there can’t possibly be any other way to have security.
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