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A Monopoly on Violence
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2024
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US Authoritarianism
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Is Lemmy full of sovereign citizens now days? In all countries including China when you drive dangerously you get a ticket.
In addition to issuing tickets officers all over the country take the opportunity to seize what they in their sole judgment regard as suspicious amounts of cash without benefit of a trial or charges. Many such seizures are in the mere hundreds of dollars with the average seizure only $1200 and the legal cost to reclaim such is usually in the thousands so people are left without recourse. Even when the money is reclaimed there is no punishment for officers for essentially robbing the populace.
In the last 20 years they have taken about 70B from citizens mostly without actually charging the person they stole from and disproportionately from minorities.
Regarding the victims, many people especially contractors prefer to deal in cash and frequently carry a significant amount of cash on hand to purchase goods and pay help. Others transport large quantities of cash from their business or to make large purchases particularly used cars purchased from owners instead of dealerships.
Woah that's a lot. Source?
Civil asset forfeiture used to be all the rage in outrage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United_States
I mean depending on the state or even the town that officer is going to take any cash they have on them and might shoot them if they don't comply...
I don’t think so. I mean cops can be jerks but they’re really not dumb enough to just risk their jobs for $40 USD out of someone’s wallet. Let alone build a culture out of this.
Civil forfeiture of greater than $1000 USD where that stuff gets documented and people have the prove the “innocence” of that money on the other had is another issue.
Cops stopping people for cash just feels like a childish characterization. There are enough real problems with police to address (ie systematic racism and nepotism) no need to work with characterizations.
I generally agree with you but have you not seen the news? They get away with killing innocent people illegally all the time. Do you think they're actually afraid of getting in trouble over stealing 40 bucks?
And that stuff is terrible. But I think it’s caused by systematic racism. (aka what we should actually worry about)
Like the comic empathizes the wrong thing. It reduces valid concerns with police to the level of sovereign citizens.
We started by making fun of sovcits, now we make fun of anyone who criticizes police. What the fuck is happening on Lemmy.
well sovshits are genuinely hilarious.
but lampooning them should not come at the cost of critiquing law enforcement.
I’m not driving, I’m traveling!!!
That was my exact first impression of this post.
Basically Sovcit nonsense
https://priceonomics.com/how-police-officers-seize-cash-from-innocent/
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/the-supreme-court-rules-that-cops-can-steal-your-stuff-as-they-always-have/ar-BB1magie
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/08/18/civil-asset-forfeiture-explained/74802279007/
Those are just the top 3 search results for "cops steal money".
Well yeah. If you search for a topic, the top results should be relevant. That's how searching is supposed to work.
People should still be punished for driving dangerously. Civil forfeiture is another issue.
Feel free to point out in the meme where the driver was driving dangerously.
The same place it says it’s for civil forfeiture. This being said the police officer does have a ticket in hand which implies some sort of safety violation.
This comic could be taking place in China. The same scene could play out. Nothing specific to injustice in the USA here.
Bootlicker.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Sandra_Bland
expired registration is not a safety issue
If your state doesn't do safety inspections that's something you should talk with a state legislator about.
they officially are done, but only in the major citys and people living pretty much everywhere else is given exceptions. Safety inspections seem like a weird idea anyway, how does the government know what is safe for my usag of the vehicle. Is a lack of coolant a safety issue? What about a missing bumper? A half rotted frame?
Yes, those all seem like safety issues to me.
https://www.legislature.mi.gov/Laws/MCL?objectName=mcl-300-1949-VI-EQUIPMENT
Is this your first time encountering the notion that vehicle safety is regulated by the government?
For most people yes. My perspective is that I really don't want government inspecting every car on the road because those kinds of issues aren't a meaningful part of the risk I undertake on the road which is dominated almost entirely by incompetence, failure to follow traffic laws, old people who shouldn't be driving anymore, and morons using their phones while driving.
Perfect performance thus isn't meaningfully expected to improve my safety but it will cost me money.
You say that living in a world where the government at least actively controls what can be sold as a roadworthy vehicle, and unsafe cars can be taken off the street.
"I don't want government doing what they're currently doing because I never see any instances of the problem they're trying to prevent".
"We don't need vaccines because I never see any of the diseases doctors are always wanting to vaccinate for".
We used to sell cars where the steering wheel was solid steel and a low speed collision caved your face in. Industry only started to sell safer cars when they were forced to do so.
There's being pissy about government abuse, and then there's being upset about safety standards.
One can be pro manufacturer and seller facing regulation which ensures a vital baseline level of safety when there is a strong incentive for sellers to sell cheap unsafe cars without wanting government to do individual inspections on the consumer level. The logical argument is that the benefit of the former is massive and accrues to everyone whilst the benefit of the latter is very modest.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office found the benefit too small to quantify for example. Even when the US withheld highway funds based on rolling out such a policy only 31 states implemented. Now that that stick no longer exists only 16 states do so. Washington which does not has a better safety record than 10 of the 16 which do. Furthermore WA is considering in HB 1513 forbidding police offers from making traffic stops for equipment violations, except to “protect against an immediate, serious threat” to safety. No more hurr durr you have an issue with your car that's why I'm stopping you and searching you for drugs cause I smelled something funny.
https://www.thenorthernlight.com/stories/road-rules-should-washington-state-have-vehicle-safety-inspections,24288
https://fastdemocracy.com/bill-search/wa/2023-2024/bills/WAB00019790/#actions
The government doesn't know what's safe but it can certainly know what is UNsafe.
It's insanity that your government allows 2 ton death machines to race around in public without safety inspections.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office found the safety benefit too small to quantify that it exists.
Nope. Regulatory.
You'd lick the boot in China too, but nice try.
If I was driving dangerously it would only be just that I be punished proportionately. Same goes for everyone in every country.
If you call that boot licking so be it.
Who
Is
Driving
Dangerously?
Assumptions in your head don't count anymore than anything else in there.
And yet this meme is clearly about traffic enforcement.
First you have to stops the cars to gets the money.
I'm sure the Ferengi could have said it better.
If you can help us get rid of cars then great. Otherwise, yes we need some kind of accountability on people driving several tons of metal at insane speeds.
If only we had that, rather than revenue generation...
I don't care if the small town gets paid because commuters can't get off the gas pedal. If it keeps me out of the hospital from some asshole merging into a traffic jam at 80 mph then I'm all for it.
And when some asshole merges in front of you going 30mph when traffic is going 60-70 and there's no way you can avoid it, so you bounce off him into someone else and it ends up being a 5-car pileup, it's ok because at least he wasn't speeding.
Is the speed limit on the road 30? No? Then that's not what we're talking about in the Authoritarianism community today. For the record going so far below the speed limit that you become a hazard isn't okay either and is accounted for in all 50 states' traffic laws. If you want to be mad about driving habits though this isn't the place. The roads we're talking about are frequently signed for 55 with most people doing 55.
Fuck off. If I had a button to ban every person who upvoted it I would. Local governments all over the country make up enormous percentages of their yearly budget directly taken from the citizens in the form of “parking enforcement”. Nobody said sovereign citizen anything this is a specific issue of police and what they’re for and who they do it to. Huff glue and choke:
Are you saying this ironically? Everyone I don’t like should be banned and should die? This seems really authoritarian to me.
Complaints about parking enforcement? Clearly not a fuck cars member.
I heavily suggest you Google "monopoly on violence"
We don’t need to start from Hobbes to understand that, as a society, punishing dangerous drivers is a good thing.
There is a lot of good reading out there. I recommend this as a starting point when coming to an understanding of violence and society.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_(Hobbes_book)
I agree 100% but just had a bit of a giggle
lol. I realized that as I was writing that. But I went with it. Hobbes is a great starting point for people new to political philosophy.
We just don’t need to start with him.
I think John Rawls is a better starting place if we were to start a society from scratch. Just a bit harder for people less used to reading philosophical works.
Sure, but if simply keeping the roads safe was their only objective, they wouldn't have things like quotas where they have to shake down a certain number of people for the sake of their budget.
That depends a lot on the quota system. If they're easily achievable then it's not going to incentivize bad stops. If you have a county that gets four cars a day and the quota is four cars then there's a problem. Generally it's a useful way to make sure your police aren't sitting at the donut shop while they should be working. Like most policies its problems lie in the extremes.