• mholiv@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Is Lemmy full of sovereign citizens now days? In all countries including China when you drive dangerously you get a ticket.

    • auzy@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      That was my exact first impression of this post.

      Basically Sovcit nonsense

    • michaelmrose@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      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.

    • CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      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…

      • mholiv@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        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.

        • Stovetop@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          We don’t need to start from Hobbes

          Recommends Hobbes as a starting point

          I agree 100% but just had a bit of a giggle

          • mholiv@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            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.

    • alphanerd4@lemmy.worldOPM
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      2 months ago

      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:

      • mholiv@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Are you saying this ironically? Everyone I don’t like should be banned and should die? This seems really authoritarian to me.

  • NegativeLookBehind@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I wonder how many times throughout history someone was caught doing something that the “authorities” didn’t like, but then some lawmaker was like “damn that’s clever” and then they legalize that action for themselves, their friends, or the police

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      NYPD officer cites ‘courtesy cards,’ used by friends and family of cops, as source of corruption

      Though not officially recognized by the NYPD, the laminated cards have long been treated as a perk of the job. The city’s police unions issue them to members, who circulate them among those who want to signal their NYPD connections — often to get out of minor infraction like speeding or failing to wear a seat belt.

      In a federal lawsuit filed in Manhattan this week, Officer Mathew Bianchi described a practice of selective enforcement with consequences for officers who don’t follow the unwritten policy. Current and retired officers now have access to hundreds of cards, giving them away in exchange for a discount on a meal or a home improvement job, he said.

      In the Staten Island precinct where he works, a predominantly white area with a high percentage of cops and other city workers, Bianchi said multitudes of people he pulled over for traffic infractions flashed him one of the cards.

  • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    In most states nothing happens. If they have you on body camera then they can match it to the driver’s license database. You’re going to get your ticket and another for driving off, in the mail.

    • chuckleslord@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Doubt. The amount of cops who are either going to A give chase or B open fire regardless of the local laws is going to be far beyond statistically relevant. Maybe even a large plurality.

      Never, never assume that a cop knows the law. Their job is to enforce, not to know. That’s the DA’s job.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        On stuff like whether they’re supposed to be chasing people over traffic infractions it’s very much their job and expected knowledge. If you want to have a talk about state sanctioned violence you don’t get to detour to rogue officers.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        The universe in which we still need cars and cars kill 42,000 people a year. If you don’t want this problem then make cars unnecessary.

      • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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        2 months ago

        No chase policies aren’t uncommon. They’re not universal but they’re not uncommon.

        Given the rarity of chases, the danger they pose, and the lack of benefit in most cases, the guidance is usually to not bother unless there’s reason to believe there’s something like a kidnapping or murder.

        Or the cop will fire blindly through the back windshield of the car. Luck of the draw really.

  • Korne127@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Monopoly on violence is literally something good. The biggest problem in the US is that this just doesn’t exist (see gun legislation), which leads to all the school shootings and a more militarized police.

    • bi_tux@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      no, it’s not something good, look at Honkong, Tibet, Russia, Iran, Belarus, etc.

      • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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        2 months ago

        Are you advocating for multiple, competing armed groups in the US?

        Generally, a monopoly on the legitimate use of force is considered a cornerstone of “government”.

        • bi_tux@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          I don’t like the government, I’m an anarcho-syndicalist. that means different syndicates would be armed and they’d probably be competing, so yeah, I’m advocating for multiple armed forces

          • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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            2 months ago

            Cool. That’s a coherent political philosophy, you just don’t normally run into people arguing for more legitimate use of violence.

            Personally, multiple armed entities sounds like the worst aspects of government without the redeeming aspects.

            I’m the breed of anarchist more concerned with involuntary power hierarchy than specific forms of said dynamic, like class. Reducing the number of groups who can coerce others into doing stuff isn’t aligned with more legitimate armed factions.
            I voted for my sherrif, so I’m more okay with him pointing a gun a me than your trade union, whom I didn’t vote for. It’s not wholly voluntary because I didn’t get to vote for “disarm the sheriff and make the fire fighters the principle law enforcement group”, so it’s far from perfect, but at least I know who’s holding the gun.

            • bi_tux@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              personally I think, that multiple armed syndicates would be less likely to actually use that violence, since war is not only unprofitable in every aspect but they also couldn’t legitimize the violence. I think, that a monopoly doesn’t have any reason to provide quality, in this case the quality being how “legit” the use of violent force is. and we see this all around the world, states don’t only use violence to protect people, but against entities they just don’t like (like the lgbt community in russia or china for example) and even if a state intended to just use violence in a “moral” way, a monopoly on it means that I can’t even use it against a police officer going rogue for example

              • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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                2 months ago

                I can see the rationale, but I disagree.

                I think it’s difficult to make a good assessment because every situation involving multiple legitimate armed factions that’s come about has had a lot of other Context around it that makes it hard to know if what you’re seeing is because of the factions, or because of the context.

                That being said, the vast majority of cases I can think that involve multiple armed factions seem to devolve less into rational actors minimizing conflict to reduce cost, and more into rational actors executing violence to maintain control of resources or impose conformance with their beliefs.
                Violence is often very profitable. It gives you control over resources you didn’t have, and compels people to cooperate with your wishes.

                they also couldn’t legitimize the violence

                In the absence of a monopoly on violence, all of it is just as legitimate. Each group sees their use of force to further or protect their interests as legitimate and others as illegitimate. This can manifest as blood fueds, vendettas, communal violence, or the myriad forms of organized crime.

                I totally agree that the leviathan, which is a much cooler word for the entity with a violence monopoly, has no reason to offer overmuch quality to their violence. The leviathan only wants to use force to perpetuate their monopoly on force.
                I’d argue that the violence required to maintain the status quo is less than what competing factions would exert trying to establish themselves.

                While there are plenty of states doing horrible things, there are plenty that are relatively benign, and even the horrible ones are, on the historical scale, less common and more mild.
                The most docile areas seem to me to be ones with a single legitimate violent actor, and pro-social systems in place to reduce the need for cooercion.

                I don’t think we can ever entirely get rid of the state, since at some point people will form a structure to manage or, at least document, the society they’ve built, and a state by any other name is still a state.
                But we can wither it away if we make sure to replace it with non-coercoercive social replacements instead of leaving a vacuum like the “starve the beast” folks want.

                As the smallest nit, the states monopoly on violence isn’t to be the sole doer of violence, but to be the sole arbiter on the legitimacy of violence.
                In a perfect system, you fighting back against the rogue cop is legitimate because the state legitimizes your use of force.
                Practically, we usually only see that legitimazation happen with stand your ground laws and castle doctrine, and less police issues because the police are “special”, but that’s aside from the lofty theory.