Cops are just gangsters most people trust sadly. They are a protection racket that steals from you (taxes) and is actually not required to protect you at all.
this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2023
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Privacy
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TaXaTiOn iS tHeFt
tax bad
cops bad
corrupt military dictatorships good
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(22 replies)
This demonstrates why no government agency should be self-funding. If fees are collected they should be refunded to taxpayers. If a budget is needed it should go through the normal budget process and be given a budget directly from incoming taxes. So everything's aboveboard and transparent.
As soon as an organization is self-funding it's open to both regulatory capture and corruption. We need to remove the incentives for bad actors, not just trying to catch bad actors after the fact.
This would have a huge impact on small police departments who self-fund through tickets in the community exploitation. Police should not be tax farmers. Police should be for the people and buy the people, tax farmers are exploitive by their very nature. They should not be the same person.
I've never really understood how a "public" institution is expected to be funded by anything other than tax dollars
At the very least no fine or enforcement mechanism. I'm ok with for example a postal service charging for some service. But involuntary charges going towards funding the institution charging it is just rife with perverse incentives.
I see your point. But I still think the perverse incentives exist. Once you have customers, you deviate from your mission. Right now the US postal service is largest customer is bulk mail, spam. They're basically stuck in regulatory capture now. They can't do things to reduce unwanted spam, they can't offer services to people to not deliver bulk mail. Because their largest customer is bulk mailers. The people receiving the mail aren't their customers anymore. They're the product.
I forget the name of the company exactly I think it was inbox, they were working in San Francisco, they would go to the post office and receive the mail for individuals then scan the mail and send it to people digitally. Basically it was the postal service but no physical delivery. They had a pilot program going, but then the bulk mailers got wind of it, and used pressure to shut it down. So innovation that's available I think in Finland or Sweden is not a possible in the US due to regulatory capture.
That's an known issue with any customer driven org too. Prioritizing existing markets and customers vs up and coming ones.
The postal service almost was set up to do small time banking and email services but got cut down by Congress. So they had tried to push for providing more services to meet existing demand, but we're hamstrung on their efforts.
The push towards privitazation at all cost has really hurt the effectiveness and efficiency of government ran orgs in the United States.
Civil Forfeiture is theft and Qualified Immunity is a murder license. Not that there seems to be any way to convince anyone in power to fix it
Why would those in power fix it? they are benefiting from the police keeping those with power in power. This way those in power don't even have to pay the bonus they provide to the police.
ACAB.
Yes, Ballentine, even you, you fluffy little snitch.
In case you didn't know: Fuck the police. It's not that I don't like them, i fucking hate them...
I really think it is the system. It is a system that give positive feedback for negative human behavior. And I have no solution for it. But I believe that regardless who becomes police it will break their humanity. And that seems like a bad system to me.
Hey man, it's only 99% of them that make the rest look bad.
this happens everywhere with a strong police force. just moreso in the us
This was a good article, US centric, but interesting. Would have been better if it didn't start with a picture of a happy looking dog and a seizure of $100k cash which the author can't even explain. The law says you have to prove you didn't get the money illegally, if I had $100k in my suitcase I think I would be able to explain how I got it.
In the US, you are innocent until proven guilty. Civil asset forfeiture runs against this idea. The burden should be on the government to prove this stuff is ill-gotten gains, anything else is unamerican.
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(16 replies)
You don't just have to explain it, you have to hire a lawyer and take them to court to prove it, which is opposite of every other law in the country where you are innocent unless proven guilty.
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(4 replies)
theres been plenty of people who ahd proof how they got their money legitimately, and still had it taken.
Why?
because police want to buy more military gear, and your seized cash goes directly into their toy fund.
People always tell me I should trust cops more, this is a handy fact to have in my back pocket.
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