Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Yeah I think you missed the point; poverty and homelessness isn't usually a voluntary activity.
Yet the examples of lawbreaking provided in this article were all voluntary. She was arrested for failure to appear. Period. If she was too poor to pay, she would have had her time in court to explain her situation. However, failure to appear is simply sticking your head in the sand. Just because she wanted to ignore the situation didn't make it go away. The law doesn't work that way.
If the expired tags were not visible from public property at any time you got screwed.
Were the police ever called to your residence and on the private property legally?
That's the only other angle I can think of.
No sworn police officers as such involved; there are code enforcement officers (glorified meter bots) who patrol at all hours and look for anything they can write up. They write up an endless variety of violations, trash in yard, time-limited parking, overnight parking (prohibited all year), cars off-driveway, expired tags in driveway. Some neighborhoods, like mine, get concentrated attention; the affluent neighborhoods not as much.
For Justice to work, it must be blind. Blind to advantages as well as disadvantages. If the law says you shall not sleep under an overpass, then don't. Your particular circumstances do not change law.
If you drive 100mph on your way to deliver fuzzy kittens to the local orphanage, and you t-bone someone and kill them, should the law be vacated because you were that desperate to bring fuzzy kittens to orphans?
Laws that are subjectively enforced based on the circumstances of the individual are not laws, they are suggestions. Is that the society we should have...arbitrary rule of suggestion based on the personal sensitivities of both law enforcement and adjudicator? That sounds great if everyone gets Barney the Dinosaur as either cop or judge, but what if you get Oscar the Grouch who believes in max penalty under the law for everything? Not so great then, this rule of arbitrariness, eh?
And if one judge says the law doesn't matter because the defendant is poor, how many judges will be persuaded to think the law really doesn't matter because the defendant is rich. The poor have sympathy as their only viable resource to trade, but the rich can offer all manner of incentive to a justice system that is allowed to be swayed.
You may want to rethink you criticism of law being applied equally to rich and poor. That sword has two edges.
But our laws are systematically designed in many ways to benefit the rich. It's a system, after all and all systems are flawed.
Wealthier people can get a way with a lot more and you know it. August Busch IV had two people die under his watch and he also tried running over police officers. But he gets virtually no punishment.
Had some poorer person did this, they would have either been shot dead or placed in the legal system immediately. Wealthier people tend to have more influence (granted this is NOT attacking people for being wealthy).
Wealthy people can usually avoid fines because either their name or lawyer. But a poorer person is stuck in a situation where things can get progressively worse.
I completely disagree with the way you are angling this. Laws should not only be fair, but constantly evaluated too. Your last example already happens. Read this case. Affluenza? Really? Let that have been somebody else.
I'm all for people obeying the law, but the current system severely punishes people of a certain status and not others.
Yet the examples of lawbreaking provided in this article were all voluntary. She was arrested for failure to appear. Period. If she was too poor to pay, she would have had her time in court to explain her situation. However, failure to appear is simply sticking your head in the sand. Just because she wanted to ignore the situation didn't make it go away. The law doesn't work that way.
Oh, like THAT would have worked. One other thing involved here is a prevalent distrust in the system and in dispensing justice. Obviously, failure to appear is never a good move and is usually an especially bad move, but there might have been no good moves and she might have been trying to buy time.
Yeah I think you missed the point; poverty and homelessness isn't usually a voluntary activity.
Yes they both are, absolutely.
That's the foundational problem with the liberal apologist - you think people arrive at their individual circumstance, good bad or indifferent, via luck and random chance. Thing is, everyone's circumstance are what they choose them to be. Every day, lots of choices go into the poor staying poor, the homeless staying homeless, etc. Most homeless people are either unmedicated schizophreincs (like a third of that population) or drug/alcohol addicts (the other two thirds). We give away the meds for the first group, and the second group CHOOSES to be addicts.
In America, once you ding age 18, how life goes for you is totally up to you. I grew up poor, single mother home, both parents alcoholics, constant relocations, and various periods (over several years) of pretty serious physical abuse. At one point, for about a month, I was homeless. Woe is me, waaaahhhhh. Guess what, my childhood ended 30 years ago, and my excuses died with it. Nobody gives a damn, nor should they. Once I figured that out, life has been on a steadily improving arc ever since.
In the OP, the woman who got arrested made lots and lots of bad choices. Tons of them, all purely voluntary. Her lot in life is choice, as is everyone else's. In freemkt's case, his stories are all based on choices. And in your straw man world of the poor and homeless being oppressed, all those poor and homeless choose to be how they are.
Free will destroys excuses. You have the freedom to be as worthless or as useful as you choose to be. There's no luck involved.
No sworn police officers as such involved; there are code enforcement officers (glorified meter bots) who patrol at all hours and look for anything they can write up. They write up an endless variety of violations, trash in yard, time-limited parking, overnight parking (prohibited all year), cars off-driveway, expired tags in driveway. Some neighborhoods, like mine, get concentrated attention; the affluent neighborhoods not as much.
This.
What's funny is that the cops are always around to enforce those laws, but when you actually need help there's a lack of them or they are slow to respond.
Oh, like THAT would have worked. One other thing involved here is a prevalent distrust in the system and in dispensing justice. Obviously, failure to appear is never a good move and is usually an especially bad move, but there might have been no good moves and she might have been trying to buy time.
I've dealt with this myself. I've gotten a tickets in STL County and there's not much you can do. I appeared in all of my cases and didn't necessarily make the situations better (even if they dismiss the case you gotta pay court fees).
You can't buy time if you don't have money. But if you don't have money can can't pay the fines. It's a very bad loop. And courts can be really picky with payment plans.
Oh, like THAT would have worked. One other thing involved here is a prevalent distrust in the system and in dispensing justice. Obviously, failure to appear is never a good move and is usually an especially bad move, but there might have been no good moves and she might have been trying to buy time.
Well, failure to appear is a guaranteed warrant for your arrest so clearly THAT didn't work. When you break the law, yes, the choices sometimes suck. However, there is actually an easy way around that. Don't break the law.
That's the foundational problem with the liberal apologist - you think people arrive at their individual circumstance, good bad or indifferent, via luck and random chance. Thing is, everyone's circumstance are what they choose them to be. Every day, lots of choices go into the poor staying poor, the homeless staying homeless, etc. Most homeless people are either unmedicated schizophreincs (like a third of that population) or drug/alcohol addicts (the other two thirds). We give away the meds for the first group, and the second group CHOOSES to be addicts.
In America, once you ding age 18, how life goes for you is totally up to you. I grew up poor, single mother home, both parents alcoholics, constant relocations, and various periods (over several years) of pretty serious physical abuse. At one point, for about a month, I was homeless. Woe is me, waaaahhhhh. Guess what, my childhood ended 30 years ago, and my excuses died with it. Nobody gives a damn, nor should they. Once I figured that out, life has been on a steadily improving arc ever since.
In the OP, the woman who got arrested made lots and lots of bad choices. Tons of them, all purely voluntary. Her lot in life is choice, as is everyone else's. In freemkt's case, his stories are all based on choices. And in your straw man world of the poor and homeless being oppressed, all those poor and homeless choose to be how they are.
Free will destroys excuses. You have the freedom to be as worthless or as useful as you choose to be. There's no luck involved.
So...what you are saying is that my ancestors chose to be slaves and chose to be subjected to Jim Crow laws that kept them in bad neighborhoods? When a system was designed to keep them down?
There seems to be a lack of reality here. People can contribute to their circumstances, but circumstances are just a result of a very long equation. Nobody chooses to grow up in foster care. Nobody chooses to be born in a poor family. Yes people can make their own choices, but no more than a man who gets cancer can't ''get cured''.
People who are uneducated in many ways lack the basic understandings of law and consequences. Because the law wasn't designed to benefit the poor.
So...what you are saying is that my ancestors chose to be slaves and chose to be subjected to Jim Crow laws that kept them in bad neighborhoods? When a system was designed to keep them down?
There seems to be a lack of reality here. People can contribute to their circumstances, but circumstances are just a result of a very long equation. Nobody chooses to grow up in foster care. Nobody chooses to be born in a poor family. Yes people can make their own choices, but no more than a man who gets cancer can't ''get cured''.
People who are uneducated in many ways lack the basic understandings of law and consequences. Because the law wasn't designed to benefit the poor.
By the way, are you a billionaire?
How many generations do you think it requires to cast aside the circumstances of birth or the circumstances of your ancestors? We're not talking about what once was but is now. The choices you make now, in your life, are the primary factor in your own personal success or failure. I grow annoyed at those who want to use the circumstances of periods past as an excuse for poor decisions.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
