Every time I hear about asset forfeiture I can't believe this is legal. It just blows my mind.
There's nothing we as individuals can do about it besides acknowledging the illegitimacy of laws and abiding by a basic empathetic moral code, but don't kid yourself about how that will be treated.
If you feel like a law is wrong, look at why it was passed. There might be reasoning you aren't thinking of, like environmental damages. If you still feel like it's wrong, look at how likely the action it forbids is to hurt someone else by intent or accident. If you feel like that's extremely unlikely, and don't think you'll get caught, break that law!
Part of civil disobedience is acknowledging that you may get caught and punished. But in doing so, you are riding on the fact that the punishment is arbitrary and offensive, which would rally people in support of you if it is carried out. At least, that's the idea. The real problem comes when your government is more than happy to simply arrest/beat/shoot people until they quiet down.
https://www.transparency.org/news/feature/corruption_percept...
The US also has rare universal Congressional support for ending civil asset forfeiture abuses. Jeff Sessions undid some of the fixes the Obama Administration made; it turns out that might have been ideal, as Congress is now going to put it down for good by law.
Sept 2017:
"In Surprise Vote, House Passes Amendment to Restrict Asset Forfeiture"
"The amendment passed with a voice vote, meaning it had overwhelming support."
https://theintercept.com/2017/09/12/in-surprise-vote-house-p...
Nov 2017:
"A bipartisan group of senators wants to defund Attorney General Jeff Sessions' expansion of the Justice Department's civil asset forfeiture program, following similar efforts by libertarian-leaning and progressive members of the House earlier this year."
http://reason.com/blog/2017/11/08/senators-press-for-defundi...
Anyways, I'll believe it when I see it stop happening.
>Generally speaking as “the abuse of entrusted power for private gain”. Corruption can be classified as grand, petty and political, depending on the amounts of money lost and the sector where it occurs.
>Grand corruption consists of acts committed at a high level of government that distort policies or the central functioning of the state, enabling leaders to benefit at the expense of the public good. Petty corruption refers to everyday abuse of entrusted power by low- and mid-level public officials in their interactions with ordinary citizens, who often are trying to access basic goods or services in places like hospitals, schools, police departments and other agencies.
>Political corruption is a manipulation of policies, institutions and rules of procedure in the allocation of resources and financing by political decision makers, who abuse their position to sustain their power, status and wealth. See animated definitions of many corruption terms in our Anti-corruption Glossary.
The link you provided measures the PERCEPTION of corruption. It is perfectly plausible for there to be a huge amount of corruption and very little perception of corruption depending on many factors. The source describes it thusly:
>No. The CPI is an indicator of perceptions of public sector corruption, i.e. administrative and political corruption. It is not a verdict on the levels of corruption of entire nations or societies, or of their policies, or the activities of their private sector. Citizens of those countries/territories that score at the lower end of the CPI often show the same concern about and condemnation of corruption as the public in countries that perform strongly.
Their data sources primarily asks 'experts' which they define differently (additionally, one specifically asks business executives, one includes the general public, and one doesn't clearly specify) whether they perceive corruption to be an issue. While the exact questions vary, these two seem like representative examples:
>In your country, how common is it for firms to make undocumented extra payments or bribes connected with the following
and
>First, how do you grade the problem of corruption in the country in which you are working? Second, has corruption decreased, stayed the same or increased compared with one year ago? Third, what aspects or implications of corruption in your country stand out to you as being particularly important?
If the majority of the populace feels that seizure of drug profits is warranted, and the police generally label everything seized 'drug profits' than it is perfectly feasible that is an accepted narrative without any meaningful evidence being provided. They are the type of people who exist and are privileged by the normative power hierarchies in that society (hence the term 'expert' being applied to them by peers). These are the people least likely to experience that type of corruption/oppression...by design
All of this comes down to the data they select. Your source uses the exact type of data which would hide corruption by this definition. That effect comes both through the selection of questions and the selection of people who will answer those questions. Their implementation of their definition of corruption largely results in a study of whether those with social capital feel like society treats them and their businesses fairly. It seems a poor metric of the types of systematic (designed) corruption experienced by others on a regular basis.
Only because you don't define lobbying as corruption. In most (any?) other nation, individuals and corporations paying legislators to vote a certain way fits the definition of bribery and corruption perfectly.
"Take this money for your campaign and pass this law" - bribery; and
"Take this money for your campaign. I'd really like to see this law pass." - lobbying.
Second, so-called “hard money” corporate donations to federal electoral campaigns have been and remain illegal.
Failing to make these distinctions and commenting as if corporate lobbyists are literally handing over suitcases full of cash is deceptive.
Good thing, then, that it's already illegal in the US for corporations to finance a political campaign!
What you're describing isn't lobbying, and is already illegal under US law.
As someone who's lived in several states I think there's a lot of variability. Corruption tends to follow population density and money.
If the brother of a cop or court official beat me to near death in a bar brawl I would not expect the court to sentence him to jail time. Fifty miles and one state border north of here I would expect jail time. Fifty miles and two counties west of here I'd give it 50-50.
>The US also has rare universal Congressional support for ending civil asset forfeiture abuses. Jeff Sessions undid some of the fixes the Obama Administration made; it turns out that might have been ideal, as Congress is now going to put it down for good by law.
I fully support legislation to obstruct or get rid of civil asset forfeiture (every bit helps) but I would fully expect that within a month my state would use it as an excuse to double all the fines for everything else to make up for it, not that we even make a lot of money off of it, just that it's an excuse to raise the fines.
Unfortunately you are wrong
>In reality, the US is one of the 20 least corrupt nations on the planet, on par with Ireland and Japan and less corrupt than France.
In reality do to the distributed nature of the various governments of the US, corruption in local government is both wide spread and very very under reported, Sure maybe the Federal Government is one of the 20 least national governments, but there are over 3,000 local government units that are very very much corruptible and often are.
Further I do not by the premise that just because you are less bad than others that makes you good... A murder that kills only 1 person is not "good" because he did not kill 20...
> It has very strong property protection laws, which is both why the judge returned the money (naturally that would happen in a nation with no rule of law huh),
You should really research this issue more if you think that is the common outcome. it is not
I just looking at the work the Institute for Justice is doing in this space. Specifically their Policing for Profit Series
>why the Obama Administration took important steps to neuter civil asset forfeiture abuse
Those changes were superficial at best, did not really do much as have all been rolled back at this point
Most Civil Asset Abuse some at the local level anyway not at the federal level, the Federal Programs are generally used as a end run around state that have enacted laws to eliminate civil asset forfeiture or severely limit its use
>The US also has rare universal Congressional support for ending civil asset forfeiture abuses.
No the US Congress play both sides of this issue, if there was universal support the law would already be changed
Police Unions are a power lobby, most Congress Reps will claim publicly to be for it, while never ever allowing the issue to come up for a vote
It's like how the concept of "The Market" relies upon everyone having perfect information on every economic issue and decision. They don't, but we still use it. And sure, we suffer for that pretty regularly when we relax regulations too much, but what was that quote? "It's the worst system in the world except for all the other ones?"
How can any authority be legitimate if the subordinates can't understand it?
That is especially true of Republicans, who can do literally anything and still enjoy substantial support from the people they keep in penurious thrall. But Democrats are then able to do the same thing by simply pointing at that distressing alternative to stay in office, so in reality we just have a bunch of corrupt egoists.
And that's where our criminal justice system's laws come from as much as our financial and political ones. A system like that cannot hold moral authority.
While you are correct that civil disobedience has been a force for great change it does not work on its own. Laws were still changed within the system and that is because we have democratic representation in our lawmaking process. Civil disobedience made the case clear that we needed to employ these democratic mechanisms to change the law.
That may explain why in the city I live in, the minimum educational requirements for the police 'academy' is a GED.
Education does make you a better person. Better people make better police officers.
In other countries, it's common to require a bachelors degree to become a police officer. In the city where I live, you can get into the police academy with a GED. I should also point out that the Oakland Police Department has been under Federal Court oversight for the last 14 years.
A police officer with a high school degree that has worked for a few years isn't going to become better at their job if they get a bachelor's. It only takes 12 years of education to learn how to de-escalate situations, make arrests, and issue citations.
The reason for gun training is that when guns do get used, it's a life and death situation.
However right now, a GED and 26 weeks at the OPD academy gets you a gun, a license to kill and a starting salary of $69,912. And that license is valid on day one, not 12 years later.
BTW, I live here. We went through three police chiefs in a week due to the coverup of officers sleeping with prostitutes. They should fire the department and start over.
Except that there's a union. You know, the good sort of union.
I feel like vaccine schedules are wrong, so I asked my pediatrician about them.
I feel like global warming is a hoax, so I asked a scientist about it.
I feel like a law is wrong, so I asked a legal expert about it.
The next step to take is up to me, but in each case I'm confident I'd be starting with stronger footing that you would be with your process.
Furthermore, I can pass that process on to others in a way that is less fragile and more efficient than your process. Ask your pediatrician. Ask your scientist colleague. Ask your law professor. In a world of good faith actors you'd still be reading primary research papers on epidemiology for years before moving to the second topic. In the real world you'd likely skip the necessary steps, risk making misguided decisions, and spreading that misguided decision-making process to others.
Wait, this is 2017 right? None of that's hard to believe.
http://www.oxfordamerican.org/magazine/item/1023-the-ludowic... http://www.atlantatimemachine.com/misc/ludowici.htm
You know it's bad when a rural town attains national infamy in the pre-internet days.
Besides gaming the stoplights, the police would hide behind billboards and trees with their radar guns and target out-of-state motorists with tickets for +1 mph over the limit. Since most were just passing through the town, nobody had the inclination to wait around for a court date to fight the tickets, and all were essentially forced to pay without a chance to contest it.
He eventually succeeded in passing some legislation to curb the abuse. To this day local police have to sit in plain sight on flat ground (within a certain tolerance of grade) when running radar/lidar, can't write speeding tickets for less than 10 mph over the posted limit (does not apply to state troopers or school zones) and a slew of other technical nitpicks that make it easier to get "sane" speeding tickets dismissed.
The problem is this needs to be challenged in court. Until the Supremes rule on this, it's all speculation. That said, I've never even heard a theory stated in support of why it might be lawful.
I didn't say it was a good theory. But that's basically what is boils down to. Personally, I find it repugnant and I do believe it is an egregious violation of our constitutional rights related to search and seizure.
Also, the USSC has already ruled in part on this issue and the opinion was not great: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/16-122_1b7d.pdf Not only did they generally uphold the practice, but they weaseled out of ruling on other parts of it (not unusual for the USSC), this time because part of the argument presented was only first presented to the USSC and no lower court. So they basically said that since that other stuff hadn't seen a lower court, they weren't commenting on it.
What is important is that you must remain innocent until proven guilty.
In Conservativism, the very idea that a person's family name, bloodline, wealth, title, are irrelevant before the law is itself unfair: people aren't equal, certain family's are better, even some of them divinely superior, and the law should not force police, prosecutors, or judges to treat people equally. No one really says this outloud but it is the base ideology of conservatism and aristocracy. Not equality. And this predates the United State's version of it.
It is true that most on the right don't desire equal outcomes for all but equal opportunities. That doesn't mean some have a divine right to a better life. It simply means we want to reward the most talented, hard working and advantaged because doing so results in a more productive society. But there is a balance to make sure all the wealth doesn't end up in their hands.
US conservatism is not classical liberalism. It's classical conservatism in the context where the the established elites are the products of capitalist politico-economic systems rather than pre-capitalist ones.
Like classical conservatism, and unlike classical liberalism, it rejects secular rationality and empiricism and relies on appeals to nationalism, ancient religious tradition, and authority figures to protect the interests of the established elites.
A more recent example of Conservatism is Nixon's southern strategy as told by Lee Atwater in 1981. Today's Republican party is the same as that. No matter how you cut it, the Republican party is the political branch of neofeudalism. That is it's entire history: conserve the fact that classism is good and should be preserved, we do not serve the broader public.
Senator Grassley: Ending Estate Tax Recognizes Investors Over Spenders.
Republicans want to preserve the aristocracy they represent. That's the sole charge of the party. Liberalism fears aristocracy, it breeds contempt and unfairness in civil society, and its prevention with a simple and unavoidable tax is how a civil society is preserved.
The very fact you think there is a balance to make sure aristocrats don't end up with all the marbles suggests a distinctly Liberal perspective. That would never fly in Conservatism. You're simply confused about the meaning of these words - this is basic political science so if you haven't had that, you wouldn't know it, but if you've had even a year of undergraduate study you'd know it. It's pathetic we don't teach this stuff in grade school but it's too "political" hilariously enough, so most elected school boards in the country end up requiring the teaching of selective patriotic propaganda bullshit, rather than basic political philosophy and history.
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