Ineffective Government, an outcome of our definition of "Freedom"?

[Seattle]

"I can't believe you're arresting me for shoplifting a few phones, officer! I mean, aren't you supposed to be catching REAL criminals like drug dealers? Go do your effing job and leave me alone!"

That approach has been shown not to work well in, say, San Francisco.

I agree but what does that have to do with my response to Tiassa?

 

[Tiassa]

That approach has been shown not to work well in, say, San Francisco.

Depolicing↱ is a "real threat"↱, and extraordinary example of ineffective government and definitions of freedom.
____________________

Notes:

Fitzgerald Rodriguez, Joe. "When DA Boudin Investigated Police Killings, Arrests Slowed. That May Not Happen With DA Pamela Price". KQED. 13 February 2023. KQED.org. 4 July 2023. https://bit.ly/3XEMww1

Nellson, Susie. "Are S.F. police behaving differently under Brooke Jenkins than under Chesa Boudin? Study finds immediate shift". San Francisco Chronicle. 2 November 2022. SFChronicle.com. 4 July 2023. https://bit.ly/46zaI76

 

[Tiassa]

Ah, Seattle

Folks in Seattle met FOX News with the kind of truth that, well, maybe only the Emerald City can.

So, Jesse sent Johnny, and word has it↱ that didn't go well.

Piro: Jesse sent Johnny to the progressive hellscape, where residents mocked the idea that the city is spiraling out of control.

[begin roll]​

Resident 1: I've never seen crime in Seattle. I've never seen any of it. I've seen fun and laughter, and laughter and fun.

[cut]​

Resident 2: I don't believe that number.

Reporter: People, there are, getting robbed out here, carjacked―....

Resident 2: I've never heard of anyone getting robbed.

[cut]​

Resident 3: Crime is a social issue that could be solved by giving people their basic needs.

[cut]​

Resident 2: It's not a thing that just on the street; people don't just come up and try to rob people.

[cut]​

Resident 2: Do you walk around every day, like, "Someone's gonna rob me," every second?

[cut]​

Reporter: Seattle decriminalized drug use, and then they criminalized it again.

Resident 2: Oh, my God, who are you getting your facts from? You're from New York, apparently. You're listening to the wrong people.

Reporter: I saw a lot of people shooting up on my way down here.

Resident 2: Oh, did you? Okay. And they were bothering you?

Reporter: I was in a car, but people―

Resident 2: Oh, no, you're in a car! Oh, no, they were huritng you so bad! Oh, no.

Repoter: (laughs)

[end roll]​

​

I do wish there was a little more, so we could tell if he was laughing in disgust or trying to laugh along, because Resident 2 is almost a literary archetype. If enough people kept on him, it's easy to feel sorry for that reporter. But we don't brick Reg, here, even when it would be the merciful thing.

Also, notice the white lady just talked back to the reporter, and didn't sic the cops on the creepy nonwhite guy trying to start something. In Seattle, we have a word for that, but it's borrowed tribal word, and longer than the actual English for being smart enough to know the difference, so nobody remembers what it is.
____________________

Notes:

@abughazalehkat. "Fox News tried to do a bunch of scary man-on-the-street interviews about crime. It didn't go well.". Twitter. 26 Septembe r2023. Twitter.com. 27 September 2023. https://bit.ly/3RBHS0I

 

[Tiassa]

What Strikes You As Wrong

From the land of sky blue waters:

TUMWATER — A 16-year old boy was using a walk-behind trencher on a job site in La Center to dig a channel for fence posts this summer when he was dragged underneath the blade, causing injuries so severe that he lost both legs to amputation.

After a safety & health investigation, the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries (L&I) has cited and fined the company he worked for in connection with the incident.

Rotschy LLC, the Vancouver, Wash. construction company that sent him to operate the machine without supervision or adequate safety measures is facing more than $150,000 in fines.

(Dept. of Labor & Industries↱)​

Just another reminder that the "freedom" disrupting solutions is not that of the mentally ill living on the streets, but the freedom of capitalists and capitalistic institutions. Look what's going on in the states, right now; putting more kids in the fields and slaughterhouses isn't going to fix the economy, and it isn't going to dirupt the economic insecurity driving so many people to live on the streets.
____________________

Notes:

Washington State Department of Labor & Industries. "Young worker loses both legs to trenching machine, leading to fines, further investigation into Vancouver construction company". News Release #24-01. 23 January 2024. LNI.WA.gov. 25 January 2024. https://bit.ly/3UffFhH

 

[Seattle]

We live in a capitalist system. Would this never happen under communism? Would it be better if he was 18? Is this really an example of anything other than negligence of either the kid or the company that he works for?

Isn't this really just cherry picking for your preexisting viewpoint regarding economic systems? Would this never happen in Cuba? Is this really a significant story?

 

[billvon]

TUMWATER — A 16-year old boy was using a walk-behind trencher on a job site in La Center to dig a channel for fence posts this summer when he was dragged underneath the blade, causing injuries so severe that he lost both legs to amputation.

While that sucks, and the fine was very much warranted (and should have been more IMO) I don't see a huge difference between a 16 year old losing her legs and an 18 year old losing her legs. Both are unacceptable when caused by negligence by the company employing them.

 

[Tiassa]

While that sucks, and the fine was very much warranted (and should have been more IMO) I don't see a huge difference between a 16 year old losing her legs and an 18 year old losing her legs. Both are unacceptable when caused by negligence by the company employing them.

Well, sure, but in that comparison, all you care about is the fact that someone lost their legs. The part you seem to be skipping out on has to do with how and why it happened.

Proper training would help. Proper worker safety investment would help. Hiring workers of appropriate age would help.

Remember the context of this thread: Someone looks out at the world around him, is distressed by what he sees, and prescribes a dysfunctional solution that coincides with self-gratification. Did you not read the topic post↑, wherein the solution is that addicts magically "grow up and be responsible"? Have we forgotten the title, asking whether ineffective government is an outcome of how we define freedom? Inasmuch as, "Sometimes it's best to have a little less 'freedom' for the sake of society", we've now had over a year to consider definitions of freedom. Like I said↑, four billion dollars would be a lot of eggs.

And oh, the freedom! Did you hear about the egg producers getting busted for price fixing? We've seen price-fixing settlements in eggs, beef, education, and pharma, and in addition to settling for its role in opioid distribution, CVS now faces class-action price-fixing complaints from both hospitals and other pharmacies. Additionally, the last year has heard increasing noise about wage theft, with Uber paying out nearly three hundred million dollars, and Lyft nearly forty million, to settle a wage-theft suit in one state. That's three hundred twenty-eight million dollars that should have been in workers' hands. Consider five and a half million dollars, distributed to one hundred forty-eight workers, a little over thirty-seven thousand dollars each, representing three years of wage theft by one assisted living employer in southern California. Estimates suggest fifty billion dollars improperly withheld from workers, nationwide. That's a lot of rent, Bill. And a lot of eggs, too.

It's one thing if the best someone can come up with is to go holler at the homeless, but wage theft, price fixing, unsafe labor, and child labor. Even if workers could get every penny back, it is impossible to undo the damage. And consider, even as people fret about inflation, the implication that a 2017 wage-theft study in the ten most populous states found that workers lost at least eight billion, but analysis subsequent years found that nationwide only about three and a quarter billion were recovered. Recovering stolen wages is difficult; in Texas, for instance, more than a third of wage-theft judgments are never paid.

So, sure, maybe it's all nearly the same, if you choose to look at it according the most minimal and superficial perspective you can manage, but compared to the larger question, it's one thing if someone wants to go holler at the homeless, but if we should consider freedom as impediment or disruption to effective governance, it is absolutely necessary to consider how our society inflicts poverty and suffering.

It's not just negligence, and you know that. This stuff doesn't happen without certain acts of will. Think of it this way: People still complain that "illegal immigrants" are "stealing" jobs by working for lower wages. Flip-side, it is domestic employers who hire that way. Looking forward: What are we going to say when the grown-ups start complaining that child labor is taking all the jobs? Especially the migrant child labor?

This part comes back to a basic↑ question↑ about how we define success in business. This, too, is part of "freedom". If you start a business, and it is successful, except there remains a question of what that means. Manipulating numbers to raise real estate values, increasing rent at extraordinary rates; hiring children to long hours and dangerous jobs; wage theft; overprescribing addictive drugs: Are these the behaviors of successful businesses?

If it requires that much disrupted education, worker hazard, and wage theft, all while inflicting addiction, poverty, and homelessness, in order for our larger society to succeed, then what is success?

The difference between the amputee being sixteen or eighteen is an important point in a matter of accounting for the diverse freedoms business entities and their ownership expect along the way to finding success.

If, as our neighbor says, "Sometimes it's best to have a little less 'freedom' for the sake of society", it is not an unreasonable question to consider which freedoms.

 

[Seattle]

If you start a business, and it is successful, except there remains a question of what that means. Manipulating numbers to raise real estate values, increasing rent at extraordinary rates; hiring children to long hours and dangerous jobs; wage theft; overprescribing addictive drugs: Are these the behaviors of successful businesses?

If it requires that much disrupted education, worker hazard, and wage theft, all while inflicting addiction, poverty, and homelessness, in order for our larger society to succeed, then what is success?
...
If, as our neighbor says, "Sometimes it's best to have a little less 'freedom' for the sake of society", it is not an unreasonable question to consider which freedoms.

Sure, it's a reasonable question to consider which freedoms but you haven't listed any. Everything you've mentioned is illegal which is why some of them ended up in court. The issue you have is with the system and not with any freedoms.

Since we're dealing with humans, there's always going to be people breaking the laws.

Take Microsoft, for example, are they disrupting education, inflicting addiction, poverty and homelessness, wage theft? I don't think so.

To make your point you have to find someone in an industrial accident whose legs had to be amputated. Is that a common occurrence? In a country of 350 million people these things happen, sure.

Most of the addicts on the streets, the homeless, aren't there because they were over-prescribed opioids by their doctors. They got them on the black market to get high and became addicted. Those are the ones who need to grow up by the way.

Most people don't work in the "gig economy" driving for Uber. If there are violations there and someone takes them to court, great.

There's not a pandemic of hiring children to long hours and no one is unreasonably raising housing rates.

Feel free to move out of your house and rent it at way below market rates, house hack and maybe you can remove 2 or 3 homeless from the streets.

Hire them to take care of your yard and make sure to pay them way above minimum wage, make sure it's an affordable wage.

In your free time, walk around Seattle and see how many children are working at the local businesses.

If you decide to take a vacation, go to Cuba and see how many children are employed in the worker's paradise and make sure to take notes of the safety rules.