US Balkanisation - Is it time?

[Immoren]

They should do opposite and become unitary state for couple of years as a prank.

[Primitive Communism]

Anti-police sentiment developed as a reaction to abuse and brutality by police, not the other way around.

let me tell ya a story then (most likely one of the many that is out there) (all of this is real and was on the local news)

Then I'm sure you can provide a source without problem if that is indeed the case.

There was a Police officer known to be the nicest in his Department.

According to whom?

He was Shot 57 Times on the steps of the courthouse by someone that was related to a man that was selling Horrible drugs to kids.

This is highly unlikely for the sole reason that the average firearm cannot hold 57 rounds in a single magazine. While extensions of 60 or more rounds exist they are much rarer than the more common 20, 30 or 40 round magazines that most firearms use. This is of course strictly rifles we're talking about; SMGs and pistols tend to carry much fewer rounds and typically ones that exceed 60 tend to be large machine guns with 100+ rounds - which isn't something you can hide under an overcoat. Are we to assume the shooter stopped to reload after emptying the first mag? Not likely.

The Police officer put this Drug Dealer in jail. He was killed for it. And ya know what people did call the Cop killer a Hero and tried to help the man run away. The police got the Killer and some of the people called the Police the villain.

There is a dissonance in your story: if the cop was clearly a saint and the killer clearly a villain, then why did people celebrate the cop's murder? This just ties into the first question: "nicest in his Department" - according to *whom*?

The Killed Police officer had a Newborn and a wife at home who will never see their dad and husband after this event.

Police have created plenty of widows and orphans of their own but I don't see you jumping to console them.

So if you were a Police officer and see this happen would you start to try and care more about the people that did this or would you stop caring?

I wouldn't be a police officer in the first place, most because I don't have some latent desire to project power over others as most cops do. But also because if I did try to be "one of the good ones" I would very likely end up being fired, murdered, harassed into quitting, ostracized, or driven suicide given that is what happens to literally every police officer who attempts to report their fellow cops for misconduct.

[Primitive Communism]

Every police department in the United States is an enemy of fundamental universal rights and the well-being of the populace.

Enemy of Fundamental Universal rights and well-being of the populace? So you want Killers, Rapest, Child Molesters, and so many Horrible types of people free and running round because that's what the police try to keep at bay.

The police, more often than not, draw their ranks from killers, rapists, and child molesters. Also wife-beaters.

[Aguaria Major]

"Liberals will bring socialism"...



Economically, Democrats are almost identical to Republicans, and liberalism, by definition, is pro-capitalist; all its variants equate "free" markets (including the right of individuals to own means of production for personal benefit at the expense of workers) with political and individual freedoms to some extent. The only self-identified Democrats of note who aren't neoliberals are people like AOC, "the Squad" and Bernie Sanders, and the DNC has demonstrated that it has no intention of giving people like them any power within the party (but none of them, at least in terms of policies or ideas they've advocated for while in office, are socialists either; none of them have called for an end to capitalism/private control of the means of production, or for said means of production to be controlled by a participatory/direct democracy of the workers, i.e., the definition of socialism).

This actually brings me to the real reason behind all the political turmoil in the US: mass frustration with conditions of late-stage capitalism, but no effective outlet for these frustrations, coupled with bought-out politicians on both sides of the aisle lying to the masses about what the causes of everyone's financial problems actually are -

Republicans, like all fascist movements before them, lie to uneducated country folk about already-marginalized groups "destroying white/Western society and masculinity" at the behest of (((Bolshevists/cultural Marxists))), and about democracy being "weak" and "having gone too far" in supposedly "allowing the spread of degeneracy" while actively trying to consolidate as much power as possible within a leviathan state in union with private industry,

and Democrats, like all liberal governments faced with the inevitable outcome of capitalism (that being massive/crippling wealth inequality, monopolization/oligopolization of the economy, the erosion of civil democracy as capitalists bribe their way into total control of the government, and the destruction of individuals' senses of community/belonging, as well as leisure time and access to education among the masses as capitalists pay workers less and less while offering fewer and fewer benefits/time off thanks to industrial consolidation and the subsequent lack of incentive to offer workers anything more than slave wages, all the while more and more services essential to a comfortable, modern life are privatized and thus increasingly only available to the rich. Paradoxically in relation to that last clause, however, the masses are also increasingly bombarded with ever-greater amounts of propaganda which tell them that buying as many increasingly unaffordable consumer goods as possible will make them happy),

lie to civically-minded yuppies that the status quo is actually fine, and that everyone's problems will go away if we just "put the right people in charge", stop being racist (which, in this country specifically, is never going to happen as long as 15% of the population is kept generationally poor, and thus economically desperate, in continued attempts by capitalists to extract cheap labor from them over 150 years after slavery's official end), and maintain infinite growth forever.

With all of that being said: Americans are actually significantly less "polarized" than we all think - pretty much everyone in this country is aware, to some degree, of the fact that capitalists and corporations are at the center of a great deal of our nation's problems.

We're just being fooled into thinking that we are polarized by those very same capitalists, who use their media control to force us into perpetual debate over cultural issues.

If we want US "polarization" to end, then the answer is not Balkanization; as a START, we must:

a) outlaw campaign contributions from any place other than public campaign funds, as well as legal briber- excuse me - "lobbying".

b) tax billionaires out of existence.

c) massively overhaul our anti-trust legislation to prevent oligopoly.

d) nationalize the healthcare and higher education industries, like they do in the social democracies of Europe.

e) guarantee every American the right to housing, food, water, and an amount of money which will guarantee that they never need worry about being able to afford the benefits of modern life again (this is not a new idea, by the way. We had serious national discussions about guaranteeing these rights the last time capitalism plunged the world into chaos and helped facilitate the rise of authoritarianism across the world. After all, necessitous men are the stuff of which dictatorships are made).

f) massively expand the size of the Supreme Court bench, while also making its Justices democratically elected (that is, assuming we don't abolish it altogether).

g) overhaul the Senate to be represented based on population while ending the filibuster rule, and expand the House of Representatives so that each representative does so for no more than 30,000 citizens.

h) end first-past-the-post voting and make the partisan makeup of our legislature represented proportionally.

i) guarantee Americans the right to democracy within the workplace.

j) end our policing and prison systems, as we know them. These do not reduce or deter crime, and serve no purpose other than the extraction of nearly-free labor from the populace.

And if you want argumentative primers for how someone could get Americans to agree on these things being the correct course of action, how about we start with the fact that currently, we're actually not too dissimilar to the authoritarian hellhole of China in how we operate domestically - we are kept in perpetual debt to corporations in union with the government (with said union having effectively ended democracy here), and circumstantially forced by said corporations to work for slave wages at jobs we all hate, while our leaders ensure us that we're the greatest country on earth, and that genocide of minorities and/or infinite population/economic growth will fix everything.

How about we not be like China?

When faced with the problem of total systemic paralysis leading to mass apathy, Fascist subversion, and crippling decay the solution is not to preserve that system but change the economic model (because they are in fact intertwined) but rather to abolish that system entirely a rebuild from the ground up with foundations that are free from the structural issues wrought by two centuries of rot.

How you can simultaneously condemn the reformist mindset while advocating a more extreme form of reform is frankly astonishing. We do not need to "improve" the current system because there is no practical way of doing so. We need revolution, not reform.

Notice how I said that all those extreme reforms are what we need to do "as a START"; I don't think any of these things are going to fix the United States completely or make it into a utopia, as even market socialism (which is one of the reforms on my list) still commodifies resources and presents the problem of having to enforce limits/bans on monopoly/oligopoly. In my ideal world, there would be a violent global revolution which would end the imperial blocs of the world (including China, Russia and the EU).

But:

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a) the complete destruction of the US without the simultaneous destruction of other empires (as you seem to be suggesting) will not end capitalism/imperialism, but merely strengthen the world's other empires, especially since capitalism has globalized - if you think that the EU, Russia and China wouldn't all immediately annex US overseas possessions and military bases, or the newly-balkanized entities which previously constituted the American state while also making sure to preserve and steal as much of its military hardware and schematics as possible for their own nefarious uses, then you're a fool; the scenario I just described isn't going to do anyone any good in the long run, as it merely kicks the can of capitalism/imperialism down the road.

And for as much as it may hurt leftists to admit this: allowing China (because they are going to be the imperial successor if the US is robbed of its state/military power) to become the global hegemon will be even worse for humanity than US dominance; 4,000 years of Chinese history back this notion up. So unless you can think of a practical way to end all of the world's empires simultaneously (and which as such, doesn't involve the participation of literally all of humanity), anything which significantly weakens capitalism in the US (or which ends it without abolishing the commodity form) while ending the country's tendency towards fascism, is a step in the right direction, whether you want to admit that or not. The things I outlined as starting points in my previous post's list are merely the ways American capitalism can be weakened (or ended without de-commodification) which are the most practically viable in the immediate;

leftists don't have to make the choice between reform and revolution, as you seem to be doing. Reform can very much be a valuable tool in facilitating revolution where revolution was previously nonviable; even fucking Marx talked about transition states being necessary in facilitating revolution, and supported people like Lincoln, a liberal, winning out over forces like the CSA, because he recognized that even if it didn't immediately end capitalism, the expansion of rights within civil society and the end of chattel slavery would not only improve the lives of millions, but help to facilitate revolution in the long run (because if people can vote for a civil government and openly criticize its policies while also not worrying about starving, then they'll start thinking about how authoritarian/undemocratic capitalism is, and start calling for democratic worker control over the means of production). I don't understand how those who practice an ideology supposedly focused on improving material conditions and strategically planning for a revolution can be against actions which will exponentially improve the material conditions of hundreds of millions of people while also making people more likely to question capitalism.

Even Fred fucking Hampton recognized that the revolution he so desired wasn't viable in the immediate. That's why his focus while he was alive was on improving his community, and not trying to violently destroy the American state (a goal which, in the immediate, he called a "suicide mission" with "no glory") and why he called his party's programs instruments of "survival pending the revolution".

So if you want an addendum to the list from my previous post:

k) spread anarchist propaganda among the masses to the greatest extent possible.

---

b) this thread is specifically about political polarization, and these things will definitely reduce, if not completely eliminate polarization within the US without balkanizing it.

Balkanization of the US is a terrible idea, as it will lead to the establishment of a great deal of fascist dictatorships who will no longer be constrained in their desire to violently spread their ideology;

the first goal of any leftist should be the prevention of the spread of ideologies with no concept of the rule of law and/or free speech which seek to actively and violently end our own (i.e., monarchism, fascism, vanguardism, various forms of theocracy, etc.),

especially since these groups, thanks to their preference for power consolidated within states/strict hierarchies regardless of fair representation, as well as their much greater willingness to mercilessly utilize force to dispatch those who threaten said hierarchies, have a much greater record of historical success than we do when given the opportunities to seize power;

I can't help but notice that your region's ideology proclaims to be in line with the Spartacist League and Kronstadt uprising, as well as Luxembourgism, libertarian socialism, and leftist anarchism (the ideology practiced by revolutionary Catalonia). While it is true that all of these movements were able to assert themselves through power vacuums created via the violent/spontaneous destruction of previous hierarchical states like you're advocating for with the US,

look at the common denominator between them: they were all brutally massacred because the chaos incurred in the spontaneous destruction of previous hierarchies failed to allow for the measured destruction of opposing ideologies with much greater propensities for violence, and which do not have any concepts of fairness or rights. And in the specific case of revolutionary Catalonia, they were brutally suppressed because their movement didn't take control of the entirety of Europe at once, which meant that the more organized and stable state forces of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy were able to dispatch with them from the outside and hand over control of their territory to Franco.

You of all people should be aware, then, of how unlikely it is for any left-communist, anarcho-leftist, or libertarian socialist movement to succeed in the event of the unmeasured, spontaneous destruction of an imperialist entity without ensuring that all other imperialist entities are simultaneously destroyed.

If we want our ideology to succeed (because you and I, as it turns out, are not too ideologically different), we cannot continue to try what has already failed.

So actually, here is another addendum to my list:

j) outlaw the Republican party.

[Aguaria Major]

When faced with the problem of total systemic paralysis leading to mass apathy, Fascist subversion, and crippling decay the solution is not to preserve that system but change the economic model (because they are in fact intertwined) but rather to abolish that system entirely a rebuild from the ground up with foundations that are free from the structural issues wrought by two centuries of rot.

How you can simultaneously condemn the reformist mindset while advocating a more extreme form of reform is frankly astonishing. We do not need to "improve" the current system because there is no practical way of doing so. We need revolution, not reform.

Insurrection > Revolution.

But yeah... the whole thing needs burning to the ground. Fun times.

It does, but see above^.

Also: did you mean to type the "does not equal" symbol between the words "insurrection" and "revolution"?

a) outlaw campaign contributions from any place other than public campaign funds, as well as legal briber- excuse me - "lobbying".

b) tax billionaires out of existence.

c) massively overhaul our anti-trust legislation to prevent oligopoly.

d) nationalize the healthcare and higher education industries, like they do in the social democracies of Europe.

e) guarantee every American the right to housing, food, water, and an amount of money which will guarantee that they never need worry about being able to afford the benefits of modern life again (this is not a new idea, by the way. We had serious national discussions about guaranteeing these rights the last time capitalism plunged the world into chaos and helped facilitate the rise of authoritarianism across the world. After all, necessitous men are the stuff of which dictatorships are made).

f) massively expand the size of the Supreme Court bench, while also making its Justices democratically elected (that is, assuming we don't abolish it altogether).

g) overhaul the Senate to be represented based on population while ending the filibuster rule, and expand the House of Representatives so that each representative does so for no more than 30,000 citizens.

h) end first-past-the-post voting and make the partisan makeup of our legislature represented proportionally.

i) guarantee Americans the right to democracy within the workplace.

j) end our policing and prison systems, as we know them. These do not reduce or deter crime, and serve no purpose other than the extraction of nearly-free labor from the populace.

Hear hear!

I for one doubt these will ever happen in the US, but I would dearly love it if they did!

Are you sure these will never happen in the US? I ask because I picked those actions (out of a lot of other, much more extreme things I want done to both this country and the world) due to them being, in my opinion, the most practically viable ways of weakening American capitalism in the immediate without balkanizing the country/throwing it to the fascists or other imperialist forces. If even those actions are not viable, then maybe the Posadists are onto something...

[Hrofguard]

let me tell ya a story then (most likely one of the many that is out there) (all of this is real and was on the local news)

Then I'm sure you can provide a source without problem if that is indeed the case.

There was a Police officer known to be the nicest in his Department.

According to whom?

He was Shot 57 Times on the steps of the courthouse by someone that was related to a man that was selling Horrible drugs to kids.

Okay shot 57 times was rumors spreading sorry about that one. Pretty much the Locals around the County and serunding countys Consider

This is highly unlikely for the sole reason that the average firearm cannot hold 57 rounds in a single magazine. While extensions of 60 or more rounds exist they are much rarer than the more common 20, 30 or 40 round magazines that most firearms use. This is of course strictly rifles we're talking about; SMGs and pistols tend to carry much fewer rounds and typically ones that exceed 60 tend to be large machine guns with 100+ rounds - which isn't something you can hide under an overcoat. Are we to assume the shooter stopped to reload after emptying the first mag? Not likely.

The Police officer put this Drug Dealer in jail. He was killed for it. And ya know what people did call the Cop killer a Hero and tried to help the man run away. The police got the Killer and some of the people called the Police the villain.

There is a dissonance in your story: if the cop was clearly a saint and the killer clearly a villain, then why did people celebrate the cop's murder? This just ties into the first question: "nicest in his Department" - according to *whom*?

The Killed Police officer had a Newborn and a wife at home who will never see their dad and husband after this event.

Police have created plenty of widows and orphans of their own but I don't see you jumping to console them.

So if you were a Police officer and see this happen would you start to try and care more about the people that did this or would you stop caring?

I wouldn't be a police officer in the first place, most because I don't have some latent desire to project power over others as most cops do. But also because if I did try to be "one of the good ones" I would very likely end up being fired, murdered, harassed into quitting, ostracized, or driven suicide given that is what happens to literally every police officer who attempts to report their fellow cops for misconduct.

Okay shot 57 times Were rumors spreading sorry about that one. Pretty much most Locals around the County and surrounding counties Consider him a nice man (I do mean all races on this one). The Shooting happened at The Police Department. (yall can yell at me for that one). I can say the same for you about the widows and orphans of Dead Police officers(We do need a better system for those people out on both sides of this).
We do really need a system to check for that when recruiting for the Police. The Ones that were calling the Cop killer the hero were the Wana be Gansta Kids, Anti-Cop People, and Woke

Here are the Links: (I sent a few for yall to compare notes from different News Channels to find the story about what happened. If you want more Links please ask)

https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/09/us/georg ... index.html

https://www.13wmaz.com/article/news/loc ... 910d335b54

https://www.11alive.com/article/news/st ... 153c3dbd55

https://abcnews.go.com/US/suspect-large ... d=80498402

[Ryemarch]

Are you sure these will never happen in the US? I ask because I picked those actions (out of a lot of other, much more extreme things I want done to both this country and the world) due to them being, in my opinion, the most practically viable ways of weakening American capitalism in the immediate without balkanizing the country/throwing it to the fascists or other imperialist forces. If even those actions are not viable, then maybe the Posadists are onto something...

Sure? No, as I'm not omniscient. But seeing as our "liberal" party is conservative compared to the nations who have/want the things on that list, and our conservative party would happily enslave or murder everyone who isn't straight, cis, "Christian", and white, I don't picture even half of that list coming true in the US in my lifetime.

[Kaskalma]

(Image)

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Ever since the Obama administration the United States has become increasingly more polarised between the Democrat and Republican party to the point very few politicians, even its own populace, have an overlap in beliefs.

Talks of civil war, or the 'Boogaloo' are almost regular conversation among certain groups.

Needless to say, people do not like the federal government unless a politician of their liking is in power. The Trump and Biden administrations have only proven this further. Laws signed by both presidents have been hugely unpopular in red and blue states. Trump's travel bans, transgender military exclusions and Bidens Respect for Marriage Act are two examples of this.

It is safe to say that at any given time at least 50% of the country does not like the federal government.

So why have a federal government? To an outsider looking in, all i can see is a politically stagnant nation held back by a deeply divided congress that relies on a party majority to accomplish anything. Any so called 'Bipartisan' bills are normally very lopsided when it comes to votes. I used to be against the idea of a national divorce, now i'm thinking that batshit crazy Marjorie Taylor Greene might have a point as much as that hurts to say.

Would it not be better for each individual state to have complete self determination, NS?

The entire reason the union exists is to provide states with security, and stability. Only two or three states are even remotely close to self reliant (Texas, California, and Hawaii I believe), so any attempt to break up the republic would end in chaos and a MASSIVE depression. Not to mention the states would create pacts with each other based on their political beliefs.

Come to think of it, I wouldn’t mind if Texas annexed all of its old territories, and maybe Montana too.

[Kaskalma]

snip

If we don’t have police or prisons, and this is a genuine question, how do we stop murderers, rapists, pedophiles, drug dealers, domestic abusers, kidnappers, politicians, and other violent criminals from doing what they want. Every society has had some form of law enforcement.

[Kaskalma]

Enemy of Fundamental Universal rights and well-being of the populace? So you want Killers, Rapest, Child Molesters, and so many Horrible types of people free and running round because that's what the police try to keep at bay.

The police, more often than not, draw their ranks from killers, rapists, and child molesters. Also wife-beaters.

Source? ‘Cus I’m not so sure that’s true. Most police officers in my city (over 1.6mil people) are retired military or went to a police academy.

[Floofybit]

They should do opposite and become unitary state for couple of years as a prank.

I... Actually wouldn't hate that. As long as we don't get California or Florida though.

[Aguaria Major]

But seeing as our "liberal" party is conservative compared to the nations who have/want the things on that list

The rest of your post is fair enough, but I'm going to point something out which will save you a lot of future ridicule in leftist circles (particularly online):

"liberal" does not mean the same thing as "left-leaning" or "on the political left". Liberalism is a specific philosophical and political ideology which theoretically advocates for the maximization of the three types of freedoms that its founders believe to exist: political, civil, and economic freedom, all from the perspective of the individual. While most leftists

(and when I say "leftists", I mean people who are against private ownership of the means of production and who actually want to establish a de-commodified economy, and a direct/participatory democracy in both civil and economic terms while putting an end to states, i.e. regional monopolies over violence, and hierarchies in general; USSR/PRC simps and self-identified "Marxist-Leninists"/"vanguardists" do not believe in any of these things and are thus not leftists)

have no problem with the maximization of the first 2 liberal conceptions of freedom that I listed,

liberals also believe in the right of every individual to own means of economic production, and to employ workers compensated at less than what their labor is worth for the purpose of extracting profit from said means of production, all with the goal of personally enriching said owner, and no one else if the owner doesn't feel like sharing the profits of his economic venture or properly compensating his workers.

That is to say: liberals, by definition, are all pro-capitalist. In addition: all schools/variants of liberalism not only support capitalism, but believe it (albeit in varying degrees) to somehow be inseparable from/a catalyst for the first 2 of liberalism's defined freedoms. Some variants of liberalism take this notion so far, that they postulate that a community merely having a capitalist economic system will eventually bring civil and political freedom.

Using the actual definition of liberalism, pre-Trump Republicans, in addition to Democrats, were also liberals in practice.

Leftists, and people farther to the left of the American status quo, all reject this notion of capitalism spurring freedom to some degree.

So if you believe in the list of short-term reforms I proposed that would end US "political polarization",

then you are not a liberal. At the least extreme, you are a social democrat. But if you believe in worker control of the means of production, then you are a leftist.

So please: stop using "more liberal" to mean "farther to the economic left" - if a party was "more liberal" than the Democrats, they'd probably actually be more in favor of de-regulation.

[Aguaria Major]

snip

If we don’t have police or prisons, and this is a genuine question, how do we stop murderers, rapists, pedophiles, drug dealers, domestic abusers, kidnappers, politicians, and other violent criminals from doing what they want. Every society has had some form of law enforcement.

You're actually closer to the answer than you think with the end of that post.

Notice how nowhere in the post you quoted do I say that we have no form of preventing things like murder and other violent crime, as well as political corruption (although regarding drugs, I feel like the obvious solution is just to make all recreational drugs legal; nations that have done this actually have lower rates of harmful drug use because people no longer feel like doing drugs just for the thrill/to defy authority, and lower rates of gang activity because allowing people to distribute drugs legally/not through back-alley transactions kills the market for drug cartels) - even the Zapatistas have community laws and consequences for those who break them. I just said we have to end law enforcement in the US as we know it.

As to what should replace it?

As a start, I think it should be required not only for emergency responders to reside in the areas over which they patrol, but for them to be democratically elected/chosen by a direct vote within the community, with the public able to recall them at any time should they see fit (assuming no one/not enough people actually want to volunteer for these jobs, I propose that the people have the ability to vote even for people who are not officially seeking election as law enforcement officials, and that these people, should enough voters call for them to defend the community, be paid more generously than they were in their previous employment until their term expires. I also think that everyone in the community be rotated in and out as, at the very least, low-level, on-the-ground patrolmen for a given time, for the sake of actual engagement with/care for the well-being of community residents). I think emergency response crews should be completely decoupled, in terms of who oversees their inner workings/personnel, from any government higher than that of the community over which they have jurisdiction. I also think that these areas of jurisdiction should be made a lot smaller, in terms of the number of residents contained within. You know the American founding fathers' ideas of local militias for community defense/protection? I think they actually weren't too far off with that idea.

In addition: I think police unions should be outlawed, and that no individual employed in any police organization in the US prior to overhauling the system should be allowed to work in law enforcement or emergency response ever again. I also think that crime prevention should focus a lot more on reducing poverty, and the stress which comes as a result. If everyone is guaranteed a house, food, water and a universal basic income, a lot fewer people are going to turn to crime not only because there would be a lot less proportional incentive for them to do so, but because they'd also have a nice, stable life to lose.

Eventually, however, my goal would be the abolition of state power in favor of much more direct community defense, where people kinda just defend themselves on the spot because nothing more is required. That is assuming, however, that capitalism is abolished and everyone provided with what they need, and that everyone has the material ability to do whatever they want with their lives.

---

Now, onto prisons/penal systems.

First and foremost: end private control of the US penal system, and with it, either end convict leasing entirely, or make it a law that prison laborers be paid the equivalent of a living wage outside of prison. The war on drugs/arrest quotas only exist because our prisons make money from having as many prisoners as possible within their walls that they are able to lease out to contractors as cheap labor.

Norway has already developed a much more humane way of dealing with those who break its laws, so if you want to fix a great deal of the issues and instances of cruel and unusual punishments which plague the US prison system without actually getting rid of physical locations where we lock up violent/dangerous people, then there you go.

If you want to go farther, however:

We could force prisoners to repay their debts to society through community service, wherein those who are found to have violated others' rights or to have broken the law, are not locked up and not forced to abandon their personal lives and property, but merely forced to work only a certain type of job which will give back to the community for an amount of time determined by the members of the community they've wronged (i.e., as emergency/distress responders such as firefighters/coast guard members, park rangers, disaster relief crew members, park groundskeepers, snow plow drivers, infrastructure maintenance crew members, etc.).

The ultimate goal though, I feel should be this. In the event of cases of restorative justice where no reconciliation can be reached, however? Exile from the community might be the best choice - just take all your belongings and go. The community will give you some money so you can find a home somewhere else, but you just can't stay here.

As for the rare, Jeffrey Dahmer-types who are just sociopaths/sadists/not mentally right? Well, this is why mental hospitals exist.

[Kubra]

They should do opposite and become unitary state for couple of years as a prank.

I... Actually wouldn't hate that. As long as we don't get California or Florida though.

There will be no "california" or "florida". There will only be ohio.

[Ryemarch]

<snip>

Hence the quotation marks around "liberal".

[Floofybit]

I... Actually wouldn't hate that. As long as we don't get California or Florida though.

There will be no "california" or "florida". There will only be ohio.

Add that to the list of no no's

[Aguaria Major]

<snip>

Hence the quotation marks around "liberal".

That didn't even register when I read it. I sincerely apologize.

[Hrofguard]

The police, more often than not, draw their ranks from killers, rapists, and child molesters. Also wife-beaters.

Source? ‘Cus I’m not so sure that’s true. Most police officers in my city (over 1.6mil people) are retired military or went to a police academy.

I don't really know why they think most police are killers, rapists, child molesters, and wife-beaters hell one even says that The law often is a bad thing, and peace is overrated. But meh they sent no Sources to prove this Logic. I know the police where I live are nice people also just simple farmers hoping to keep their families and the people of the county safe.

[Ryemarch]

That didn't even register when I read it. I sincerely apologize.

No worries, friend.

[Hrofguard]

If we don’t have police or prisons, and this is a genuine question, how do we stop murderers, rapists, pedophiles, drug dealers, domestic abusers, kidnappers, politicians, and other violent criminals from doing what they want. Every society has had some form of law enforcement.

You're actually closer to the answer than you think with the end of that post.

Notice how nowhere in the post you quoted do I say that we have no form of preventing things like murder and other violent crime, as well as political corruption (although regarding drugs, I feel like the obvious solution is just to make all recreational drugs legal; nations that have done this actually have lower rates of harmful drug use because people no longer feel like doing drugs just for the thrill/to defy authority, and lower rates of gang activity because allowing people to distribute drugs legally/not through back-alley transactions kills the market for drug cartels) - even the Zapatistas have community laws and consequences for those who break them. I just said we have to end law enforcement in the US as we know it.

As to what should replace it?



As a start, I think it should be required not only for emergency responders to reside in the areas over which they patrol, but for them to be democratically elected/chosen by a direct vote within the community, with the public able to recall them at any time should they see fit (assuming no one/not enough people actually want to volunteer for these jobs, I propose that the people have the ability to vote even for people who are not officially seeking election as law enforcement officials, and that these people, should enough voters call for them to defend the community, be paid more generously than they were in their previous employment until their term expires. I also think that everyone in the community be rotated in and out as, at the very least, low-level, on-the-ground patrolmen for a given time, for the sake of actual engagement with/care for the well-being of community residents). I think emergency response crews should be completely decoupled, in terms of who oversees their inner workings/personnel, from any government higher than that of the community over which they have jurisdiction. I also think that these areas of jurisdiction be made a lot smaller, in terms of the number of residents contained within. You know the American founding fathers' ideas of local militias for community defense/protection? I think they actually weren't too far off with that idea.

In I think police unions should be outlawed, and that no individual employed in any police organization in the US prior to overhauling the system should be allowed to work in law enforcement or emergency response ever again. I also think that crime prevention focus a lot more on reducing poverty, and the stress which comes as a result. If everyone is guaranteed a house, food, water and a universal basic income, a lot fewer people are going to turn to crime not only because there would be a lot less proportional incentive for them to do so, but because they'd also have a nice, stable life to lose.

Eventually, however, my goal would be the abolition of state power in favor of much more direct community defense, where people kinda just defend themselves on the spot because nothing more is required. That is assuming, however, that capitalism is abolished and everyone provided with what they need, and that everyone has the material ability to do whatever they want with their lives.

---

Now, onto prisons/penal systems.

First and foremost: end private control of the US penal system, and with it, either end convict leasing entirely, or make it a law that prison laborers be paid the equivalent of a living wage outside of prison. The war on drugs/arrest quotas only exist because our prisons make money from having as many prisoners as possible within their walls that they are able to lease out to contractors as cheap labor.

Norway has already developed a much more humane way of dealing with those who break its laws, so if you want to fix a great deal of the issues and instances of cruel and unusual punishments which plague the US prison system without actually getting rid of physical locations where we lock up violent/dangerous people, then there you go.

If you want to go farther, however:

We could force prisoners to repay their debts to society through community service, wherein those who are found to have violated others' rights or to have broken the law, are not locked up and not forced to abandon their personal lives and property, but merely forced to work only a certain type of job which will give back to the community for an amount of time determined by the members of the community they've wronged (i.e., as emergency/distress responders such as firefighters/in the coast guard, park rangers, disaster relief crew members, park groundskeepers, snow plow drivers, infrastructure maintenance crew members, etc.).

The ultimate goal though, I feel should be this. In the event of cases of restorative justice where no reconciliation can be reached, however? Exile from the community might be the best choice - just take all your belongings and go. The community will give you some money so you can find a home somewhere else, but you just can't stay here.

As for the rare, Jeffrey Dahmer-types who are just sociopaths/sadists/not mentally right? Well, this is why mental hospitals exist.

I gata say this is one of the Few times someone that says Defound of the Police or change it. Has made a very good argument about it. I find myself nodding my head yes to a good amount of this.

Although Voting for our Police would and will have Major corruption in it. Also, a large amount of time just to have a new police officer working in the field, let's face it Police work is really dangerous and they could be killed out of nowhere. This could work for small population places but for very large ones that are going take some time, and lots of Funding for it to keep working, and that will rise the taxes even more making more people go to crime to get money to live.

The Local Milita Idea would maybe work well in the Low Population or small towns and cities. With the larger PLaces that could have a Large amount of people that idea would become Likely become more of a Pvt Army for the cities to use as they see fit. That could lead to a heavy amount of problems for everyone.

I don't think police unions should be outlawed, they do a job just like everyone else let them have Unions to fight injustice for their jobs and their rights in it.

"that no individual employed in any police organization in the US prior to overhauling the system should be allowed to work in law enforcement or emergency response ever again." (Now I think that's not even fair to the men and women of the Police force to be forced to leave and never get a job that they are trained on. Now if you do like checking systems of history and What they have been doing on duty then if they are a Bad apple then I say yes to this but for everyone to be taken out and not allowed back in is just plain wrong.

Ended the private control of the US penal system, I like that, we should give it to the local Government or Federal Government.

Granted everything will Rise Taxes to an all-time high. We have already seen if that happens to nations that have done it. The only time I can see that working is that the government is so Rich and everyone has the money to pay the high taxes other than that I have to say no to that.

The Norway system I see myself nodding my head yes to that. Those problems that you pointed out are a major plague in the US Penal System.. making those that have broking the law by making them do jobs for the community is a good idea, although let's not have them doing military jobs or law keeping I can see that going bad in so many ways. Some people can never truly be safe, that's just life. We can't keep holding them in mental hospitals that's a waste of Recorsers and manpower. What would we do with them If they are just that bad?

Exile from the community would just become another problem for a different part of the nation. Maybe I can see this working if there is a tracking system in place, other than it is a bad idea in the long run.

[Vrbo]

Highly doubt it. Most states would be unable to sustain themselves on their own state budgets without the use of federal aid. Federal aid is powerful enough that a 10% decrease in highway funding made all states increase the drinking age to 21 from 18. This includes California and Texas.

This is like, the second time I've seen a thread like this that doesn't give a resolute answer. Also admitting that you're agreeing with MTG makes you look just as insane as her.

[Farnhamia]

You're actually closer to the answer than you think with the end of that post.

Notice how nowhere in the post you quoted do I say that we have no form of preventing things like murder and other violent crime, as well as political corruption (although regarding drugs, I feel like the obvious solution is just to make all recreational drugs legal; nations that have done this actually have lower rates of harmful drug use because people no longer feel like doing drugs just for the thrill/to defy authority, and lower rates of gang activity because allowing people to distribute drugs legally/not through back-alley transactions kills the market for drug cartels) - even the Zapatistas have community laws and consequences for those who break them. I just said we have to end law enforcement in the US as we know it.

As to what should replace it?



As a start, I think it should be required not only for emergency responders to reside in the areas over which they patrol, but for them to be democratically elected/chosen by a direct vote within the community, with the public able to recall them at any time should they see fit (assuming no one/not enough people actually want to volunteer for these jobs, I propose that the people have the ability to vote even for people who are not officially seeking election as law enforcement officials, and that these people, should enough voters call for them to defend the community, be paid more generously than they were in their previous employment until their term expires. I also think that everyone in the community be rotated in and out as, at the very least, low-level, on-the-ground patrolmen for a given time, for the sake of actual engagement with/care for the well-being of community residents). I think emergency response crews should be completely decoupled, in terms of who oversees their inner workings/personnel, from any government higher than that of the community over which they have jurisdiction. I also think that these areas of jurisdiction be made a lot smaller, in terms of the number of residents contained within. You know the American founding fathers' ideas of local militias for community defense/protection? I think they actually weren't too far off with that idea.

In I think police unions should be outlawed, and that no individual employed in any police organization in the US prior to overhauling the system should be allowed to work in law enforcement or emergency response ever again. I also think that crime prevention focus a lot more on reducing poverty, and the stress which comes as a result. If everyone is guaranteed a house, food, water and a universal basic income, a lot fewer people are going to turn to crime not only because there would be a lot less proportional incentive for them to do so, but because they'd also have a nice, stable life to lose.

Eventually, however, my goal would be the abolition of state power in favor of much more direct community defense, where people kinda just defend themselves on the spot because nothing more is required. That is assuming, however, that capitalism is abolished and everyone provided with what they need, and that everyone has the material ability to do whatever they want with their lives.

---

Now, onto prisons/penal systems.

First and foremost: end private control of the US penal system, and with it, either end convict leasing entirely, or make it a law that prison laborers be paid the equivalent of a living wage outside of prison. The war on drugs/arrest quotas only exist because our prisons make money from having as many prisoners as possible within their walls that they are able to lease out to contractors as cheap labor.

Norway has already developed a much more humane way of dealing with those who break its laws, so if you want to fix a great deal of the issues and instances of cruel and unusual punishments which plague the US prison system without actually getting rid of physical locations where we lock up violent/dangerous people, then there you go.

If you want to go farther, however:

We could force prisoners to repay their debts to society through community service, wherein those who are found to have violated others' rights or to have broken the law, are not locked up and not forced to abandon their personal lives and property, but merely forced to work only a certain type of job which will give back to the community for an amount of time determined by the members of the community they've wronged (i.e., as emergency/distress responders such as firefighters/in the coast guard, park rangers, disaster relief crew members, park groundskeepers, snow plow drivers, infrastructure maintenance crew members, etc.).

The ultimate goal though, I feel should be this. In the event of cases of restorative justice where no reconciliation can be reached, however? Exile from the community might be the best choice - just take all your belongings and go. The community will give you some money so you can find a home somewhere else, but you just can't stay here.

As for the rare, Jeffrey Dahmer-types who are just sociopaths/sadists/not mentally right? Well, this is why mental hospitals exist.

I gata say this is one of the Few times someone that says Defound of the Police or change it. Has made a very good argument about it. I find myself nodding my head yes to a good amount of this.

Although Voting for our Police would and will have Major corruption in it. Also, a large amount of time just to have a new police officer working in the field, let's face it Police work is really dangerous and they could be killed out of nowhere. This could work for small population places but for very large ones that are going take some time, and lots of Funding for it to keep working, and that will rise the taxes even more making more people go to crime to get money to live.

The Local Milita Idea would maybe work well in the Low Population or small towns and cities. With the larger PLaces that could have a Large amount of people that idea would become Likely become more of a Pvt Army for the cities to use as they see fit. That could lead to a heavy amount of problems for everyone.

I don't think police unions should be outlawed, they do a job just like everyone else let them have Unions to fight injustice for their jobs and their rights in it.

"that no individual employed in any police organization in the US prior to overhauling the system should be allowed to work in law enforcement or emergency response ever again." (Now I think that's not even fair to the men and women of the Police force to be forced to leave and never get a job that they are trained on. Now if you do like checking systems of history and What they have been doing on duty then if they are a Bad apple then I say yes to this but for everyone to be taken out and not allowed back in is just plain wrong.

Ended the private control of the US penal system, I like that, we should give it to the local Government or Federal Government.

Granted everything will Rise Taxes to an all-time high. We have already seen if that happens to nations that have done it. The only time I can see that working is that the government is so Rich and everyone has the money to pay the high taxes other than that I have to say no to that.

The Norway system I see myself nodding my head yes to that. Those problems that you pointed out are a major plague in the US Penal System.. making those that have broking the law by making them do jobs for the community is a good idea, although let's not have them doing military jobs or law keeping I can see that going bad in so many ways. Some people can never truly be safe, that's just life. We can't keep holding them in mental hospitals that's a waste of Recorsers and manpower. What would we do with them If they are just that bad?

Exile from the community would just become another problem for a different part of the nation. Maybe I can see this working if there is a tracking system in place, other than it is a bad idea in the long run.

As of 2018, less than 10% of prisoners in the US were in private prisons. In January of 2021, President Biden ordered the DOJ to stop renewing contracts with private prisons. One the whole, private prisons house very few people and certainly are not in control of the US penal system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_p ... ted_States

[Ethel mermania]

I gata say this is one of the Few times someone that says Defound of the Police or change it. Has made a very good argument about it. I find myself nodding my head yes to a good amount of this.

Although Voting for our Police would and will have Major corruption in it. Also, a large amount of time just to have a new police officer working in the field, let's face it Police work is really dangerous and they could be killed out of nowhere. This could work for small population places but for very large ones that are going take some time, and lots of Funding for it to keep working, and that will rise the taxes even more making more people go to crime to get money to live.

The Local Milita Idea would maybe work well in the Low Population or small towns and cities. With the larger PLaces that could have a Large amount of people that idea would become Likely become more of a Pvt Army for the cities to use as they see fit. That could lead to a heavy amount of problems for everyone.

I don't think police unions should be outlawed, they do a job just like everyone else let them have Unions to fight injustice for their jobs and their rights in it.

"that no individual employed in any police organization in the US prior to overhauling the system should be allowed to work in law enforcement or emergency response ever again." (Now I think that's not even fair to the men and women of the Police force to be forced to leave and never get a job that they are trained on. Now if you do like checking systems of history and What they have been doing on duty then if they are a Bad apple then I say yes to this but for everyone to be taken out and not allowed back in is just plain wrong.

Ended the private control of the US penal system, I like that, we should give it to the local Government or Federal Government.

Granted everything will Rise Taxes to an all-time high. We have already seen if that happens to nations that have done it. The only time I can see that working is that the government is so Rich and everyone has the money to pay the high taxes other than that I have to say no to that.

The Norway system I see myself nodding my head yes to that. Those problems that you pointed out are a major plague in the US Penal System.. making those that have broking the law by making them do jobs for the community is a good idea, although let's not have them doing military jobs or law keeping I can see that going bad in so many ways. Some people can never truly be safe, that's just life. We can't keep holding them in mental hospitals that's a waste of Recorsers and manpower. What would we do with them If they are just that bad?

Exile from the community would just become another problem for a different part of the nation. Maybe I can see this working if there is a tracking system in place, other than it is a bad idea in the long run.

As of 2018, less than 10% of prisoners in the US were in private prisons. In January of 2021, President Biden ordered the DOJ to stop renewing contracts with private prisons. One the whole, private prisons house very few people and certainly are not in control of the US penal system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_p ... ted_States

In the federal system, I thought only INS used contractors for prisons.

[Arval Va]

As long as we're talking about private prisons, remember when a private prison fined Arizona $3 million for not imprisoning enough people?

[Juansonia]

As long as we're talking about private prisons, remember when a private prison fined Arizona $3 million for not imprisoning enough people?

What would they do if Arizona ignored the fine, send the state to prison?

oh.