Comment by vjvjvjvjghv
1 day ago
I assume she will get a settlement, the city (the taxpayer) will pay for it and nothing else changes. There will be even less money for infrastructure repair and people will keep voting for the same people.
1 day ago
I assume she will get a settlement, the city (the taxpayer) will pay for it and nothing else changes. There will be even less money for infrastructure repair and people will keep voting for the same people.
The point of the arrest was not to win. The point was to inconvenience the whistleblower, cause her grief, and maybe as a bonus make her spend a night or two in jail. Nobody doing this remotely believed that they wouldn't have to settle. They did it to show that if you speak out against them, they'll arrest and inconvenience you. So the next person who gets a thought to speak out might decide not to bother.
Same for the guy in TN who got arrested for posting that anti-conservative meme. Nobody thought they would win, but they want to make everyone else think twice about criticizing a particular political side.
>They did it to show that if you speak out against them, they'll arrest and inconvenience you. So the next person who gets a thought to speak out might decide not to bother.
some of my students have expressed that they wish they could get arrested for a meme and walk away with a couple hundred grand.
i, of course, have told them that they would be playing with fire. but they are still viewing it as a potentially life-changing payday. so, for some subset of people, they might be having to opposite of the desired chilling effect.
Yea, an arrest on your record, even if you're acquitted and/or get a settlement for police wrongdoing, can still mess you up. There are employers and landlords who will ask you / check whether you were ever arrested, regardless of the outcome of the arrest. Mere involvement with Law Enforcement puts a permanent black mark on your record and can interfere with basic things for the rest of your life.
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And the ones who get the "payday" are just the ones we've heard of.
How many people didn't get media attention, don't have the ability (time/money) to sue, lost that case, and those where the intimidation and "punishment" was successful?
At some level the people doing this intimidation believe it'll be successful. Is that from experience?
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> some of my students
When I was young, I might have thought this way for sure. I didn't expect to have a future anyway and this would have potentially been a cool level-up that I'd seize.
Responding to someone in another comment that happened after the parent, when I was young and had no real prospects (despite coming from a well-off but not super wealthy family), I had a lot of mental health issues and emotional issues that didn't seem possible to resolve and it wasn't realistic to think I'd finish a college degree or start a career. Imagine being a well-educated white male in the USA who expects to be trapped working retail forever while peers get white-collar jobs and you can see the appeal. Fortunately, decades of hard work and treatment can make a world of difference, but that's not anything you can bet on when you're young and desperate.
Students are young and often have nothing to lose, aside from missing opportunities.
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>so, for some subset of people, they might be having to opposite of the desired chilling effect.
Those ones are the easiest though, are they not? Someone going into it with convictions (or even chickening out because they are aware of the consequences) have consolation and inner reserves. Some kid angry that he can't get a six figure salary at age 22 fresh out of college might regret it as soon as they're in the clink, but if that doesn't get them... the 6-10 years of lawyer-wrangling and stress certainly will. All for the payday to not even go half as far as they think... it'll pay down some bills, there won't be any sports cars.
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Mostly this
> They did it to show that if you speak out against them, they'll arrest and inconvenience you. So the next person who gets a thought to speak out might decide not to bother.
That needs reiterating because an uncomfortable amount of people think this sort of thing simply doesn't affect them.
This is why the saying “you can beat the rap but you can’t beat the ride” exists.
They know the charges won’t stick, they are using the process of fighting the charges itself as the punishment.
The process is the punishment.
Much like peter thiel’s lawsuits against Gawker, which included funding a guy who dubiously claimed to have invented email and sued Gawker for pointing out this was absurd.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/peter-thiel-email-inventor_n_...
YC and its founders worship him like a hero.
That's not a fair assumption in the current political environment.
Those who have lots of money will get fair hearings under the court, but those with less power might not. There's a reason people like Elon Musk write into agreements that they must be settled in particular Texas courts.
I don't think that's the full picture. Activist judges have been a problem for awhile now, and it seems to be mostly influenced by ideology rather than purely money.
It's certainly obviously true that one political party used "we will find judges who will overturn one particular court case" as a fundamental part of their campaigning for decades...
People are disagreeing, but I think they're seeing the word "activist" and assuming a different meaning than what I think OP meant. I suggest reframing as "politically motivated" judges. I don't think it's difficult to deny OP's comment using those terms.
You can't really venue shop for an "activist" judge but you can for one who will side with the powerful over the weak. Your comparison is itself not a full picture.
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That's quite a claim. You need to cite your sources for this one, if you want to be taken seriously.
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What’s an activist judge? Do you believe a judge can just rule whatever they want outside the framework of law?
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I think everything is consistent with the perspective Texas represents toward the united states. It's fine if Texas doesn't implement reforms and fails. (There are 49 other states and may the ones that invent or adopt the best practices survive.)
What do you think “fails” means exactly? How does Texas fail in a way that doesn’t harm innocent people in both Texas and the rest of the country/world?
Texas is larger (in both population and economy) than most countries in the world.
The Federal government enforces a few rules and then leaves things to the state and people. Obviously that means the state and people have no nanny to protect them from consequences of their decisions. If they drain their budgets fighting the civil rights of their population instead of fixing a problem then they might look like a lot of bankrupt municipalities. The US is obligated to let that happen.
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> Texas is larger (in both population and economy) than most countries in the world.
Californian here, we're bigger than Texas, laughed at the plight of ordinary people who voted for the terrible outcome they got when there was a massive winter storm and no electricity in 2021. Of course, I want good things for all people and I don't want anyone to suffer (this extends to my political enemies unless you're at the top making decisions that cause harm and then I'm flexible).
I honestly could see the hilarity of that disaster while still having compassion for the people on the ground. They voted based on social disagreements rather than competency and reaped the rewards. That said, there are very few actual competent leaders in USA government regardless of professed party. It's just that Texas keeps re-electing grifters who are nakedly corrupt (Ken Paxton and Ted Abbot come to mind). The citizens of the state are so blind as to punch themselves in the face when they vote.
"Ted Cruz says leaving Texas during winter disaster was 'obviously a mistake' as he returns from Cancún"[0]
0. https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/18/ted-cruz-cancun-powe...
This is true, but Texans as a whole keep enabling these outcomes by both voting and supporting politicians that create it, as well as the state as a whole generally refusing aid.
It's one of the (many) reasons why I immediately moved out of the state when I had a chance. There's only so much that can be done when a lot of the states politics and environment is wholly self-destructive.
fine for who? Texans? this is a silly mentality, no need to compare any other location, Texas as a standalone entity and the many stakeholders wouldn’t reasonably think it’s fine
I'm supposed to force social darwinists to do what's best for them and make sure all policies prevent them from failing even if their goal is to invalidate those policies. Texas can make laws in its state legislature to prevent municipalities from creating liabilities. If they are good other states can adopt them. If they don't they can get bent which is also good for other states that make better choices to see benefit in making better choices. As the old curse goes, may they get everything they want.