Saturday, November 20, 2021

A Hobnailed Boot, Stamping On Your Face, Forever

So, earlier today, I posted about the latest case of Affluenza. Borepatch commented that it wasn't a matter of race, it was a matter of class, and referenced an epic rant on Popehat from several years ago.

I read the rant. It is indeed epic. This is the basic premise:

There are multiple classes of people, but it boils down to the connected, and the not connected. Just as in pre-Revolutionary France, there is a very strict class hierarchy, and the very idea that we are equal before the law is a laughable nonsequitr [sic].

I still believe that race plays a point, especially in traffic stops and similar events, but Borepatch has a valid point that class has a significant place to play in it.

Say that you get a speeding ticket. If you have a lawyer, and if your driving record isn't horrible, you'll get a plea deal. You'll admit to some non-moving violation (defective equipment (muffler or turn signal), failure to obey posted signs, parking on the traveled way or something else that has an equal or higher fine (because the monster must be fed) but, because it's not a moving violation, won't jack up your car insurance. If you don't have a lawyer, your choices are send in the money with the violation envelope or go to court and pray that the cop doesn't show up (because you'll lose if the cop shows). And then you'll have your insurance rates go up for a few years.

That's a small-beer example, but that's how the system works. If you are a friend of the prosecutor, the case will be dismissed (or nolle'd). If you are a prosecutor or a cop, you'll show your badge to the officer who pulled you over and that'll be it. If you're a local judge, the cops will recognize you andjust walk away, or the prosecutor will nolle it. One has to seriously act the ass to have another result.

Anyway, go read the rant. And then tell me why Clark isn't correct.

7 comments:

  1. Tomorrow marks the third anniversary of my grandson's death, killed by a now disgraced white Christian Republican politician's daughter who was texting while passing a truck. Killed my grandson and his girlfriend's mother, though recent reports have it not instantly as previously reported: the Marion County (Oregon, Capital) Sheriffs Department stood around for twenty minutes with their thumbs up their asses while the Marion County District Attorney figured out how to cover up the deaths of my grandson and his girlfriend's mother at the hands of a now disgraced white Christian Republican politician's daughter who was texting while passing a truck.

    Everything from the Rittenhouse verdict forward is self-defense ...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Robert Heinlein:

    Of course the game is rigged. Don't let that stop you,
    if you don't play, you can't win.

    Its true on so many levels.

    But the bottom line is not what you know, but who. My mama
    taught me that and over many decades its proven true. The
    rule that went with that is hang with trouble be that people
    or things to not be done, it trouble will find you.

    The last one sticks with me, If they jump off a bridge
    don't you, or at the very least be last as the pile
    at the bottom may cushion the fall.


    Eck!

    ReplyDelete
  3. If you want to improve police-public relations in low income areas, just stop all the minor tickets that bleed folks on the edge of poverty. Of course, that would starve Leviathan, so we can't have that.

    The two parties are simply the left and right wings of the same bird of prey.

    On an odd note, I took marxist economic theory back at State U and quite enjoyed it. Marx was wrong about many things but what he was dead on about was that (a) classes exist, (b) classes have interests and will act in favor of those interests, and (c) there's surprisingly little social movement between classes. That was in the 1970s and precisely bupkis has changed since then.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ten Bears ,
    Your living my greatest fear. Take care .

    ReplyDelete
  5. Using the cops as municipal fundraisers is a great evil. It should be outlawed.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Speaking of using cops as municipal fundraisers there is a village of just 166 acres just north of Cincinnati that has a very short stretch I-75 running through it that they used a speed trap because the limit dropped there to support their little village. The state of Ohio put the kibosh on it when they didn't get their cut. The fine didn't seem exorbitant for nineteen over ($100 even) so they must of been working on volume. There are plenty more examples of this elsewhere in this country.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I had a BS ticket while at prototype and hired a local lawyer to fight it because I already was in the Navy Nuclear program with a civil waiver.
    $800 to have the local boys bump heads before court and drop the charge. That was a big chunk of my E-4 money in the 80s.

    ReplyDelete

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