You'd think they would respect the constitution they swear to uphold, but they enforce laws which blatantly violate state and federal bills of rights and literally rob people under the guise of "civil asset forfeiture." Sure, they're less bad on speech than in some countries, but it's not unheard-of for cops to punish people for speaking out.
You are viewing a single comment's thread from:
Of course, I understand your point of view, you are right. I guess in theory that should not happen, why does that happen in a country where there is separation of powers?
What "separation of powers"? Three branches of federal government is still one federal government. The old idea of state, federal, and local governments has largely resulted in practice as power centralizing over time.
Good. From what you tell me, the separation of powers only works in theory. Here they don't even try to fool you with that. The State pays the salaries of the police and prosecutors and they are subordinate to the party... in theory and in practice they represent the interests of the State.
Authoritarianism is at least honest. Constitutional republics and democracy slap a veneer of legitimacy over the top of the brutality. Arguably, it does mean some of their own enforcers still believe in liberty to some degree, but it also makes it so much harder for the general populace to believe the government is their enemy.
One of the major problems that cause this citation is corruction. But don't think that authoritarian countries are exempt from it. You should know that communist propaganda is based on lies and deception, to achieve indoctrination. It is also real the situation that the United States has been going through for years, the rampant migration and increased crime are factors that can de-activate and fracture civil rights.
Would you believe that violent crime has been declining in the US since about 1990? I don't trust the government or law enforcement, but one of they few things they seem pretty honest about here is FBI crime data. The Clinton-era gun ban did not cause the decline, because it was imposed after the trend began, and the trend continues after the ban ended. It continued to taper off even with the post-9/11 economic crisis and war propaganda, and has remained fairly stable in spite of economic crisis and civil unrest. Only the reporting has changed.
Migration is another issue blown way out of proportion by people with an axe to grind. Only empires at the tipping point or beyond truly fear poor people coming in. Meanwhile, the drug prohibition and enforcement is what fuels gang violence more than anything else, and the solution is freedom, not border walls and more cops.
"Let them in!" the "compassionate" left used to scream, right up until the moment that it became apparent that all those refugees were fleeing the results of US foreign policy, then mass immigration became a problem for them. Create the third world, import the third world, become the third world, just not in my backyard. That is the neoliberal playbook in a nutshell.
Funny how the US government doesn't want refugees from Cuba, BTW. I wonder why that might be...
Actually, no I don't. The US government wants only those immigrants who will vote for more government, hence they don't want people from Cuba, Venezuela, Ukraine, etc., but anywhere else is fine. And the more trouble those immigrants cause, the better, because it provides yet more excuses for international interventionism; it's a positive feedback loop. It's also one of the oldest tricks in the book.
It is true about the drugs, I agree with you 100%. But migration can increase unemployment and criminality, remember all migrants do not arrive with the willingness and desire to work. In the case of the Cubans, which I am unfortunately, I cannot say that all of them arrive because of political problems although they do arrive economically, but there are always many who are sent by the Castro dictatorship and work as spies or agents, as has already happened and now with this exodus it has been much easier, an example of this was the five that were more than 30 so the great majority had time to escape to Cuba. The problem of the weapons, if it is more complicated, if they make it illegal, then they will traffic it like drugs, that is something complicated, although every time I see a news of a school shooting, it is very unfortunate. And sorry for saturating you with my comments.
That made me chuckle.
You know I'm a dictator, right? - Aleksandr Lukashenko