[pwaai]

yeah I've pretty much given up on the justice system.

if you have money regardless of how you obtained it, the law always favor those with capital for the most part. Unless you try to fight back against government's monopoly on violence....drug traffiking being a major competition, it makes sense why harsh sentences are handed out for drug dealers while white collar criminals that inflict damage to millions of people all over the world gets a slap on the wrist.

[JumpCrisscross]

> I've pretty much given up on the justice system

The SEC can't bring criminal charges. They levy fines, usually limited to repaying the money one stole plus their administrative expenses, ban people from the industry and refer cases for criminal prosecution. Their point is to stop damage, not necessary punish it.

The criminal process is more selective about what it attacks. It's where justice is delivered. As a result of due process, it's also much slower.

I remember similar complaints in the months between the civil penalties for Holmes et al and the announcement of criminal charges. These things take time. Sometimes, the bar for criminality isn't met. That said, the most damaging parts of this to Rothenberg are (a) the bad publicity and (b) being barred from the industry. The latter is probably much worse than $7 million.

[news_to_me]

> yeah I've pretty much given up on the justice system.

I just hate this mentality. Listen, I know things have been rough and defeatism is a natural way to feel in that context. But "giving up" is one of the ways things end up like this. Don't give up. Fight for justice.

[mikekchar]

There are a lot of times where there is nothing you can do. Fighting in the face of certain defeat is also a poor decision. As much as I understand your dislike of defeatism, there is a similar danger of being aimlessly angry and flailing about in a haphazard manner -- which I think it just as prevalent as defeatism. One of the reasons we actually choose corrupt officials to govern us in the first place is because they successfully rally our anger against something and promise to fight for our cause.

When there is nothing you can do, you must wait and look for an opportunity. It's not so much the giving up on fighting that's the problem, it's the giving up on hope. Improvements come slowly and are the result of much patient work.

Having said that, I hate waiting as much as the next person. :-(

[smittywerben]

> government's monopoly on violence

Can I get a source on this?

[CalChris]

Max Weber. However, he stated it as Today, however, we have to say that a state is a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.

Politics as a Vocation.

http://fs2.american.edu/dfagel/www/class%20readings/weber/po...

[smittywerben]

Thanks for a direct link to the [1918] speech. This definition originates from the sociology school in academia.

[kevin_b_er]

This is a sort of tenant of the modern state if you look at it a certain way. Ultimately the threat of violence is invested in the state to ensure the law is followed.

It is not a pitchfork and torch mob that should come after you should you appear to have committed a serious crime, but rather the government's police agencies that will come to arrest you, very physically if need be.

See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence

[smittywerben]

I see, monopoly on violence is a legitimate concept in the political/public sciences. I think "monopoly" has several definitions depending on the field.

Thanks for the clarification + source.

[pwaai]

It's a full spectrum of monopolies that collectively represent a colonial apparatus...I'm not talking naval and nuclear projection or occupying a foreign country...

Putin has clearly mastered a new type of war that specifically weakens America's monopoly on violence both domestically and internationally.

You can already see the symptoms of an institution slowly coming to gripes to a major espionage campaign that did not stop after the USSR fell but evolved into a criminal state, one that explicitly seeks to include criminal elements to distance the Kremlin.

Americans rely on a network of multi-national corporations to do their bidding, Russians rely on the mob.

[gcb0]

that is the accepted definition of State. a State can arm a faction (police, army, etc), and have the freedom to decide how to use it (removing you from some place, keeping you at another place, invading another State, etc). a corporation and citizens can't. hence a monopoly on violence.

[User23]

And like many social science "theories" it's entirely incongruous with reality. One counter-example suffices to disprove a universal claim.

The United States is that exception, because our constitution explicitly recognizes, not grants, our right to arm ourselves independently of the State (or States really), only with some regulation permitted.

The actual definition of State can easily be found in the dictionary: "a nation or territory considered as an organized political community under one government."

[kl4m]

A monopoly on violence, not guns. The U.S. constitution does not empower you to incarcerate your neighbor.

[User23]

Actually US citizens can legally perform arrests, we just don't have the same legal presumptions that peace officers do.

Also it's obviously implied that the right to bear arms includes the right to use them under at least some circumstances. It would just be as ludicrous as saying freedom of the press only covers your right to own a press in your house or business and not your right to print things with it.

[rosser]

> Actually US citizens can legally perform arrests...

And in doing so, they are acting as self-deputized agents of the state. They're temporarily "arming" themselves with the state's power to use violence in furtherance of its (legitimate) interests in enforcing its laws. They could not legally do that without the state's sanction.

EDIT: Some countries don't even limit the power of "citizen's arrest" to their own citizens. The UK's relevant statute specifically says "any person", emphasis added, may act thusly.