[swores]

Sorry but that's bullshit.

It's extremely rare for any part of government to have that as an intended purpose.

But it's extremely common, unfortunately, for people involved to be willing to accept that as a side effect in pursuing whatever their goals are - whether that's gaining funding for their police department, or raising political donations from the owners of a private prison, or keeping poor people away from their beautiful upper middle class neighbourhood, or environment-ruining chemical company, or... whatever.

[20after4]

A system’s purpose is what it does, not what it claims to do.

[ahhhhnoooo]

The purpose of a system is what it does. If that wasn't the purpose, the system would be changed.

[therealdrag0]

That’s as dumbs as the saying “there can’t be a 100$ bill on the ground because if there was it’d have been picked up.”

[ahhhhnoooo]

It's not at all like that?

Claiming that a system's purpose is something it consistently fails to do is absurd. Intentions don't matter, outcomes matter.

This is a pretty basic systems theorist argument, to be honest...

[therealdrag0]

A systems purpose depends on its creator. Creators regularly fail to produce intended results. It’s absurd to say an unintended result is the intended result

[kennywinker]

How long is it ok to produce “unintended” results without changing anything, before you can say that’s now an expected part of the system? Because i think that’s the issue. It’s not that the US has a goal to criminalize poverty - the constitution doesn’t say anything about that - but since it’s been that way for so long it seems the system is unwilling to do what needs to be done to prevent that. It’s part of the expected behavior of the system.

[ahhhhnoooo]

> It’s absurd to say an unintended result is the intended result

I didn't say that. I said the unintended results are the purpose of a system, not the intent.

[therealdrag0]

This feels like a bait and switch. Can you define purpose for me?

[anonymousiam]

It's not as rare as you might think.

Organizations such as OSF/OSI (Open Society Foundations, not Open Software Foundation) have successfully placed their preferred candidates in positions of power in many major US jurisdictions. If you research, you'll see many cases of OSF DAs prosecuting or not prosecuting based on their political ideology. Many prosecutions are politically motivated, but now we have foundations funding activist candidates who are all pushing the same agenda. The result is diminished trust in government, which the activists will exploit to eventually make things even worse, because "capitalism is not working."

[kennywinker]

You make it sound like they are doing corruption. I.e. don’t prosecute your friends, do prosecute your enemies. But this is more like using the power at your jurisdiction level to oppose unjust laws.

I.e. where i live the city council long ago directed police to stop arresting people for marijuana possession - on the grounds that this is an unjust law and criminalizing it is tying up resources and doing more harm than good, and because the majority of the city’s population supports legalization. City gov doesn’t have the power to change those laws, but they can fix it locally by directing enforcement away from them. A decade later, it was legalized - imo proving that it was the right decision.

This did not “diminish trust” in the gov. In fact, laws that the majority disagree with but stay on the books do far far more damage to the credibility of gov, in my opinion

[anonymousiam]

If you want to effect change, then change the laws through the approved processes. Do not install a DA that ignores the laws. Doing so WILL diminish trust in government.

[kennywinker]

Actually, DA discretion is a normal part of the functioning of government. There are a thousand laws on the books that get ignored every day [1]. And every election, candidates run on platforms promising to “crack down” on this or that crime (read: selectively increase enforcement).

Gov enforcing laws that the majority of people do not want is a subversion of democracy that alienates people from the idea that gov can be responsive instead of oppressive. I don’t trust a gov that claims to represent the will of the people, but charges people for crimes most don’t see as criminal.

So maybe you trust a gov less when you see laws you want enforced being set aside, but you’re in the minority here. How do i know? Because these DAs are getting elected (not installed) to do this.

[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/society-culture-and-history/social...

[anonymousiam]

Prosecutorial discretion is a normal part of a DA's job. If extenuating circumstances exist, a DA can charge a lessor crime. If exculpatory or insufficient evidence exists, a DA can decline to bring charges.

These circumstances are altogether different from a DA making blanket declarations that they will not bring charges for certain crimes. The latter indicates a dereliction of duty. They're not doing their job.

Elections are a dirty business. The candidates who spend the most money are often the winner.

Nefarious foundations donating large sums of money with the intent to install DAs who will subvert justice could be seen as a threat (and a conspiracy) to the US justice system and prosecuted as a crime.

https://www.dailynews.com/2024/11/10/ousted-da-george-gascon...