Illinois Safe-T Act (The Purge Law)

[Kaelik]

Released radio discussion of cops in this arrest makes clear they know the purpose of the arrest is to break protest movement and they love it and think its cool and awesome.

Again, the democratic party has taken the official stance that every time you hear a cop admitting to abusing powers to quash protest you have to give that cop a raise.

[PseudoStupidity]

I know Kemp said the 3 people (who were all from Georgia) were out-of-state agitators, are the Democrats saying that too? This situation is incredibly fucked.

[Kaelik]

I mean I have no idea what bullshit they are using to advocate for it, but the Atlanta City Mayor and Council have been the impetutous behind the move to violate the cities charter, tear up a public nature preserve, and build an entire several neighborhoods to be used exclusively for cops to practice their no knock Breonna Taylor murder skills while continuing to condemn homeless people to exposure.

Vote is today to see if the state pays 63 million (more then double what they claimed they would) for the project, don't know the result yet, but if it fails it will be because of the activists outside and the 350 speakers who commented on the vote, not because the city council and mayor weren't in support two days ago when prosecutors were arresting bail fund managers for money laundering.

[Kaelik]

11-4 vote from the Atlanta city council to spend 67 million dollars to raze a forest to build a training ground for cops to practice their mass murder and protest silencing tactics.

[PseudoStupidity]

Fuck. I wonder what the options are for stopping it are now, aside from the direct action people have been doing. Can the council revoke funding if they manage to get a different vote, or is that it for legal means of stopping copy city? I thought the forest was considered really important to Atlanta, maybe environmental review won't pass or something?

[Kaelik]

It's already super illegal but they have been bulldozing. "Enviromental review" ain't doing shit to stop it. Even the direct action has been pared down in response to the mass arrests, murder of protestors, and charging them with terrorism. Huge chunks of the forest are already gone.


This is just like every other time democrats want to do evil. No one with power is going to stop them and everyone without power is going to be hunted like animals by our occupying police army.

[Stahlseele]

Isn't forrest fire season around the corner?

[Kaelik]

https://www.columnblog.com/p/our-fines- ... h-to-child

This is a good example of the general abolitionist point.

When we think things are bad and need to be dissuaded we don't always reach for carceral solutions. We think we can address them in other ways. We only reach for carcerl solutions when we think the people doing the things are the kind of people we want removed from society.

Spoiler alert: removing people from society is a bad motive that goes bad places.

[PseudoStupidity]

https://www.columnblog.com/p/our-fines- ... h-to-child

This is a good example of the general abolitionist point.

When we think things are bad and need to be dissuaded we don't always reach for carceral solutions. We think we can address them in other ways. We only reach for carcerl solutions when we think the people doing the things are the kind of people we want removed from society.

Spoiler alert: removing people from society is a bad motive that goes bad places.

I was not aware how often Chipotle was doing child labor! It makes sense because it's fast casual and hires a ton of teens, but holy shit.

I am fine with jailing people who exploit teenagers and children and place them in positions where they might get maimed. I do not want the type of people who brutally exploit children to be in society. I'd rather they be corrected and not do that, but I'm not so sure you can fix people who would risk having a kid get maimed so they can pay their employees even less. Lock 'em up, figure out if we can fix them, but honestly it's not much of a loss.

Obviously we shouldn't be jailing people for lots of non-violent crimes, but this is one of those crimes I'm ok with jail for. Child exploitation isn't cool, but mass child exploitation with a side of endangerment? People who do that need to take a vacation from society for a bit, and probably never be allowed to work with (or hire) children again.

[Kaelik]

https://www.columnblog.com/p/our-fines- ... h-to-child

This is a good example of the general abolitionist point.

When we think things are bad and need to be dissuaded we don't always reach for carceral solutions. We think we can address them in other ways. We only reach for carcerl solutions when we think the people doing the things are the kind of people we want removed from society.

Spoiler alert: removing people from society is a bad motive that goes bad places.

I was not aware how often Chipotle was doing child labor! It makes sense because it's fast casual and hires a ton of teens, but holy shit.

I am fine with jailing people who exploit teenagers and children and place them in positions where they might get maimed. I do not want the type of people who brutally exploit children to be in society. I'd rather they be corrected and not do that, but I'm not so sure you can fix people who would risk having a kid get maimed so they can pay their employees even less. Lock 'em up, figure out if we can fix them, but honestly it's not much of a loss.

Obviously we shouldn't be jailing people for lots of non-violent crimes, but this is one of those crimes I'm ok with jail for. Child exploitation isn't cool, but mass child exploitation with a side of endangerment? People who do that need to take a vacation from society for a bit, and probably never be allowed to work with (or hire) children again.

There are better ways to fix the problem of child labor then jail! You can simply take away their ability to employ people by seizing their company!

If they don't have a company, they can't hire children. Fixing problems instead of punishing them, ect.

[PseudoStupidity]

There are better ways to fix the problem of child labor then jail! You can simply take away their ability to employ people by seizing their company!

If they don't have a company, they can't hire children. Fixing problems instead of punishing them, ect.

Taking away power would be better, that's true, but you'd need to also prevent them from ever starting a company. That's an appropriate punishment but seems difficult to enforce. They could also still get a job that gives them hiring power to still hire and harm children. I'm not sure how we'd stop a child maimer from getting enough power to maim more kids via negligence and greed without some sort of incredibly invasive surveillance. There are too many informal jobs and too many positions with hiring power. Somebody who puts more thought into it than me could probably come up with something, but I'm not sure how we'd do it. Besides, would we be permanently taking away this person's ability to start a company or hire people, or would we be rehabbing them?

I think jail makes rehabbing them easier, since they don't have many options to do things other than attend the "here's why child exploitation is bad, you stupid fuck" courses that are offered there. I always thought a "jail" where it's basically small apartments without access to general society was a sweet way to rehab people. I think Norway does something similar, their jail cells are basically dorms. I am for making jail "forced college for criminals", and of course crimes that don't harm people would be punished by mandatory attendance of classes (probably the same ones that are happening in the jail) and still let them be in society.

US prison is an awful, monstrous punishment that must be abolished. But the idea of a humane place we put criminals who harm people in until they're safe to let into society sounds like a pretty good idea to me, and I think child exploitation is something that should land somebody in a place like that. It's really easy to hire kids to do dangerous shit. Give a kid 20 bucks and they'll fix that jam in your woodchipper for you.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

...but you'd need to also prevent them from ever starting a company. That's an appropriate punishment but seems difficult to enforce. They could also still get a job that gives them hiring power to still hire and harm children.

Companies are entities registered and tracked by government and regulatory bodies. Putting someones name on a "no starting companies" list is dead easy to enforce, I'd extend it to no CEOing no board membership etc...

And yeah they could get that hiring job instead. But that's neither how the motivation or responsibility actually works.

The criminal isn't doing the child labor because that's what they want to do for lulz and they would do it as a low level manager or even for free. They do it for the profit, on behalf of the company. Any higher up saying they didn't know and it was just one bad apple is lying and should be held responsible for the actions of their subbordinates.

So yeah. A rule saying "any CEO/Board Member whose company engages in illegal child labor practices may never be a CEO/Board Member/whatever other higher rank we care to say again" would probably be effective, at least as effective as any other imperfect real world action could be.

The difficulty comes no where near enforcement issues, it comes from the desire to do it at all in the first place.

Here in Australia we have cases of CEOs gaming public funded wages/pension protection schemes by just starting new companies again and again, never paying workers, going officially bankrupt and repeating. We COULD very easily stop it, we DISCUSS at least making the specific repeat offenders names public so either the media, or even our actual regulatory bodies, can at least know who they are. But we don't.

And it's because we don't want to. Not because it's remotely hard to do.

[Kaelik]

Yeah what PL said.

With the caveat that "we" just means the people who run the nation and have power (many of whom are the people in question) not like "the Australian people" because I don't believe any liberal democracy reflects a meaningful will of the people.

[PseudoStupidity]

I don't disagree, I just don't see why jail wouldn't be a part of the punishment and rehabilitation of a serial child exploiter.

Our current punishments are heinous and overdone to the extreme, but mandatory classes and staying in a dorm-like setting until the offender understands why exploiting children is bad (along with surrendering assets, giving payouts to the victims/families of victims, and whatever else is appropriate [idk I'm not a blind lady with a scale]) seems like a very fair punishment to me. You could still stop them from ever starting a company again on top of College for Criminals if you wanted, but idk why we'd want somebody who is willing to exploit children for profit walking around free until they have been taught why exploiting children is bad and acknowledged that exploiting children is bad. People who exploit kids for profit are obviously willing to exploit kids for personal gain, and I would prefer if they not be walking around free until we have reason to believe they understand that exploiting kids is bad.

People don't do things they think are evil, they justify it as not-evil (or the other end as a worse evil to justify it as a lesser evil) and then do it. These are people who justify exploiting children, and that makes them dangerous individuals who are liable to harm children until they have been taught there is no justification for exploiting children.

[Kaelik]

People who hire children, hell, all CEOs who are all breaking the law, don't need reeducation camps and more then people who are starving who rob a corner store need reeducation camps. Yes, every single CEO is objectively a worse person then any corner store robber, but it doesn't actually change that reeducation camps are not the solution. If society didn't explicitly reward them for using child labor, they wouldn't do it! They aren't people with fetishes for child labor. They are profit maximizing just like society told them they have a legal obligation to do and then gave them millions or billions of dollars as a reward for doing, and they are told it's actually not their fault the children are suffering, because they didn't CAUSE child suffering, they just created policies with that as an inevitable result!

If you change society, none of those people need reeducation camps. If you change SPECIFICALLY child labor enforcement and lock a bunch of CEOs in a reeducation camp, they will come out of that camp, get hired as CEOS and tell their company to use child slaves in Cote de Ivorie instead of child labor in the US because that's the new profit maximizing strategy when child labor is actually punished in the US where they are again told that it's not THEIR fault the children suffer.

Not because they didn't learn that children suffering is wrong in your reeducation camp! They already knew it before they got caught the first time! But because society told them "this kind of child suffering though, unlike the last kind is good because you aren't responsible for it."

[Stahlseele]

Seizing any net profits made by these practices would be the only thing that makes them change anything.
Because only at the point where they can not profit from doing this shit will they stop trying and doing it.
I don't get why it is only 5 or 10% or a set ammount per day or week or month which is usually so far below
the profits made that IT IS STILL GOOD BUSINESS PRACTICE TO KEEP GOING WHILE JUST ACCEPTING THE
SLIGHTLY LOWERED PROFITS BECAUSE THOSE ARE STILL HIGHER PROFITS THAN THEY WOULD HAVE OTHERWISE!

Addendum:
i think those profits should also not go as fines paid to the state but to the actual people exploited by those
practises because with the fines the actual states make a profit from those practices which should also be
illegal but is also probably the reason why the fines are so low and the businesses just keep going.
It is micro transactions for a stable revenue stream from crime that the state can point at and then go:
"see, we are fining them because they are doing crime, we are the good guys, this means less tax money is
needed because we can use those funds (whatever we don't embezzle at least) to fund stuff that we would
otherwise need to use tax money for!"

And no, this is not an american problem, this shit is worldwide.
Fines should not be capped at some arbitrary number but instead be twice of what the infraction made in
profit for the perps at least because if they just make no profit they probably still won't learn from it. They
will only learn when they actually start losing general Grivious ammounts of money from doing criminal stuff.

[Thaluikhain]

People who hire children, hell, all CEOs who are all breaking the law, don't need reeducation camps and more then people who are starving who rob a corner store need reeducation camps. Yes, every single CEO is objectively a worse person then any corner store robber, but it doesn't actually change that reeducation camps are not the solution. If society didn't explicitly reward them for using child labor, they wouldn't do it! They aren't people with fetishes for child labor. They are profit maximizing just like society told them they have a legal obligation to do and then gave them millions or billions of dollars as a reward for doing, and they are told it's actually not their fault the children are suffering, because they didn't CAUSE child suffering, they just created policies with that as an inevitable result!

I'm not so certain, there certainly seems to be people that seem to believe that the poor or vulnerable should suffer. Not every cruel decision is made due to self interest, there's a lot of malice going around as well.

OTOH, making exploiting people unprofitable is hardly a bad idea regardless.

[Kaelik]

People who hire children, hell, all CEOs who are all breaking the law, don't need reeducation camps and more then people who are starving who rob a corner store need reeducation camps. Yes, every single CEO is objectively a worse person then any corner store robber, but it doesn't actually change that reeducation camps are not the solution. If society didn't explicitly reward them for using child labor, they wouldn't do it! They aren't people with fetishes for child labor. They are profit maximizing just like society told them they have a legal obligation to do and then gave them millions or billions of dollars as a reward for doing, and they are told it's actually not their fault the children are suffering, because they didn't CAUSE child suffering, they just created policies with that as an inevitable result!

I'm not so certain, there certainly seems to be people that seem to believe that the poor or vulnerable should suffer. Not every cruel decision is made due to self interest, there's a lot of malice going around as well.

OTOH, making exploiting people unprofitable is hardly a bad idea regardless.

There is malice! But here's the thing, ALMOST ALL of that malice is probably ALSO societal condition. Maybe someone exists who just inherently hates poor people in their DNA, but the reason most rich people think poor people deserve bad things is because they are rich people in a society. If you have millions of dollars the only things you can do are 1) realize the fundamental injustice of society and spend all your money trying to help homeless people or 2) make up an elaborate justification (or adopt an existing one) for why the status quo ISN'T you being a monster, but is good actually.

The complete hatred for workers by capitalists/managers is an effect of society as well!

[Thaluikhain]

There is malice! But here's the thing, ALMOST ALL of that malice is probably ALSO societal condition.

Ah, of course, I'd somehow overlooked that.

[Sashi]

It is in the interests of the millionaires that you forget it. That way they can continue to pretend the solution is fewer bigots instead of changing incentives.

[Kaelik]

The Atlanta RICO indictments being used to try to railroad bail fund coordinators into 70 year sentences in jail specifically set a date for when the criminal conspiracy began.

That day? The day George Floyd was murdered.

[PseudoStupidity]

Doesn't that mean they are positioning themselves as being on the side of Floyd's murderers? Do they know their side lost that trial?

Also, why the fuck would someone who is defending cop city remind people of Floyd's murder at all? That was a bad thing! Surely they are aware of what happened after Floyd was murdered and would want to avoid dipping into that deep well of anger. Genuinely baffling decision, unless they are so comfortable that they think they can get away with anything (which could very well be the case, with them being the state and all).

[Kaelik]

I mean it sure seems like explicit signaling by the prosecution that this is about taking down any movement for cop accountability in any way.

Amd honestly why shouldn't they be public about it? The democratic president of the United States gets on TV every month to remind everyone that he would personally kill George Floyd again if given the option because he's on team kill as many black people as possible. Who's going to stop them?

Anyway: here's an article about the total lack of coverage of this insanely evil prosecution:

https://www.columnblog.com/p/msnbc-cnn- ... s-abc-news

[MGuy]

I'm a bit confused. Is collecting money to fund people's bail illegal? Is that the nature of the indictment or is the charge that the bail and protests were a part of some greater criminal effort? If so what was the criminal effort they are saying this was a part of?

[Kaelik]

I'm a bit confused. Is collecting money to fund people's bail illegal? Is that the nature of the indictment or is the charge that the bail and protests were a part of some greater criminal effort? If so what was the criminal effort they are saying this was a part of?

The "criminal conspiracy" is that every person even tangentially related to the stop cop city movement is engaged in a wide ranging conspiracy that was created before cop city was ever announced to do violence and property damage to stop cop city or something.

So they are arresting people who donated to bail funds, manage bail funds, or pass out zines for the "crime" of being part of the same conspiracy that burned a cop car the day after the cops shot a person 47 times and also these people are part of the conspiracy to shoot that one cop that the cops shot, but lied about the guy they shot 47 times shooting.

The argument is that every single one of these people is part of a mob like organization and you can see the proof because they passed out zines.