I think there is a decent argument that some of the nihilism we see in the population comes from seeing a general unwillingness to jail or proportionately punish wealthy criminals. As we have heard for a long time, if the bill for breaking the law is too small it is just a fee and if you steal from enough people it becomes a statistic.
I'm not optimistic about this. I think removing due process to allow for exporting people without any rights is a terrible idea. The writers of the declaration of independence specifically named these.
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
I would go so far as to say that white collar crime is the root of all evil in our society. Every violent criminal, every death of despair, it all can be tied directly to white collar crime.
White collar crime and the lax punishment of it allows individuals to accrue resources that allow them to lobby the government to change laws or bribe law enforcement to not enforce laws against them which allows to accrue even more resources and a feedback loop forms.
This sucks resources away from the system that could be used to enforce other laws against violent crime or even better prevent violent crime nearly entirely through properly funded social programs that stop people from growing up in the terrible conditions that lead to most violent crime in the first place.
If we took white collar crime as seriously as street crime, we’d see a ripple effect. Funds recovered from fraud and tax evasion could go to schools, healthcare, addiction treatment, and housing. Instead, we live under a system where accountability is only for the poor.
A simple and effective way to begin to mitigate white collar crime would be to scale all fines as a proportion of an individuals net worth. This, combined with a rapid escalation of the fine for re-offenders within a period of time (say 3-5 years) would at least begin to chip away at the ill-gotten gains of some criminals.
But I too am not optimistic about where this is all going. I have a terrible in the pit of my stomach that a lot of people are about to die because of the snow ball effect of unchecked corruption in America, and at this point I don't think there's anything that can stop it.
I just hope that there's enough left over to rebuild a more resilient system and that the world can oppose the authoritarians like China that will attempt to fill the power vacuum.
> I think there is a decent argument that some of the nihilism we see in the population comes from seeing a general unwillingness to jail or proportionately punish wealthy criminals.
You are so right. Whatever the benefit of having laws at all is, it evaporates when laws are selectively not applied.
We're seeing the consequencefs of it today, in the "content creation" business and many other. It's a dog eat dog situation. Truth lost any relevance. As the influencer you know very well that whatever you're feeding your audience is empty hope, dreams and fantasy. As long as the check from IG/YT/TikTok is big enough, you don't care. Why care?
I'm not optimistic about this. I think removing due process to allow for exporting people without any rights is a terrible idea. The writers of the declaration of independence specifically named these.
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences: