Tag: public policy

Freedom!!?

About a year ago, my boss observed that this entire pandemic sitch is just a nightmare for those with analytical thought processes.. Engineering, science, analytic types. Mathematically? The country was basically in a worse place when the health orders were lifted than it was when the orders were put in place last year. That was astonishing to me. And kind of like the anti-environmentalists who don’t seem to realize they need to drink the water and breath the air … even if you’re vaccinated and have a very good probability of avoiding hospitalization? Getting sick for a week sucks. It sucked ten years ago, it’ll suck ten years from now. But, if you can mitigate your risk of feeling like an elephant is roosting on your chest for a week … what’s the reasonable thought process that leads to someone saying “I’m going to show how very free I am by getting painfully ill”?!
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I mean, there are plenty of ways to partake in your American Freedoms that aren’t painful illness. Head out to the range, rent a gun for a few hours, and fire off a couple dozen 50 caliber rounds. Publish a rant against whatever part of government irked you this week. Spend the weekend attending church services for ten different religions. Hell, marvel at the fact there’s not an uninvited soldier camped out in your spare bedroom and that the cops aren’t rifling through your belongings. And that just covers the first five articles in the bill of rights.

In fact …

Article Way to enjoy it
I Spend a weekend attending services for a dozen different churches (synagogs, mosques, etc)
II Hire a gun at a range and spend the afternoon popping off 50-cal rounds
III Marvel at how your spare bedroom is not occupied by an uninvited soldier
IV Notice how the police are not rifling through your personal belongings just because they can
V, VI, VII, VIII Don’t know that I’d commit a crime just to enjoy my right not to provide evidence against myself, be subjected to cruel or unusual pubishment, or experience a speedy, public trial … but you do you.
IX Go to work?
X Oooh, experience all of the things your state does control — maybe hang at the DMV and renew your license
XI Umm … well Michigan hasn’t sued Ohio today. Does that count?
XII Well, you cannot be part of the electoral college … but you CAN vote
XII No more slaves
XIV The state isn’t depriving me of life, liberty and such.
XV My rights aren’t being abridged because of my race
XVI Taxes were withheld from my paycheque this week. Yeah!???
XVII My state has tw senators
XVIII Grab a pint!
XIX I’m a woman, and I can vote!
XX Watch the certification of the election
XXI Grab another pint!

On stimulus means testing

Means testing is just as bad as offering a payroll tax cut. “Hi, family that made 100k in 2019, made 95k in 2020, but hasn’t had anyone employed since mid-December … you’re rich, so suck it!” sounds better than “Hi, family who made 100k in 2019, made 95k in 2020, but hasn’t had anyone employed since mid-December… you’re out of work, so suck it!”. But they’re both essentially the same statement.
 
I’d thought about including some sort of opt-out process. But if you don’t *need* the money, nothing’s stopping you from donating it to the local food bank / homeless shelter / etc either. Or saving it in case you get laid off three months from now (yes, I know “saving the stimulus money” … but what’s bad on a macro level isn’t always bad for the individual). So an opt-out infrastructure is a bit of theater that adds expense and delay (i.e. a Bad Idea).

Re-imagine the Police

The defund movement suffers from a branding problem. There are a lot of people for whom ‘defund the police’ seems to mean ‘decent into anarchy’. Few are looking to cede all property rights, eliminate personal property, eliminate speed limits. To me, defunding the police means funding a new government organization staffed with social workers, psychologists, and mediators to handle the massive number of calls that don’t involve arrest. Possibly moving toward the UK idea of generally unarmed officials with a small group of armed police to respond to situations where armed police are actually needed. Personally, I’d have three groups — social-workers for mental heath issues / inter-personal relationship problems, non-armed responders (the trespassing call we put in a few weeks ago certainly didn’t need an armed guy responding — just someone with legal authority to remove the trespasser), and armed responders for dangerous situations. But that idea is hardly encompassed in the word “defund”.

I’ve been thinking reorganize might be a better phrase — reorganize the police. There’s a shared responsibility for public safety, and it would be beneficial that the two groups not be working at odds. I see St Petersburg “reimagining” the police to include a group of more social-work oriented police. I like that turn of phrase. It doesn’t address the awful historic roots of policing … but there are a lot of institutions in this country (government and business) with horrible pasts. I think an organization’s roots are far more acceptable if the current entity wasn’t exploitative, abusive, or colonialistic. United Fruit became Chiquita — their exploitations today are the problem! “Re-imagine” suggests there was something wrong with the original conceptualization that needs to be changed. By keeping the non-police responders under the same organization, the budget it retained (maybe even grown — move a lot of current funding over to social services, add a little more). And there’s no “but the anarchy” strawman.