The US is becoming a hollow state in which oligarchic factions wield the machinery of government to funnel money into their coffers via bloated military projects, mass incarceration in private prisons, regulatory capture, etc. Politics is pure kayfabe, team oligarch vs team state
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Part of it is that society went bugnuts back in the late 60's/early 70's and "tough on crime" got a major boost, resulting in sentencing getting WAY harsher in the 80's and continuing to date with few reversals.
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There is an article somewhere online about Joanne Chesimard and it mentions people shooting state troopers with shotguns and getting 2 months in jail in the 70's and citing it as an example of why harsh sentencing was imposed by Congress when the courts wouldn't do it.
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that seems like a less useful example because it is both reasonable and NOT at all what is mostly responsible for the exponential rise in incarcerated population (it's like 95% drug convictions)
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The mandatory sentencing stuff has many causes, but IMO it was a general feeling of lawlessness and people getting slaps on the wrist for serious crimes that motivated a lot of it.
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Then after that, toughen up the drug laws and boom, a felony's a felony and drug convictions are SO easy to get and so, so common. Violent crime has always been relatively rare, but trying to deal with it caught the drug dealers as well.
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a radical legal theory: you can't actually prevent violent crime through ANY legislative intervention at all. it's a fool's errand and causes extreme harm to impoverished communities. real remedies include improvements to economic opportunity especially internal migration.
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doubt this obtains unfortunately some people really are fucking crazy plenty of improvements to be had on the margin you suggest, I just dont think they extend across the entire domain
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Although if you are right theres no harm in complete weapons deregulation right?

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mumble mumble optimate brahmin mumble mumble
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hiki's phrasing puts more intentionality into this than I think exists I think it's emergent from incentives. Rats crawling to the bow of a sinking ship.
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I'm not positing any overarching intent, just hundreds of sordid little conspiracies with the barest veneer of plausible deniability and the emergent result thereof
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does increasing incarcerated population represent growth of state power? yes, it does. however it is state power wielded against its own population. metastatizing seems like a good way to describe that. hollowing out is descriptive too but in a different sense.
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the core of a liberal democratic state is supposed to be the consent of the governed. the implicit social contract is that the state works for the people, to uphold their interests and promote the general welfare. if they don't do this the core has become hollow.
End of conversation
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