Can you read French? Here are two articles, one from France, one from Switzerland, on the subject. The google translation is readable but horrid (I only checked for the French article). Note that both these newspapers are left (far-left for Libération) leaning newspapers, that deplore above all the fate of these kids.

http://www.laliberte.ch/info/les-mineurs-roms-d-sarment-la-police
http://www.liberation.fr/societe/0101526553-gens-du-voyage-un-reseau-d-enfants-eleves-pour-voler


>> ^Nebosuke:

>> ^hpqp:
It might not be the case here, but this video reminds me of the problem Europe faces with Travel People who send their underage kids - who have been trained and brainwashed into loyalty - to beg and/or steal because they know the judicial system can't touch them. Really smaddening. /rant

I would be interested in more information.

>> ^hpqp:

It might not be the case here, but this video reminds me of the problem Europe faces with Travel People who send their underage kids - who have been trained and brainwashed into loyalty - to beg and/or steal because they know the judicial system can't touch them. Really smaddening. /rant

I would be interested in more information.

It might not be the case here, but this video reminds me of the problem Europe faces with Travel People who send their underage kids - who have been trained and brainwashed into loyalty - to beg and/or steal because they know the judicial system can't touch them. Really smaddening. /rant

Ignoring whether or not I agree with the charges, this is just drum beating theatrics. If you can't prove it within the confines of the US judicial system, then I'm sorry, when you sieze them, you've just declared war.

>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:

I called Zimmerman was he is, a murder and a scumbag.
Zimmerman is very clearly guilty of murder.
But of course, legal moralists like you and edgeman are gonna defend this whole "The United States is a nation of Laws" bullshit. "We have to let the system runs its course."
Stop pretending like "innocent until proven guilty" means anything.
It's just empty rhetoric you've been indoctrinated with so you'll comply with this fucked up judicial system.
What kind of society puts INNOCENT people on trial?

How do you propose we determine guilt or innocence without a trial?

Kindly go fuck yourself overcast. I never called for vigilante justice so don't try to put words in my mouth.

I called Zimmerman was he is, a murder and a scumbag. I never called for his lynching.

Zimmerman is very clearly guilty of murder.

But of course, legal moralists like you and edgeman are gonna defend this whole "The United States is a nation of Laws" bullshit. "We have to let the system runs its course."

That shit is same reason why Goldman Sachs, etc. stole all our tax dollars and will never be brought to trial for it.

"Well if it's not illegal or there's no evidence to prosecute them then.. what are we supposed to do about?"

Stop pretending like "innocent until proven guilty" means anything.

It's just empty rhetoric you've been indoctrinated with so you'll comply with this fucked up judicial system.

Think about it Overcast and @Edgeman2112. What kind of society puts INNOCENT people on trial?

It's all a game and scumbags like Zimmerman's retired judge father know how to play to win. i.e. get away with murder



>> ^xxovercastxx:


innocent until proven guilty in a court of law is not "defending" anyone; it's the foundation of our legal system.
If it was up to people like you he'd have been strung up in a tree in the public square 3 weeks ago.

I worked as a prison guard for about 6 months and don't let anyone fool you.

once you enter prison you are no longer part of the judicial system

prison guards and correctional officers are not cops, are not parts of the judicial system at all they are all private corporations.

The prison I worked at was in southern Georgia, and here's a little known secret for most. Big corporations like the Pepsico, Coke, Proctor & Gamble and many others own prisons. The one I worked with a subsidiary of Pepsico paid my check.

The reason they get into prisons is it's "insurance" and "free money" The government gives money for each inmate for care and housing/health. The more you can crowd into your prison the more money the government will pay.

So big corporations who primarily do other things, will also own prisons around the country as insurance cause it's guaranteed money, so during economic recessions and when your sales are down you know you are guaranteed xxx amount of money due to the prison income. Now add onto that fact making prisoners work for you making products like license plates for the states and other such products you get even more income from states by using your slave labor force for them.

There is an old documentary on the prison system and who really runs it, in the documentary corporations from Microsoft and Apple to Proctor & Gamble all had stake in private prisons around the country. It's free tax free money.

I know for fact that part of the documentary was true as my check was from pepsico for working for a prison. That was until I finished college and moved to Orlando to work for an ISP.

oh that's right... in the US even the judicial system is privatized. DISGUSTING.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

I heard the max you can lock someone up over there is like 20 years or something? Any truth to that, and any chance this guy will be the exception to such a condition?


The maximum penalty in Norway is 21 years. Earlier this year, long before this terrible event, there was talk of increasing the limit to thirty something. But in extreme cases the law opens up for keeping people in custody for longer, even for life, if they are deemed a danger to society.

I am strongly against making any exceptions even for an isolated case like this, and I believe most of Norway is against it too. To let a terrorist subvert the justice system would be a terrible mistake, since it puts the whole system into question. If one makes exceptions for one guy, who's to say there will not be exceptions for others as well in the future? And in any case, revenge is a terrible foundation for a judicial system.

I believe the worst punishment he can get will be to live his actions when he grows older in prison and has time to think about his actions and see that they had no effect on our society.

>> ^shinyblurry:

@rottenseed
Truth is not a numbers game, that much is true. Either something is true, or it isn't. Yet, just because 100 percent of people have been wrong about something doesn't mean peoples personal testimony is irrelevent. Our legal system would collapse if that was the case.


People's testimony is irrelevant. When it comes to hearsay, testimony in a court of law is taken with a grain of salt. Furthermore, our judicial system has put many innocent people in jail and let many guilty people go. Our judicial system wouldn't be a good way to support proficiency of testimony.

A point... you also make one.

Godwin's is an easy road to travel; if this representative had the whole day with a room full of brilliant writers, he'd be Jon Stewart. I bet this guy pulled out Godwin's to try to make his point, and then went off to work on something else.

>> ^Ryjkyj:

I don't know, call me closed-minded, but comparing democratically elected officials in a free nation full of positive benefits like roads, dams, parks, education, fire and police services, all sorts of assistance programs, school lunches, laws and the judicial system, the right to pursue happiness, all of which are funded by the American taxpayer (oh, and let's not forget that already includes emergency medical services which could be trimmed down immensely by just a little bit of preventative care)... comparing them to socialists just seems, I don't know, like a stretch?
But comparing republicans, who will readily scapegoat even the smallest and most disadvantaged portions of the population, who are caught in lies daily, including the bald-faced double-standard that allows their consciences to somehow use the apparently communist system of roads to get them to work every day, not to mention cut their paychecks; To simply compare their political strategy to that of the famously espoused Joseph Goebbels quote doesn't seem like much of a stretch to me at all. It seems, in fact, to be pretty fucking appropriate. I see no evidence to the contrary.

I don't know, call me closed-minded, but comparing democratically elected officials in a free nation full of positive benefits like roads, dams, parks, education, fire and police services, all sorts of assistance programs, school lunches, laws and the judicial system, the right to pursue happiness, all of which are funded by the American taxpayer (oh, and let's not forget that already includes emergency medical services which could be trimmed down immensely by just a little bit of preventative care)... comparing them to socialists just seems, I don't know, like a stretch?

But comparing republicans, who will readily scapegoat even the smallest and most disadvantaged portions of the population, who are caught in lies daily, including the bald-faced double-standard that allows their consciences to somehow use the apparently communist system of roads to get them to work every day, not to mention cut their paychecks; To simply compare their political strategy to that of the famously espoused Joseph Goebbels quote doesn't seem like much of a stretch to me at all. It seems, in fact, to be pretty fucking appropriate. I see no evidence to the contrary.

>> ^gorillaman:
Democracy exists for one reason only, which is to legitimise crime. Want your neighbour's wealth? You can't just steal it, that would be wrong. Get your government to do it for you, after they've taken their cut. Suddenly it's fair. Want to tell him how to live his life? Want to throw him in prison?


You talk about crime and wealth, terms which only have meaning in the presence of government, and then complain that governments can be used, or misused, to take wealth away, or commit non-criminal crimes, which is true of any system of government. But since you seem to care about laws/property, you need a system of government which is capable of being fair, please provide a historical example of a non-democracy that has managed this feat, and then we can compare and contrast with the supposedly terrible system you are complaining about.

Government is always a balancing act, but "property above all else", which seems to be your position, is a massive wealth redistribution policy, the money just happens to flow up. If we want a neutral market, we should structure it something like the 1950s US, with 90%+ upper end tax brackets, sizable government pensions, massive government investment on infrastructure, and the reasonable ability of just about anybody to acquire and hold a reasonable amount of wealth, without redistributing it up or down, anything else is theft by your definition.

While the US is not functioning very well at the moment, it is still a constitutional democracy, we have, even recently in practice, a judicial system that puts a check on both the legislator and the electorate. People are not thrown is jail by popular vote, thought the laws are not applied fairly, to suggest that we have referenda on jailing people we don't like is pure fantasy.

Your basic argument, that unrestrained democracy is bad, is true, it just does not happen to be practiced anywhere, and so is completely irrelevant. If you have a non-fantasy-based alternative to constitutional democracy, please let us all know.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

You can certainly pick and choose your own beliefs. I don't agree with many of the laws passed, but in a representative democracy we don't get to vote on individual laws - instead we vote for representatives who we believe have views that represent our own.

It's true that we do have a type of majority rule - however our founding fathers realized that the will of the majority is often at odds with the well-being of the minority- that's why they enshrined the Bill of Rights, and created a strong judicial system to ensure that those rights were not abussed by the law-making majority to the detriment of a minority.

That's the way it's supposed to work at least - it's certainly far from perfect, I just don't think you have an alternative that would be better.

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
That doesn't sound like a very good system at all. And I especially dislike the "like it or leave it" doctrine of this so-called "social contract". And what's so good about this democracy thing if we cannot "pick and choose what we disagree with as individuals"?

As long as the majority wants it, then it's okay, huh? Slavery, genocide, religious jurisprudence. Sounds like tyranny to me.

To bad the indoctrinated see this as the best system we have.

In reply to this comment by dag:
Then it's civics 101 - you work to support candidates that support your views, you protest, you contribute, you persuade - and if the situation is completely untenable, you leave.

There are many things that I don't consent for my tax dollars to be used for - funding wars is one of them. However, in a representative democracy with a social contract, we don't get to pick and choose what we disagree with as individuals. We get to collectively vote the bums out if we don't like the choices they make on our behalf. It's a crappy system, but it's the best one we have.

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
What if I don't consent to government's compulsory taxation for war? What if I disagree with the representational democracy that says black people are 2/3rds a human being? What if I don't agree that slavery is moral when the majority says it is because it's in the bible?

In reply to this comment by dag:
The most moral system for me is a representative democracy that derives its mandate from the consent of the governed. A government that does not overly restrict a strong private enterprise but uses a moderate tax rate to provide public services for the common good.

That's why these two officers are facing misdemeanor charges instead of felony charges, which is exactly what you or I would face if we did the exact same thing.

Well, I'm Canadian so my expectations might be different, but I fully expect criminals convicted of even things like assault to regularly get off with misdemeanor charges. The large amount of time I've spent in the US with family there hasn't led me to believe it's too radically different down there either. By no means am I suggesting that misdemeanor charges are okay in such cases, it's one of my biggest beefs with our system. I just don't see anything especially unusual or suspicious when it happens because it's so ridiculously common.

It's not about them not investigating, it's about mitigating liability and damages through their political influence.

That sounds clever. Seems to me though that the best way to mitigate liability and damages in this case would've been to throw the 2 criminals under the bus.

I'm not sure if the TSA has an IAG, but the second cop seemed to be working for an airport police department so maybe he does.

What level of accountability is enough for you? The police have the IAG. If that's not enough the police are setup as independent from the judicial system, and are accountable to it. The judicial system is setup as independent from the law makers, and they are accountable under it.

Let's be honest. You aren't arguing for greater accountability for the police force. Your arguing for reducing the police for want of accountability, right?