view the rest of the comments
politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
They absolutely should.
This isn't some small point, either. Your view validates mandatory minimum sentencing and other systemically racist structures.
Judges should make judgments. It's literally the job title. A judge is someone you're supposed to be able to trust to take into account all the human stuff and make decisions based off it.
You want a judge that makes the judgment call that a plea deal is okay? Fine.
You want a judge that throws away a plea deal they think is too light? Fine.
You want a judge that adds up minimum sentences and could be replaced by a computer? Not fine.
Yeah sure. And how many scandals are we seeing about judges? It's obviously not fine. This isn't the 1800's any more and we need to stop giving someone that much power. If a plea deal is done between the state and a defendant them the judge's only role should be to make sure the defendant isn't being taken advantage of. The state hardly needs protection here and the precedent for political interference in the judicial system is really not okay.
Life isn't a Hollywood movie where the judge is some all knowing good intentioned white guy that always does the right thing. Our founding fathers understood this, that's why they gave us what protections they could. Now over 200 years later we've forgotten it all. We even have debtor's prison back, specifically with the help of the people you say are supposed to uphold trust in law and order.
At this point I would rather a computer than read one more Pro Publica story about a judge taking kickbacks to send kids to torture camps.
You're complaining about corruption in elected positions, and want to replace it by giving more power to the DA, or to remove the human aspect and give everything over a computer assigning mandatory minimums that only ever seem to go up.
If you have a problem with corruption, you fight the corruption. You don't consolidate power into even fewer hands, with no mercy(not that there is much of that in the first place.)
The founding fathers were a bunch of rich white dudes, that almost to a one, fail every moral standard today. Some of them would and were considered assholes in their own time. Acting like they were incredibly thoughtful/wise elder statesmen is the only Hollywood trope either one of us has brought up. Part of the protections they did try and put into place was to spread power out, and make those positions ones that elected. You know, the stuff you want to remove?
Congratulations, you've put words in my mouth. You beat that straw man so good! I never mentioned just shifting it to the DA. We have an entire civil service to use.
And yeah they were flawed, but apparently less flawed than you. Because they understood that the people are to be protected from the state, not the other way around.
..... ..... Haven't put any words in your mouth. You're just too ignorant to recognize that you're arguing for more centralization of power.
You're still doing. Is this non-existant civil service you want to create elected, or just another branch of the executive.
Just to restate, you actually believe creating an entire new civil service with less public oversight would be easier then just combating corruption in people with elected positions? A civil service that would be less likely to become corrupt with less oversight?
You do realize the founding fathers you venerate intentionally created three Manchus of government intentionally to protect people from the state, right? One of those branches, the one you want to get rid of, is called the judicial branch.
Jesus, you know next to nothing of American civics and you have the gall to completely misrepresent the founding fathers to justify undoing their work to accomplish what they already created for the same person.
I'm amazed you can even spell strawman.
I never said I wanted to get rid of the judicial branch either. This isn't going to be much of a conversation if you keep tilting at these strawmen.