@chapeau-noir wrote:
The US has the highest incarceration rate in the world as it is - we'd have to build even more prisons which I guess we could do, where incarceration would cost the taxpayers far more money in maintenance than most of the original crimes committed. Shoplifting has plagued retailing since ancient times, and hanging people for it was was done in earlier times did nothing to stem it, either. It's one of those sticky, seemingly insoluble problems.
This is spot on, I was in politics 15 years with my ex-fiance' who's a rather powerful lady and no I'm not pro Democratic or Republican, anyone who is "Party Politic" either tends vote solely on self-interest or tend to be very ill or uninformed.
There's also information that 99% of American's are unaware of and why the GOP was deemed "Country Club" the party of the wealthy. America has more millionaire's per capita than any nation in the world, a whopping 22 million of them commanding an even more whopping 158+ TRILLION dollars. That in comparison to our 750 thereabouts billionaires who command 5.7 Trillion. What's said and what's reality by either party more or less news outlets are two different things or many different things. Most folks don't want to be well informed as it's simply too much work. I can cite example as my former Biz was a contractor to the US State Dept post 9/11 under Colin Powell's folks. We had to come up to speed on causation of 9/11 and that took near 6 months, 6 days a week 6-8 hours a day of learning.
Or we can take a closer example eBay or even this forum software, its far far far more complex than any other than a highly skilled SET of engineers can fathom.
One of the biggest problems in America these days is people shirking civic responsibility and civic duty as they prefer to literally be entertained as if that were a Constitutional right. Instead, folks expect the system to do that work and simply pay to have it done then yell when it costs too much or places undue burden upon them as citizens. The nation likes to try and treat symptoms of a much more or many more profound core diseases.
Does anyone think that the say Apple iPhones and devices stolen and exchanged for drugs are being sold to other drug addicts or dealers? No. They are being sold to citizens who'd rather pay $400 for a brand new iPhone vs $1000 and could care less where it came from treating it as "That's not my problem" until its their home that get's ransacked.
There is good reason that Independent voters now outnumber both GOP and Dem's as especially educated young people are not buying in to the principles either party expounds.
As @chapeau-noir quite correctly points out this stuff is nothing new, the change is that now people have the capability via their mobile devices to record it and the online venues to distribute it. Social media as with all things can be used for very good things and very bad things. It's just HILLARIOUS (yet not) to me that we find legislators say for example, Twitter is like "The Towne Square" so free speech ought be completely allowed. There's no Towne Square anywhere in America where free speech is completely allowed. Free speech in a court of law is measured by what's said just as free speech is not allowed in the court either, the judge can hold people in contempt.
America's issues are root problems that the people refuse to address and resolve as they require changes for everyone to engage so instead we address the symptoms of said root problems.
