u/different_option101

Hello all,

(Reposting here due to being recommended by Reddit)

@Mods, I’m new to this sub. Checked rules, doesn’t seem like my post violates any. But I’m clueless about this sub, so forgive me if this wasn’t allowed.

TLDR: if you agree that monopolies are not good, and competition is always better, why not have the government only maintain force to police private security agencies? Like with a single payer system in healthcare, security providers can have a single payer - your city, but any qualified security agency can respond to a 911 call. Simply keep 911 operators public, but the calls will be dispatched to private security companies.

My premise and my reasoning is below.

I feel like this is a question that’s hard to answer without personal bias, but I’m sure that even the strongly pro government law enforcement bias folks can agree that some individuals that become law enforcement officers (I’ll use LEO for short) don’t really fit and should never be rehired after causing an incident, and that are federal agencies like the FBI, or at least some people at these agencies, don’t serve the people of the US when they stall or miserably fail investigating crimes committed by government officials or ultra wealthy individuals.

All I’m trying to say is that nearly any adult that has been more or less aware of the ills of law enforcement apparatus as a whole, and most would like to see some reforms.

It’s been established and empirically proven

that consumers benefit from more competition and thar monopolies will always charge higher prices for inferior services.

In a democratic society, law enforcement is a service because the laws themselves are supposedly written with people’s interests in mind, and the enforcement is paid the people. And fundamentally, law enforcement agency is no different from a private security agency except for a government agency having special authority and special protections, otherwise they serve the same purpose. The only difference is laws and in some cases heads of agencies like local sheriffs are written and sheriffs elected by the collective vs a single person hiring a security firm.

For now I want to focus only on local Law Enforcement agencies, more specifically the Policemen and PDs.

We only get one PD that gets a monopoly on its territory. Some doing well, some have tolerable outcomes, some are so horrible that every five or so years we find out that some city has fired the entire department. But again, we can all agree that even those that are doing relatively well still have lots of room for improvement.

With that said, what’s the point of continuing to keep it as a monopoly system when we have so much proof that this monopolization of law enforcement is no longer yielding good results.

The arguments based on something from >100 yrs are simply no longer valid. Main argument being that some private law enforcement agencies in the US has caused a lot of pain and suffering to people. It’s no longer valid because today government officials are present literally everywhere. We can exchange information instantly. The government is extremely well funded vs the time private police has been causing trouble. The mentality of people has changed as well. We have technology to monitor every single action of LEOs, and we have so much cameras that it’s getting harder and harder to hide something from a public eye.

We already have LEOs that supposed to investigate and protect us from bad cops. There are internal departments, there state forces, and there are federal forces that focus on regulating and enforcing laws on local PDs and their LEOs. The infrastructure is there. It supposed to work, but it’s far from working what I personally would call a good job. And our lawmakers seem to not care, as they could’ve at least establish and enforce a national database for bad cops, to ensure that they never get rehired and trusted with authority. We have systems like that that regulate commercial activity that requires special licenses, and they all worked pretty decent. Like if you defraud someone you’re probably never going to get a license to operate in finance. If you’re a terrible medical professional that injured patients you’re never getting a job in healthcare. But it doesn’t work with LEOs despite more funding going to their coffers.

Another relevant analogy - many polls show that over 50% of American support universal healthcare. Universal only means that there’s one payer for services and many private providers. I don’t there’s any substantial support for forcing out private providers precisely because people don’t want the monopoly, they are just tired of how expensive and convoluted the system has become.

While I have my reservation for implementing universal healthcare, I think it would greatly benefit the society if Law Enforcement would have something like single payer healthcare system. Private security companies and even individuals could compete for providing local law enforcement. It could also allow space for volunteers, effectively strengthening affairs amongst locals and turning neighborhoods into communities, rather than collection of individuals that live in small proximity to each other.

If we, almost universally, agree that Competition is always better than Monopoly, than why not privatize the essential services that we’re paying for? This monopoly situation doesn’t make sense on any level, but any time I ask this question I never get a coherent response.

State governments can have their police force that ensures local law enforcement agencies are doing their job properly. Cities may have their own police that enforced rules that regulate private security agencies that carry out general law enforcement function on our streets. Perhaps this doesn’t completely removes the corruption, but at the very least, we can expect that “protect blue line” attitude will disappear. Enforcement agents will be incentivized to weed out bad actors from their own rows, as their company could lose a contract with a city, unlike many todays cops that will look away, turn their cameras off, or lie on the police report to defend their fellow officer.

On top of all that, such system will be built primarily on meritocracy, for the very same reason - poorly performing agencies will lose their contracts.

The shortage of LEOs will be solved. We often hear that LEOs overworked. Well, no shit, some making hand over fist from taking OT, so of course they get overworked and by the time they are in the middle of their second shit, they may not be able to make rational decisions. And it’s also more expensive to pay OT vs hiring more LEOs. Personally, I think this OT “problem” is just a scheme that many PDs allow to happen. No private business owner would pay higher rate per hour for the time the employee is measurably performing worse. Because it doesn’t make any sense, but nonetheless, PDs don’t care cause they have a monopoly.

Imagine the security companies that serve your local Walmart, Target, Amazon warehouses, etc start also training their staff to be law enforcement agent. And when there’s an emergency, those officers would be authorized to carry out law enforcement functions. This changes our streets from X LEOs per sq mile to a much higher concentration of potential LEOs per sq mile. And they get NO blank immunity. And they are trained better, because a lawsuit could bankrupt the company. And they are most likely to be your locals, because that’s something that has been proven to work much better in terms of hiring LEOs, and a private business will try to be as efficient and as effective as possible.

Let me know your thoughts on this. Would you support this private security idea? Or would you oppose such system where government’s job is to police private security forces and letting people alone from unnecessary harassment or government overreach when done by your local monopolistic police department.

My YT feed is full of videos about it. Probably 2 out 10 posts in my Reddit feed are also about it. Mobile browser suggested news are also about it. All while I don’t open those videos, posts, and suggested websites, yet day after day, it’s the same shit. It’s hard to believe that so many people give so much shit about this. I mean, yeah, that’s a sad situation, but it’s being treated like some national tragedy, as far as the spotlight it gets.

It’s like someone wants to keep people’s attention on it. What do you guys think? Am I just overthinking, or do you also think it’s being blown out of proportion?

Hey fellows. I had this thought (the title) this morning, and I wonder what else you could add to the list below.

1. Everyone is watching govt stats. Take the unemployment statistics. I don’t think companies trust the reports from BLS as much, as much they are trying to prepare themselves for future government action that will be based on the data produced.

2. Govt economic policies - an obvious one. When the government is responsible for such a high % of GDP, it’s inevitable that a massive part of the entire economy will be highly dependent on those policies.

3. Govt debt and deficits- another obvious one. More debt and larger deficits mean higher inflation rate = harder to put a price on the future.

4. Businesses watch reports from Amazon, JP Morgan, Walmart, Starbucks, etc because these companies grew to such enormous size where a failure of one may possibly lead to a bad chain reaction , starting with more government intervention (see # 2 and 3). It also means these companies capture too much of the market share, otherwise their reports wouldn’t be as relevant.

5. Every other person is an expert on Fed Funds rate - the most laughable, and at the same time, the most disturbing sign. When landscapers and janitors watch interest rates, it doesn’t mean they are simply being fed talking points via media. It means they understand that their own livelihoods are now dependent upon the monetary policy.

It is absolutely insane to call this regime a free market.

These are just thoughts. Not a dissertation.

“Residence, not nationality, decides who falls under the rule. An EU citizen living in Dubai faces no restriction; a non-EU national living in Lisbon or Berlin does.”

I just saw a video of some emotional young woman yelling at another one that was, what it seemed like, answering questions after her pro life speech. And it made me think about this topic again…

TLDR: are people going to stop caring as much about abortion if the matter is no longer used for political purposes?

I get the pro life argument from NAP perspective. But this approach seems to ignore the very obvious fact - it’s pro life perspective dictating the pro choice view on how to behave. Worst arguments sound like “you should’ve thought about it before”, “we have means to control”, etc etc. Better argument - if you commit murder, you will face consequences.

However, the better argument is coercion of its own. I never heard of any couple or any women that would get pregnant only so they could abort the pregnancy. And it’s reasonable to think that virtually nobody acts in such manner. Undesired pregnancy is almost always an accident, or a result of a crime.

And it’s a coercion on at least two levels:

- women that already experience a problem of undesired pregnancy are threatened with violence. This alone leads to very sad unintended consequences, from accidental self inflicted harm by trying to abort the pregnancy on their own or with help of non-professionals, or to a literal premeditated murder of a born child.

- women/couples are held responsible for supporting their child until they grown up enough to become more or less independent. Besides the obvious financial burden, some righteous who may might believe an undesired/previously undesired child is neglected, can cause additional problems. And there’s no shortage of such people, otherwise they wouldn’t be arrested on a regular basis for standing/blocking clinics and hospitals. If they are not concerned with being arrested by the state, who knows how they’ll behave in an anarchist society, especially if it’s predominantly pro life.

I don’t believe the societies will be separating into pro life pro choice exclusive groups that would live separately from each other. I’m terrified by a thought that me and my wife may have to make a decision about that one day in the future. Personally, I’ll always pick pro life side, but I can’t see myself ever taking position of a judge over a woman that’ve chosen abortion, let alone being the one who throws her in jail or executes her. I think many of those that are in anti pro choice crowd never considered this dilemma from such side. And it’s always easier to “offshore” such decisions and actions, and to dismiss it completely by saying - there’s always going to be someone who’ll do the job. But in my opinion, that’s cowardice.

When humanity reaches the state of anarchy, I think the NAP argument on abortion will be revised, or forgotten. There are certainly going to be some pro life communes, but the matter itself isn’t going to be a broader societal problem any longer. Law enforcement and justice requires resources. It’s hard for me to imagine that a group of people can organize, raise funding, and effectively enforce NAP on women without simultaneously committing NAP violations by harassing, threatening, taking action against women that aren’t/weren’t pregnant, lost their child, but were mistakenly accused of choosing abortion.

These are just my thoughts. I wonder what you guys think about this. Will pro life pro choice question still be such a problem for the society in ancapistan?

What’s up fellows! This time my Why post is the answer, rather than a question. There’s nothing new for proponents of AE below, but as usually, I’d like to get some feedback from the people that aren’t on board with AE, but are brave enough to have honest discussions on this sub. So let’s get to it.

It’s not that mega corporations don’t have reasons to be disliked for. There are many valid reasons. But one of the main reasons for hate is that corporations don’t pay higher wages.

CEOs aren’t setting wages. Boards aren’t setting wages. Higher management positions generally don’t get as involved in setting wages, as much as a lot of people believe they do.

Generally, people that make important decisions, like those dirty greedy CEOs, take info from lower management, analyze it, adjust goals, and move on. If the data shows that lower compensation of their employees reduces net profits, they’ll raise compensation.

The low and middle management, and the HR, may have an order from the top that requires them to minimize compensation, that’s true. But compensation to employees is an expense. When people are shopping around for their personal needs, they also look for a competitive prices so they could be more efficient with their money, effectively acting in the same exact way as corporations. But people don’t think of themselves as they are evil.

When a CEO is trying to cut their expenses = bad, but when consumers are trying to cut their expenses = rational, smart, [valid personal reasons].

When the self interested lower management fails to see that lower compensation cuts into the bottom line, they can’t provide proper feedback to the top. They find ways to explain their failures, regardless if they believe their own explanations or not. So when the middle management reviews the data, they won’t pay as much attention to compensation, if it’s not being brought up as a problem, or one of the problems. Then they do their analysis, and pass it upwards. The upper management sees potential problems highlighted by the middle management, and the lower management, and if compensation is absent from the list, they won’t be addressing salaries during their meetings. Simple as that.

Corporations and CEOs can’t have two very different goals at the same time. If the main goal is to increase the profit, they can’t have a second main goal of intentionally keeping compensation/expenses lower. That’s already a secondary goal, more of a method. But quality, almost always more expensive. It becomes a question of marginal benefits. Is paying X%/hr more going to help the company increase profits? If the answer is Yes, the compensation will go up.

People hate themselves for being an easily replaceable cog in the machine because they aren’t providing any special value, or because their immediate manager, the fellow worker, fails to see the value in them. They use double standards to judge corporations, CEOs, higher level management, taking the high moral ground, while they engage in the same exact actions at their own households.

Politicians, acting in their self interests, will use that to get votes. The “living wage” and “billionaires are hoarding wealth” rhetoric justifies the cognitive dissonance in people’s minds, and the self interested individuals choose an easy way, demanding wage increases by law, instead of analyzing the situation and taking more appropriate action, like stop accepting lower wages, or taking the self employment route. Because it’s easier. Not accepting low wages means being less competitive in the labor market, and self employed is a pain in the ass vs regular employment. This creates a closed loop, where self interested people, act in a way they see their desired satisfied in the easiest way.

But hating yourself is not productive, hating fellow employee is against the class war rules, so they hate corporations, CEOs, and billionaires instead.

—-

This is not to defend mega corporations. This particular problem, I don’t mean wages, but bad feedback/misunderstanding the goal, is endemic to large organizations. It’s the most evident when central planning is taken to extreme, such as in socialist/communist states. Managements’ self interests were/are to keep the job and/or get a promotion. You don’t get promotion if you don’t hit/exceed your goal. That’s why official reports in the USSR varied from true conditions dramatically. The misrepresentations, deliberate or not, would pile up on top of each other, completely disconnecting the “CEO and execs” from reality, leading to one failure after another, and when eventually, all resources were wasted, the regimes collapse.

Luckily, CEOs in capitalist countries can’t force people to buy their products they make from resources they’ve taken by force (unless they are given monopoly rights by the government to provide you with utilities), so they are faced with constraints every day. That’s why today almost nobody gets paid a minimum wage set by the government, and why some people get compensated x100 the lowest wage employees in the organization. It’s a result of a combination between supply of labor and marginal benefits that come from higher compensation.

And when consumers send a signal - “we want cheaper products”, corporations react by cutting expenses which may affect wages and quality, but consumer say - “no, not like that. You’re evil”.

ICE and Palantir will get more access to confidential personal data through LexisNexis.

Even if someone brings a lawsuit, and courts find this unconstitutional, the damage will be done by then, they already going to have the data they want. I don’t even expect a pinky promise of then deleting it, or not doing it again.

Americans will be foaming at their mouth about how “we have rights!”. We ain’t have any. The government has been consistently violating the rights of people, best case, people can expect to see some monetary compensation.

I love it when someone says - “I can say what I want!”. Lol, sure bud, cause nobody gives a fuck about you or what you have to say.

Or when people start taking about 2A, pointing to a few decisions that favor people’s right, when the 2A is pretty fucking straight forward - shall not be infringed. If that right would be respected, there wouldn’t be as many regulations, and as many lawsuits fighting over our right.

“Muh military will defend me!”. Yeah, don’t know about that either. Your military is bombing the fuck out of Middle East again. Better start stocking up on heroin for your uncle when he returns with severe PTSD. Or get him a ski mask or a cowboy hat, cause if he’s lucky to return healthy, he’ll get a job at ICE, or at your local sheriff’s department.

And then there are whistleblowers. Or better say, a lack of whistleblowers. Cause they know damn well, they’ll either get whacked, or will have to run, and live in exile.

“We have checks and balances!”. No we don’t. DOJ is a joke. Supreme Court is a joke. The wilder feds behave, the worse state and local authorities become.

“We take one small win at a time”. Would be a great argument if the number of wins exceeded the number of losses.

When I tell people that we live in authoritarian regime, their rebuttals are almost always the same. It’s the “we have rights”, and “look at North Korea”. They confuse relative economic success and the fact that nobody cares about their speech with freedom. These comparisons are so stupid. Like knowing that someone is having worse than we are supposed to make us feel better. Theres no way that so many people are this stupid. They are just coping, and they are probably afraid to point the finger at those that are at fault, but no, they have freedom of speech lol. So silly…

Back to the shared article. I wonder where are the lefties that were screaming about Elon Musk scraping data through DOGE. MAGA is also silent. I feel like there’s no opposition to government overreach left among statists any more. People must be exhausted from all the drama of the last 10 or so years.

Not even 3 years ago I was laughing at leftists when they were calling Trump a fascist. Today they can show a checklist with more fascist traits checked off, rather than left untouched. I’d rather watch drunk Kamal Harris babble her nonsense, while her administration dumps billions into new welfare schemes and stimulus scams. At least that shit was funny to watch. Definitely funnier than watching Trump fight communism by merging the state and the the economy even further. What a shame.