Comment by MisterTea

Are you saying you would continue shopping in a store where you regularly saw violence against people who might be thieves, on the assumption you’d never be mistaken for one?

> just let people steal with impunity until they decide the costs are too high, and they have to close the store entirely

Has this actually happened? Or are the chain pharmacies using “shrinkage” as a scapegoat for other deficiencies? I find it incredibly hard to believe that retail theft puts an appreciable dent in profits.

you can use a reasonable amount of force to prevent people from taking property (or if you're acting as an agent thereof) in Texas. But still you can always be taken to civil court and be at the mercy of whatever judge. I imagine in San Francisco you will almost certainly lose to the criminal who was stealing something if you use any amount of force other than to defend yourself unless you're a cop

more like "try that in a small town" police will see what happened, "atta boy" and get on with other things. never even reaches the courts.

Why don't people from SF also get a pejorative?

>> And since every illegal immigrant is already a criminal...

>Not to be pedantic, but by definition it is, isn’t it?

It is not[0].

Being present in the US without legal status is a civil infraction and not a crime. Unlawful entry is a criminal act however.

That said, the vast majority of undocumented folks entered the US legally and overstayed their visas. Which is a civil issue, not a criminal one.

Those who made an (whether valid or not) asylum claim are legally in the United States until their asylum claim can be adjudicated.

[0] https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/criminal-defense/is-illeg...

No. Overstaying a visa or not leaving when temporary protected status is suddenly revoked (or asylum is not granted) is not a criminal offense under US federal law.

Immigration is a civil matter, not a criminal matter. It's not a crime per se to overstay a visa like say shoplifting or killing someone. It's more like there's a proceeding to determine whether you did overstay and then when there's a finding of fact they basically tell you you have to leave or they remove you from the country forcibly. It would be patently ridiculous to jail someone for overstaying or for working on a tourist visa or for any of a number of these things.

ICE can make them un-illegal by granting them parole, without further action from congress. AFAIK they can even do it unilaterally, though congress could choose to check them later.

Does that mean the boot-weirder is also a violent person in need of a boot to the mouth?

Or is it not “real” violence if it’s justified? In which case, pretty much all violent people will tell you they are justified.

Which means it reduces to “it’s ok for me to be violent because I’m righteous, unlike those thugs”

I remember the 70s and my experience was nothing like your mom's. Population centers have always been full of petty crime; rural places are still pretty free from crime. You can still move to plenty of towns with population <1000 in the US, and you'll have no trouble leaving your gun or laptop in your car there.

The one big difference though is today we have school shootings, so folks are pretty humorless about guns near schools. I'd love to hear your ideas for how to solve that, because they keep happening.

> I won't speculate on how we forsook it, but clearly something was forsaken.

I cant sum it up properly but three things come to mind: Fear - we have been filled with fear, this in turn leads to more people forsaking responsibility and wanting the government to act as a nanny to protect them, which leads to a lot of childish behavior whether it be people acting helpless or people aping being big and tough. So fear leading to a lack of responsibility leading to childish behavior. This makes people more self centered and less considerate of others around them.

Edit, to add: This lack of responsibility is also tied to legal liability of being sued. Cant take down a crook because they might get hurt and sue which makes me wonder what kind of legal system we have which ignores the irresponsible act of criminality. To me it's "live and die by the sword" - you fuck around and you find out. Of course this can be reversed, a person taking action against a criminal can be hurt and then who is responsible? The liability cuts deeply both ways. There is no way to win unless that changes or we install a safety net.

The problem is 'actual' reality is much more complicated than this.

50 years ago husbands beat the living shit out of their wives without recourse of the law. 50 years ago drunk driving was a socially acceptable past time. I knew people with dozens of DWIs and other that had killed people in alcohol related accidents that didn't get any prison time. What we call hate crimes now were just crimes that weren't investigated by the police.

This said, there is something that has change.

24/7 news and always on news with the internet. The fears we had of bad things happening to us were things we may have watched once a day, not every 15 minutes on the hour. That seemingly had a pretty large effect on how people viewed their safety in this world.

I'm going guess that at some point between the 70s and in 00s a lot of children were murdered in schools by people with guns.