this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2024
205 points (84.5% liked)

politics

19244 readers
1714 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. 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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

You can't just say "source?" at me like I'm some kind of search engine. We are two people having a conversation. Why not look around yourself before barking a command at another human? Do you talk like this to people in real life? This isn't reddit, this isn't debate club, I'm not doing that shit here.

Look something up, find out how I misremembered details of an event from years ago. Tell me the nuance I've missed. Notice the true elements and mention how you find them disturbing, but it's not as bad as my fallable brain recalled. Yanno, like how people talk? Jeez!

[–] PoastRotato 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

No. If you make a claim, you back it up or get disregarded. It's that simple. This is how we prevent misinformation from being spread. Stop being indignant over being lazy/irresponsible.

[–] givesomefucks 12 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (4 children)

I mean, there's asking politely after specifying what you would like a source for....

Or you could reply to a paragraph of text with:

Source?

And hope the person both guesses what you're asking for and puts the time in to Google something for you and provide the link.

Asking nicely is more likely to get the help you're asking for.

[–] PoastRotato 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Fair, politeness is definitely the way to go. I was more reacting to the apparent reluctance to actually provide a source to back up what they were saying after making some pretty serious allegations; it feels like with the times we live in, people ought to be more sensitive to the potential spread of misinformation. But you're right, the replier certainly could have been nicer about it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Thank you for being understanding. I take far more umbrage with someone expecting to be some kind of MTurk Google for them than wanting more information on a subject. Also, I'm a person with responsibilities and tasks. And whims for that matter. I shouldn't be expected to promptly reply with something that is easily searched for. I'm not the primary source for this claim, clearly.

It's similar to people simply replying "recipe?" When someone posts food pics on a given social media platform. It's not strange to want tips on how to recreate something tasty, but for goodness sake, treat me like a human. At least say "oh wow that looks great! How did you make it?"

Here's an article from the Daily Beast about this, tho there's a number of other publications that wrote on the same subject if you're curious about reading about it through different lenses.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/kamala-harris-ag-office-tried-to-keep-inmates-locked-up-for-cheap-labor

Edit: FWIW, I don't think these claims are all that serious in the sense that this kind of practice is common in the USA. Prisoners are slaves and are forced into all sorts of varied labor, be it firefighting or being literally leased out to farms as agricultural workers. This is done explicitly (as in, the prisoners aren't given a choice to not work) and implicitly (where they're given a choice to rot in a cell in inhumane conditions OR work outside the prison for far less than minimum wage, which they can only spend at the prison commissary. This is a form of coercion). It's vile and abhorrent, but not uncommon, so I don't think it's all that strange to posit that someone in her role would engage in that kind of behavior.

Does that imply that many people in charge of overseeing prisoners and their activities in America are psychopaths or show psychopathic tendencies?

Perhaps.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Harris was acting on behalf of Govenor Jerry Brown as defense attorney. So just like OJ Simpson’s lawyers had to defend him because that’s their job regardless of their feelings. Lawyers can’t make decisions for their clients. They just argue on their behalf in court.

The call to relocate the overpopulated prisoners to the firecamps was not made by Harris but other lawyers that worked in the same office. They only suggested it as a temporary solution after the Supreme Court wouldn’t accept their solution to build another prison to address the overpopulation.

The Supreme Court suggested Govenor Jerry Brown release nonviolent prisoners to address the overpopulation. To be clear, this includes sex offenders, white collar criminals and arsonists just to name a few “non-violent” crimes.

Any decisions Harris made in this role were her job as a lawyer defending the previous attorney general’s decisions Govenor Jerry Brown. Most of what you are accusing her of doing was actually done by other lawyers that were from the same office.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

This kinda feels like a "Just Following Orders" point.

If I were asked to do something as unethical as promote slavery or participate in a process that accomplished that, I'd refuse and resign.

On one hand, I understand that this kind of behavior is wildly common in the American justice system and far more people than just Harris are complicit in these sorts of abject horrors. She's not special for this.

But on the other, I still think it requires a certain lack of morality and contempt for humanity to be a willing participant in it.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago

Again, she didn’t do what you are claiming she did. The accusations are that her coworkers did. I don’t know why you are ignoring this point.

[–] Carrolade 4 points 5 months ago

Fair point. I'm all for sources and requesting sources, but doing it in a polite manner is valuable to the overall health of the platform.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago
[–] BassTurd -2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

If that other user couldn't infer what "Source?" meant in response to their comment, then I they're an idiot. Saying it nice is more PC, but clarity was definitely not the issue.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Oh, no, I understood very clearly what they were demanding. But I'm not a search tool. I'm a person, treat me like such. Heck, if they had just replied "Hey I tried searching for more info about this but I couldn't find any. Where did you see that?" I'd be far more accommodating than being treated like a machine thats openly accepting commands. They can search for these things faaaar more quickly than I can reply to a comment and probably get more info out of putting in all of 10 seconds of effort.

That reddit debate mentality nonsense is toxic and I ain't playing that game.

[–] BassTurd 1 points 5 months ago

To each their own. I agree with the other person. If you come out and make a bunch of claims, the onus is on you to support it, otherwise you're just blowing smoke. Calling people out to source these claims is the best way to combat misinformation, a major issue on these platforms where anyone can make anything up. I do think that asking nicer is better, but I don't think that just saying, "Source?" is particularly rude or unnecessary. It was a neutral comment that has been taken as an attack.

Also, I didn't say you didn't understand, I said if you didn't understand you'd be an idiot given the context of your original comment. That was in counter to the post I responded to making it seem like there was a question about what Source that person was referring to.