Denial of an interpreter is a denial of civil rights.
The only crime is that the taxpayers will pay the settlement not the police force.
We should take all settlements out of the local police Union so that all cops suffer.
The only crime is that the taxpayers will pay the settlement not the police force.
We should take all settlements out of the local police Union so that all cops suffer.
as much as I have disdain for the actions of some police unions, I'd rather legislate bad behavior directly than set precedent for charging unions for members crimes.
This may be a little off topic, but, like, instead of just being able to film your encounter with police, you're able to just take pictures of the notes they hand you as a way of documenting your encounter. Not to say that's sufficient, but it's interesting to think about.
But even better, just get those <100$ ARM/baytrail laptops and have them boot straight into a kernel with no network stack and launch only Xorg and AbiWord.
No, we should abolish public-sector unions, which protect bad cops and bad teachers alike.
What we should have is a total rework of Federal labor laws, and impose tariffs against any country that doesn't provide equal or better to its workers.
Workers should enjoy some level of protection against summary dismissal. This needs to run on a sliding schedule. You should be able to fire new people that can't cut the proverbial, but if somebody's been with you for a year, they are clearly contributing value. Tenured folks can get the axe, of course, but it should be harder. Maybe require a full year to retrain/recover, and failing that, a year of severance.
All of this should scale to the size of the company. Starbucks can afford this. Bob's Bait Shack And Discount Virology Research can't.
Flatten out personal income tax. You pay 5%, period. Automatic deduction not required, although for practical reasons, it'd need to be the default to start. That gets you however much government it does. "The Rich" don't pay income taxes, so I'm not interested in hearing how this isn't fair. It's way easier to enforce.
There's a big trade-off baked in: no more minimum wage. You get paid according to your value. If you're working, the Fed can make up the difference for you, and will levy additional taxes against your employer should they be just trying to milk the public teat.
Health insurance should work like it does here in Japan. Regulated market, fallback on the State as an insurer of last resort.
No requirement to buy insurance if you don't want to, but if you don't and you get sick, you either pay cash, or you can opt back into the insurance system with full back-payment.
This wouldn't be easy. Devil always lies in the details, and it'll take real work to avoid focal points -- e.g., encouraging firing-and-rehiring at 364 days because of 365 day benefits cliff, for example -- but every worker deserves the same level of protection.
Of course, this is all sensible shit that tries to solve real problems. So it'll never happen.
You had me until this.
Without a minimum wage, you create a race to the bottom on wages as you find people who are more and more desperate. Meanwhile, you'll create a huge homeless problem as people who are willing to get paid 50 cents an hour won't be able to afford rent anywhere.
Also, define "your value". It doesn't take a graduate Economy class to know that nearly all jobs that aren't commission are not paid based on the profit they create, but by how easy they are to replace.