When the LA Prosecutor has made it clear that they aren't prosecuting the thieves, it almost doesn't matter how many or how few patrol officers Union Pacific has. If there are no consequences, catching someone in the middle of a theft is only a minor delay and inconvenience.
In any event, this outlet was likely on the "defund the police" bandwagon, and now, they have the gall to say, oh, it's because you reduced policing (despite the fact that the DA is not doing their job making the argument moot.)
Victim-blaming is about blaming the vulnerable and powerless. Union Pacific might be 'victims' of crime, but they are not vulnerable and powerless. As one dramatic example, we wouldn't be talking about this issue if it was a vulnerable, powerless individual; they have the power to get their point of view into the public eye.
Oh please. We're attempting to redefine victims based on power theory just like we tried to redefine racism based on power theory? Please don't do this.
It entirely isn't a factor whether you have power or not when determining a victim. (Or are we going to say men can't be raped because they could have resisted?)
There's no reason to think a sexually assaulted male is in a position of power.
A stirring description of this mythical group. If you pay Amazon for something and it's stolen in transit, Amazon still owes it to you. You don't lose anything.
> Insurance premiums will go up and guess who's footing the bill...
UP will foot the bill.
Regardless, we should work to reduce crime, including against UP. But jailing innocent people because they are poor or minorities is not a solution, and hasn't worked in the past. Do you want to return to that?
I'm not an expert on what's reasonable when it comes to railway security (and neither are you), but from my layman's take on it, firing 85% of their security, and observing a 160% increase in theft seems like a "Union Pacific problem", not a "me problem".
They do seem to have a financial incentive, to the tune of 52 salaries to try to turn it into a "me problem."
Union Pacific is also turning information over and helping get people arrested, but they're back on the street within 24 hours.
These are the same thing though. The former is the incentive mechanism to achieve the designs of the latter. It's just filtered through enough layers like Vanguard and Berkshire and friends that people don't notice. Hands up if you've worked somewhere funded by In-Q-Tel, for example (I have!) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-Q-Tel
https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-bont... "Over the course of the investigation, $1,874,633.65 was seized from the defendants’ various bank accounts."
Yeah, if a two-million-dollar crime organization is supposed to be some "gotcha" then let's compare their possible ratio of crime-boss versus street-thug pay to the ratio of Silicon-Valley-engineer TC versus Tech-CEO TC. Do yours first :D
While organised crime is demonstrably capable of engineering situations beneficial to their ongoing criminal endeavours… it’s important to remember that the organised crime rings involvement may just be an emergent property of crime being allowed to happen enough that the people involved in it begin to organise.
Of course the situation may devolve from that point but the organising force coming from within before being co-opted is still reflecting a different situation than one where the whole endeavour was started and run by some kind of gang/kingpin/mafia to begin with.
IMO regulations that allow such a fragile system still make it artificial, just minus all accountability. Supply chains can't be an "act of god" (in a tort sense) when it's a concept humans made up.
If you haven't noticed, the median transient is a drug addict (mostly meth/opiates) and the typical drug addict chooses not to participate in society, inasmuch as you can accept that they have any agency at all. Some may think they are being compassionate with this victim-coddling but this only makes sense if you take the view that the victim-criminals enjoy their situation, since the coddling isn't elevating any of them out of poverty.
Even CDC readily admits this: https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/11778/cdc_11778_DS1.pdf
"Males and females have reported using methamphetamine for increased energy and productivity, its low cost, self-medication for depression or attention deficits, and the euphoric high"
"Males have reported using methamphetamine […] increased energy to work multiple jobs"
To me it feels like your comment is the one taking "the view that the victim-criminals enjoy their situation" if you think people choose to drop out of society even when there are bootstraps by which they could pull themselves up v(._. )v
I think when choosing between "unhoused, with access to drugs" and "housed but no access to drugs", many (not most, and not you!) choose the former. It's empirically true: most shelters don't allow drug use and so addicts turn them down in favor of camping.
You are projecting your own relative values if you think no one would ever make this choice. You are also over-weighting your own experience when you say that all drugs are a coping mechanism for all people all the time. Different drugs affect the same person differently; the same drug affects different people differently. Caffeine, Adderall, LSD, coke can all be productivity enhancers and are on average less destructive than meth. With all these tools at one's disposal, and plenty of precedent for successful straightedge approaches to life, suggesting that the meth problem is a result of people earnestly trying to survive the rat race is poorly supported by logic.
I can't even guess what you think the alternative to "earning a living" should be. The default should be to provide unlimited benefits for those who have no interest in contributing to society? Great, that's what we effectively are doing, so you must believe the status quo is ideal. But if you believe these people aren't living their best lives, then maybe consider that the current approach (extreme coddling) isn't helping them.