Trump's War on the Poor/Minorities continues

[_Some Schmo]

Yes the financial consequence for speeding is a lower percentage of the handful of billionaires who speed or in the case of Congresswoman Jackson Lee, browbeats her intern staffers to speed. But that's still more than nothing that people pay in Colombia. I never saw a ticket given there and they had about the same ability to pay as people in the inner city here in the US. It's no coincidence that American road rules are becoming more like roads in South America. It's one of the ways in which we're becoming a Latin American country. Getting rid of or making fines for wreckless driving behavior a nominal/trivial amount looks like an inevitable step backward as our demographics change.

The fear in the tone of this post makes me laugh.

You're so damned pathetic (due to willful ignorance). You could mitigate that with a modicum of education, but that would mean learning things that don't feed your xenophobic narrative. So incredibly pathetic.

[_subgenius]

It no more creates inequality than not charging each citizen the exact same amount in taxes creates inequality.

huh? taxes and fines are 2 different animals, it is erroneous to try an draw a parallel.

It's looking at equality at the proper level. The idea is to promote more equality in financial distress out of fairness for all levels of wealth. The idea is to make affordability more even to equalize the penalty and deterrent aspects of fines.

Perhaps one can make the argument that a penalty should be economically feasible, either by total cost or payment plan - but most fines exist to deter the crime, and to that end we must dismiss the "burdensome" argument with regards to poorer offenders. In other words, that circumstance is not under discussion, but rather how do we impose the same burden on a wealthier offender.
You now seem to be engaged in a different position than what was earlier taken, whereas (as the OP suggests) one is imposing on the poor.

The odd thing about your accusation of bad faith is that it has an inverse. Why are you trying to make crime so affordable for people of means?

True there is an inverse, but I am not making that claim. There is no evidence that crime is more affordable for any class of person. Nor is there any evidence that wealthy people exceed speed limits at a higher rate than poor people simply because the ticket fine is a negligible cost.

[_EAllusion]

And that's before you get to the mundane fact that you're less deterred from speeding if there is no financial consequence for you than if there is

Yes the financial consequence for speeding is a lower percentage of the handful of billionaires who speed or in the case of Congresswoman Jackson Lee, browbeats her intern staffers to speed. But that's still more than nothing that people pay in Colombia. I never saw a ticket given there and they had about the same ability to pay as people in the inner city here in the US. It's no coincidence that American road rules are becoming more like roads in South America. It's one of the ways in which we're becoming a Latin American country. Getting rid of or making fines for wreckless driving behavior a nominal/trivial amount looks like an inevitable step backward as our demographics change.

So, having abandoned the argument that wealthier people are more responsible drivers, you went to the other argument I thought you might employ. There's fewer of them, so why worry? What's the downside to scaling up fines that you think offsets the risk reduction you get from better deterring people of greater means from speeding?

American road safety gets better year after year. This decade has been the safest on record since cars were a novelty.

[_EAllusion]

huh? taxes and fines are 2 different animals, it is erroneous to try an draw a parallel.

The principle is equality of financial impact. Saying not having a flat fee everyone pays the same creates inequality is analogous to saying that not having a flat tax amount creates inequality. Yes, but not in a sense that we ought to care about is the position you are disagreeing with. If you think there is a distinction here, you aren't articulating it. Why should a equality of the absolute number matter more than equality of financial impact? There's a social recompense argument to fines you aren't mentioning, presumably because it hasn't come to you, but fines are generally untethered from that and are instead just punishments meant to modify behavior.

Perhaps one can make the argument that a penalty should be economically feasible, either by total cost or payment plan - but most fines exist to deter the crime, and to that end we must dismiss the "burdensome" argument with regards to poorer offenders. In other words, that circumstance is not under discussion, but rather how do we impose the same burden on a wealthier offender.
You now seem to be engaged in a different position than what was earlier taken, whereas (as the OP suggests) one is imposing on the poor.

The prorating of fines likely would both reduce the burden on the poor and increase the burden on the wealthy. That's because fine amounts are keyed into what's affordable to the middle class and if we kept the same sense of penalty, a scale would likely have that effect.

You can make your prorating scale as harsh or soft as you'd like, though. But then you'd have to explain why littering or having weeds in one's lawn is something that should financially destroy a person. I suspect that if people making 75k a year would have to pay $2500 a day for having an unkempt yard, the severity of the penalty, or its existence at all, might change real fast.

There is no evidence that crime is more affordable for any class of person.

Don't architects have to take math classes?

[_subgenius]

huh? taxes and fines are 2 different animals, it is erroneous to try an draw a parallel.

The principle is equality of financial impact.

which is not a principle in your tax example...a rich guy pays the same sales tax as a poor guy when buying beer at the 7-11.

Saying not having a flat fee everyone pays the same creates inequality is analogous to saying that not having a flat tax amount creates inequality. Yes, but not in a sense that we ought to care about is the position you are disagreeing with. If you think there is a distinction here, you aren't articulating it. Why should a equality of the absolute number matter more than equality of financial impact?

because "equality of financial impact" is not a tangible concept nor is it a reasonable basis for law enforcement policy. That is why a crime that is punishable with 30 days in jail basically applies to everyone regardless of how many days they have lived or have left to live (please, spare me any anecdotal argument for the exception, we are talking about the rule).

There's a social recompense argument to fines you aren't mentioning, presumably because it hasn't come to you, but fines are generally untethered from that and are instead just punishments meant to modify behavior.

now you sound like a nationalist.

Perhaps one can make the argument that a penalty should be economically feasible, either by total cost or payment plan - but most fines exist to deter the crime, and to that end we must dismiss the "burdensome" argument with regards to poorer offenders. In other words, that circumstance is not under discussion, but rather how do we impose the same burden on a wealthier offender.
You now seem to be engaged in a different position than what was earlier taken, whereas (as the OP suggests) one is imposing on the poor.

The prorating of fines likely would both reduce the burden on the poor and increase the burden on the wealthy. That's because fine amounts are keyed into what's affordable to the middle class and if we kept the same sense of penalty, a scale would likely have that effect.

But prorating does not resolve the issue, it simply relocates the "grey" area. Additionally it serves to diminish the concept of equality under the law with regards to criminal justice.

You can make your prorating scale as harsh or soft as you'd like, though. But then you'd have to explain why littering or having weeds in one's lawn is something that should financially destroy a person. I suspect that if people making 75k a year would have to pay $2500 a day for having an unkempt yard, the severity of the penalty, or its existence at all, might change real fast.

But do we see these people consistently keeping unkempt yards? - nope.
If you issue is that some crimes are more burdensome for the poor than other crimes then make your case, but a sliding (a.k.a. arbitrary) scale does not alleviate that issue. Either your position is that no crime should financially destroy a person; or that some crimes should financially destroy some people; or it is some convoluted and subjective feeling that you currently have conceived for whatever crime floats across your horizon.

There is no evidence that crime is more affordable for any class of person.

Don't architects have to take math classes?

Yep we sure do...but again, you still have no given evidence to support you wholesale revision.
https://nypost.com/2017/09/05/george-co ... architect/

point being, just because someone is making $175k a year does not conclude with them being able to afford a $500 fine at any given time...that person may have financial circumstances that make such a fine burdensome - and this is not a unique or outlandish scenario.

So, yeah...don't do the crime if you can't do the time.