'Why we can - and must - create a fairer system of traffic enforcement'

The Enid police chief stepped down a couple of years ago after the second incident of falsifying or condoning the falsifying of evidence in 2 murder cases. Murderers in both cases walked free.
Why didn’t the DA prosecute the guy? As I discovered, he is married to the DA who still uses her maiden name in office.

Our local county sheriff still has pending charges against him at the moment although 2 recent charges of manslaughter were dropped.
The PD chief I mentioned above even had the gall to run for the county sheriff position during the last election.

Every other week a cop, state trooper, or sheriff is being charged with drugs, embezzlement, etc and one was even running a meth operation out of the police station.

One state trooper beat the crap out of his girlfriend. The judge let him go Scot free.Ten months later he beat her up even worse.

And we’re supposed to think that these guys do the fair and honorable thing when dishing out tickets? It’s almost like a Three Stooges movie at times.

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Several years ago here in Mayberry II a police officer with a great hankering for Corvettes was always driving one, buying and selling them within weeks. After some internal in fighting at the department the Vette fan was arrested by Federal Marshals for transporting stolen cars across state lines. It seemed there was an organized ring of cops and state DMV personnel in 3 states enabling stolen cars to be kept off the records, re-titled and moved to another state and sold. There were rumors that the officer’s dealings were crooked for years until someone’s toes got stepped on and they called the Feds in. And sometimes it seems Curly, Larry and Moe are on patrol here.

I think there must be an unwritten law between county sherriffs and cit police where I live. If a county sheriff is in town you could do anything and not get pulled over. Never seen a county sherriff pull over a car in our fair city.

The sheriffs in Mississippi won’t enforce city traffic codes unless there’s a serious threat to public safety. Sheriff’s deputies patrol county roads and leave city streets to the police and major highways to the Highway Patrol.

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Ah - NO. In many states - it’s against the law. You need a subpoena get some ones financial information.

@ok4450 and @Rod_Knox, Law enforcement scum like those disgust and enrage me. There are far, far too many like them. I grew up in OK knowing that far too many in the local PD, Sherriff’s dept, and prosecutor’s office at that time were corrupt. And when my family lived in NJ for several years I clearly saw how utterly corrupt the cops in that small town were. I had to walk through the open air drug market outside the high school to get to classes each day where I frequently saw the drug dealers paying off cops, including the assistant chief. I have only contempt for corrupt cops and other such corrupt LEOs. But for those in law enforcement who are decent, honest, and hard working, trying to do their best to properly serve and protect the public I have high respect. And that includes the cop who gave me the one speeding ticket I’ve had in forty-four years driving because he treated me respectfully and professionally and that I quite deserved the ticket.

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We weren’t discussing the legalities, we were discussing whether or not they’d have to buy equipment to do it. They wouldn’t. They have computers. That doesn’t mean anyone is advocating that they conduct unauthorized searches.

I suggest you look at the sociology of wealth. Upward mobility is largely a myth in the United States.

When I was first married, my wife and I were students. We were very financially literate and lived within our means (a few examples: a treat night for us was getting Applebees’s buffalo wings to go. We did this maybe once or twice a month. I also quit drinking beer because it was too expensive.) A $200 ticket would have been a horrible hardship for us at that point in our life but according to you it was because we were ignorant and foolish with our money.

Your answers show an amazing degree of stereotyping, lack of insight and lack of knowledge.

I’m not denying that there is a disproportionate concentration of wealth at the top. What I am saying is that the chances to improve one’s station in life in the U.S. is very doable, this is still a land of opportunity compared to most other countries. It might not be what it once was 100 years ago, but you’ve still got a comparatively reasonable chance of improving your lot provided you make the right decisions in life.

When you take income equality out of the equation it still very much is. Some people point to the Nordic countries as examples of countries that have very good upward mobility; however the thing is the income spread is not as drastic. There aren’t that many really destitute people nor are there a huge number of exceedingly wealthy people. There’s not nearly the level of income inequality in those nations compared to the U.S., That’s both good or bad depending upon how you look at it. Good because it means that the average person is likely going to have a very good standard of living. There’s not much of an income gap (relatively speaking). The bad is that it’s more unlikely to that you’ll really move up from where you started because again, there’s not much of an income gap. They’ve done well with creating an equitable society. Which is appealing to a lot of people. However, I’ll say, if you had a sure-fire billion-dollar idea. You’d be better served to bring that idea to market in the U.S. than in Norway,Denmark,or Sweden. You’ll pocket a lot more for your efforts. And that’s not just because of the bigger market.

Many people, including myself have been broke college students before. I purposely went to a local college( commute in to class, live at home, thus saving on room and board) and took base classes at junior college during the summer. (that would transfer credits), because it was cheaper, and held down a job while doing so. And a $200 ticket would’ve definitely put a dent in the finances for me as well.

Most people however, exhibit poor fiscal sensibilities. I see, and I’m sure you see it every day. There are some instances were a person did everything right, and still got a raw deal, but there many more situations were someone had kids that there weren’t ready to pay for (or had more kids than they could afford), bought more house than they could afford in the long term, bought more car than they could afford, and/or live a lifestyle that they can just barely afford but have not contingency plans should the proverbial house of cards even move the slightest bit. You can call it stereotyping all you want, but look that the median net worth of the typical person in the U.S (if you look at people who rent, it’s shockingly low). or the amount of money people have put away for retirement, that tells you quite at bit about American spending habits.

As an example. There’s a family, who has three kids, they are all students in the school system I work for. I know that the kids get free lunch/breakfast. I also know that both parents lease new cars every 2 years. They aren’t business owners or anything. To me that suggests that they are trying to keep up appearances, and would be better off if they bought cheaper used cars and just kept them for a few years and not have payments. There’s another family that has two kids, the father is “disabled” vet who hasn’t had a regular job as long as I’ve been aware of him, the mother also claimed disability, but at some point got cut off, and had to get a job. The kicker is that the father who was apparently not able to work was perfectly capable of moving to Alaska for several months to prospect for gold, the mother was very optimistic about this, and thought he would return with six or seven figures in their bank account. And when he came back he mentioned that he was now a millionaire. However, that appears to be less than true, as they at first moved in with the father’s dad (grandpa), apparently got kicked out, or maybe just moved out and were homeless for some period of time. It became apparent that the Alaskan expedition pretty much wiped them out financially. These are just two examples of the kind of stuff I get to see every day. Anyway the point I’m trying to make is that most of the time, it’s not just an unlucky break that contributes to a person’t financial ruination, but poor personal decisions, usually a combination of several bad decisions. Most people have fantastic hindsight, far fewer have exceptional foresight.

First hand experience chief.

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A traffic fine should be the same cost irrelevant of wealth; or lack of. In many cases certain people are allowed to skate.

Many years ago a friend was on his motorcycle one Sat. night about 10 P.M. He was on a side road facing south and was going to make a right turn to go west. The corner is blind due to a fence and shrubs so one has to creep out slowly to make sure nothing is coming. He was clear and made the right turn.

He then got whacked head on by a guy driving a black Lincoln and heading east on the wrong side of the 4 lane and with no lights on. My friend went to the hospital for several months and was lucky to have survived. The driver of the LIncoln and both passengers were falling down drunk after just leaving the country club.

The driver was a United Stated District Attorney who refused to give the cops his license and also refused to take a breathalyzer or blood test. The passengers were brothers who owned the local newspaper. The police did nothing to this guy. The DA claimed he had “diplomatic immunity” and could not be ticketed “in the perfomance of his duties”; which apparently meant getting wiped out at the CC. OK had just passed a law that stated if one refused to cooperate with the police in a matter like this the driver’s license would be automatically suspended. This was not done. No fines, no nothing.

There was a lot of uproar about this including a huge protest at the court house. The newspaper ran editorials everyday about the peasants mobbing in the streets and that the town was becoming like the Old West with lynch mobs.

On top of this the taxpayers bailed the DA out with a 6 figure settlement. In today’s world that would be a 7 or 8 figure settlement.

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@ok4450 At least our local crook, now dethroned county executive, and his cronies are headed to prison for their corruption. But it took the feds to make it happen.

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Aha, that’s nice to know (as a danish citizen),.Could it be that we - N, S and DK - just have a higher bottom level, as DK have more billionaires per 100 citizens than USA according to ceoworld. Also S has more.

Very true, because here, as a very wealthy person you’ll have to pay a fair share in income tax to help the lesser fortunate.

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What tax rate would that be? And what percentage of the total taxes collected come from those wealthy people? I know what those numbers are in the US, never heard what they might be in Denmark

That’s very likely, due to the comparatively high levels of taxation and high level of social services that it affords, the lower end of the scale in those countries is indeed higher than the bottom end of the scale in the U.S. The U.S. has the most billionaires in total, and is 10th per capita, Norway, 6th, Sweden 6th, and Denmark 16th, according to this http://www.aei.org/publication/countries-with-lots-of-billionaires-per-capita-also-tend-to-have-high-levels-of-well-being-and-competitiveness/

What’s not being mentioned is how far does X amount of money get you in various countries. A billion USD in the US will go further than it will in any of the nordic countries as the cost of living the U.S. is less for the most part. But we don’t have the kind of social safety nets that those countries have either. The average person might make more money, but when things cost more because of a 20% VAT or you’re paying thousands just on road tax, high fuel taxes, and whatever else isn’t nailed down, the numbers become misleading because the effective purchasing power becomes less.

The question is “What constitutes a fair share”? To me the phrase is used as a means to justify confiscating more money from people who have committed the unforgivable sin of having more than someone else. Someone else’s fair share is always much higher than that of the person using the phrase. In the U.S. something like the top 5% pay something like 58% of the total income tax collected. 47% of people don’t pay any income tax at all, yet these folks complain the loudest about the wealthy not paying their fair share. To me that’s astounding.

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Much of what is considered entitlements to the poor is actually entitlements to the wealthy who refuse to pay a living wage. Partisan bickering trashes any worthwhile effort at giving those at the bottom a chance to pull themselves up. And the opposition to public transit in my area is outrageous. There was even an outcry against building sidewalks along busy streets.

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do you have a citation for this? very distressing :grimacing:

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It’s rampant. Happens all over.

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Many CEO’s and higher-ups in a company have a LOWER tax rate then most people in their own company because a good portion of their pay is through stock options which is a much lower rate. Even Warren Buffet says he has a lower tax rate then his secretary.

The shift in wealth in this country has been going to the top very steadily since the 80’s. Since the top 1% have the wealth they should pay the most.

My wife and I (both have college degrees and work in the Tech industry) income is in the top 5%. That’s about 4 times the average worker. The top .1% earn more then 100 times what we earn and 400 times what the average worker earns. That’s a huge shift. And the top .01% are 100 times more then the top 1%.

The American dream isn’t what is use to be. Not even close.

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They do, by a large margin… Budget Basics: Who Pays Taxes?

69% of taxes collected come from the top 20% of earners (thank you, Mike). The top 1% pay 37% of all income taxes collected. More than the bottom 90% combined (30%). The bottom 40% pay 4% of the total.

In Denmark, those making over $55K a year (the median US family income) are in the highest tax bracket, paying 55.4%. Plus, of course a 25% VAT (sales) tax.

Of course the wages are also lower in Denmark for an equivalent professional job, like a software engineer.

https://www.daxx.com/blog/development-trends/it-salaries-software-developer-trends-2019

And the cost of living on average is higher in Denmark than the US.

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And they own 40% of the wealth, so they’re still underpaying.

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