El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender

> nice to see how progressive and creative El Salvador has been

Alright so let's have a look at these progressive/creative approaches: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_El_Salvador

(a) Mass arrests of anyone who merely had a gang tattoo, (b) Jailing of children, (c) Security cameras everywhere, (d) Inhumane treatment of prisoners.

Trashing human rights is always effective but hardly creative nor progressive.

Human rights of victims of these criminals were being routinely trashed and ignored before Bukele's reforms, so that's just not a trump card. His progressive reforms have significantly improved society for the greater good and has stood up for human rights that were being trampled, it is also against the conservative status quo thinking of how to deal with crime, so it very much fits the dictionary definition of progressive. Just not the elitist status quo definition of the word (ironically, they are conservative by at least some definitions).

a - gang tattoos mean gang involvement. Let's stop pretending otherwise.

b - I'm not sure what you think you're reading but that article points to the scourge of gangs and their impact on children. I only skimmed it but I couldn't see anything in that article about detaining children.

c - So?

d - Gang members in places like El Salvador victimise communities. They are a scourge. I will not accept the humanizing of them - they are parasites. I absolutely support Bukele's policies to rid the country of them. I hope he keeps going.

> it is also against the conservative status quo thinking of how to deal with crime

How are tough on crime policies "against the conservative status quo"?

What would you say to the victims of these gangs?

This is just an intellectually lazy way to dismiss any criticism of policies.

You can care deeply about victims and not believe in a surveillance state or arresting people simply because they look a certain way. History has shown it’s a slippery slope that ends up hurting everyone.

You surely can't be accusing others of being intellectually lazy and using the slippery slope argument in the very same post?

The people who are seen to be the experts and authorities in social theory and practice in their ivory towers in the UN and academia cling to their outdated and falsified ideas of what works and what doesn't and refuse to change or accept new things.

Firstly, they are adamant that "tough on crime" policies do not work, they were adamant that Buekele's reforms would not work. Now sure there are probably ways they may fail and situations where they don't apply, it has now been proven by counter-example that they are wrong. They still refuse to accept it.

They now address their little El Salvador embarrassment by claiming it has caused calamitous violations of "human rights". This is a sneaky tool they use to win a debate and end the conversation, but when you look behind the curtain, really they are the ones who defined what human rights are and what is important for society, and they make no attempt to really weigh any of the multitide of very complicated issues as a whole. They just pick some human rights and some classes of people and say they were violated and that's the end of it. They would have the poor people of El Salvador live with gangs running rampant and murder rates hundreds of times higher than the rich areas of the wealthy countries they live in, and it would be worth it if only it could prevent one accused criminal having their human rights violated. It's just absolutely ludicrous, especially when you see the outcomes of these policies and they're still raging against Bukele for them and refusing to admit they don't have all the answers.

That is why they are conservative. Again, not conservative in their definitions, but conservative according to the dictionary. They hold to their views and work to maintain the status quo in terms of social and governance theories and practices.

Again I don't disagree with having strong individual rights against the justice system, and "tough on crime" policies sure can be pushed where they are not effective for political gain. But it's not black and white, it is many shades and countless inter-related moving parts. Very limited powers of police and very strong rights for accused in a justice system is a wonderful thing to have. In a society stricken by violence and crime and ruled by gangs and on the brink of collapse, it is not always possible to have without violating more rights of more people.

And if El Salvador continues long enough and keeps making progress reducing crime and breaking gangs and lifting people out of generational crime, they will actually eventually would likely to be in a much better position to implement stronger individual rights against the justice system.

What is actually important in a society is how they choose to be governed, their right to self-determination, including what rights they decide should be important and how those should be weighed and traded off among one another. Not some fixed, rigid decrees by an elitist ruling class of mostly foreigners with their lists of rights developed decades ago by and for different countries, missing many rights, and no real framework to make adjustments or make value judgements between conflicting rights, they are just used as a hammer to shut down debate that is awkward for their conservative and outdated views.

A gang tattoo is a uniform. If you wear the uniform of an enemy soldier anywhere in the world, you will probably get arrested or worse.

> History has shown it’s a slippery slope that ends up hurting everyone.

You don't need to look far back into history when you can look at the real world right now. When things are so bad that they can't get worse, there's no point of arguing about a slippery slope.

OK so you didn't need to say all that.

Saying you meant conservative in the sense that it's the opposite of radical, rather than conservative as in right-wing politics, would have sufficed.

Anyway, Bukele's treatment of the gang situation in El Salvadore can simultaneously be a flagrant violation of human rights while also being an effective measure to curtail untenable levels of gang violence.

I'm glad El Salvadore is safer. I don't love how Bukele handled things. And I don't know that I'd necessarily say he made the wrong call either; the net effect may be overwhelmingly positive for the vast majority of El Salvadorians.

Still, I don't think leaving people to rot in incredibly inhumane jails, without proper course for appeal, or the possibility of rehabilitation is humane. His handling of the situation has certainly made it more difficult if not impossible to determine innocence, or just sentencing for those who may have had very little criminal involvement prior to the emergency mobilization of El Salvador's police and military forces.

And it's certainly created more corruption in the "official" system with regards to respect for El Salvadorian and/or international laws, as is common with dictatorships. Corruption which cements his dictatorship with an iron fist while reigning un-checked.

I'm not convinced this iron fist move was the only answer either, but can at least accept the possibility that it was the only appropriate response to extreme level of gang violence they were facing.

> OK so you didn't need to say all that.

I'll take that as a "thank you" :)

> Saying you meant conservative in the sense that it's the opposite of radical, rather than conservative as in right-wing politics, would have sufficed.

Yes I did, I did try to say that in the comment you replied to but on re-reading it could have been clearer and was probably a bit snarky.

> Anyway, Bukele's treatment of the gang situation in El Salvadore can simultaneously be a flagrant violation of human rights while also being an effective measure to curtail untenable levels of gang violence.

It can be that, but the previous government's treatment of the gang situation in El Salvadore be a flagrant violation of human rights of all the citizens who had been affected by crime and violence. The suffering endured by those people wasn't humane. That's the problem, right? I can see it's not a black and white situation, can you? Can you name a single "progressive" policy that has zero downsides, costs, unintended consequences, etc? No, on social scales and government policy, everything is a big mess of chaotic cause and effect and good and bad and statistical outcomes, so picking a narrow class of human rights for one class of people in a whole society and say "those are getting worse therefore it can't be progressive" is really reductionist and not even true because in the same way you can probably rule out anything being progressive.

I'm not going to respond to your points one by one because yet again I add the disclaimer that I think it is terrible things got so bad they came to such measures, and maybe not all measures were exactly right. But what is clear is that it is a bold and brave social reform that went against status quo and has been extraordinarily successful in restoring and defending human rights for many, and in many ways improving society for the better, for a huge majority of citizens. Safe to call it progressive, but really call it whatever you like I guess, but a flagrant violation of human rights I think lacks some understanding or nuance of the reality of the situation there.

gangs are a symptom just like drug abuse, which they are also entwined with. striking out at gangs without addressing the issues motivating people to join them is just punishing poverty on both ends. the state has let you down, you feel the need to take survival into your own hands, and then are punished for that.

by no means am i excusing the violence that gang perpetuate, but i am unconvinced that enough people simply want to live the gangster lifestyle that gangs can sustain themselves outside situations of extreme poverty.

I’m really not a tough on crime guy but I agree with everything you’re saying, I do just worry that if Buekele is ousted that another leader could be elected who uses the same heavy hand to lock up more than just criminals.

> Trashing human rights is always effective

Hardly. What made Bukele's presidency impressive is that many other governments had tried the "mano dura" approach before, but he was the first one to make it work, and nobody is sure why. There's evidence even he didn't expect it to work that well.