Civil forfeiture laws vary by state. In some states, civil forfeiture can only occur after conviction.
This case was about civil forfeiture, but not about its timing. It was about whether civil forfeiture by states is limited by the Eighth Amendment. Specifically, whether taking a $40,000 car for a (relatively) minor crime should be banned as an “excessive fine.”
Before the ruling, technically states were not completely bound by the Eighth Amendment. Now, they are.
Note that even outside civil forfeiture, states are allowed to take property from people who have not been convicted of a crime. For instance, when police issue parking tickets. Or when they tow cars. But now these penalties can no longer be “excessive”.
See, this kind of thing I think is dumb. All this does is piss off a ton of people.
The monument is a memorial to WWI soldiers. The Christian symbology isn’t the point of the memorial, and is really just an artifact of when the memorial was made.
Yeah, I agree. I don’t think the monument was erected to promote Christianity, and I don’t think it is maintained for that reason. It’s a dumb lawsuit.
Yeah, I’m pretty against religion of any kind infiltrating the government but this doesn’t seem offensive, given the time period. Can you imagine if it was a WWI memorial with Muslim imagery though?
I realize that I’m probably an outlier, but i really don’t see religious structures like this, from any religion, as being entirely religious.
For instance, one of the most horrific crimes committed by ISIS and the Taliban, to me, was when they destroyed a ton of religious artifacts, including giant Buddhas carved out of a mountainside.
While those things are implicitly religious, they are more than that. They have historical significance. Religion is part of human history, and it’s ignorant and misguided to try and erase it from our memory. That’s what bugs me about these groups like the humanist society.
Can’t they just break the arms of the t off and leave the rest of the monument standing? It’d just be a more boxular version of the Washignton monument.
It would create and sustain jobs for the people get tasked with that sort of thing.
It would help local progressives demonstrate an unwillingness to let their town go down the same path as those places that still embrace other potentially offensive symbols like the confederate flag after all these years.
It would help support the local papers, journalists, and freelance photographers.
It would upset right wing Facebook users who want to rage about the continued attacks on Christianity before their sponge baths.
It would help the locals repurpose the raw materials from the monument, so that maybe they could even make two or three more non-denominational mini-monuments someplace else.
It would bring people together, hand in hand, as they chain themselves to it and similar the monuments all across the country as a show of support for protecting their right to celebrate the crucifixion of Jesus.
It would give Christian book stores the ability to sell new armless crosses to those people who want to stay up to date on all the latest idolatry trends.
LOL. That big stone cross is not “entirely religious”.
I mean, I don’t care that much about this ceremonial Christianity stuff, really, but gimme a break…it’s a big fucking cross. There’s no other purpose to the symbol of a cross than that Christian mythology says their Christ was nailed to it. It is an expressly Christian symbol.
I’m perfectly fine with letting it stand, cuz who gives a shit plus it gives the local Young Satanist grotto something to spray paint pentagrams on…but don’t insult my intelligence along the way.
As the biggest, most militant atheist in the forum, I will add this - eh. But I bet there’s a church across the street they could move it to. Because there’s always a church across the street.
