The sketchy part is not her not getting convicted. It’s that no charges were even filed. I also enjoyed this bit of info from one of the sources regarding the other DUI incident. Prosecutors in Texas have dropped a 2011 drunken driving citation against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. heiress Alice Walton.
I knew about this but it’s never made sense to me. If I was a billionaire I’d never drive myself anywhere, particularly not if I was going to be intoxicated.
Having billions generally means not having to explain yourself
Intelligence hasn’t been a requirement for being wealthy for some time. We’re dealing with a growing number of mega rich morons now.
To be fair, a lot of the mega rich morons, Musk, Zuckerberg, etc are narrow geniuses (with a lot of luck). They’re just not self aware enough to know what they don’t know and they think they’re renaissance men. If the news media was continuously telling me that I was a genius, I might start to believe it too ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I think I’m a genius solely because of me telling myself this continuously. I can’t imagine how off the rails I’d be if any other people joined in.
You’re a genius!
Who are being reported on far more often … thanks to social media
The Delaware Du Pont heir being a case in point
Having to rely on people to do things for you, even if you’re super rich, can be annoying. People that work for you take time off, get sick, so now you need other people to manage the other people to ensure that someone is always available, then you start to dislike some of those people, but managing who is around you all the time also takes effort, etc. etc. You can’t pay your way out of everything. Plus sometimes you just want to do things for yourself, and sometimes you just want to be alone.
Yes and no. At billionaire level I expect they have other people taking care of who is available, and with that a mint of money you can easily keep a backup available as well.
Did you forget? Laws are for poor people.
If you have heard the word “intersectionality” but didn’t know what it meant, this gives us a good example.
Feminists will say that women are not treated fairly overall, BUT if you’re a white woman, you might actually have it better than a black man. And if you’re an extremely wealthy white woman, you might even have it better than most men. All the factors combine.
It also works in reverse. Basically a gay black woman might not feel anything in common with Mrs. Walton, despite them both being women, and might easily see her as an oppressor.
The single biggest difference in the treatment there is, is based on wealth: in other words, one’s wealth is the single biggest factor for discriminatory treatment there is.
Anybody genuinelly wanting to end the unfairness of descrimination on things which people did not choose would be focusing most efforts (not all, but the largest fraction) on ending or at least reducing that which is the largest and most impactful discrimination there is (and which is often a pathway through which other kinds of discrimination end up affecting people: i.e. a group is marginalized on some visible trait, so many more in it are poor, and then most of the actual suffering comes from the differentiated treatment dependening on wealth).
Instead, “strangelly”, in those countries with voting systems that enforce power dupolies, the mainstream “left”-side party (which alternates in power with the “right”-side party) will at most loudly rage against a few other discriminations, never against wealth discrimination.
I agree that class is incredibly important and yet has a chronic problem getting recognized. The American class system is more flexible and mobile than its European forebears but it’s still there. Wealth buys access to better schools, safer streets, more lenient judges, etc.
Race is also huge in America and a lot of people insist on burying it, too. Their belief is that even talking about it is racist - they still believe in the fantasy of “not seeing race,” where most of us have recognized that the true goal is for everyone to be able to have a distinct racial and cultural identity but not be penalized for it. Not for everyone to be stripped of it all and treated as blank.
Some people say race overrides all. Some people say class overrides all. Intersectionality says that they both matter, and that an extremely wealthy gay black man won’t have the same treatment as Mrs. Walton.
That’s a circuitous path to class consciousness, but if it works I’m not complaining.
Class, race, gender, sexual orientation… those are the dimensions that intersect in all of us. I’m sure there are more. Religion used to be more significant, I think. Ability. Age, perhaps. In some countries there’s a concept of caste. Maybe education level and country/city are also involved but those are not the big ones.
Worth mentioning that wealth and class are technically two different things that happen to usually coincide. In the US the connection is nearly 1:1, but in some places like the UK there is quite a history of high class people struggling with wealth and marrying wealthy people in order to combine their wealth/class. I mention this specifically because “caste” is really just another form of class. It’s a form of class tied more to duty/work and less directly to wealth.
It just seems that class is the factor with the most effect. Also most factors are kardinal and limited, e.g. white>asian>latin>black in bigoted society. But wealth is continous and you could always be more wealthy. So it doesnt stop at being a billionaire, you could always be a 10billionaire or a 50billionaire and it will still make a difference.
Oh yes definitely.
If anyone doesn’t believe you, the question “would you rather be rich and black or poor and white” usually helps.
I saw a post once about how discrimination law doesn’t recognise combinations… so a company was found not guilty of discrimination against a black woman because they employ lots of white women as secretaries and black men as labourers, and were therefore ‘diverse’.
Just remember: You don’t have to shop at Walmart to support the Waltons. Your tax dollars go to the social programs that many Walmart employees are forced to depend on because Walmart won’t pay a living wage.
Getting away with murder is only one privilege of being wealthy.
fuck this, how would you feel if the pedestrian was your family. how do people deal with tragedy like that without… losing the will to be civil?
People like this have money. That creates a barrier between them and "other"people. With enough money you never have to think about anyone below the line.
And this is why I dislike the idiotic temporarily embarrassed billionaires most of all. They’re just looking for a way to get away with all of their shitty impulses.
The problem is not them having money. The problem is they’re treated differently because they have money. As if laws don’t apply to them just because they have money. Their enablers are the problem.
True that
To be honest I don’t know. I’m continuously surprised by how few politicians and rich people are shot by people they have wronged.
Like if it was your only kid or something I don’t know how you hold yourself back in the face of this kind of injustice.
Wonder what the French would do?
Burn it all down?
Sadly I’ll bet this happens a lot and it is ultimately decided that it was an accident, so there is no one to blame. Honestly if I was the family I might hope for that outcome because otherwise I would love the rest of my life consumed with hatred for someone rather than seeing it as just fate.
Read about Robert H. Richards IV, the Du pont eir whho raped his own children. Guess how much prison time he saw?
The US has the best justice system money can buy.
That’s true
There’s no such thing as a good billionaire
If you look deep, deep down (approx. 12,500 feet down) I’m sure you can find something nice to say.
This happens a LOT more often than you think. I worked with a well-connected person that killed a dude while she was drunk driving. She was not in jail at any point.
Drunk driving seems to be severely under prosecuted for well to do and connected people.
I think it’s changing partially due to body cams now. But it’s still pretty bad.
I believe she was arrested for DUI once. She ended up ruining that cop’s life.
Thanks for posting this. More people should know.
Not to be an Internet edgelord, but if some billionaire killed one of my family and got away with it, I would make it my life’s mission to hunt them down and make sure they get some kind of justice.
I’d watch that movie
This reminds me of that movie “Assault on Wall Street” where basically some dude goes on a killing spree and starts murdering a bunch of wall street people. Except, the guy is framed as a hero, which I assume is because it came out not too long after the 2008 financial crisis (~2013).
I wonder if we’re at a point right now where a similar movie about going on a killing spree against billionaires would do well?
I feel like we’re at a point right now that if someone actually started popping off billionaires a significant portion of the population would cheer.
A
You would have a great deal of difficulty just getting near them. Billionaires don’t hang out at Walmart - ironically enough in this case.
Neither does it’s CEO. They only care about shareholder meetings.
Driving themselves sorta negates the idea of private security, they’re not mutually exclusive but it would be very weird.
I would devot my life to ruin them.
To be fair, I doubt most people who commit vehicular crimes in Texas get charged.
It’s not like it was an abortion or anything…
That’s part of it, but vehicular crimes specifically are often overlooked, many people aren’t concerned by high numbers of road fatalities, and often resort to victim blaming, as if it’s just a cost of living.
Interesting insights about motor vehicles coming from someone on “dmv.social”
Hahahaha, that’s DC, Maryland, Virginia. Not Department of Motor Vehicles. I guess Maryland doesn’t have DMVs, but it fools local Virginians from time to time too, don’t feel bad
This is a highlight interaction in the Lemmy comments for me so far.
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One of the few crimes in Texas you cannot be arrested for is suspected ovi and open container.
Justice comes … at a price.
If anything, justice doesn’t come if you can pay the price
🥲
It doesn’t surprise me. Even regular folks who kill pedestrians and cyclists get off easy. This is just one step further because of $$$
Wow, people with obscene amounts of money being treated differently than everyone else. Who would have thought? Did not see this coming.
