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YellOh | 2 years ago

I think approximately everybody agrees with these ideals, but approximately nobody agrees on how to achieve them in the real world. Or agrees about comparative importance - ex. weighing being culpable for breaking the law against ability to enforce the law, if you see the discussion below about qualified immunity.

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mrguyorama|2 years ago

>I think approximately everybody agrees with these ideals

Maybe in vague theory but in the past several years, every time a cop shoots someone without just cause there are a lot of people defending them. Hell, they get donated millions to defend themselves in court! Strangers send money to a random cop so he can afford expensive legal council to keep him from being guilty of a crime. Surely that can't be read as everyone wants accountability right?

YellOh|2 years ago

I'm wary of kicking the hornet's nest here, but just as a note, a lot of the highest-profile "just cause" cases have a lot of disagreement around the actual details. Thanks to the PETA principle[0] (section III is about exactly this), the events that make it into mainstream media almost always have intensely divisive details that do make an impartial ruling a lot harder. People that disagree with you would probably also disagree with how innocent/guilty you find the people involved.

I think pretty much everyone wants police accountability, but the cases where the police are most unambiguously & egregiously wrong on every level aren't divisive enough to stay in the news as long as divisive ones. (Not necessarily always true! Please do not take any of this as a strong personal opinion any any particular case(s)!)

[0] https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage...