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meat sweats posted:I think cops are overpaid for a job mostly staffed by washed-out high school jocks with community college degrees in a fake field, whose daily workload is mostly writing traffic tickets and bullshitting with each other at coffee shops. I don't know why you think I would hide this, based on my previous posts in the thread. It is a fact that many cops make 3 or 4 times the rate of professions requiring comparable skills. Some don't. None of them should abuse their police power. Is there something you disagree with here? What are these other jobs and other skills
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Jun 30, 2014 14:55
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MickeyFinn posted:You say that like those community activists don't have good reason to view cops as oppressors. Can you expand on this? In my opinion if you enter into an oversight role with a documented prejudice against the very people you're going to oversee, you don't belong there. (The same way I don't believe anybody with documented incidents of racism People see what they want to see (cops an non-cops) and if you go into it believing that ACAB and their only interest is in oppressing your community you'll never be able to impartially view the facts. You've already decided that cops are bad and deserve to be punished. It's the same as cops who write off entire neighborhoods or families as being criminals based on the actions of their worst members. How can you ask police officers not to make sweeping generalizations based on employment or residence while doing that exact thing to them? SedanChair posted:Thanks for posting. So what's your solution? Do you think police don't need civilian oversight, or is there some way to make the membership of oversight boards acceptable to you? I think a level of oversight is imperative. Transparency obviously being the biggest part of that. A board consisting of a mix of citizens, cops, and a judge leading wouldn't be a terrible solution. Ultimately we have to find the balance between cops policing themselves, which people just don't trust even if there is no cover-up or special treatment (which I believe to be the case more often than not), and a group consisting of criminal defense attorneys and FTP activists. When you swing the balance too far one way or the other you're going to get major problems, which we see all over the place. I don't think it'll be a perfect system but I don't think there is such thing as a perfect solution to protect everybody in every single incident. There is no one size fits all answer for law enforcement or criminal law, which makes this so tough. Runaktla posted:There are reasonable grievances that people have against the police. Hell I get livid every time I hear of a dog jumping over a fence and plugging some family's golden retriever with a few bullets because he felt threatened. I absolutely agree about the family pet shootings. Somehow it's become completely reasonable for cops to shoot dogs lately and I can't explain it. I had a little bit of training on dealing with dogs and the various steps we can take to avoid putting ourselves in a position to deal with a protective or aggressive dog. I've been involved with situations where dogs were shot but they were both fighting dogs who'd already bitten people and failed to respond to hoses or OC spray. One factor to keep in mind is that most people's only knowledge of police work comes from what they see on TV. It has nothing to do with people not knowing the secret stuff that cops do or not being capable of understanding the intricacies of the job and its issues. It's simply a matter of people being badly misinforming about what we do, how it's done, and what our capabilities are. Read the comments in any news report about a police shooting and count the people that state cops should have "just disarmed the guy with the knife" or "shot him in the leg." People truly believe cops are some sort of ninja badasses who sign up to get stabbed, shot, or killed. I don't care how good the benefits are (not as good as you'd think) I have never been paid enough to get shot or stabbed unnecessarily. A cop spends every day of his career meeting people in the worst moments of their lives. We don't get calls when people are happy and doing well. That kind of emotion definitely wears on a person, which is why you see so many cops who apparently have no emotion at all. We learn to block that stuff out while we're working because we can't function otherwise. Accretionist posted:How were the ones you dealt with set-up? Like, anything you remember about their powers, their purview, how was membership determined, etc. And if civilian oversight were non-optional, do you have opinions on how you'd want it set-up? Or at least on specific issues you'd like to avoid? It's been a few years since I've been in the job so I don't recall many details offhand. Mostly I remember the people involved as they were constantly filing complaints and finding new reasons to be livid with us. I'll go through my old training files, I think I have a packet about the panel and how it's put together somewhere. The biggest thing I think police work needs is a fundamental shift away from the whole secrecy thing. There are certainly situations where information shouldn't be publicly shared about an ongoing case or an officer safety tactic that could get somebody injured or killed but for the most part cops are taught not to share information. I learned early in my career, thanks to one of the old timers teaching me not to be a dick, that the easiest way to keep people happy and keep my job simple was to be upfront and share information. Once a scene is safe and calmed down I'll happily share whatever information I'm legally allowed to. Sometimes just explaining that I'll answer any questions a person might have after they complied with me was enough to calm a situation down and avoid a fight. I absolutely think cops need more focus on just being able to talk to people. We need to learn to step back the tactical bullshit and make ourselves approachable. Learn to talk to somebody like you do out of uniform and not like a robot. Less APCs and camo clad swat teams, more regular guys in uniform interacting with people normally. I'll get to work on answering some more questions in a bit. Thanks to those of you who are interested in an actual discussion and avoiding the blatant aggression from some corners here. I appreciate the chance to discuss this stuff calmly and without all of the red-faced screaming that cop threads usually come to.
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Jun 30, 2014 15:39
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If you think cops policing themselves means there is no special treatment "more often than not", you don't live on the same planet as the rest of us. It is extremely clear that this behaviour exists in the majority of cases as long as they police themselves.
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Jun 30, 2014 15:45
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What is the difference between a "documented prejudice against police" and having a thorough awareness of the extent of police abuses?SrgMagnum posted:I think a level of oversight is imperative. Transparency obviously being the biggest part of that. A board consisting of a mix of citizens, cops, and a judge leading wouldn't be a terrible solution. Ultimately we have to find the balance between cops policing themselves, which people just don't trust even if there is no cover-up or special treatment (which I believe to be the case more often than not), and a group consisting of criminal defense attorneys and FTP activists. When you swing the balance too far one way or the other you're going to get major problems, which we see all over the place. We're talking about a civilian oversight board. Why should it be salted with police? That defeats the whole purpose of oversight. No other body is in any way expected to "police itself" (except for the military through the UCMJ, and we know how well that's working out). Why should there be a "balance" towards the "cops policing themselves" in any way? The role of police on a civilian board should be appearing before it, explaining their actions. quote:I absolutely agree about the family pet shootings. Somehow it's become completely reasonable for cops to shoot dogs lately and I can't explain it. Do you think it might have anything to do with cops being allowed to police themselves? e: parenth. fix woke wedding drone fucked around with this message at 16:32 on Jun 30, 2014 |
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Jun 30, 2014 15:49
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Tias posted:If you think cops policing themselves means there is no special treatment "more often than not", you don't live on the same planet as the rest of us. I'm only speaking from my knowledge and experience but what I've seen is that most of the time officers deserving of punishment get it. My perception is obviously different as I'm looking through the lens of my training and experiences but people often think cops should be punished for things that are well within policy and the law. That's certainly not discounting the cases of actual and legitimate police brutality and abuse but when every single shooting is treated as if the cop is a trigger happy, lowly trained, racist, the claims get washed out somewhat. Do you really think that EVERY use of force by a police officer is unjust and an abuse of power? SedanChair posted:What is the difference between a "documented prejudice against police" and having a thorough awareness of the extent of police abuses? I don't think anybody, cops included have a thorough awareness of the extent of police abuses because while there are a good number of incidents of abuse that go unreported, there are also a good number of legitimate uses of force that get reported as abuse. Until we can find a way to separate the false or exaggerated claims from the legitimate ones it's tough to get an idea of how much abuse there actually is. Unbalanced reporting doesn't help the perception either. Following any news source will lead to you believe cops are literally stormtroopers out there giggling and violating everyone's rights. That's simply not the case for a vast majority of the 800,000 or so police officers in the country today. The documented prejudice in my opinion is someone who has made a living of fighting the cops. If you're an activist whose sole employment is as a criminal defense attorney or community activist I believe you have a personal stake in making sure cops are viewed as oppressors in every incident. I believe the board should include representation from law enforcement because most people only interact with cops a handful of times in their lives through traffic stops. They get the rest of their information from tv and movies which gives them a terrible basis for decisions which affect public safety. Think about it this way... you don't want Feinstein making gun laws because she's demonstrated numerous times that she has absolutely no knowledge about guns or their function. Unless people are properly informed about police training, policies, laws, and tactics, how can they effectively determine what was reasonable or necessary? That's why I believe a balance is important. Maybe the solution is to send the board members on ride alongs with agencies outside of their area to give them a perspective of the job from a patrol car. Seeing firsthand how a cop works and how their shift progresses is important if you're going to pass judgement on their behavior. Maybe they should be sent through an academy to give them the same knowledge base a police officer receives? I certainly can't profess to know all the answers but there's got to be a middle ground somewhere.
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Jun 30, 2014 16:08
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quote:Do you really think that EVERY use of force by a police officer is unjust and an abuse of power? No, and I never said so. However, regardless of what I think, a majority of uses of force by the police are them brutally punishing citizens who have not committed a crime. This is not controversial, so please don't put words in my mouth.
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Jun 30, 2014 16:20
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Tias posted:No, and I never said so. However, regardless of what I think, a majority of uses of force by the police are them brutally punishing citizens who have not committed a crime. This is not controversial, so please don't put words in my mouth. I apologize, that wasn't my intent. I do disagree about use of force though. Do you have any stats to back it up?
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Jun 30, 2014 16:23
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Rent-A-Cop posted:I find it hard to believe that using the jury duty system for police oversight would be a major improvement considering what we know about juries. I'd much rather see an independent investigative agency handle the issue at the state level. Then again I tend to think and independent IG would solve a lot of the problems in government so I may have a bias. In my opinion, this reflects a common misunderstanding about dealing with corruption. It's always suggested that the most notoriously corrupt sorts of action get forwarded to another authority. The reasoning is that someone more divorced from the specific kind of situation in question is less biased and will be more accountable, and will thus be less prone to corruption when it comes to that certain thing. But it's not an unhealthy closeness to any given sort of power that gives rise to corruption, rather corruption is a natural and unavoidable part of being human interacting with authority, so much so that if you try to take the power that's being abused and give it to someone else, they are just going to monopolize that power as it can be used for their personal gain. Then, eventually, when enough people have been getting the undue benefits of that power for long enough, whatever fun oversight agency you've come up with gains enough institutional inertia that it sustains itself. Now you've created another monster, almost completely separate from the original corruption you were trying to fix. Which is still going on of course because we're all human, albeit now its happening at a higher level of governance. Once upon a time a civilization went so far as to chop the balls off a bunch of the dudes in Court so they could function as unbiased watchmen for the rest, unburdened by a need to create a genetic dynasty and male ego. They STILL ended up being massively corrupt and ended up toppling and/or being the shadow masters of more than one monarch. Corruption can't be made to vanish by swapping the burden of authority around, because at the end of the day the authority will still be invested in a person, and people are the entire problem. The only way I can see past this is to make such authority systemic in such a way as to no longer require human judgement at all. How you could even make a such a system without involving judgment to create in the first place (and thus turning the implementators and maintainers of the system into the corrupt watchmen) is beyond me, however. What is clear to me is that there is no one person or agency which would be the perfect maintainer of authority and never fall to corruption. No matter how carefully you nest and couch authority behind recursive oversight, the will of people to futz with the rules to get ahead will beat you every time. I don't think it's necessarily savagery or uncivilized behavior that can be educated or bred out, either. People are a little bit sketchy by nature. It's a solid survival trait and a side effect of cleverness.
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Jun 30, 2014 16:30
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SrgMagnum posted:I believe the board should include representation from law enforcement because most people only interact with cops a handful of times in their lives through traffic stops. They get the rest of their information from tv and movies which gives them a terrible basis for decisions which affect public safety. Think about it this way... you don't want Feinstein making gun laws because she's demonstrated numerous times that she has absolutely no knowledge about guns or their function. But on the oversight board itself, what do you think police bring to the table that a lawyer and/or judge wouldn't? Wouldn't they be able to distill the law enforcement process and rights for the civilians without police directly involved? e: For example in the OP the argument against civilian oversight is basically "uneducated civilians muddle the process," but if there are a few judges involved before it ever gets to the cops, doesn't that streamline the oversight from the police point of view? ChristsDickWorship fucked around with this message at 16:41 on Jun 30, 2014 |
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Jun 30, 2014 16:30
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SrgMagnum posted:I'm only speaking from my knowledge and experience but what I've seen is that most of the time officers deserving of punishment get it. quote:there are a good number of incidents of abuse that go unreported How can you hold these thoughts in your head at the same time?
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Jun 30, 2014 16:36
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Nathilus posted:In my opinion, this reflects a common misunderstanding about dealing with corruption. It's always suggested that the most notoriously corrupt sorts of action get forwarded to another authority. The reasoning is that someone more divorced from the specific kind of situation in question is less biased and will be more accountable, and will thus be less prone to corruption when it comes to that certain thing.
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Jun 30, 2014 16:37
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wixard posted:I agree with you, educating the civilian oversight would be key to it working out for everyone, and I like the idea that they could get to interact with cops more than just when something goes wrong, whether it's ride-alongs or whatever. A lawyer or judge won't have the same perspective as a line-level police officer. The comfort of a courtroom makes it very difficult to understand the very real implications of the decisions they make. I think having the experience of a cop on the board is important to ensure that side of the incident is taken into account to ensure balance. Having representation for each position gives the group a good range of information and access to each side of the story which is important in cases which are anything but black and white.
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Jun 30, 2014 16:44
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SedanChair posted:How can you hold these thoughts in your head at the same time? Is there a reason I shouldn't?
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Jun 30, 2014 16:45
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Rent-A-Cop posted:What was the point of this post? Is it just "Everything is hosed, we should all kill ourselves now."? Because I think you can safely assume nobody in this thread thinks any solution is going to some kind of perfectly incorruptible beep-boop computer. It's a critique concerning your method of dealing with corruption. I don't have a great counter-plan, I admit it, but the first step is getting brighter minds than mine looking at the issue from this perspective. Where it is understood that authority-swapping doesn't work and we need another way to deal with the issue. Just because you or I can't think of any better way to remove the harmful kinds of human agency from the equation than "computers" doesn't mean there isn't one. Perhaps we could find one, if more people could be convinced to look at the problem from this angle.
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Jun 30, 2014 16:47
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Cole posted:What are these other jobs and other skills
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Jun 30, 2014 16:53
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SrgMagnum posted:Is there a reason I shouldn't? If a lot of abuses are going unreported, how can you say that most cops who deserve to be punished are punished?
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Jun 30, 2014 16:54
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Nathilus posted:It's a critique concerning your method of dealing with corruption. I don't have a great counter-plan, I admit it, but the first step is getting brighter minds than mine looking at the issue from this perspective. Where it is understood that authority-swapping doesn't work and we need another way to deal with the issue. Just because you or I can't think of any better way to remove the harmful kinds of human agency from the equation than "computers" doesn't mean there isn't one. Perhaps we could find one, if more people could be convinced to look at the problem from this angle.
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Jun 30, 2014 16:56
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SedanChair posted:If a lot of abuses are going unreported, how can you say that most cops who deserve to be punished are punished?
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Jun 30, 2014 16:57
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cheese posted:Lets see, basic proficiency with a variety of equipment, ability to follow orders and a chain of command, willingness to be a team player and adopt an "us vs them" attitude, sense of loyalty and camaraderie, working knowledge of regulations and laws that apply to daily activities, and fortitude to withstand hours of sheer boredom while remaining "ready to go" during an emergency? I'd say that sounds a lot like a grunt in the US army. Lets be generous and call it an E5 Sergeant with a pay rate of 26k a year and benefits. I'm not sure I could put down most of that on an application.
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Jun 30, 2014 17:06
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SrgMagnum posted:A lawyer or judge won't have the same perspective as a line-level police officer. The comfort of a courtroom makes it very difficult to understand the very real implications of the decisions they make. I think having the experience of a cop on the board is important to ensure that side of the incident is taken into account to ensure balance. Having representation for each position gives the group a good range of information and access to each side of the story which is important in cases which are anything but black and white. Maybe I should point out, I'm not viewing the oversight board as a body that gets to directly make policy or discipline officers, I think it's the best way for the community to have a chance at figuring out what exactly is going on as they are being policed, and from there their problems go through the proper channels if they have a leg to stand on. I'm picturing a situation where the civilians basically do the legwork of oversight, and then filter any concerns they have through a judge. It seems like filtering it through both police and a judge wouldn't help the civilians, and the police on the board introduce very real possibilities to undermine the process, whether by being misleading about specific incidents to the board, or just reporting the minutes of meetings up the chain so coverups or spin can start early.
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Jun 30, 2014 17:10
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Rent-A-Cop posted:That's not a critique, it's just doomsaying. No. Your solution wouldn't work and I'm fairly confident that history is on my side in that regard. That doesn't mean there isn't a workable solution. It would be the epitome of stupidity to try the same thing again and again once it was clear that it never works. Instead it would become a better use of your time to consider alternate solutions.
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Jun 30, 2014 17:12
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wixard posted:I guess I don't get why the police perspective needs to be involved in deciding what the community is concerned about. The police involved in any of the board's recommendations/decisions/questions would get a chance to tell their side when the concerns of the oversight board were brought to the police, after they filtered through a judge. So cops have no spokesperson til after the fact. Gotcha.
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Jun 30, 2014 17:12
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cheese posted:If you kill too many wheelchair bound mentally disabled vets then you might go down the pecking order on promotion? "The universe balances it out man."
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Jun 30, 2014 17:12
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Cole posted:I'm not sure I could put down most of that on an application. SedanChair posted:"The universe balances it out man." 
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Jun 30, 2014 17:14
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Cole posted:So cops have no spokesperson til after the fact. Gotcha. After what fact? Whatever police behavior concerns the citizens speaks for itself. When they decide what concerns them, the cops get to respond.
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Jun 30, 2014 17:19
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SrgMagnum posted:I apologize, that wasn't my intent. I do disagree about use of force though. Do you have any stats to back it up? No, though my own anecdotal evidence is staggering: Every time I've been to a protest (and that's a lot of times), police have used pepper spray and batons to steer citizens in the direction they want, even if said citizens are compliant - and I live in a nation that is widely considered to have some of the best cops in the world (Denmark). In the states it appears to be a million times worse. I too would like to see statistics, as I am fairly sure they fit with my own experience.
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Jun 30, 2014 17:20
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The police protect the wealthy interests and the wealthy interests ensure that the police are protected from the citizens when they abuse their power. If the police ever for one minute thought that they would not get off every time they empty their magazine into a schizophrenic armed with a bic pen, then the whole system would break down.
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Jun 30, 2014 17:22
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Nathilus posted:No. Your solution wouldn't work and I'm fairly confident that history is on my side in that regard. That doesn't mean there isn't a workable solution. It would be the epitome of stupidity to try the same thing again and again once it was clear that it never works. Instead it would become a better use of your time to consider alternate solutions.
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Jun 30, 2014 17:24
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Rent-A-Cop posted:Maybe I'm misinterpreting you but so far what I've gathered is that you believe that all organizations eventually become corrupt if given any authority. That's not a critique of anything. It's just boo-hooing over the world not being perfect. The status quo is deeply flawed. Any replacement system will likewise be imperfect, but if it results in less injustice that's still a win. Doing nothing because we're all waiting on "brighter minds" to come up with some kind of perfectly incorruptible system that determines when it's wrong for a cop to kick the poo poo out of people is not an improvement. Since you acknowledge the flaw in the way we have been trying to do things, instead of just doing that all over again, why not try to do something that hasn't failed a few thousand times already? Whatever you want to try doesn't have to be incorruptible as long as you're trying to learn from your previously flawed premises and adapting. In that way, even if the solution isn't perfect, there can be advancement and more justice.
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Jun 30, 2014 17:35
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Nathilus posted:Since you acknowledge the flaw in the way we have been trying to do things, instead of just doing that all over again, why not try to do something that hasn't failed a few thousand times already? Whatever you want to try doesn't have to be incorruptible as long as you're trying to learn from your previously flawed premises and adapting. In that way, even if the solution isn't perfect, there can be advancement and more justice.
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Jun 30, 2014 17:38
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wixard posted:After what fact? Whatever police behavior concerns the citizens speaks for itself. When they decide what concerns them, the cops get to respond.
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Jun 30, 2014 17:38
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cheese posted:The police protect the wealthy interests and the wealthy interests ensure that the police are protected from the citizens when they abuse their power. If the police ever for one minute thought that they would not get off every time they empty their magazine into a schizophrenic armed with a bic pen, then the whole system would break down. poo poo, I'd settle for them not hitting random bystanders (and still being employed as armed officers after) when they decide to mag-dump on someone who they've determined is a threat as an improvement. LAPD and NYPD specifically have absurd rates of bad shootings by trigger-happy officers. Although really, anything over vanishingly rare is an absurd rate.
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Jun 30, 2014 17:41
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Liquid Communism posted:poo poo, I'd settle for them not hitting random bystanders (and still being employed as armed officers after) when they decide to mag-dump on someone who they've determined is a threat as an improvement. LAPD and NYPD specifically have absurd rates of bad shootings by trigger-happy officers. It is why shooting someone should be the absolute last resort.
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Jun 30, 2014 17:45
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Rent-A-Cop posted:What do you suggest? Your requirements seem to be that there not be any actual humans involved and that no one have any authority whatsoever lest it inevitably corrupt them. I mean, I suppose we could just go back to trial by combat and let God decide, but that seems like a step backward. People aren't generally good at things so we have schooling and training and so on. Maybe generalized anti-corruption programs/agencies could be a thing? Accretionist fucked around with this message at 17:53 on Jun 30, 2014 |
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Jun 30, 2014 17:51
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Zachack posted:The purpose of field staff in an oversight group is to help the group not waste time/effort/focus by answering (typically procedural) questions brought by other members. Most groups I've interacted with have a real problem stopping a rolling ball, regardless of the ball aiming for a valid target. A cop could be relegated to an advisory role (same with a judge) but expecting a group of random people to correctly identify and respond to something as poorly defined as the community is asking for problems, and the end point is that you'll probably wind up with a group that achieves less than nothing when it becomes an impotent figurehead, and that's assuming the group doesn't get infiltrated by someone with self-serving interests on either side. This is essentially my thoughts. The police officer is there to answer questions and clarify anything from his/her perspective and training. It'll help as one more level of immediate input on procedure, policy, culture, etc which will assist the group in making decisions/recommendations with full information. I guess I see the cop there in the same position as the judge, one more member of the board with a different background/perspective who is there as a resource for the group.
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Jun 30, 2014 17:51
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cheese posted:This comes back to a central problem of firearms in general, and handguns in particular: It is really really loving hard to hit a very small target (like a person) beyond like 10 feet if you are stressed out (and everyone is stressed out when shooting is happening). Other factors (longer distance, moving target, return fire, etc) just make it exponentially more difficult and handguns are almost hilariously hard to aim accurately in those situations. Bullshit on your first part. As someone who shoots regularly (and carries occasionally), hitting a man-sized target at 20 feet reliably is not some kind of mystic voodoo magic, it's a base standard of accuracy anyone who intends to have a firearm on their person can and should be able to master readily. If an officer can't manage that, they have no business being armed. I agree fully that shooting should be an absolute last resort, though. Having an effective death penalty for making a police officer uncomfortable (generally by being black) is part of why we have developed such an adversarial relationship between the cops and the people they're supposed to be policing.
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Jun 30, 2014 17:54
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Uh, and I'll call bullshit on you in turn. There's a huge difference between shooting for group at the range and trying to hit a moving person under stress. Yes, even at 7 yards. There's no way that police can be expected to do it with the level of training they receive.
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Jun 30, 2014 17:57
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Zachack posted:The purpose of field staff in an oversight group is to help the group not waste time/effort/focus by answering (typically procedural) questions brought by other members. Most groups I've interacted with have a real problem stopping a rolling ball, regardless of the ball aiming for a valid target. A cop could be relegated to an advisory role (same with a judge) but expecting a group of random people to correctly identify and respond to something as poorly defined as the community is asking for problems, and the end point is that you'll probably wind up with a group that achieves less than nothing when it becomes an impotent figurehead, and that's assuming the group doesn't get infiltrated by someone with self-serving interests on either side. I don't think the relationship between the two has to be completely adversarial, I just don't see how cops help the community decide what they like and don't like about how they are policed (given a judge or 2 are already involved). SrgMagnum posted:This is essentially my thoughts. The police officer is there to answer questions and clarify anything from his/her perspective and training. It'll help as one more level of immediate input on procedure, policy, culture, etc which will assist the group in making decisions/recommendations with full information. I guess I see the cop there in the same position as the judge, one more member of the board with a different background/perspective who is there as a resource for the group.
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Jun 30, 2014 17:57
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SedanChair posted:Uh, and I'll call bullshit on you in turn. There's a huge difference between shooting for group at the range and trying to hit a moving person under stress. Yes, even at 7 yards. There's no way that police can be expected to do it with the level of training they receive. Then clearly they need to be better trained. After all, there is a documented cost in innocent lives to not training them well. Or, if that's too much cost and effort, we could simply hold them legally accountable for bad shots, same as any civilian CCW holder would be. Probably not with jail time, given the circumstances, but definitely with revocation of the privilege of ever carrying a gun in an official capacity. Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 18:04 on Jun 30, 2014 |
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Jun 30, 2014 18:01
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Rent-A-Cop posted:What do you suggest? Your requirements seem to be that there not be any actual humans involved and that no one have any authority whatsoever lest it inevitably corrupt them. I mean, I suppose we could just go back to trial by combat and let God decide, but that seems like a step backward. Like I said, my counterplan sucks. That's an entirely different issue than the correctness of the critique. If I had a less brief background in sociology, maybe I'd be able to figure something out that takes the inherentness of corruption into account without having it be some ludicrous and infeasible notion. As it is, all I'm sure of in that regard is that we need to make decisionmaking more systemic when it comes to allocating authority. Perhaps that could be done through the ways in which oversight is handled, or changes in the ways which we commission violence. More broadly, we could look at the basis of the crime and punishment system, though that starts getting pretty pie in the sky to all but the starriest-eyed radicals.
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Jun 30, 2014 18:02
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