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The fundamental problem with addressing racism in society is that, while it's entirely possible to prove that widespread racism exists, it's often (if not usually) impossible to prove it on an individual basis. So you end up with a situation where, even if you know that, statistically, a person's actions were likely motivated by racism, you can't really prove it or justify them being legally punished. The key assumption of posters like Jarmak is that loosening the burden of proof in cases suspected to involve racism (and the more frequent wrongful convictions of racism/discrimination-related crimes that would result) is more harmful than the results of the racism itself. While I think it's possible that this may be true and is definitely an argument worth considering, I believe it is definitely wrong to just assume that it must be the case. People like this seem to ignore the fact that the status quo is causing substantial harm and use "but this solution would also cause harm" as an argument against it, when that's completely irrelevant if the harm caused by the solution would be less than the harm caused by the status quo. My personal feeling is that it is doubtful the harm caused by loosening the burden of proof in potential instances of racism/discrimination is greater than the harm of the racism/discrimination itself. I also have a really difficult time thinking of a situation where someone is accused of racism/discrimination and is not actually guilty of it to some degree, so I doubt that wrongful convictions would be that common even if you did loosen the burden to some extent. Helsing posted:Don't worry, nobody is suggesting that the entire adversarial court system should be scrapped altogether but it's remarkable how quick you are to defend a set of institutional arrangements with such manifestly dysfunctional, racist system. The way in which most American jurisdictions deal with criminal issues is broken and it's pretty hard to read your constant nit picking and misleading presentations of what the original article says as anything other than an attempt to imply that the system is basically working as intended with only minor flaws. I don't think that the issue is so much that Jarmak wants to maintain the status quo (though he clearly doesn't consider changing it to be a high priority). I think that he just has this image in his head of a dumb/naive leftist and cannot bring himself to appear to agree with one (or someone he perceives to be one). I think this actually applies to many of the people who do nothing but attack and nitpick the arguments people make on various social justice-related issues like this. They're not so dumb that they actually believe the racism/discrimination in situations like this to be actually good or justified, but they also don't want to be associated with the people who are more actively against it.
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Nov 9, 2015 20:02
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VitalSigns posted:Why not do something similar to what other multiethnic societies do in power-sharing agreements, something like what we already do under the UCMJ by allowing an enlisted defendant to demand that at least one-third of the jury be made up of enlisted servicemembers. Also, it sure is easy to say that the current system is the best when you're not part of a demographic that is being screwed over by it. Even if the current system was the best (which I find extremely doubtful), I would still not fault disadvantaged groups for saying "gently caress you" towards the people advocating for the status quo.
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Nov 11, 2015 06:07
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Dead Reckoning posted:Being a member of a disadvantaged group does not give you a pass on having to articulate a rational and coherent basis for changes to the law. I think the more important part of my post is the part that points out that it is nigh-impossible to prove that the status quo is the best system possible, yet we have people in this thread claiming that all possible changes would make it worse*. Even if you disagree with every change that people have proposed, the rational conclusion would be "the status quo is still unacceptable and we should continue to search for something that helps to alleviate its problems." Of course, if you're not part of one the demographics harmed by the status quo and lack empathy there isn't really much pressure to seek this change, which is why people are (rightly) assuming the posters who defend the status quo aren't good people. *Their evidence for "make it worse" is usually actually just "would have problems," which isn't a convincing rebuttal in light of the fact that the status quo also has serious problems.
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Nov 11, 2015 23:21
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