What a lovely bunch of statists we have here (hi Steophan!)

The BBQ Pit
41

We don’t have a “complex”, you fucking moron. We simply judge the police the same way we judge other people, by what they actually say or do, not what is reported in the more sensationalist end of the media, or we can glean from a snippet of video. And where other people have seen more than we have, such as a jury, we accept that we don’t know everything.

Also, “reasonable fear” is clearly defined. It’s whether a reasonable person would be in fear in those circumstances. Obviously, the jury are reasonable people.

42

Did it do that in Nazi Germany? The comparison was hyperbole when I posted it in the thread, but at this point I’m kind of wondering if it even is that. The law doesn’t define justice, you bootlicking twit.

43

If I were one of the jurrors, neither explanation would “endear” me to the guy.

44

Trial by jury suffers the same flaw as democracy, which is to say, us dummies. I ruefully accept that flaw in democracy and accept that it is unavoidable and, despite that flaw, more just than any other system. Juries will return utterly unjust verdicts. I will not “get over it”, but don’t have a better idea.

45

Ok, define “justice” without laws. Or “right” and “wrong”. They are not abstract things floating around in the cosmos that we can somehow pick up on, they are things that a society agrees on, and codifies as laws. Whether those laws are judicial, religious, or just some unspoken agreement that people imperfectly understand, they necessarily exist.

I’d prefer the first by a huge margin.

As to whether laws in Nazi Germany were just, go ask a Nazi. They were the ones who wrote the laws, based on their values. Your values (and mine) differ radically from theirs, as do the societies we live in, so obviously we won’t consider them just. But we are right to consider them unjust only by the standards of our society, not as some sort of universal truth.

That’s your problem. You think you’ve stumbled upon the ultimate truth of right and wrong, and act accordingly. You haven’t, just as no religion or society has, nor ever will.

46

This says infinitely more about your character than anything I could say would. Wow.

47

What, exactly, does observing that there is no such thing as objective morality say about my character?

48

I don’t quite understand the attitude of “if you criticize the system in any way, you want anarchy and extra-judicial justice.”

I believe the point of the original thread was to show that the laws that we do have are not working for the purposes of creating a fair and peaceful society, instead, the laws that we have and the way they are implemented are causing distrust between the police and the community. This is objectively a “bad” thing if you are interested in achieving those goals.

Not speaking for you, but I don’t think that your goal is to throw out the laws and create mob justice, but instead find ways of changing the laws and their implementation to get closer to the ideals that would lead to that fair and peaceful society.

Will cops occasionally get away with “murder”? probably, but so will civilian criminals. The objection is that nearly every cop gets away with homicide, which would be “justice” only if nearly every civilian criminal also gets away with it. As I am not a big fan of anarchy on that side either, and I would like to see most of the people who cause the untimely death of another human to be punished in a way that deters others from killing, I would rather that the rate of anyone getting away with murder to be on the fairly low side. Stephon’s idea that we essentially give civilians the same level of deference as we give to police officers is fair, but could lead to some unintended consequences, if the state no longer needs to prove I killed a person, but also needs to prove that I did not feel any fear.

As I said earlier, either upthread here or in the original thread that spawned this, the real solution, IMHO, is to not use the same prosecutor that would prosecute the people the cop arrests. Whether it is using one from another county, another state, a federal prosecutor, or creating a new position specifically for the purpose of investigating and prosecuting police abuses of power. The prosecutor that works closely with the police is going to have a hard time pushing the prosecution of a cop as zealously as he would push the prosecution of some “scumbag criminal”. I don’t care how noble or ideal the prosecutor is, it is human nature that you cannot condemn your friends with the same vehemence as you condemn your enemies.

I do think that if the prosecutors were treating the cops the same way as they would treat the suspects that were never given a badge and a gun, then we would start seeing some of these wrongful deaths start getting punished accordingly.

49

So apparently Slappy thinks being educated in the subject at hand equals being a “bootlicker.” Do tell us more, foreigner w/ no knowledge of US laws nor LE policies & procedures.

Oh, and why are you stopping at the Lincoln Administration as to how blacks were treated? Why not bring up how blacks were treated under Washington’s Administration as well? It would be just as relevant.:rolleyes:

As Bricker noted, cops are not obligated to retreat from threats under the law. In fact, their duty is to face threats (although not in an unreasonable manner, as you seem to think). Do police policies request that they back up when it is safe to do so for both officer & others? Yes, they do. But that’s not always an option. No two incidents are exactly alike (especially when they occur in two different countries w/ differing laws, imbecile!).

You have no business arguing on a subject like this when you don’t even understand the difference between homicide & murder. Arguing further only serves to cement your ignorance in the minds of the readers of this thread.

50

If your form of “justice” involves the murder of millions, we are clearly talking about different things, or you belong in some kind of institution.

51

Literally everything. You just admitted that murder, rape, etc aren’t wrong.

We may not all agree on everything, but there definitely is an objective morality. There are things that are actually wrong.

Either you don’t mean what you said, or you are a psychopath. I’d hope for the former, but you seem sincere. You just tried to argue that what Nazis think is moral is just as valid as anything else.

I literally would not trust you to be alone with anyone without hurting them because you might think that your subjective morality would allow you to do so.

52

You know, normally I’d disagree with you. Just because morality isn’t “objective” doesn’t suddenly make murder, rape, or genocide okay.

And then I look back and notice he is literally using “morality is subjective” to defend the laws that sent jews to their deaths, and I realize that no such defense is appropriate.

Fuck that guy.

53

And, when that happens, it means the system is broken. Justice was not served. The system therefore needs to be improved to lessen the chance of this happening.

It’s not a feature of the system. It’s just an attempt to make sure bugs in the system fall on the right side. It’s still a flaw when a murderer goes free.

If you think murder is wrong, then you are going to try and make sure the system improves so that murderers don’t go free. You’re not going to pretend the system is perfect.

In fact, we know the system is flawed for at least one reason: eyewitness testimony is considered very reliable by jurors, but is factually very unreliable. We also have statistics that suggest that cops get unreasonable doubt in cases, due to this idea that cops have earned some right to have their testimony have more weight. They don’t. They are just people, and a cop is going to try and get out of getting in trouble like anyone else.

That these cases keep coming up without the cop being convicted is pretty big evidence that the system is flawed in favor of cops. So you can’t cite the system as evidence that the guy was not a murderer.

54

Once again, there is no flaw in a system that occasionally allows murders to go free. The system is set up to ensure that the accused has every chance to defend themselves, and the burden is on the govt to prove to the jury beyond any reasonable doubt as to their guilt. This should be a high bar. Some criminals should be able to get off. Setting the bar lower, ensuring that no criminal gets off, increases the chances that innocents are punished for crimes they did not commit.

The problem is that there are two standards. If you are a poor minority, accused of a crime, you are pretty much going to be convicted, whether or not you did it. The state’s accusation against you, along with LEO testimony is enough to put even the most law abiding person in jail, unless they can afford to mount a competent and comprehensive defense, one better than the public defenders are able to mount.

The fact that a poor minority will almost certainly go to jail on nothing more than the testimony of a cop, while a cop will almost certainly get off while there are multiple witnesses and video to their action is the problem.

55

No, I did not. They are wrong. That doesn’t mean they always were wrong, always will be wrong, or are wrong everywhere in the universe.

Point to this objective morality. Describe a test for it following the scientific method. Describe in scientific terms the properties of “wrongness”, and how it attaches to an object. If you can’t, it doesn’t objectively exist.

Of course its just as valid. Morality is nothing more (or less) than a choice we as individuals or societies make. There is no definition, and no consequence, for choosing a right over a wrong action except those we impose on ourselves or those society imposes. There is, in short, no god or other force that can tell us what’s right or wrong.

And yet, somehow, we continue to move forward, in general, to societies where people are treated better, where they live more comfortable, more pleasant and generally happier lives. That is because we ditch the prescribed morality of the past, that which taught that people were inferior due to their gender, race, security or what have you.

You don’t want to progress, you think you know “the truth”. You, like Budget Player Cadet, are on the side of the devils in this argument.

You should do the same with everyone you meet, assess who they are and what they believe before giving them responsibility. Because, like it or not, they all gave different moral views, and will act differently.

For what it’s worth, the only times I’d consider it right to hurt someone are in self defence or the defence of another, or if it’s consensual funtimes, such as BDSM sex or a boxing match. Or, thinking about it, if you’re a medical professional who needs to perform a painful procedure or examination. There’s probably others similar to the latter as well.

56

Just saw you posted this in anotger thread. And yet, here you call me a psychopath. You sad, pathetic hypocrite. You can’t even live up to your own standards, let alone the “objective” ones of your imaginary God.

57

Bravo! Well said! That is by far the best defense of nazis I have ever seen. Not, you know, a good defense, as there really isn’t a good defense for genocide, but you put your all into it, and it shows.

Yes, and we move forward due to people like BCP and others pointing out that “that’s wrong” when they see injustices, and in spite of people like yourself who demand to know the scientific definition of “wrong” before you are willing to do anything to correct them.

58

What he is arguing for is not the correction of injustices but an increase in the amount of them, by denying rights to a subset of people. Denying them to the police is no better than denying them to any other group.

And if you think that observing that Nazis didn’t think what they were doing was wrong, but that I and the vast majority of people on modern societies do, is defending them then, well, I really don’t know what. You’ve claimed I said the literal opposite of what I actually did, for some reason.

59

Dude, you said there was no objective morality. That alone tells me you have no moral code and I wouldn’t trust you with a fork if my back was turned.

60

I do not think that that is his argument at all, but I will let him continue if he so desires. My argument, and the argument that I believe that BPC and even bt are trying to make is that rights are currently being denied to a certain subset of people. That there is a double standard. And that that double standard is not “justice”.

The police are getting a benefit, a privilege, that ordinary citizens do not get. Whether the reparation for this is to take away that privilege or to grant it to all is a good question for debate, but you seem to refuse to acknowledge that it exists and that it is a problem.

You are not claiming that nazis didn’t think what they were doing was wrong, you were claiming that what they were doing was not wrong, given that they can only be judged by their own morality.