4 ms·

These need to be banned. No, I don't want to hear your pet exception. Loss of evidence isn't enough to justify the state murdering people.

jMyles 10y ago
> These need to be banned. It seems unlikely that the state will voluntarily cease this activity, as it achieves the quintessential goal of the state of instilling fear and creating the impression that the state lives in a legal and moral framework divorced from and above the common law. In libertarian circles, we often hear people advocate responding with violent self-defense. While this is perhaps more likely, if done with frequently and vigor, to result in meaningful change, it also continues to utilize a "might-makes-right" approach to political change, which I find even more abhorrent than the legislative process. So how do we achieve this ban peacefully?
- Analemma_ 10y ago
  One way might be to make the money for these settlements come partially or entirely from police union treasuries. Right now cops don't give a shit if someone is awarded millions in a wrongful death suit because, hey, it's not like they're paying for it-- that cost is all on the taxpayer. If it actually hit them in the wallet they might be a little more careful.
  - biofox 10y ago
    Perhaps police should be licensed like professionals (doctors / lawyers) and be required to have malpractice insurance. Premiums could be based on their prior conduct. Gross misconduct would result in them losing their right to work in law enforcement. I imagine that would solve the problem.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      > Perhaps police should be licensed like professionals (doctors / lawyers) and be required to have malpractice insurance. Or just not covered by a near-blanket immunity from liability. If they were exposed to personal liability, you wouldn't need to expressly require liability insurance, they'd see the need quickly. And insurers would probably take care of the equivalence of licensing requirements by the factors that controlled insurance pricing.
      - wahern 10y ago
        Police officers are exposed to personal liability more often than you'd think. But police unions almost universally require that the municipality indemnify or otherwise insure their officers for any personal liability. It's similar to D&O (director and officer) insurance that every corporation carries. Directors are exposed to substantial personal liability from stockholder suits, but all that cost is just passed through to the corporations. For many, many reasons I don't think professional liability insurance is a good comparison. Suffice is to say that being a cop is not a traditional professional occupation. The incentives just don't line up the same way. It's like arguing we could make the internet safer by making programmers personally liable for their bugs. There's some superficial logic to it, but only when you ignore the reality of the labor market and how it's structured.
        jMyles 10y ago
        You've made a somewhat strange comparison: > [advocating that police officers be personally liable for their conduct is like] arguing we could make the internet safer by making programmers personally liable for their bugs. What I like about this comparison: It treats police brutality as a systemic civic problem, like bugs in software that lead to global insecurity on the internet. Police brutality, like internet fragility, is a problem that threatens (at least nearly) everyone. Also similar is that people are reluctant to recognize the peripheral damage - police brutality decreases the quality of government and capacity for civic engagement for everyone, not just the victims. Things I don't like about this comparison: The idea of personal liability for programmers because bugs because internet insecurity is an incredible abstraction. Compared to, for example, police officers who literally break down people's doors and shoot them, it's pretty hard to see the similarity in terms of the connection. Also: a company that decides to deploy a product that contains bugs has an opportunity to audit the software in order to prevent that. There's really no similarity in that respect. These cops know better - nobody thinks that breaking down someone's door in the middle of the night and terrorizing their family is proper behavior for an adult in a free society. But they do it anyway. This is malicious, horrific conduct and it's a stretch to say that liability is improper for the perpetrators.
- dsfyu404ed 10y ago
  It actually works. Police in more armed areas of the country don't as often engage in BS (as apposed to justified) no-knock warrants because it's not worth risking lives over the chance that someone hears a bang at the door and grabs their gun to defend their family.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  For me? Leave. When you're fighting for the right not to have your door broken down and be murdered, it's time to leave.
- rayiner 10y ago
  > So how do we achieve this ban peacefully? Move outside the U.S.? Other developed nations seem to have solved the problem. I can only conclude that our approach to policing and criminal justice in the U.S. reflects a moral defect in the American people. I'm not sure it's fixable.
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    More importantly, who wants to spend their life trying (and almost certainly failing) to fix it, while being cursed by the very people you try to help? When the prescription for a society is a Christ-like figure, that society is in deep shit.
- petre 10y ago
  > In libertarian circles, we often hear people advocate responding with violent self-defense. It's not worth it. You'd probably get yourself and your family killed. The police has military grade equipment, SWAT teams have military training.

jMyles 10y ago

> These need to be banned. It seems unlikely that the state will voluntarily cease this activity, as it achieves the quintessential goal of the state of instilling fear and creating the impression that the state lives in a legal and moral framework divorced from and above the common law. In libertarian circles, we often hear people advocate responding with violent self-defense. While this is perhaps more likely, if done with frequently and vigor, to result in meaningful change, it also continues to utilize a "might-makes-right" approach to political change, which I find even more abhorrent than the legislative process. So how do we achieve this ban peacefully?

Analemma_ 10y ago
One way might be to make the money for these settlements come partially or entirely from police union treasuries. Right now cops don't give a shit if someone is awarded millions in a wrongful death suit because, hey, it's not like they're paying for it-- that cost is all on the taxpayer. If it actually hit them in the wallet they might be a little more careful.
- biofox 10y ago
  Perhaps police should be licensed like professionals (doctors / lawyers) and be required to have malpractice insurance. Premiums could be based on their prior conduct. Gross misconduct would result in them losing their right to work in law enforcement. I imagine that would solve the problem.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > Perhaps police should be licensed like professionals (doctors / lawyers) and be required to have malpractice insurance. Or just not covered by a near-blanket immunity from liability. If they were exposed to personal liability, you wouldn't need to expressly require liability insurance, they'd see the need quickly. And insurers would probably take care of the equivalence of licensing requirements by the factors that controlled insurance pricing.
    - wahern 10y ago
      Police officers are exposed to personal liability more often than you'd think. But police unions almost universally require that the municipality indemnify or otherwise insure their officers for any personal liability. It's similar to D&O (director and officer) insurance that every corporation carries. Directors are exposed to substantial personal liability from stockholder suits, but all that cost is just passed through to the corporations. For many, many reasons I don't think professional liability insurance is a good comparison. Suffice is to say that being a cop is not a traditional professional occupation. The incentives just don't line up the same way. It's like arguing we could make the internet safer by making programmers personally liable for their bugs. There's some superficial logic to it, but only when you ignore the reality of the labor market and how it's structured.
      - jMyles 10y ago
        You've made a somewhat strange comparison: > [advocating that police officers be personally liable for their conduct is like] arguing we could make the internet safer by making programmers personally liable for their bugs. What I like about this comparison: It treats police brutality as a systemic civic problem, like bugs in software that lead to global insecurity on the internet. Police brutality, like internet fragility, is a problem that threatens (at least nearly) everyone. Also similar is that people are reluctant to recognize the peripheral damage - police brutality decreases the quality of government and capacity for civic engagement for everyone, not just the victims. Things I don't like about this comparison: The idea of personal liability for programmers because bugs because internet insecurity is an incredible abstraction. Compared to, for example, police officers who literally break down people's doors and shoot them, it's pretty hard to see the similarity in terms of the connection. Also: a company that decides to deploy a product that contains bugs has an opportunity to audit the software in order to prevent that. There's really no similarity in that respect. These cops know better - nobody thinks that breaking down someone's door in the middle of the night and terrorizing their family is proper behavior for an adult in a free society. But they do it anyway. This is malicious, horrific conduct and it's a stretch to say that liability is improper for the perpetrators.
dsfyu404ed 10y ago
It actually works. Police in more armed areas of the country don't as often engage in BS (as apposed to justified) no-knock warrants because it's not worth risking lives over the chance that someone hears a bang at the door and grabs their gun to defend their family.
M_Grey 10y ago
For me? Leave. When you're fighting for the right not to have your door broken down and be murdered, it's time to leave.
rayiner 10y ago
> So how do we achieve this ban peacefully? Move outside the U.S.? Other developed nations seem to have solved the problem. I can only conclude that our approach to policing and criminal justice in the U.S. reflects a moral defect in the American people. I'm not sure it's fixable.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  More importantly, who wants to spend their life trying (and almost certainly failing) to fix it, while being cursed by the very people you try to help? When the prescription for a society is a Christ-like figure, that society is in deep shit.
petre 10y ago
> In libertarian circles, we often hear people advocate responding with violent self-defense. It's not worth it. You'd probably get yourself and your family killed. The police has military grade equipment, SWAT teams have military training.