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> "Justice" is only available to the rich in the US. I disagree. I think we can all agree the government has a monopoly on violence which it is relatively incl
by kodah 5y ago
> "Justice" is only available to the rich in the US.
I disagree. I think we can all agree the government has a monopoly on violence which it is relatively inclined to use. The US system depends on the idea that someone will challenge the use of that monopoly in their particular instance, which we call precedent. It is true that people not-of-means may be subject to that violence unjustly but it only takes the government messing with the wrong person once to establish precedent. The wrong person could be rich but they could also just be a person who catches public support.
- coldtea 5y ago>but it only takes the government messing with the wrong person once to establish precedent. Kind of like the case of police routinely shooting unarmed blacks and getting off scot-free? This system seems to have worked wonders to prevent this from happening. Or maybe they just haven't messed with the wrong person yet, since Rodney King hardly changed anything, and Derek Chauvin's convinction wont either...
- kodah 5y ago> Kind of like the case of police routinely shooting unarmed blacks and getting off scot-free? That's not quite the same. Murder didn't need precedent, however, establishing some framework for grading police incidents retroactively does. What gets in the way of that is existing laws which protect police officers wholesale. If you're trying overturn an entire existing law for a new framework, that's a bit outside the bounds of precedent because you're not longer talking about interpretation.