5 ms·
The hard shell of society is an illusion. Among other things, the shortages and price inflation of the last two years have shown that things don't just work on
by csours 5y ago
The hard shell of society is an illusion. Among other things, the shortages and price inflation of the last two years have shown that things don't just work on their own. Things work when people try really hard every day to make them work.
---
Justice has never been evenhanded or totally just. Punishment is always something we reserve for other people, we almost always have a justification for our own actions.
Celebrity and money makes people deferential, even people in the justice system.
As divisive as Me Too and BLM have been, they have shown the difference in power in a very bright and harsh light.
Is Justice an illusion worth preserving? How would we replace that illusion? What would come after?
- giantg2 5y agoIt doesn't have to be a complete restart. We could make incremental changes, like limiting prosecutorial and law enforcement discretion (this should lead to BS laws being removed from the books because they no longer affect only targeted groups), holding those in power accountable instead of hiding behind special privileges (complaints against judges are so secret that they don't have to turn over exculpatory evidence), making magistrates at least pass the bar to prevent total incompetence, actually adhering to strict construction and not legislating from the bench, etc.
- csours 5y ago> limiting prosecutorial and law enforcement discretion For instance, right now the issue of Cuomo's prosecution is in the news[0]. The prosecutor dropped the charges because it looks like it will be hard to get a conviction. Is this corruption or is this protection of limited resources? It's really hard to say from the outside and it seems like either interpretation could be legitimate without knowing more. Someone has to make the call, grand juries do something like this, but it's not the job of a grand jury to balance limited resources. Any imaginable system will have flaws. I don't think you're wrong, and I do think it's a line of thinking worth pursuing. 0. For example: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/01/nyregion/andrew-cuomo-charges-case.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/01/nyregion/andrew-cuomo-cha...
- giantg2 5y agoThis is sort of a moot point. The court system should be expanded due to the perennial backlog, making resources less constrained. If there's probable cause to make an arrest, then it should be followed through for the court/jury to decide, not a DA. On a side note, it sounds like it is difficult to get a conviction under that law and not just in this one case. It could be that the law was poorly written or shouldn't exist at all.