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> The police can and absolutely do arrest, intimidate, harass, and violently assault people for unspecified, fabricated or utterly bullshit reasons I was going
by jjav 4y ago
> The police can and absolutely do arrest, intimidate, harass, and violently assault people for unspecified, fabricated or utterly bullshit reasons
I was going to include a sentence on police corruption in the original response but decided to leave it out. Yes, that happens, far more often than it ever should. But an important point is that it is corruption. It is not how the system is supposed to work. It's not much consolation to the victims of said corruption, but it is an important distinction in how society is built. Given that it is corruption it's at least possible to fight it. Maybe not personally (unless you're rich) but via organizations such as the ACLU and (some of) the press.
> Unfortunately, access to a rented VM doesn't quite rise to that level of seriousness.
In today's world, it does.
Just this week there was a discussion here on how the unjustified account blocks impact the poor with the least resources.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32304320 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32304320
- vkou 4y ago> But an important point is that it is corruption. It's only corruption if they are doing it for the benefit of someone in particular (Say, a politician that uses them for a personal vendetta). Most of the time, they aren't, they are just doing it because their mentality is to treat the citizenry as the enemy. It's not corruption, nobody benefits from it, it's just plain banal evil. > It is not how the system is supposed to work. According to who? You and me? Sure, but we're a minority opinion on this question. The public is overwhelmingly opposed to us on this. > In today's world, it does. > Just this week there was a discussion here on how the unjustified account blocks impact the poor with the least resources. Strong disagreement. All of these problems are nothing compared to what one bad cop (Or landlord, or employer, or boss, etc, etc, etc) on a power trip can do to you, especially if you are poor. And, as I said, they are one of the more 'accountable' institutions you get to interact with. You have (in theory) legal and constitutional protections against abuse by them.
- jjav 4y ago> > It is not how the system is supposed to work. > According to who? You and me? No, not you and me; the law as written. Sure the police often ignore the laws and too often get away with it, but because there are laws written down there is at least an opportunity to challenge the injustices in court. In contrast with the cloud companies who don't reveal any of their rules and just ban people left and right for no discernible reason and there is no possibility to challenge these arbitrary rulings anywhere.