"You are overly fixated on trying to get a hard quantified numeric chance, I think. People--maybe not everybody, but the vast majority--aren't trying to evaluat

"You are overly fixated on trying to get a hard quantified numeric chance, I think. People--maybe not everybody, but the vast majority--aren't trying to evaluate probabilities to come up with a number they can test against some standard amount." I'm not fixated on a hard numerical about, just on the standard for civil law - more likely than not. That's the standard it's required to be compared against. "And if you try to force them to come up with a number, that number is mostly going to come out of thin air." Thats not at all the case for the flight risk matrices used in your other example. So it is possible to quantify it. "But if you try to pin down a more precise definition, you will likely find more definitions than people articulating them" Which is why we have statutes - to ensure the rules of society have been agreed upon and recorded. '"Risk" is something that is likely enough to occur that you want to mitigate the possibility of it happening.' It's not defined in law or colloquial dictionaries that way. Any level of possibility of loss meets the definition of risk. "The net standard is looking at somebody, and asking yourself the question "do I feel that this person poses a sufficient risk to warrant temporary suspension of liberty;" the legal requirements end up being more of a framework to explain why you came to the decision you did." Got it - this is an oligarchy where the laws are used post facto to justify your own personal views. Essentially, one doesn't have rights because they are subjected to the whims of a few, undermining one of the main purposes of laws and process.