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I think it’s terrible that these unscrupulous officers are hiding behind QI when they knew what they were doing was both wrong and unconstitutional…not to menti

I think it’s terrible that these unscrupulous officers are hiding behind QI when they knew what they were doing was both wrong and unconstitutional…not to mention mean. Their mothers taught them better than this. I also think we should find a way to reform the function of QI as a protection for civil servants. But. This is why moral leadership matters in government, at every level. The government’s agents will always possess enough power to hurt or embarrass or kill its citizens and the truth is that no amount of fear of prosecution will fully take that away. The particular law enforcement office in this case has a massive cultural problem if it would tolerate this kind of thing in the first place. If the officers involved knew their superiors would discipline the hell out of them for engaging in this kind of behavior, it wouldn’t happen nearly as much. But the reform there isn’t just to fix the law, it’s to fix the process of selecting and incentivizing law enforcement leadership, too. Sheriffs and prosecutors should be expected to run on a zero tolerance policy for this kind of evil and be hauled in front of city council to testify every time it happens. It’s embarrassing for a community and we should all expect better of the people we trust with our public safety. I understand that there are recruiting challenges with LEO’s and it can be tenuous for a mayor to get too confrontational with the sheriff. Maybe we need an independent oversight board or something. But we can re-incentivize good behavior, and then expect our leaders to exhibit it.

horsawlarway 2y ago
The literal president of the US is issuing scam-crypto and the supreme court has ruled that they can take bribes. From my perspective - honor and integrity in the government is clearly gone. The moral leadership has exited the building, and is currently getting buried in the ditch out back. There's not even enough accountability to pretend anymore. It's going to be a long, hard road back to anything that approaches "ok", and my guess is it's going to have to happen at the extreme local level.
- iambateman 2y ago
  Yes. Let's get to work.
  - mrguyorama 2y ago
    You're missing that the moral leadership was removed by popular vote. Americans apparently don't want classy government. Americans want reality TV in the white house. How do you convince 70 million Americans who aren't interested in listening to external wisdom, of anything?
    - iambateman 2y ago
      I don’t know. We should start there, though. In 1995 a majority of Americans believed interracial marriage was wrong, and now it’s 5%. We, the people who love civility and good governance and peace, have work to do. But social norms can and do change.
      - mrguyorama 2y ago
        I hope it's obvious by now that apparently plenty of those people did not change their opinion, just their words. Christ, Clarance Thomas frequently signals that he wants to roll back the legal protections for interracial marriage and just look at his marriage. As soon as the House puts forward a bill to ban interracial marriage, you can rest assured that 5% is suddenly more like 50%. We are going backwards and they've been eagerly waiting to dig out the old social norms. Assholes on twitter are already back to using "retard" as a slur, as if 4chan is a role model.
        LorenPechtel 2y ago
        I don't think that all that many people actually changed their minds. Rather, those who grew up after the civil rights movement weren't indoctrinated into racism and thus most are not racist. I have yet to meet anyone who in any way indicated a problem with me marrying outside my race. (I have encountered a few online.) She, however, has had multiple incidents of criticism for marrying outside hers. As for "retard" it's always been an insult within my life. Xitter has become the domain of assholes, it's not surprising you see it a lot more than you used to.
    - s1artibartfast 2y ago
insane_dreamer 2y ago
> moral leadership matters in government Yes, but I think it's pretty clear the "majority" of Americans don't consider moral leadership to be of much value, certainly not compared to the price of eggs or making sure trans people use their "God ordained bathroom".
- wat10000 2y ago
  I think it's more that they have a _very_ different view of what morality consists of.
  - wizzwizz4 2y ago
    For some things (e.g. abortion), this is a plausible explanation; but that doesn't explain the sheer vindictiveness of confiscating the travel documents of people who are at risk of bodily harm if they can't leave the region (to give one example).
    - wat10000 2y ago
      It does. A major (perhaps the sole) aspect of this morality is that certain people are good and certain people are bad and the rules exist to benefit the former and to be used against the latter.
  - insane_dreamer 2y ago
    Do they? From what I've read, they tend to excuse Trump's immorality (which is pretty obvious), because "cheap gas" and "deep state Marxists". It's really hard to square Trump with "traditional American Judeo-Christian morals".
    - wat10000 2y ago
      I don't mean "traditional American Judeo-Christian morals," whatever those are. I mean an authoritarian mindset. Trump is definitionally good because he's "strong" and he's their leader. Similarly, police are definitionally good because they enforce the law. Anything they do (unless it's against their own, or against a group more worthy than they) is therefore inherently justified. They excuse Trump's immorality because they don't see it as immorality. They might talk about it in those terms, but that's just because they know that things like having sex with a porn star while married is generally considered wrong. It's not actually used as part of the evaluation of how good or bad a person is.

horsawlarway 2y ago

The literal president of the US is issuing scam-crypto and the supreme court has ruled that they can take bribes. From my perspective - honor and integrity in the government is clearly gone. The moral leadership has exited the building, and is currently getting buried in the ditch out back. There's not even enough accountability to pretend anymore. It's going to be a long, hard road back to anything that approaches "ok", and my guess is it's going to have to happen at the extreme local level.

iambateman 2y ago
Yes. Let's get to work.
- mrguyorama 2y ago
  You're missing that the moral leadership was removed by popular vote. Americans apparently don't want classy government. Americans want reality TV in the white house. How do you convince 70 million Americans who aren't interested in listening to external wisdom, of anything?
  - iambateman 2y ago
    I don’t know. We should start there, though. In 1995 a majority of Americans believed interracial marriage was wrong, and now it’s 5%. We, the people who love civility and good governance and peace, have work to do. But social norms can and do change.
    - mrguyorama 2y ago
      I hope it's obvious by now that apparently plenty of those people did not change their opinion, just their words. Christ, Clarance Thomas frequently signals that he wants to roll back the legal protections for interracial marriage and just look at his marriage. As soon as the House puts forward a bill to ban interracial marriage, you can rest assured that 5% is suddenly more like 50%. We are going backwards and they've been eagerly waiting to dig out the old social norms. Assholes on twitter are already back to using "retard" as a slur, as if 4chan is a role model.
      - LorenPechtel 2y ago
        I don't think that all that many people actually changed their minds. Rather, those who grew up after the civil rights movement weren't indoctrinated into racism and thus most are not racist. I have yet to meet anyone who in any way indicated a problem with me marrying outside my race. (I have encountered a few online.) She, however, has had multiple incidents of criticism for marrying outside hers. As for "retard" it's always been an insult within my life. Xitter has become the domain of assholes, it's not surprising you see it a lot more than you used to.
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago

insane_dreamer 2y ago

> moral leadership matters in government Yes, but I think it's pretty clear the "majority" of Americans don't consider moral leadership to be of much value, certainly not compared to the price of eggs or making sure trans people use their "God ordained bathroom".

wat10000 2y ago
I think it's more that they have a _very_ different view of what morality consists of.
- wizzwizz4 2y ago
  For some things (e.g. abortion), this is a plausible explanation; but that doesn't explain the sheer vindictiveness of confiscating the travel documents of people who are at risk of bodily harm if they can't leave the region (to give one example).
  - wat10000 2y ago
    It does. A major (perhaps the sole) aspect of this morality is that certain people are good and certain people are bad and the rules exist to benefit the former and to be used against the latter.
- insane_dreamer 2y ago
  Do they? From what I've read, they tend to excuse Trump's immorality (which is pretty obvious), because "cheap gas" and "deep state Marxists". It's really hard to square Trump with "traditional American Judeo-Christian morals".
  - wat10000 2y ago
    I don't mean "traditional American Judeo-Christian morals," whatever those are. I mean an authoritarian mindset. Trump is definitionally good because he's "strong" and he's their leader. Similarly, police are definitionally good because they enforce the law. Anything they do (unless it's against their own, or against a group more worthy than they) is therefore inherently justified. They excuse Trump's immorality because they don't see it as immorality. They might talk about it in those terms, but that's just because they know that things like having sex with a porn star while married is generally considered wrong. It's not actually used as part of the evaluation of how good or bad a person is.