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Why are those who follow immoral laws not accountable?

Nursie 12y ago
This is my problem with policing in general. The drug laws in particular cause so much harm, but there are many bad laws. As a police officer you have to be involved in enforcing them all regardless. I don't think that scrapping enforcement is a viable or useful option but...
madaxe_again 12y ago
Because those who would hold them accountable either created or support said immoral laws. Also, you could go the deontological route, and say that by doing their duty they are being moral, for what other measure do you have, in a subjective and self-referential world? Although frankly I think that you either have to be amazingly naïve or amazingly egoistical (or both) to work in law enforcement and not have moral qualms about your employ.
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  Harsh! Without police, random thugs would rule. Now you may slander police as thugs, but they follow rules, and those rules can be changed. Where your random thug is just out for himself, and out to get your stuff.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > Now you may slander police as thugs, but they follow rules They are supposed to follow rules (aka, the law), just like everyone is supposed to. There are quite reasonable bases for being concerned that they too often don't, and that they are less constrained to do so than others, because they receive preferential treatment from the enforcers of the law, being as how that is their own community.
    - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
      Be as concerned as you need to be. But 'no police' is a polyanna foolishness. Somalia has no police. That is not a good place to be.
      - innguest 12y ago
        Your argument is: - Somalia has no police - Somalia is not a good place to be - therefore those two things must be related somehow Which is wrong, because if that was the case, Iceland wouldn't have survived 300 years without police in the medieval age. Instead may I recommend you start here: http://world.intellectualprops.com/liberty/faq-anarchy-in-somalia-and-its-relevance-to-anarchismstatelessness/ http://world.intellectualprops.com/liberty/faq-anarchy-in-so...
    - sosborn 12y ago
      >they too often don't define "too often." Of the many interactions police offices have with civilians in a calendar year, what percentage of them could be classified as corrupt/evil?
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - madaxe_again 12y ago
    I'm not saying there shouldn't be police - I'm saying that people who want to be police should not be police. The vast majority of police work could be carried out by individuals selected through sortition, not dissimilarly to jury duty. For longer-term roles, which require a higher level of expertise, we have no solution right now other than career law enforcement folks, but soon, AI could fill that gap.
rayiner 12y ago
There are "immoral laws" and there are "immoral laws." Mandatory female genital mutilation is an "immoral law." Making drugs illegal might be bad policy, but I don't think it rises to the level of immorality. The fact is that drugs have externalized effects, whether you're talking about peer pressure to engage in drug use, crack babies, broken homes, or drug addicts committing crimes to feed their addictions. It's a pretty widely-accepted that society has a right and legitimate interest in policing things that have externalized effects. It may be the case that it's futile to make drugs illegal--that criminalization creates worse societal harms than drug use, but that doesn't make the laws immoral because there is no denying that drug use does in fact cause societal harms. Drug laws are in that sense no different than gun control laws or liquor laws. They may or may not have the intended effect, but it's hard to deny that they address real societal harms.
- venomsnake 12y ago
  The current drug laws have quite a bit of racism woven into their fabric. This is quite high on the immoral scale. From everything I have read the 100:1 (and the current 18:1) ratio was targeted towards minorities. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Sentencing_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Sentencing_Act
- vidarh 12y ago
  > Making drugs illegal might be bad policy, but I don't think it rises to the level of immorality. I do. Because we know that it leads to increased detrimental effects of abuse amongst those that abuse drugs, as well as vast amounts of violent crime to support the drug industry. Personally, I consider legislators that continue to support drug laws no better than mass murderers. > The fact is that drugs have externalized effects There is however little to no evidence that outlawing drug use has had a positive effect on these, and a lot of evidence that outlawing drug use is directly causing some of these, such as pushing drug addicts into other crime. Before these effects were understood I would have agreed that drug laws were not yet immoral. But these effects are known. There's no excuse. > that doesn't make the laws immoral because there is no denying that drug use does in fact cause societal harms. Since when it is a requirement that a law has not positive effect for it to be immoral? > Drug laws are in that sense no different than gun control laws or liquor laws. What massive social harm does gun control laws or liquor laws cause? How many people are left dead because of gun control laws or liquor laws? > it's hard to deny that they address real societal harms. Yes, they are causing a substantial proportion of them.
simonh 12y ago
Whatever our attitude might be towards drug legalization, expecting a government agent to throw their career by taking a principled moral stand against, er, shutting down drug dealing networks, is perhaps going a bit far. There certainly are areas of government or law enforcement work that I would not like to participate in for personal moral reasons, but without going into the specific technicalities of how this particular investigation might have been conducted, this isn't one of them (though I'm a Brit so this particular case doesn't apply to me, but of course we have similar laws and similar investigations). The war on drugs may be a bad idea, but that doesn't make drug dealers activities OK. They are after all knowingly and directly funding the gangs and cartels that are murdering people all over Mexico and Colombia. Yes, Silk road sold Cocaine and not just domestic American weed. The law enforcement guys busting those people are doing good work, it's just that the reasons they have to do it are bad. That's on us and our elected representatives more than it is on them as government agents. This is why I have no time for users of hard drugs claiming they're sticking it to the man and it's a libertarian issue. Yes it is, but that's no excuse for voluntarily choosing to fund murderers.
- innguest 12y ago
  You are voluntarily choosing to fund murderers by merely circulating the US currency, and obviously by paying taxes. We all weigh these things out. Maybe the cocaine buyer is funding wars, but it's not his fault, just like it's not your fault that there's a war in the Middle East.

This is my problem with policing in general. The drug laws in particular cause so much harm, but there are many bad laws. As a police officer you have to be involved in enforcing them all regardless. I don't think that scrapping enforcement is a viable or useful option but...

madaxe_again 12y ago

Because those who would hold them accountable either created or support said immoral laws. Also, you could go the deontological route, and say that by doing their duty they are being moral, for what other measure do you have, in a subjective and self-referential world? Although frankly I think that you either have to be amazingly naïve or amazingly egoistical (or both) to work in law enforcement and not have moral qualms about your employ.

JoeAltmaier 12y ago
Harsh! Without police, random thugs would rule. Now you may slander police as thugs, but they follow rules, and those rules can be changed. Where your random thug is just out for himself, and out to get your stuff.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > Now you may slander police as thugs, but they follow rules They are supposed to follow rules (aka, the law), just like everyone is supposed to. There are quite reasonable bases for being concerned that they too often don't, and that they are less constrained to do so than others, because they receive preferential treatment from the enforcers of the law, being as how that is their own community.
  - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
    Be as concerned as you need to be. But 'no police' is a polyanna foolishness. Somalia has no police. That is not a good place to be.
    - innguest 12y ago
      Your argument is: - Somalia has no police - Somalia is not a good place to be - therefore those two things must be related somehow Which is wrong, because if that was the case, Iceland wouldn't have survived 300 years without police in the medieval age. Instead may I recommend you start here: http://world.intellectualprops.com/liberty/faq-anarchy-in-somalia-and-its-relevance-to-anarchismstatelessness/ http://world.intellectualprops.com/liberty/faq-anarchy-in-so...
  - sosborn 12y ago
    >they too often don't define "too often." Of the many interactions police offices have with civilians in a calendar year, what percentage of them could be classified as corrupt/evil?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- madaxe_again 12y ago
  I'm not saying there shouldn't be police - I'm saying that people who want to be police should not be police. The vast majority of police work could be carried out by individuals selected through sortition, not dissimilarly to jury duty. For longer-term roles, which require a higher level of expertise, we have no solution right now other than career law enforcement folks, but soon, AI could fill that gap.

rayiner 12y ago

There are "immoral laws" and there are "immoral laws." Mandatory female genital mutilation is an "immoral law." Making drugs illegal might be bad policy, but I don't think it rises to the level of immorality. The fact is that drugs have externalized effects, whether you're talking about peer pressure to engage in drug use, crack babies, broken homes, or drug addicts committing crimes to feed their addictions. It's a pretty widely-accepted that society has a right and legitimate interest in policing things that have externalized effects. It may be the case that it's futile to make drugs illegal--that criminalization creates worse societal harms than drug use, but that doesn't make the laws immoral because there is no denying that drug use does in fact cause societal harms. Drug laws are in that sense no different than gun control laws or liquor laws. They may or may not have the intended effect, but it's hard to deny that they address real societal harms.

venomsnake 12y ago
The current drug laws have quite a bit of racism woven into their fabric. This is quite high on the immoral scale. From everything I have read the 100:1 (and the current 18:1) ratio was targeted towards minorities. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Sentencing_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Sentencing_Act
vidarh 12y ago
> Making drugs illegal might be bad policy, but I don't think it rises to the level of immorality. I do. Because we know that it leads to increased detrimental effects of abuse amongst those that abuse drugs, as well as vast amounts of violent crime to support the drug industry. Personally, I consider legislators that continue to support drug laws no better than mass murderers. > The fact is that drugs have externalized effects There is however little to no evidence that outlawing drug use has had a positive effect on these, and a lot of evidence that outlawing drug use is directly causing some of these, such as pushing drug addicts into other crime. Before these effects were understood I would have agreed that drug laws were not yet immoral. But these effects are known. There's no excuse. > that doesn't make the laws immoral because there is no denying that drug use does in fact cause societal harms. Since when it is a requirement that a law has not positive effect for it to be immoral? > Drug laws are in that sense no different than gun control laws or liquor laws. What massive social harm does gun control laws or liquor laws cause? How many people are left dead because of gun control laws or liquor laws? > it's hard to deny that they address real societal harms. Yes, they are causing a substantial proportion of them.

simonh 12y ago

Whatever our attitude might be towards drug legalization, expecting a government agent to throw their career by taking a principled moral stand against, er, shutting down drug dealing networks, is perhaps going a bit far. There certainly are areas of government or law enforcement work that I would not like to participate in for personal moral reasons, but without going into the specific technicalities of how this particular investigation might have been conducted, this isn't one of them (though I'm a Brit so this particular case doesn't apply to me, but of course we have similar laws and similar investigations). The war on drugs may be a bad idea, but that doesn't make drug dealers activities OK. They are after all knowingly and directly funding the gangs and cartels that are murdering people all over Mexico and Colombia. Yes, Silk road sold Cocaine and not just domestic American weed. The law enforcement guys busting those people are doing good work, it's just that the reasons they have to do it are bad. That's on us and our elected representatives more than it is on them as government agents. This is why I have no time for users of hard drugs claiming they're sticking it to the man and it's a libertarian issue. Yes it is, but that's no excuse for voluntarily choosing to fund murderers.

innguest 12y ago
You are voluntarily choosing to fund murderers by merely circulating the US currency, and obviously by paying taxes. We all weigh these things out. Maybe the cocaine buyer is funding wars, but it's not his fault, just like it's not your fault that there's a war in the Middle East.