The Constitution is an obsolete document that should be trashed, but the entire judicial system in the US is completely broken and isn't going to be fixed.
Has been done, rewritten in rust belt framework, resulted in a opiod crisis. The problem is excess power liquidity sloshing around, corroding the system. The taxes were there for a reason.
Thomas Jefferson did advocate for provisions to rewrite it every 19 years, update it with contemporary philosophy. He might have been accepting of making it a blockchain technology.
James Madison “won” though and no such provisions were included. Madison felt we owed perpetual deference to past achievers, which sounds pretty monarchic.
If originalists have succeeded in anything (besides their takeover of the judicial branch of the US), it's convincing me of the same - the constitution as it was written is inadequate to govern an industrial society in the 20th century and beyond. Pragmatic people somehow made it work for a time, but that no longer seems feasible.
Exactly my point. It's outlived its usefulness. In addition to that, it was never a great system of government to begin with; it only seemed like it because there wasn't much competition at the time for democratic governments. These days, we have lots of examples of nations with better systems of government, and as far as I can tell, they're all parliamentary systems. Having the Executive separately elected sounds like a good idea if you only have experience with monarchies, but in practice it doesn't work out very well.
I honestly don't trust people of the modern age, who would be in the actual position of making that happen, to do it without corrupting it even further than they already have through decades of bad law and bad judgment. Would you want today's politicians writing the Constitution?
> Would you want today's politicians writing the Constitution?
Would you want today's politically appointed Supreme Court justices interpreting the Constitution? There's no difference.
From the article: "The Supreme Court created qualified immunity out of thin air in 1967, just six years after the Court first recognized that people could sue police officers and other government officials for violating their constitutional rights."
Having said that, a new American revolution that abolishes the Constitution would also presumably, hopefully get rid of today's politicians too.
Most revolutions result in absolute dictatorship. See Russia, Cuba, Iran. We're quite the anomaly. Saying the constitution is obsolete really shows almost no understanding of the document itself.
Before their revolutions, Cuba was a military dictatorship backed by the US, Russia and Iran monarchies (the latter also backed by the US). So the starting points were not great, to say the least.
> Saying the constitution is obsolete really shows almost no understanding of the document itself.
I have higher degrees in philosophy and political science, so I think I understand the document pretty well, thank you. Ironically, a lot of the US Constitution was actually cribbed from a British philosopher, John Locke, who wrote 100 years before the US Constitution, which is now almost 250 years old itself.
Imagine practicing medicine or science today based almost exclusively on 250 or 350 year old ideas.
The starting point is always bad before a revolution. Otherwise nobody would revolt. Revolutions almost never turn out well from what I can see. Opportunists will try to step in to grab power, and the masses are easily swayed.
> The starting point is always bad before a revolution. Otherwise nobody would revolt.
Well, it's a spectrum. The OP refers to the American revolution: "We're quite the anomaly." But obviously the starting point here was a lot better than in Russia, Cuba, or Iran.
> Revolutions almost never turn out well from what I can see.
What would you say about America? Or England?
Democracy has to be created and established somehow.
A lot of those revolutions almost worked out though - and with a less educated populace. Though I suppose social fabric/cohesion matters just as much as education.
I am not so sure. Qualified immunity is civil protection not criminal protection. That means that qualified immunity protects the police officer from being sued for money by a citizen. It does not protect the officer from being prosecuted by that conduct.
I am not sure that civil trials are a great way to protect Constitutional rights. The outcome of an egregious civil rights lawsuit is that the plaintiff gets paid money that comes from the city (via taxes) and the police depart and involved officer are otherwise unaffected. The real winners in changing qualified immunity would not be the public or the Constitution, but rather trial lawyers.
High profile state and federal prosecutions of police officers who violate civil rights are probably a much bigger deterrent to police officers violating the Constitution, and that is completely unaffected by qualified immunity.
If you really want something that is burning a hole in the Constitution, it is Civil Forfeiture. That one goes directly against the Fourth Amendment protection against government seizure.
At a local level, prosecutors depend on the continued cooperation of police to show results in their job, so there’s a massive conflict of interest in criminal accountability in all but the most egregious cases.
And whatever extent that higher-level prosecutions prove a deterrent (to say nothing of the fact that in many cases they may not have standing)… as long as minority families have to have The Talk with their kids, it is not a sufficient deterrent.
Having paths towards civil accountability is vital, but they are essentially nonexistent.
>It’s bonkers police are under no obligation to protect citizens[0
This always seemed intuitive and obvious to me. The constitution is almost entirely negative "freedom from" rights. Gaurenteed positive rights are impractical and generally unworkable. This is why government obligation to act is a matter of policy, not rights.
> Gaurenteed positive rights are impractical and generally unworkable.
Which is generally why such things are formulated as a duty instead. But you don't even need to do that in the case of the police. The police is special because they get granted the monopoly on violence. It seems obvious to me that granting such a powerful and dangerous tool should come with limits. E.g. the police is allowed to use violence only in the pursuit of protecting citizens.
So no, not a positive right, just a "freedom from" getting shot by the police for no reason.
America is such a weird country. I feel like it's (both practically and culturally) fascist. I am not trying to be dick or insulting, I mean big parts of the US closely fit the definition(s) [0]
But the US ended up on the Allies side in WW2, and much of he constitution (not all) follows classical-liberalism. So the US finds it's simultaneously talking about democracy and rights AND happier when those things are subverted/removed.
I know all nations contain contradictions. But I don't know any denied as this one...
The symbology isn't far from the mark, either, with the Senate seal consisting of "A red liberty cap above the shield and crossed fasces below the shield represent freedom and authority, respectively.", per Wiki. The Black Iron Prison remains; Rome has yet to fall.
This is true. It's also one of the largest and most diverse countries in the world, both geographically and demographically. Some might say it's ungovernable, the Disunited States.
> big parts of the US closely fit the definition(s) [0]
[Following the link] "What constitutes a definition of fascism and fascist governments has been a complicated and highly disputed subject"
Difficult to closely fit the definition when there's no clear definition. ;-)
This a straw man. The point here is truth and accuracy. Is the US fascist and "very illiberal"? No, I don't think so. Perhaps "moderately illiberal" would be more accurate.
Can the US be improved? Of course! My intention is not to defend the US but to accurately describe it. I don't think fascist is accurate. Above all, the US is large, complicated, and conflicted. Non-Americans like to paint America with a broad brush, but Americans are actually in widespread disagreement about a lot of things.
Every year there are around 1,000 people killed in police interactions. Every year around 25 of those cases were people who were unarmed and/or not actively trying to kill the police officer.
Now, that is 25 too many for sure. But in a nation of 350 million people, 25 unarmed people killed by cops is sad but statistically a rounding error. Also, most of the time the cops in those cases are rightfully convicted and sent to prison so qualified immunity isn't relevant.
That said, there are far too many other police abuses that need to be addressed which are a more significant issue because they affect far more people.
Not necessarily weight in on if fascists or not. But this point can definitely be true and we even have an example. Germany went from the loss of WW1 to the Wiemar Republican, probably one of the most liberal governments in its day, to Nazi Germany in pretty much a 20 year period.
America is a weird place. I would evaluate a more specific claim: Trumpism is Fascism, according to Eco's fourteen points:
> "The cult of tradition"
This point is rather weakly supported, as Trump does not attend any tradition whatsoever. However, his Supreme Court picks are originalists from the Federalist Society, whose purpose is the maintenance of tradition.
> "The rejection of modernism"
Anti-vax, anti-woke, anti-LGBT.
> "The cult of action for action's sake",
I don't see this in Trump specifically. The Iraq invasion, certainly, but that's far enough removed from Trumpism that I'll say nah.
> "Disagreement is treason"
This, 100 times over. Trump has used, if not these exact words, this sentiment towards any sort of criticism especially when it comes from within his own party/cabinet.
> "Fear of difference"
Mexico. China. Shithole countries. Saying American Congresswomen should "go back where they came from."
> "Appeal to a frustrated middle class"
Trump's anti-NAFTA stance was widely described as the reason that he was the economically rational choice for many voters who were displaced from the middle class when manufacturing jobs were exported by that agreement.
> "Obsession with a plot"
QAnon.
> "Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy"
Trump was curiously less hawkish than recent presidents; he gets a pass here.
> "Contempt for the weak"
Trump wears this on his sleeve and proclaims love, literally love for authoritarian leaders he sees as strong.
> "Everybody is educated to become a hero"
This point is somewhat weak; but his attack on John McCain stands out: "I like people who weren't captured"
> "Machismo"
Yes. From "grab 'em by the pussy" to sexualizing his own daughter to his "low energy" comments about his political opponents; there are too many examples to list.
> "Selective populism"
This is a common theme for Trump -- he frequently equates his opinion with the will of the people, and derides anybody who disagrees with him as un-American.
> "Newspeak"
Calling this "newspeak" is contentious; Eco's point was about promoting an impoverished vocabulary. The Republican party has long relied on "definitions," or linguistic originalism, to argue against social progress; specifically against gay marriage and trans rights.
By my count, that's 9.5/14. Trumpism is more fascist than not, by Eco's definition. Hitler was bent on world domination, which is the principle axis that Trumpism fails Eco's test. That Trump was elected points to the popularity of fascism in the US. It isn't a monoculture, America is not just fascist, but concerns about fascism are well-justified.
I don't think Umberto's points 1 and 2 match historical reality. The only political movement to ever call itself "fascist" was Italian Fascism, and Mussolini's comrades were not wedded to tradition and divorced from modernity. For example, they ran a campaign against pasta, because pasta was an "outdated tradition" and needed to be replaced by more modern foods. See also the many conflicts between the Fascists and the Catholic Church.
> Stripping cops - and only cops - of QI will lead to absurd legal results. (emphasis mine)
Followed by a 569-word hypothetical, which is then in turn followed by descriptions of other, narrowly-defined and unrelated types of immunity that have no bearing on the topic at hand.
It’s an interesting point if a person doesn’t know what qualified immunity as it is applied in non-hypothetical situations, today is.
The qualified immunity we have today came from a ruling in the late 1960s, at the end of the Civil Rights Movement which also spawned a lot of other laws that gave the police more powers. So unless we think the US was absurd in the 60s, it's an empty statement to say that it will lead to absurd results.
If you weren't a white man, I'm going to go out on a limb and say it was pretty absurd in the 1960s.
Also conspicuous that QI was introduced as a concept around the time police were being told they couldn't knock non-white heads in with impunity anymore.
IMHO, police officers as individuals should have qualified immunity. However, police departments and states should not have sovereign immunity for rights volations their agents commit.
Cops aren't constitutional lawyers, and rely on policy and training. States however are capable of hiring lawyers and setting appropriate policy and maintaining training curriculum.
I agree, the focus qualified immunity is only looking at a small part of the problem. Sovereign immunity for law enforcement is the larger issue from which all the misaligned incentives flow. A cop who beats their spouse can't claim that it's just part of their job. The same should apply to any action outside the bounds of written department policies, civilly and criminally.
Furthermore, innocent victims need to be compensated for the activities of the police department even when those activities are in line with department policies. If the police have a standoff and destroy a third party's house to get a suspect out, they should be jointly and severally liable for the damage. If the police arrest someone who is prosecuted and later found innocent or the charges are dropped, the person should be compensated for legal defense, time spent in jail, etc. Right now these externalities are effectively paid by a perverse reverse lottery where unlucky individuals get stuck covering the true cost of law enforcement, with little incentive for police departments to lessen their collateral damage. "You can be the rap but you can't beat the ride" should be seen as a bug to be fixed, rather than as a loophole of autocratic power to be exploited.
I think that's a fair point and question with regard to how we handle collateral damage from police action. The most important piece is probably how we handle Bond and people under investigation as well as their arrest records after the fact. I don't think that arrest records that do not lead to conviction should be able to be used by Third parties, although I understand that their retention is valuable for police themselves.
Ideally, holistic police oversight would take into account the damage they do and make sure that they take reasonable care to mitigate the damage. Ultimately the taxpayers should be on the hook one way or another for the full cost of police protection that they want
I'd say oversight and bail/bond issues are ultimately part of the poor incentives created by blanket sovereign immunity. If it were to cost $1k/day [0] to keep someone in jail awaiting trial, then those running the system have an actual tradeoff to make. Same thing if states have to start reimbursing the costs of bail bondsmen for those found innocent.
I'm not arguing against considering the qualitative issues on their own. I just think attempts to address them directly without addressing the underlying poor incentives are somewhat doomed. Additionally, plea bargains have to be massively reformed for the incentives to be significant.
Arrest records are an orthogonal topic squarely in the realm of commercial surveillance / data protection, which the US is sorely lacking. We need less narrow-scoped red tape like HIPAA and more general right to control all records about us ala GDPR.
[0] direct incremental costs paid out in cash if they're acquitted, as opposed to the large fixed costs of staffing the jail which come out of someone else's budget.
Cops control their police departments via police unions, and provide their own training that their departments disapprove of. The cops are the state, and decide their own policy
You'd like to think so. Unfortunately there are far too many folks in this country who would buy the "this candidate hates cops" and "that candidate wants crime unpunished" line spouted by those unions. Then the politicians who cross them lose, and their "tough on crime" replacement gives the union everything they want and more. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
All those "Thin Blue Line" flags you see everywhere? They have no interest in bringing the police unions to heel for covering up officer misconduct while on duty.
There are major cities in the US where even the mayor can't legally fire a police officer caught on video doing wrong.
Unions provide important balance to the relationship between labor and capital but public sector unions negotiate not against capital but against the public.
Moreover, the balancing force to union demands is that too many demands will kill the company and thus the union, so the union ultimately has a shared interest in the health of the company. Public sector unions have no such incentive.
Public sector unions benefit their members at the expense of everyone else, and should be considered a defect of the union system.
This argument sounds appealing because of the sleight of hand in how it uses the term "public". Public sector unions negotiate against varying levels of the state and while that generally translates to negotiating against representatives of the public that isn't actually the same as negotiating against the will of the public directly (unless you think your government representatives are perfectly representing their constituency) nor is it the same as negotiating against the best interests of the public (since public sector employees are tasked with objectives ultimately meant to persue the good of the public so by extension negotiating towards their well-being is also negotiating in favor of their ability to continue serving the public).
This is more conflating of synonyms. Just because the state represents the public in the literal sense doesn't mean it actually represents the desires of needs of the public in the sense of an abstract representation. The pedantry is important because in the former case the public has less reason to care if the activity is impeding the persuits of their representative beuracracy if those activities aren't representations of things the public actually cares about (or wants in the fashion they're being persued)
Further, because public sector workers still represent agents of the public until they're let go. If the state abuses its agents too thoroughly for them to perform their tasks, or simply enough to have an impact its agents well-being, then the union represents a corrective force to the state's shortsightedness. This is an important dynamic because workers are only easily replaced if the next group doesn't also come to feel similarly aggrieved enough to unionize and strike. Further still, I'd point out that equating the state to the public it serves is only useful if the argument assumes that the public should be free to abuse its agents without ethical qualm.
You’re saying that public sector unions can be good because sometimes their interests are aligned with that of the public and sometimes the state is not.
This does not generally happen, though the unions will say it does. On average, the conflict is as I described. On average, a typical person does not benefit from the union position. The edge case is not interesting.
I am appalled - APPALLED - at what law enforcement gets away with and at the most only loses their job. We only hear about killings, but the abuse of citizens is a daily occurrence. I think it always will be because humans are imperfect and you’re always going to have bad cops behaving badly. But we have GOT to have consequences for those folks. And, IMHO, they should be more severe than they are for me and you.
If you want to be appalled as well, watch the Court Cam stuff and look at what they do to people in front of judges no less.
It's surprisingly hard to get people to understand that police shouldn't be killing guilty people either if they have the option not to. Like that dude robbing a store doesn't automatically mean he should be gunned down without trial when he's not currently pointing a gun at anyone let alone after he's in cuffs. ESPECIALLY when we know cops can make mistakes with regard to identity.
64 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 126 ms ] threadJames Madison “won” though and no such provisions were included. Madison felt we owed perpetual deference to past achievers, which sounds pretty monarchic.
From the article: "The Supreme Court created qualified immunity out of thin air in 1967, just six years after the Court first recognized that people could sue police officers and other government officials for violating their constitutional rights."
Having said that, a new American revolution that abolishes the Constitution would also presumably, hopefully get rid of today's politicians too.
Before their revolutions, Cuba was a military dictatorship backed by the US, Russia and Iran monarchies (the latter also backed by the US). So the starting points were not great, to say the least.
> Saying the constitution is obsolete really shows almost no understanding of the document itself.
I have higher degrees in philosophy and political science, so I think I understand the document pretty well, thank you. Ironically, a lot of the US Constitution was actually cribbed from a British philosopher, John Locke, who wrote 100 years before the US Constitution, which is now almost 250 years old itself.
Imagine practicing medicine or science today based almost exclusively on 250 or 350 year old ideas.
Well, it's a spectrum. The OP refers to the American revolution: "We're quite the anomaly." But obviously the starting point here was a lot better than in Russia, Cuba, or Iran.
> Revolutions almost never turn out well from what I can see.
What would you say about America? Or England?
Democracy has to be created and established somehow.
I am not sure that civil trials are a great way to protect Constitutional rights. The outcome of an egregious civil rights lawsuit is that the plaintiff gets paid money that comes from the city (via taxes) and the police depart and involved officer are otherwise unaffected. The real winners in changing qualified immunity would not be the public or the Constitution, but rather trial lawyers.
High profile state and federal prosecutions of police officers who violate civil rights are probably a much bigger deterrent to police officers violating the Constitution, and that is completely unaffected by qualified immunity.
If you really want something that is burning a hole in the Constitution, it is Civil Forfeiture. That one goes directly against the Fourth Amendment protection against government seizure.
And whatever extent that higher-level prosecutions prove a deterrent (to say nothing of the fact that in many cases they may not have standing)… as long as minority families have to have The Talk with their kids, it is not a sufficient deterrent.
Having paths towards civil accountability is vital, but they are essentially nonexistent.
It’s like they have a license to do whatever in the hell they want.
[0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/justices-rule-po...
This always seemed intuitive and obvious to me. The constitution is almost entirely negative "freedom from" rights. Gaurenteed positive rights are impractical and generally unworkable. This is why government obligation to act is a matter of policy, not rights.
Which is generally why such things are formulated as a duty instead. But you don't even need to do that in the case of the police. The police is special because they get granted the monopoly on violence. It seems obvious to me that granting such a powerful and dangerous tool should come with limits. E.g. the police is allowed to use violence only in the pursuit of protecting citizens.
So no, not a positive right, just a "freedom from" getting shot by the police for no reason.
But the US ended up on the Allies side in WW2, and much of he constitution (not all) follows classical-liberalism. So the US finds it's simultaneously talking about democracy and rights AND happier when those things are subverted/removed.
I know all nations contain contradictions. But I don't know any denied as this one...
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_fascism#Umberto...
This is true. It's also one of the largest and most diverse countries in the world, both geographically and demographically. Some might say it's ungovernable, the Disunited States.
> big parts of the US closely fit the definition(s) [0]
[Following the link] "What constitutes a definition of fascism and fascist governments has been a complicated and highly disputed subject"
Difficult to closely fit the definition when there's no clear definition. ;-)
Are you proud your sports team isn’t on the bottom of the ladder? Or would it actually be productive and improve things if you compared up?
Can the US be improved? Of course! My intention is not to defend the US but to accurately describe it. I don't think fascist is accurate. Above all, the US is large, complicated, and conflicted. Non-Americans like to paint America with a broad brush, but Americans are actually in widespread disagreement about a lot of things.
It seems like it would be productive to be grounded in reality and actually know where you sit on the ladder.
You can still look at the top teams and want to be better, but lying and telling the team you are at the bottom isn't helpful.
Excellent freedom of speech (because someone in 1780 thought of that).
But you can be gunned down in the street by the police (because some guy in 1780 forgot to explicitly ban that).
It's a weird mix no? And the Liberal bits all date back to way before anyone now alive was born (with a few exceptions like gay marriage)
Now, that is 25 too many for sure. But in a nation of 350 million people, 25 unarmed people killed by cops is sad but statistically a rounding error. Also, most of the time the cops in those cases are rightfully convicted and sent to prison so qualified immunity isn't relevant.
That said, there are far too many other police abuses that need to be addressed which are a more significant issue because they affect far more people.
The statistical likelihood of that happening is approximately zero. Extrapolating from this to Fascism is plainly ridiculous.
> "The cult of tradition"
This point is rather weakly supported, as Trump does not attend any tradition whatsoever. However, his Supreme Court picks are originalists from the Federalist Society, whose purpose is the maintenance of tradition.
> "The rejection of modernism"
Anti-vax, anti-woke, anti-LGBT.
> "The cult of action for action's sake",
I don't see this in Trump specifically. The Iraq invasion, certainly, but that's far enough removed from Trumpism that I'll say nah.
> "Disagreement is treason"
This, 100 times over. Trump has used, if not these exact words, this sentiment towards any sort of criticism especially when it comes from within his own party/cabinet.
> "Fear of difference"
Mexico. China. Shithole countries. Saying American Congresswomen should "go back where they came from."
> "Appeal to a frustrated middle class"
Trump's anti-NAFTA stance was widely described as the reason that he was the economically rational choice for many voters who were displaced from the middle class when manufacturing jobs were exported by that agreement.
> "Obsession with a plot"
QAnon.
> "Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy"
Trump was curiously less hawkish than recent presidents; he gets a pass here.
> "Contempt for the weak"
Trump wears this on his sleeve and proclaims love, literally love for authoritarian leaders he sees as strong.
> "Everybody is educated to become a hero"
This point is somewhat weak; but his attack on John McCain stands out: "I like people who weren't captured"
> "Machismo"
Yes. From "grab 'em by the pussy" to sexualizing his own daughter to his "low energy" comments about his political opponents; there are too many examples to list.
> "Selective populism"
This is a common theme for Trump -- he frequently equates his opinion with the will of the people, and derides anybody who disagrees with him as un-American.
> "Newspeak"
Calling this "newspeak" is contentious; Eco's point was about promoting an impoverished vocabulary. The Republican party has long relied on "definitions," or linguistic originalism, to argue against social progress; specifically against gay marriage and trans rights.
By my count, that's 9.5/14. Trumpism is more fascist than not, by Eco's definition. Hitler was bent on world domination, which is the principle axis that Trumpism fails Eco's test. That Trump was elected points to the popularity of fascism in the US. It isn't a monoculture, America is not just fascist, but concerns about fascism are well-justified.
See: Post-Reconstruction such as the Wilmington insurrection
Followed by a 569-word hypothetical, which is then in turn followed by descriptions of other, narrowly-defined and unrelated types of immunity that have no bearing on the topic at hand.
It’s an interesting point if a person doesn’t know what qualified immunity as it is applied in non-hypothetical situations, today is.
[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity#:~:text=His....]
Also conspicuous that QI was introduced as a concept around the time police were being told they couldn't knock non-white heads in with impunity anymore.
IMHO, police officers as individuals should have qualified immunity. However, police departments and states should not have sovereign immunity for rights volations their agents commit.
Cops aren't constitutional lawyers, and rely on policy and training. States however are capable of hiring lawyers and setting appropriate policy and maintaining training curriculum.
Furthermore, innocent victims need to be compensated for the activities of the police department even when those activities are in line with department policies. If the police have a standoff and destroy a third party's house to get a suspect out, they should be jointly and severally liable for the damage. If the police arrest someone who is prosecuted and later found innocent or the charges are dropped, the person should be compensated for legal defense, time spent in jail, etc. Right now these externalities are effectively paid by a perverse reverse lottery where unlucky individuals get stuck covering the true cost of law enforcement, with little incentive for police departments to lessen their collateral damage. "You can be the rap but you can't beat the ride" should be seen as a bug to be fixed, rather than as a loophole of autocratic power to be exploited.
Ideally, holistic police oversight would take into account the damage they do and make sure that they take reasonable care to mitigate the damage. Ultimately the taxpayers should be on the hook one way or another for the full cost of police protection that they want
I'm not arguing against considering the qualitative issues on their own. I just think attempts to address them directly without addressing the underlying poor incentives are somewhat doomed. Additionally, plea bargains have to be massively reformed for the incentives to be significant.
Arrest records are an orthogonal topic squarely in the realm of commercial surveillance / data protection, which the US is sorely lacking. We need less narrow-scoped red tape like HIPAA and more general right to control all records about us ala GDPR.
[0] direct incremental costs paid out in cash if they're acquitted, as opposed to the large fixed costs of staffing the jail which come out of someone else's budget.
Saying No to union demands is always an option on the table.
All those "Thin Blue Line" flags you see everywhere? They have no interest in bringing the police unions to heel for covering up officer misconduct while on duty.
There are major cities in the US where even the mayor can't legally fire a police officer caught on video doing wrong.
Moreover, the balancing force to union demands is that too many demands will kill the company and thus the union, so the union ultimately has a shared interest in the health of the company. Public sector unions have no such incentive.
Public sector unions benefit their members at the expense of everyone else, and should be considered a defect of the union system.
Their only leverage is not doing their job. How, exactly, is not doing their job serving the public a form of serving the public?
Further, because public sector workers still represent agents of the public until they're let go. If the state abuses its agents too thoroughly for them to perform their tasks, or simply enough to have an impact its agents well-being, then the union represents a corrective force to the state's shortsightedness. This is an important dynamic because workers are only easily replaced if the next group doesn't also come to feel similarly aggrieved enough to unionize and strike. Further still, I'd point out that equating the state to the public it serves is only useful if the argument assumes that the public should be free to abuse its agents without ethical qualm.
This does not generally happen, though the unions will say it does. On average, the conflict is as I described. On average, a typical person does not benefit from the union position. The edge case is not interesting.
If you want to be appalled as well, watch the Court Cam stuff and look at what they do to people in front of judges no less.
Consequences, man. This is not too much to ask.
This cop should be in jail: https://youtu.be/pkmBbkvqi4w
So should this one: https://youtu.be/VG7NxaW-sdE
https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/
It's surprisingly hard to get people to understand that police shouldn't be killing guilty people either if they have the option not to. Like that dude robbing a store doesn't automatically mean he should be gunned down without trial when he's not currently pointing a gun at anyone let alone after he's in cuffs. ESPECIALLY when we know cops can make mistakes with regard to identity.