What's with the Ad Hoc approach to the Justice System?
I get that many (most?) Americans have no developed admiration for our rules of criminal law. It is one of those things like the Bill of Rights or separation of powers that people shrugingly approve as what is without thinking through why... at least not in a way that inculcates those things as virtuous in whole.
What I do not get is people very interested in government who have contempt for legal theory and procedure. They are the same thing. What happens in a courtroom is just as much an expression of our national philosophy, the philosophy implied by our common law, and our Constitution as anything that goes on in Congress or the White House.
I am very upset when people need to know who is in the White House before knowing how they feel about a policy. It suggests that the person has no use for the systems that have given us what little sanity and justice we do have, and are simply interested in outcomes.
I get ends justifying means. If it was known with metaphysical certainty that the only way Obama could possibly have defeated Romney was to rig the vote or snoop into IRS records, or wiretap his phones then I'd have a tough ethical call to make because electing Romney would have dire, awful real-world effects on a macro-level. Wars. Starvation. Etc..
But there is no criminal trial ever where a desired outcome is worth a deformed or crooked process. No criminal conviction is that important. It is not war with Iran. Maybe the world of high-tech terror does justify everything the NSA does... maybe it does.
But NOTHING is big enough to be worth fucking with the criminal justice system in a given case.
To me, any deviation from the burden of proof or the reasonable doubt threshold is the same as selective voter suppression or a law against worshiping Allah or criticizing the government. It's a red-flag OMG violation of our deepest principles.
How could anyone have different notions of criminal justice based on the people involved, the outcome they desire, or a theory of the case they have concocted?
It boggles my mind. I wanted Scooter Libby to receive every possible protection... the same as if an assistant of Joe Biden's was on trial. It is a TRIAL. That's about as close to church as our government gets! It is sacred stuff.
And reforming criminal trials was part and parcel of OUR cause. Integration, reproductive rights, freedom to publish, gay rights, criminal justice reform. Miranda. Gideon. Reforms of a legal system that had for a very long time been putting people in jail without honoring the logic of our system of government. And they still do, but at least we have moved past some of the worst policies and procedures.
How can anyone have a different opinion of the rightness some legal procedure or presumption based on how they want it to turn out?
I honestly cannot understand it.
It is like having a different opinion of who should vote based on how they will vote. It's madness.
The Right Wing position is to be an irrational fan of skewed justice in cases where they "know" who's guilty. That is what RWers do. There is no comparable liberal stance. It is an atavistic defect of human reason and mental self-control that liberalism has always striven to overcome.
When a liberal becomes a RWer is support of what they think to be a liberal cause then they are a RWer. Period. Conservatism is primarily a mode of thought, not a set of positions. Conservatives that that rich white people should always win, and that all these systems of rights and procedure liberals built are impediments to what they *know* should happen.
There will be another case next week, next month, next year where precisely the same people here, and at Free Republic type sites, will entirely reverse their theory of criminal justice based on what outcome they desire. And then back again when the next case comes along.
And on both sides, many people will recognize no internal corruption in themselves that allows them such fickle principles of convenience.
I do not get it.
I really do believe that the Westboro Baptist Church does and should have the same rights I do. I actually believe that. For real. Not as some means to an end as a tactic of supporting my rights, but because I believe they really do have and deserve those rights. Everyone really does have a right to believe in some hateful mutant god that I am certain does not exist.
And I believe that everyone has the same rights in the criminal justice system. Always and everywhere. There are no shortcuts through the bullshit to find "real" justice because unless you are GOD then this system is, for all its flaws, the realest justice we have been able to devise and maintain here. It is a tightrope walk over chaos... we humans are never very far from tossing women we don't like for whatever reason (aka "witches"
in the pond to see if they float.
= new reply since forum marked as read
