Quote:
Originally Posted by GGG
The major issue with your contention is it’s false premise that if you accept 1 of something undesirable that you then must intern accept every instance of that undesirable thing.
Just a few of the differences
1) The organizers of the police force are responsible for the training and behaviour and discipline of their members. The loose “organizers” if there are any so not have any control over who shows up to a protest. Therefore there is a direct line of accountability between the state authorization of force and dead innocent people in the case of police that just doesn’t exist for the property damage in protest
2) Dead innocent people is NOT a natural consequence of policing. Though this point might be debatable in certainly isn’t a natural consequence at the rate of current US policing. Whereas large public gatherings of angry or happy people on occasion turn into riots. If your argument is that innocent people dying and being shot in the back is a natural consequence of policing then maybe we need to have a conversation about the role police should play in society.
So I don’t accept your false premise that if I am for one activity which may have a predictable consequence of property damage by individuals I must condone all instances where an activity may lead to law breaking by an individual.
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I don't think you or I condone anything at all (at least I don't read into your statements that you condone either).
You do, however, seem to indicate that we need to sometimes accept negative outcomes if the greater good is to be served. Rioters regularly target innocent people for direct harm even aside from property damage. It's okay to condemn both forms of injustice - it doesn't weaken your case against police brutality to do so. It's why we outlaw vigilantism regardless of it's rationale.
It's also a bizarre form of old-timey religious scapegoating to suggest that targeting a third party for the sins of the police is justified to create action. It just isn't productive.
We have handed our governments a monopoly on using violence (outside of self defence). This is one of the necessary principles that ensures that democratic societies can survive. But that power is also handed to people who we know are imperfect and subject to make mistakes. That's why even the aggressive prosecution of police for murder in appropriate cases won't eliminate the problem. Deterrents can't eliminate mistakes, by definition. They can reduce them,yes. Is it possible to eliminate human error in policing, when it is impossible to eliminate it in any other human activity?
Unless you can figure out how to run a society without handing the state a monopoly on violence, then we are going to be left with some level discontent about the unavoidable consequence of imperfect human judgement.