politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
That's an example of my point: your statement demonstrates a profound lack of understanding of the laws governing use of force. The government has trained police on these laws, but they have not trained you.
First off, referring to it as "capital punishment": the only entity authorized to mete out capital punishment is a judge and jury. Police are not at all involved in anything that can be described as "capital punishment".
Police may only use lethal force in the same circumstances that you or I may use it. The law does not grant police any additional authorization to use lethal force. Such force may only be used to stop a credible, criminal, imminent, threat of death or grievous bodily harm to an innocent person. The only difference between you shooting someone and police shooting someone in an identical situation is that the government has expressly trained them on the law, and they have not trained you. So, when you articulate your reason for shooting, your explanation is very likely to miss some important requirement, while the cop's explanation is fully consistent and compliant with the law. Your neighbor could be involved in an identical shooting, remain silent, and have his lawyer offer an explanation. I could be involved in an identical shooting, and articulate my justification the same way as the cop. Everyone of us - except you - would be deemed justified. But you, not having been trained on the laws governing use of force, could blurt out some irrelevant comment like "he needed to die" and be charged, because that comment suggested you had a mindset inconsistent with self defense.
The cops aren't the problem here. The problem is that the government has not provided you with the proper training on the laws governing use of force, so you don't understand the ramifications of what you say.
More importantly, because the government has not trained you on the laws governing use of force, you cannot accurately distinguish between a justified and an unjustified use of force. A cop, a lawyer, a juror, or someone else who has been trained in the laws can look at the situation and make an informed decision on whether the shoot was justifiable or not. You cannot. You can only make a decision on what "feels" right.
You need to be able to identify the law in question, and articulate your opinion on a use of force in terms of that law for your opinion to be sufficiently informed.