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points by vrganj 2 days ago | 0 comments

That is a wonderfully naive understanding of the world.

You should ask Alex Pretti how he was able to criticize to criticize the government without repercussion.

IMO This is an even more naive (and dare I say intentionally malicious) bad-faith misinterpretation of the facts.

His death had nothing to do with the Constitution, it was because of a trigger-happy, confused cop who had his back to the guy, then noticed a gun next to him (that another officer previously put there). The US government had no part in that situation at all.

[–] vrganj 2 days ago

That's kind of the point.

The constitution is just some rules people wrote up generations ago. It's not a magic spell that has power by itself, it is only effective as a social contract as long as power structures agree to follow it.

If armed government enforcers break it with impunity, what good is it?

[–] cowlevel 2 days ago

I think that's exactly the point. The constitution didn't prevent his death.

What are cops if they're not the government? Are they private corporations?

[–] majorchord 2 days ago

I don't understand the issue since no law can physically prevent people from breaking it.

Of course cops are the government, but they're also humans that make mistakes and commit crimes themselves. But this isn't actually related to some greater constitutional crisis or anything, unless you have some evidence that suggests they were instructed to act the way they did... but I've never seen anyone come forward with that yet.

[–] vrganj 2 days ago

The original argument was that the constitution protects you from government tyranny.

You have government officials tyranizing the population and now the argument is "of course it can't prevent that".

What good is it then?

[–] majorchord 1 day ago

> In the United States, the right to petition is enumerated in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which specifically prohibits Congress from abridging "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances".

I think the key point is that it allows this "petitioning" of the government in the first place, that's what it's good for. But you still have to go through the court system to right any wrongs, which includes misbehaving police who may be breaking the law themselves.

The Constitution is not a judge, jury or executioner, so in a way it was always "limited" in what it can do if it's not actually respected.

[–] vrganj 1 day ago

If you do your petitioning and then get shot by a government agent, then the piece of paper giving you the right is worthless and you don't really have the right. How is the justice system going to right the wrong? Are they going to resurrect the victim?

Anyone can write high minded promises. It's the real life application that makes them rights.

"The government" isn't some abstract cloud somewhere. It's a collection of people, and it's their actions that count, not their marketing.

[–] majorchord 20 hours ago

> If you do your petitioning and then get shot by a government agent, then the piece of paper giving you the right is worthless and you don't really have the right.

Hard disagree, there is no evidence that the agent acted in that exact way at the instruction of the government, I do not believe that it makes people's rights worth any less.

To me this is like saying rights are somehow fundamentally useless just because murderers exist in the world. Or accidents. Makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever.

[–] nullstyle 2 days ago

The US government is responsible for the training of its agents. It is culpable as well.

[–] platevoltage 2 days ago

If you can't exercise your rights without being murdered by a state sanctioned thug, then it's not really a right. Also, has he been indicted yet? charged?