Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963)
africa.upenn.edu> Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I have been arrested on a charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade. But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest.
> I hope you are able to see the distinction I am trying to point out. In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist. That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.
I always have to go back to read this part again because I feel like it's so unexpected. You don't really hear anyone saying quite the same thing today.
I don't think you hear it much these days because the punishments are extremely harsh and the best you can hope for is the state merely extorting thousands of dollars out of you and a life-long black mark for employment. Ive had jobs grinding raw castings in 100+ degree environments that full time that paid less than $30K which required background checks.
Unless you got $10K+ to drop on a private lawyer before hand, going to court in the US is a HUGE risk that in most cases is going to cost you many thousands of dollars in court fees and fines regardless with the risk of more jail time and more fees if you can't pay it off on their schedule.
> I don't think you hear it much these days because the punishments are extremely harsh
Civil rights activists, including King, lost their lives for daring to challenge injustice. The penalties are no more severe today than they were then.
The incarceration rate today is 4x that what it was in MLK's day. And im willing to bet the monetary punishments are similarly increased, if not even higher.
>The incarceration rate today is 4x that what it was in MLK's day.
What percentage of that is from civil disobedience vs "the war on drugs"?
It’s pretty classic civil disobedience. In my mind it’s really the founding principle of the states. There is a difference between what is legal and what is just. For the past 250 years what is just has continually evolved and expanded.
> Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice.
- Civil Disobedience
And the "unjust" principle works in the opposite direction, nowadays, for ICE / certain US Federal employees.
Justice is supposedly enabled / supported by the law against second-degree murder. And it's is unlikely to be applied to the ICE officer who shot Renee Good unnecessarily:
- https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2026/01/17/rene...
ICE is actually routinely breaking both the letter and the spirit of the law. There are now dozens of videos of them harassing, intimidating, beating, or detaining people for exercising protected speech.
A spokesperson for DHS just last week openly said that they're allowed to arrest people based on "reasonable suspicion" which is unambiguously illegal.
> There are now dozens of videos of them harassing, intimidating, beating, or detaining people for exercising protected speech.
Show me one. I have already seen countless claims of this sort, only to later line them up with video footage that clearly demonstrates that "exercising protected speech" was not the cause of action and that the response was clearly justified.
For example, freedom of speech does not allow one to block traffic for protest purposes, or blocking entrances to buildings, or preventing pedestrians from passing by on the sidewalk (https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_pdf_file/kyr_...). And it certainly does not allow violence against ICE officers or other citizens, both of which I've seen a fair bit of.
I have even seen multiple examples of protesters enacting their own Terry stops against people they suspect of being ICE agents.
> openly said that they're allowed to arrest people based on "reasonable suspicion" which is unambiguously illegal.
Show the quote, and show the relevant law.
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Whoever flagged this comment while it's at +3, please feel free to explain how you think it's in any way counter to HN guidelines.
SCOTUS has deemed Kavanaugh stops to be legal, i.e. you can be stopped on the basis of your apparent ethnicity alone
Kavanaugh's concurrence (https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/25a169_5h25.pdf) literally says the opposite:
> To be clear, apparent ethnicity alone cannot furnish reasonable suspicion; under this Court’s case law regarding immigration stops, however, it can be a “relevant factor” when considered along with other salient factors. Id., at 887.
Sure, but the intent and effect is to give cops more leeway in using perceived ethnicity as a factor. In the full passage, he explicitly says that given the prevalence in LA of undocumented immigrants from Latin America working in particular jobs, local police are permitted to detain such workers who appear Latine (i.e. to racially profile them).
A fuller quote:
> To stop an individual for brief questioning about immigration status, the Government must have reasonable suspicion that the individual is illegally present in the United States ... Reasonable suspicion is a lesser requirement than probable cause and "considerably short" of the preponderance of the evidence standard ... Whether an officer has reasonable suspicion depends on the totality of the circumstances ... Here, those circumstances include: that there is an extremely high number and percentage of illegal immigrants in the Los Angeles area; that those individuals tend to gather in certain locations to seek daily work; that those individuals often work in certain kinds of jobs, such as day labor, landscaping, agriculture, and construction, that do not require paperwork and are therefore especially attractive to illegal immigrants; and that many of those illegally in the Los Angeles area come from Mexico or Central America and do not speak much English. To be clear, apparent ethnicity alone cannot furnish reasonable suspicion; under this Court's case law regarding immigration stops, however, it can be a "relevant factor" when considered along with other salient factors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kavanaugh_stop?wprov=sfti1#Sup...
Yeah, you would need more than just ethnicity. You can read the Justice's examples directly in the case. Being or looking Mexican on a parking lot may be enough to justify a Kavanaugh stop, but just being Mexican or looking Mexican on it's own is not enough.
"Parking while looking Mexican."
"Looking Mexican in LA."
Mm... I can smell them Freedom Fries.
There's also being Native American in America: https://narf.org/narf-statement-ice/
Well since I can do all of those things without being stopped due to my race, it appears that being Mexican would be the sole determining reason
You can be stopped on reasonable suspicion, which Kavanaugh expanded (and he seems to have immediately realized his name is permanently besmirched).
But they definitely cannot arrest people based on reasonable suspicion. Anyone speaking on behalf of DHS should know the difference.
Kavanaugh's concurrence does not "expand" reasonable suspicion. It explains that a combination of factors including "apparent race or ethnicity" may cause reasonable suspicion. Which, in fact, as a basic matter of probabilistic reasoning, given the other information in https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/25a169_5h25.pdf, it might.
And an important part of the decision is that (emphasis his):
> Plaintiffs’ standing theory is especially deficient in this case because immigration officers also use their experience to stop suspected illegal immigrants based on a variety of factors. So even if the Government had a policy of making stops based on the factors prohibited by the District Court, immigration officers might not rely only on those factors if and when they stop plaintiffs in the future.
and to affirm existing understanding of reasonable suspicion:
> Reasonable suspicion is a lesser requirement than probable cause and “considerably short” of the preponderance of the evidence standard. Arvizu, 534 U. S., at 274. Whether an officer has reasonable suspicion depends on the totality of the circumstances. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U. S., at 885, n. 10; Arvizu, 534 U. S., at 273. Here, those circumstances include: that there is an extremely high number and percentage of illegal immigrants in the Los Angeles area; that those individuals tend to gather in certain locations to seek daily work; that those individuals often work in certain kinds of jobs, such as day labor, landscaping, agriculture, and construction, that do not require paperwork and are therefore especially attractive to illegal immigrants; and that many of those illegally in the Los Angeles area come from Mexico or Central America and do not speak much English. Cf. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U. S., at 884–885 (listing “[a]ny number of factors” that contribute to reasonable suspicion of illegal presence).
(In other words, he clearly lays out the reasons why such a "combination of factors" may create reasonable suspicion, per precedent.)
As for Kavanaugh "realizing" any such thing, I can't fathom why you think so. This is the same guy who has been very visibly protested by activists of a similar stripe from the beginning.
Sure: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/25a443_new_kkg1....
Footnote on Page 7, written by Kavanaugh mere weeks after the Perdomo decision, says the opposite: "the officers must not make interior immigration stops or arrests based on race or ethnicity... “[T]he Constitution prohibits selective enforcement of the law based on considerations such as race”"
So is race a consideration or is it not? He says here that it's well-established that the Constitution prevents it.
Or did he just throw in that sentence as a complete non-sequitur, unrelated to the immediately preceding sentences?
There is no contradiction between your quote and my quotes.
They cannot make the stop "based on" that sole factor.
It may become part of "the totality of the circumstances" that "contribute to" reasonable suspicion.
Kavanaugh literally says that it's well-established that race cannot be a consideration in the application of law.
You (and Kavanaugh a few weeks prior) are saying that it can be.
That's a contradiction.
> [T]he Constitution prohibits selective enforcement of the law based on considerations such as race
> it's well-established that race cannot be a consideration in the application of law.
You seem to think these statements are equivalent. They are not.
"Kavanaugh a few weeks prior" is perfectly consistent, as explained in the other post I linked.
Please articulate a scenario that bisects them, then.
And no, your "solely due to" vs "contributing factor to" does not satisfy this. The quoted text (from Whren v United States) is extremely clear: race cannot be a consideration.
No, the quoted text does not mean what you claim it does. The English words "based on" do not work that way.
> Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
Therefore I am done here, as well.
I followed your thread and can’t think of a situation where one case was satisfied and not the other.
Can you give us an example where the two statements are meaningfully different?
Why people act surprised that an institution that was literally made to uphold the interests of the elite and is extremely undemocratic continues to act undemocratic?
You have to stop thinking these institutions are worth protecting when they have been the impediment to any progress this country has made.
I've been held ~24 hours by DHS under RAS, it is definitely a thing near the border where they don't need PC to jail you. They put me in jail but I was never under arrest, I later got my federal arrest record and there was nothing. Maybe that was what they were referring to?
Jailing citizens with no warrant nor PC was happening to me under Biden so it's not new either.
Correct you can be detained based on reasonable suspicion. You cannot be arrested on it. The difference might seem subtle, but 1) it's not, and 2) it certainly shouldn't be to actual DHS officials. It's literally in the text of the Constitution.
And yes, near the border has had shaky Constitutional protections for a long time. To suggest it's "not new" to expand that shakiness across the entire nation, eliminate time constraints on it, then scale up the "immigration" enforcement arm 100x is just laughable though. Of course it's new! It's new in scope, scale, and intensity. That makes it new!
What is RAS?
Reasonable articulable suspicion. In my case, an imaginary dog "alerted" an unnamed handler. So that gave them RAS to strip me naked, be jailed, and be made to poop in front of them to ensure there were no drugs that came out.
Contacted several lawyers, nothing to be done, no chance of fighting it. Girl that tried before me, lost.
The ultimate expression of this is the Presidential pardon, a pass entitling privileged people to one or more free crimes.
Well the going rate is $1 million for a pardon, so it’s not always free.
People have too much to lose nowadays. Having a jail or protesting history gives you a black mark if you're middle class and you have to pursue alternate avenues to provide for yourself and your family. It's a last resort and has allowed a lot of insidious things to grow in US gov't and outside
The men and women who protested with MLK Jr. risked physical harm and death. Many of them paid the ultimate price. So it's hard to argue they didn't have much to lose.
I do take your point, though. Civil disobedience and a digital trail of "undesirable" behavior isn't compatible with a high-earning life in the corporate world.
Hmmm. When I was in college, I protested and went to jail multiple times in the US, though I was never convicted (the organization I was with provided for legal representation). I don't believe it has ever damaged my career. I'm curious if your experience has been different?
Well you weren't convicted, and a huge part of that is likely your free legal representation which would otherwise have cost you thousands of dollars that many people don't have to spend themselves.
Absolutely. If I hadn't been assured there would be a lawyer afterwards (he represented us as a group btw), I wouldn't have done it...
I strongly recommend that anyone doing civil disobedience join up with an organization which can provide training, logistical support, and at least some degree of legal support. The first two are if anything even more important given that these situations tend to be chaotic and tense. The book Waging a Good War documents the intensive training that activists underwent during the civil rights movement which was crucial for their success.
Of course the situation is much more lawless now in places like Minneapolis and ICE is much more undisciplined than the police, which makes civil disobedience much more challenging and dangerous. That just makes training and legal aid all the more necessary.
When were you in college?
Well within the time period when even minor news was routinely posted to the Internet, so it's searchable. On the other hand I have a really common name.
People have too much to lose nowadays?
Many of King's contemporaries died for this. He was shot and killed. The FBI tried to blackmail him and get him to commit suicide.
I would rather people just admit they are cowards. It is fine, most people are. But saying people have too much to lose nowadays as if this is a contemporary phenomenon is just disingenuous. People always have much to lose, arguably "nowadays" less than ever before.
Maybe the real change is in how things are valued or what society sees as virtues. Perhaps our modern society values wealth more than personal integrity for example. I would suggest though a lot of this is just cope for the fact that people are learning they aren't fit for their heros, they don't belong in the same room let alone the same building. It's easy to valorize King when he's a voice from the past. The people who stay home today are the same who stayed home then. The American revolution was really instigated by a minority of the colonial population. Most people stay home.
It's just a basic fact of humanity - most people are cowards, and that is probably fine. If they weren't society would likely never exist in the first place. What does a polity even look like in a land where everyone is a hero?
The whole bus protest was AGAINST enforcement of the law. It was civil disobedience on the side of Rosa Park and it was all about them not wanting to accept the criminal consequences.
The activists generally did a lot to actually avoid criminal consequences of the time. It was not a suicide pact.
Your logic on the criminal consequences is simply bizarre. It's like you think if I put myself out there protesting a law and subjecting myself to arrest or other consequences by virtue of this opposition I really don't want to accept consequences. What do you think happens to people who protest against the enforcement of a law?
And let's not move the goalposts. I never said it was a suicide pact, nor did anyone else. Reads like more cope. Yes you can tailor your approach, as they did. But ultimately are you staying home or not? Let's take another example, was D Day a suicide pact? Or do you regard them as heroes? Did they not have much to lose?
The fact remains most people stay home. Most people are cowards, unless compelled otherwise. Let's also understand leadership is extremely important. A good leader makes people around them stronger. King made people resolute, and in turn they made him resolute.
Like Eisenhower and the paratroopers before D Day. They made each other feel better. Go read about the visit I'm sure you've seen the famous photograph. The real tragedy of today isn't about cowards, which again have always existed and always will. It's about a vacuum of leadership.
Really?
Well, when they have nothing left to lose, watch out, I guess.
Most of the people today with nothing to lose are just self-medicating on weed, sports betting, Netflix, etc. I don't think there's much to be worried about.
> Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application.
There is another side to this coin: jury nullification.
The fact that, most Americans, are unaware of the concept, or that it is a choice they can make is one of the tragedies of the modern era. Adams had much to say on the topic, and his take is still valid 200 years later.
I think that when you put most Americans in a jury box, they will learn that whether they vote to convict is their choice. Ask the guy who threw the sandwich.
> I always have to go back to read this part again because I feel like it's so unexpected. You don't really hear anyone saying quite the same thing today
The landscape has completely changed. No authority in charge entertains the idea that the law should be respected, it's not surprising citizens reciprocate.
> One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty.
I would not say this one, because I simply strongly disagree. Simple as that. No, nazi opposition did not needes to let yourself be tortured in camp to be valid. Nor communist one.
As a demand, it is absurd on its face. Yeah, you should weight the level of risk and loss. And you dont need to aim for self harm when opposing something bad.
Kwame Ture talks about what it takes for nonviolence to work.
> Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application.
When is it just in its application?
More often than not, I would argue.
There's a reason that due process is a thing, it's more commonly upheld than it's not, no matter what rhetoric you've been spun by a fear-mongering media.
As many as 98% of charges end with plea bargains [1]. That's not "due process" in a meaningful sense of the term.
[1] https://www.npr.org/2023/02/22/1158356619/plea-bargains-crim...
Yes, it is.
If you plead guilty to an offence you shouldn't serve the same amount of time as someone who shows no remorse.
Also, included in those "plea bargains" are cautions, for children.
edit; I'm getting flagged but I should definitely mention that I'm intimately familiar with how the law can be for the underclass, I was an underclass and I have a laundry list of a criminal record from when I was a child.
People plead guilty because they can't afford the $10K in lawyer costs, and if you can't afford a lawyer and get appointed a state one, not only are you far more likely to lose your case, but if you lose you still have to pay that lawyer at the end plus the extra court costs and fees on top.
Often people are given "If you plea, you will pay a few thousand dollars and get to go home. If you don't plea, there is a 50% chance you go to jail, have a black mark on your record, and have to pay $10K in court fees and fines." And when people aren't even sure how they will pay a few thousand dollars, the risk of having to pay $10K+ plus serve jail time that will cost them their job and limit future employment opportunities is a HUGE risk.
> People plead guilty because
Or because they’re guilty!
You are the breadwinner for your household. A detective decides that you are the most likely person to have committed a nearby burglary. You have an alibi, but they charge you anyway. You cannot afford to pay bail; your options are to remain in jail until the case makes its way through the courts, or to accept a plea bargain that lets you out on probation. Your underfunded and overworked public defender advises you to take the deal, since a trial would be ruinous even if you do prevail. What do you do?
The issue with plea bargains is not that guilty people are given leniency for remorse; it is that they are used to coerce innocent people into confessing to a crime they did not commit.
So, back to the thread at hand: to your mind is this more often than when the law is working properly or less?
because it has been claimed in this subthread that the law is applied unjustly nearly 100% of the time.
I don't see any such claim, but the idea that prosecutors correctly identify the perpetrator in 98% of cases is obviously pure fantasy.
In 98% of cases they bring for prosecution - they know the job, they know what works, and if they don't think they can follow through, they often just drop the case entirely, so it doesn't count.
Yes because we all know workers are the best judges of said work they do.
How often do you work on bug tickets and realize that the "simple one liner change" is actually more complicated? Okay now instead of it being a simple computer bug, you are dealing with real human lives and have the potential to destroy them quite easily.
Maybe the system isn't working as intended, maybe courts should be redesigned to be more accommodating to the needs of everyone and not just those with $100k in checking accounts.
How do we know they know the job and know what works? How do we know that they define "what works" as justice and not "get convictions"?
The objection seems to be to your claim without caveat that plea bargains are meaningfully "due process".
Anyone who says "all of x is justified" or "all of y is unjustified" is usually wrong.
I thought we were smart enough to realise that on HackerNews.
Parent of mine claimed that the law as practiced is unjust, I said, largely that's not true and that there's a pretty strong propaganda campaign against the legal system (due to aligned incentives of stoking up rage for clicks).
I didn't claim that unfairness didn't exist, merely that it's not the default.
I have now been told that because plea bargains exist for those who show remorse, that the law never follows due process.
Are we stupid? What's happening here?
The DOJ, DHS, ICE, and judicial processes are losing credibility quickly. If ever they deserved the benefit of the doubt, I would say that time has passed, at least at national level.
> If you plead guilty to an offence you shouldn't serve the same amount of time as someone who shows no remorse.
On the contrary, I think that's one of the problems that makes plea bargains so egregious: in order to take a plea bargain, you have to plead guilty, which prevents you from further defending yourself if you didn't actually do what you were accused of. That creates the scenario where an innocent person who is not confident in the system's ability to defend them may find themselves having to plead guilty in order to stave off a much worse penalty.
The same thing applies to parole boards: maintaining innocence typically prevents you from being granted parole.
This is a perverse incentive.
You're conflating "plea bargains exist" with "innocent people are systematically coerced into false confessions."
The vast majority of plea bargains involve people who are, in fact, guilty and are receiving a reduced sentence for saving the court's time and showing contrition. That's not a perverse incentive, it's a reasonable tradeoff that benefits both the defendant and society.
Yes, edge cases exist where innocent people feel pressure to plead. But the existence of edge cases doesn't prove the system is fundamentally unjust, it proves the system is imperfect, which no one disputes.
Regarding parole: maintaining innocence after you've been convicted and exhausted your appeals isn't "defending yourself"; at that point, you've had your defence. The parole board's job is to assess rehabilitation, and refusing to acknowledge your crime is evidence you haven't been rehabilitated. If you genuinely didn't do it, your remedy is post-conviction relief, not parole.
The burden is on those claiming systemic injustice to show that false guilty pleas are the norm rather than the exception. "98% plea bargain rate" doesn't demonstrate that.
> The vast majority of plea bargains involve people who are, in fact, guilty and are receiving a reduced sentence for saving the court's time and showing contrition. That's not a perverse incentive, it's a reasonable tradeoff that benefits both the defendant and society.
What proof do you have of this? Estimates I’ve read range from 2-25% of people who accept plea bargains are innocent.
And what recent age of innocent people is it acceptable to send to jail via coercive plea bargains to ensure no guilty people go free?
You've cited a 2-25% range. That's enormous. The low end supports my position, the high end would be catastrophic. Where's your source for 25%?
Here's mine for the low end: a study examining attorney perspectives on plea bargaining https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6368263/ and multiple sources citing 2-8% of felony guilty pleas involve innocent https://testif-i.com/issues/plea-bargains/ https://www.themarshallproject.org/2014/12/26/plea-bargainin...
At 2%, that's 98% guilty - which is what I meant by "vast majority." If you're claiming 25%, prove it.
I realize that "duress" probably has a specific legal definition, but colloquially speaking all plea bargains are made under duress. If I (a private citizen) kidnapped you, locked you in a cage and told you that I would continue to hold you captive if you didn't agree to my terms, no one would mistake that for a free or fair negotiation.
> If you take a plea deal because you were convinced you'd be prosecuted otherwise, well, that also sucks
You are completely sidestepping the thrust of the grandparent commenter’s comment, which is that the cost of defending yourself from prosecution is prohibitively expensive and punitive in the sense that the outcome is worse than negotiating a plea deal.
> if you took one under duress, then that would be why the higher courts exist, to invalidate your guilty plea when taken under duress.
In this hypothetical the accused doesn’t have the money to pay for a lawyer; they aren’t going to be beating the case on an appeal.
Yeah, I adjusted my comment to better reflect the parents comment, I was getting muddled in all the replies.
Apologies.
> The burden
You're defending zealously enough, and introducing so many variables yourself, that you have burden of proof too. Show some numbers for "vast majority" and "edge case".
No, I don't have burden of proof for defending the status quo. That's not how this works.
The legal system processes millions of cases annually. The claim being made here is that it's unjust more often than just... that's an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence.
I'm not the one who needs to prove the system works. You need to prove it's fundamentally broken. "Plea bargains could coerce innocent people" isn't evidence, it's a handful of cases in millions and heavy speculation about prevalence. I've taken a caution myself when I thought I might prevail at trial, not because I was coerced into a false confession, but because the pragmatic choice was obvious. That's the system working, not breaking.
The Innocence Project has exonerated about 375 people via DNA evidence since 1989. Tragic? Absolutely. Evidence of systemic failure? Do your own fucking maths. That's 375 cases over 35 years in a system processing roughly 20 million criminal cases annually. Even if we're generous and assume there are 10x more wrongful convictions that haven't been discovered, we're still talking about a fraction of a percent.
Show me data demonstrating that false guilty pleas represent anything more than edge cases, or accept that the system, whilst imperfect, generally functions.
The burden is squarely on those claiming otherwise.
> No, I don't have burden of proof for defending the status quo. That's not how this works.
Are you trying to win a formal debate or have a productive discussion?
Status quo is a starting point but still needs evidence.
> The legal system processes millions of cases annually. The claim being made here is that it's unjust more often than just... that's an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence.
Define "unjust".
If someone says it's unfairly biased most of the time, I don't think that's an extraordinary claim.
If someone says it's getting the wrong answer most of the time, yeah that's extraordinary claim, but nobody made that claim.
I'm having a productive discussion by not letting vague claims slide.
"Unfairly biased most of the time" and "unjust more often than just" are the same claim when discussing legal outcomes. If the system is systematically biased, it produces unjust outcomes. Don't play word games.
And yes, people absolutely have made that claim. The assertion that 98% plea bargain rates represent coercion rather than efficient processing is precisely claiming the system gets it wrong most of the time. The hypothetical about innocent breadwinners forced to plead guilty isn't describing an edge case, it's being presented as how plea bargains function.
If you want to argue the system has some biases that need addressing, fine. That's not what's being argued here. The argument is that plea bargains are inherently coercive and that maintaining innocence should exempt you from parole requirements. That's claiming the system is fundamentally broken, not merely imperfect.
Pick one: is the system broken or just imperfect? Because I'm arguing it's the latter and you lot keep trying to prove the former whilst pretending you're not.
> "Unfairly biased most of the time" and "unjust more often than just" are the same claim when discussing legal outcomes. If the system is systematically biased, it produces unjust outcomes. Don't play word games.
Then that's not an extraordinary claim.
I'm doing my best to avoid word games here.
If someone is claiming that the system is biased always, but not claiming that most outcomes are wrong, that is a reasonable claim.
Calling plea bargains inherently coercive is a reasonable claim. Yes they're broken in some ways.
> The assertion that 98% plea bargain rates represent coercion rather than efficient processing is precisely claiming the system gets it wrong most of the time.
No no no no no no no no. That's not what those words mean.
> Pick one: is the system broken or just imperfect?
Some imperfection will always be there.
But there are important imperfections that could be reasonably fixed, therefore I would say the system is broken. By my definition of broken; yours might be different.
I don't know what "fundamentally broken" means exactly so I won't comment on that term.
Fair enough, let me step back because I'm getting angry.
You're right that "biased in process" and "wrong outcomes" aren't the same thing. A system can have unfair disparities (wealth based, racial, whatever) without necessarily convicting innocent people at scale. That's a reasonable distinction.
But that's not what sparked this thread. Go back to the top: the original claim was "when is the law just in its application?" implying never or nearly never. My position is that it's just more often than not. That's the disagreement.
If you're saying the system has procedural problems that create unfair pressure but generally reaches correct guilty/not guilty determinations, then we probably don't disagree much. That's a claim about needing reforms, not about fundamental systemic failure.
The issue is when people use "98% plea bargains" or "inherently coercive" to argue the system is fundamentally broken. If that's not what you're arguing, then we're likely closer to agreement than it seemed.
> But that's not what sparked this thread. Go back to the top: the original claim was "when is the law just in its application?" implying never or nearly never. My position is that it's just more often than not. That's the disagreement.
> If you're saying the system has procedural problems that create unfair pressure but generally reaches correct guilty/not guilty determinations, then we probably don't disagree much. That's a claim about needing reforms, not about fundamental systemic failure.
An unjust system can still get the right answer most of the time.
And I think it's very likely our system applies so much pressure to take a plea bargain that it is unjust. That it is making mistakes at scale that we could avoid with reasonable effort.
I would say it's fixably broken, but it probably is broken.
And I don't think anyone on this comment page was arguing that a majority of convictions are innocent people.
Dylan, you're a masterclass in saying nothing whilst appearing to argue.
You invented that "7%" stuff in a sibling thread from thin air. You claimed nobody was arguing about innocent convictions whilst spending a dozen comments defending why plea coercion is a massive problem. You say the system gets the right answer most of the time but insist it's still unjust. You won't define "broken" but you're certain the system is it.
Every time I pin you down, you redefine terms. "Unjust" doesn't mean wrong outcomes, it means procedural pressure. "Broken" doesn't mean failing, it means needs improvement. "Coercive" doesn't mean producing false confessions, it just means... pressure exists, somehow.
This is a thread about MLK describing actual injustice: arresting peaceful protesters under correctly applied laws. You've watered "unjust" down to "I don't like some aspects of plea bargaining" and expect that to carry the same moral weight.
Here's what you won't say directly but keep implying: that plea bargains routinely produce false confessions. Because if they don't, then your entire argument collapses to "the system works but could be nicer," which isn't a disagreement worth having.
My position: the law is applied justly more often than unjustly. You either disagree with that or you don't. No more semantic gymnastics. Which is it?
> You invented "7%" from thin air.
Yes. I said I did. Because when I openly talk about a hypothetical number, people have to focus on whether my logic is correct or incorrect. Because that part of the post was about what implies what.
> You claimed nobody was arguing about innocent convictions
No. I said nobody argued MOST convictions were innocent.
Because you keep talking about MOST convictions to make your arguments.
> "Unjust" doesn't mean wrong outcomes
Doesn't mean a specific number of wrong outcomes.
This is the key miscommunication that has caused the entire argument.
A system can be unjust in 100% of cases, but only give the wrong answer in a smaller percent of cases.
> "Coercive" doesn't mean producing false confessions, it just means... pressure exists, somehow.
coerce: To use force, threat, fraud, or intimidation in an attempt to compel one to act against their will.
Edit: To make a clearer statement, whether it's coercion is about whether there is an unreasonable amount of pressure being applied. This has no connection to whether the confession is true or false.
> Here's what you won't say directly but keep implying: that plea bargains routinely produce false confessions.
Yes.
> My position: the law is applied justly more often than unjustly. You either disagree with that or you don't. No more semantic gymnastics. Which. is. it?
Ugh, this is annoying when we're disagreeing about what "just" means.
The way you're using it, the law is just more often than not.
But "more often" is an absolute garbage threshold. We need way way way better than that.
Alright, let's see if I get this right.
You're arguing that a system can apply the law unjustly even when it reaches correct outcomes. I think that's only meaningful if the "unjust application" materially affects people's lives in ways that matter beyond process.
So: plea bargains. You say they apply unreasonable pressure. But what makes the pressure unreasonable? A prosecutor offering a reduced sentence for pleading guilty isn't force, threat, fraud, or intimidation. It's a straightforward trade: save the court's time and resources, get a lighter sentence. That's pressure, but it's not inherently unreasonable.
You could argue it becomes unreasonable when the alternative is so severe that even innocent people feel compelled to plead. But that's an empirical claim. How often does that happen? You've now said you think plea bargains routinely produce false confessions. That's testable. Where's the evidence?
On thresholds: you're right that "more often than not" sounds low for a justice system. But the question is compared to what? Every alternative has error rates. Jury trials have wrongful convictions. Bench trials have wrongful convictions. The question isn't whether the system is perfect, it's whether it's better than the realistic alternatives and whether the error rate is acceptable.
What error rate would you accept? Because without that, "we need way way way better" is just saying "it should be perfect," which isn't achievable.
The original claim upthread was that the law is rarely applied justly. That's not a claim about error rates being too high, it's a claim that injustice is the norm. Do you actually believe that, or are you arguing something more limited about plea bargaining specifically?
> So: plea bargains. You say they apply unreasonable pressure. But what makes the pressure unreasonable? A prosecutor offering a reduced sentence for pleading guilty isn't force, threat, fraud, or intimidation. It's a straightforward trade: save the court's time and resources, get a lighter sentence. That's pressure, but it's not inherently unreasonable.
The biggest issue these days seems to be that people can't afford a proper trial. So instead of a relatively fair exchange of simplifying out the risk of trial for a certain outcome, reducing hassle for everyone, there's a five figure monetary weight tipping the balance. The prosecutor isn't causing this but the design of the system is.
> How often does that happen? You've now said you think plea bargains routinely produce false confessions. That's testable. Where's the evidence?
I don't know where the evidence is. Remember my first comment was saying you should bring in evidence for your strong claims. I don't have strong claims right now, I have worries.
> What error rate would you accept? Because without that, "we need way way way better" is just saying "it should be perfect," which isn't achievable.
We need a lot more information before I can say what an acceptable error rate.
But there's some obvious factors pushing us away from that, so we're very likely not where we should be.
> The original claim upthread was that the law is rarely applied justly. That's not a claim about error rates being too high, it's a claim that injustice is the norm. Do you actually believe that, or are you arguing something more limited about plea bargaining specifically?
If the vast majority of people feel unsafe going to trial, then the law is not being applied in a just way. And I think that is a very common feeling. The amount it pushes error rates is smaller, because a lot of those people are guilty. But often they're not guilty of the full accusation, and sometimes they're not guilty of anything.
So I think a lot of people are going through an unfair process, and some of them are getting incorrect sentences.
I think a general sentiment that the law is unjust, or that people are not getting due process, is a reasonable opinion to have about that process.
If you have a specific comment you want to refer to by "the law is rarely applied justly", I can look at that specific one, because I'm not sure who you are referring to. verisimi's crack was a pretty vague implication, and jakelazaroff was arguing that people don't get proper due process. Neither of those statements is making an extreme claim about error rates.
Fair enough. We've found the actual disagreement.
You're right that cost is a real barrier, and it's a legitimate concern. If people can't afford proper representation, then the "choice" to take a plea isn't fully voluntary. That's a structural problem worth addressing.
Where we differ is on scale and characterisation. You say "the vast majority of people feel unsafe going to trial." That's a strong empirical claim that needs evidence. Feeling unsafe and actually being coerced are different things, and both matter, but they're not the same.
The original claim upthread was that the law is rarely applied justly. You've now moderated that to "the process is unfair for people who can't afford defence, and this produces some incorrect sentences." That's a much more limited claim, and one I'd largely agree with. Structural inequality in access to justice is a real problem.
But that's not the same as "the system is fundamentally unjust" or "plea bargains routinely coerce false confessions." Those are the claims that sparked this entire thread, and you've now acknowledged you don't have evidence for them.
So: agreed that cost barriers create real injustice. Disagreed that this means the system is unjust more often than just, which was the original claim.
> You say "the vast majority
I put an "if" on vast majority. I put confidence on "very common".
> The original claim upthread was that the law is rarely applied justly. You've now moderated that
> Disagreed that this means the system is unjust more often than just, which was the original claim.
Well again, if you tell me which specific comment you mean then I'll address that specific comment.
> But that's not the same as "the system is fundamentally unjust" or "plea bargains routinely coerce false confessions." Those are the claims that sparked this entire thread, and you've now acknowledged you don't have evidence for them.
You are the only person that has used the word 'fundamentally'. And yes the plea bargain thing needs evidence but should not be rejected for lack of citations.
You demanded I provide numbers for "vast majority" and "edge cases" in your first reply. I provided data: 375 exonerations over 35 years in a system processing 20 million cases annually. You then spent two dozen comments redefining terms and refusing to commit to any position.
Now you claim your speculation "should not be rejected for lack of citations" whilst having opened by demanding exactly that from me. That's not intellectual honesty, that's having it both ways.
On "fundamentally": you've argued the system is unjust in 100% of cases, that plea bargains are inherently coercive, and that false confessions happen routinely. Whether you used that specific word is irrelevant. Those are claims of fundamental dysfunction.
You ask which comment I mean. Here's the thread: verisimi asked "when is the law just in its application?" implying rarely or never. I said more often than not. You've argued with that for two dozen comments whilst refusing to state your own position. When pressed, you admitted you "don't have strong claims, just worries." That's fine, but it's not a basis for a dozen-comment argument.
The pattern here is clear: you make strong implications without committing to them, demand evidence from others whilst providing none yourself, redefine terms when pinned down, and retreat to semantic quibbles when substantive points fail. That's not productive discussion.
I engaged seriously when you made your cost barrier point. That was substantive. But you've chosen to return to arguing about whether you said "if" and who used which word.
I'm done. You've had multiple opportunities to state a clear position. You haven't. Readers can judge for themselves whether that's because you don't have one or because you're unwilling to defend it.
The innocence project data only applies to a very specific kind of case with a very long sentence. It's a start but it's not much.
And I have never redefined a term. Don't confuse disagreement with dishonesty.
I don't know why you're so offended at me using "if" occasionally. You keep trying to force me to use specific numbers even after I say I don't have specific numbers. That's not good faith on your part.
> demand evidence from others whilst providing none yourself
Dude. I made one demand for evidence. At the very start. In a comment where I made no claims.
I have made no demands for evidence since then, just one reminder that's where we started when you bugged me about evidence.
Even if that would make my later comments hypocritical, my original comment wasn't.
I need evidence and so do you.
> Now you claim your speculation "should not be rejected for lack of citations" whilst having opened by demanding exactly that from me. That's not intellectual honesty, that's having it both ways.
What do you think is dishonest?
I never rejected your argument for lack of evidence.
I don't want either argument rejected until we get more evidence.
-
And yeah I'm pretty done too. Your comments are full of false narratives about what I'm saying.
Also I stated a very clear position at the start, then you threw a big pile of half-related things at me. It's not my fault you think I don't have a "clear position", because every time I try to focus and state one, you start talking about something else.
>In the eyes of the law, if you have been found guilty "you are guilty".
Yes but this is just another way to describe the problem, invoking it as a justification becomes tautological.
The patent office has a similar issue where they tend to consider prior work to be just what they see in other patents so the first person to patent is declared to be the first person to express the idea. To turn that view from the default position takes a lot of resources.
Laws should be unambiguous, but they shouldn't achieve this simply by defining the resolution of the ambiguity to be different from reality.
You've misunderstood the point I was making. I'm not claiming legal findings are objectively true in some metaphysical sense, I'm saying that for a legal system to function, there must be finality to proceedings.
The alternative is what, exactly? Perpetual relitigation? Every convicted person maintains their innocence indefinitely and the system just... accepts that as equally valid to the jury's verdict?
We have mechanisms for when the system gets it wrong: appeals, post-conviction relief, habeas corpus. These exist precisely because we recognise legal findings aren't infallible. But the burden is on the convicted to demonstrate error... and rightly so, because the alternative is paralysis.
Your patent office analogy inadvertently supports my point: yes, there are edge cases where prior art is missed. But the solution isn't to abolish patent finality, it's to have robust review mechanisms, which we do.
The claim upthread is that the system is unjust more often than just. That's a far stronger claim than "the system sometimes gets it wrong."
> If you plead guilty to an offence you shouldn't serve the same amount of time as someone who shows no remorse.
Showing remorse is good, yes, but holding that over someone's head as a way to force them to plead guilty is disgusting.
Also pleading guilty does not imply showing remorse.
If we can't disentangle plea and remorse, then factoring remorse into the sentence does more harm than good. It would be better to ignore it entirely and pretend everyone said they're deeply sorry.
Exercising your right to a trial should not be considered “showing no remorse.”
Explain.
If you go to trial you are saying you are not guilty of the offence.
If you are not guilty the ideally you are acquitted.
if you are guilty, you’re hoping to get away with it.
I struggle to see how hoping to get away with it, is showing remorse. If anything I certainly think it says that it shows little or no remorse, since you believe that other people should receive no justice for crimes that you committed against them.
I'm not saying it doesn't logically follow, I'm saying it shouldn't legally follow. Exercising your legal rights should never have negative legal consequences.
Consider pleading the fifth. You can't be compelled to incriminate yourself. That doesn't just mean they can't coerce a confession out of you. It also means that the law does not infer guilt from a refusal to testify, even though logically a person who refuses to testify is more likely to be guilty than one who testifies freely in their own defense. If you couldn't be compelled to testify, but at the same time your refusal could be considered evidence of guilt, then you don't really have the right not to testify.
Same sort of thing here. If exercising your right to a trial increases your penalty then in what sense do you actually have that right? To put it in starker terms, imagine if people who previously spoke critically of the President were given a harsher penalty than those who spoke positively. That's a clear free speech violation. If exercising your free speech rights can't increase your penalty, exercising your right to a trial shouldn't either.
I understand the constitutional point you're making, but I think we're conflating two things: exercising your right to trial, and showing remorse for what you did.
The right to trial isn't being penalised. You get a fair trial either way. What's being rewarded is accepting responsibility and saving the court's time. That's not the same as punishing you for exercising a right.
I'll grant that when the sentencing gap is extreme, the distinction becomes academic. If you're facing 20 years at trial versus 2 for pleading, then functionally you're being coerced regardless of the theoretical justification.
But in principle, rewarding people who show remorse is part of justice. Someone who accepts what they did and shows contrition is different from someone who forces the state to prove its case. Both have the right to trial, but treating them differently at sentencing isn't inherently unjust.
The question is whether the gap has become so large that it's effectively coercive. That's an empirical question about how plea bargains operate in practice, not a constitutional one about whether they can exist at all, which, if I understood it right, is your position.
> As many as 98% of charges end with plea bargains
That’s only a problem if in the majority of cases the person is in fact innocent. Otherwise that stat is red herring.
The point is we don't really know who is innocent or not, because the incentives are so fucked. If you're poor and need to get on with your life, you take the guilty plee almost every time. Trial takes fucking forever, and it's very expensive.
What this means is the you can be charged with almost anything, and the odds are very high you will plea guilty, regardless of your innocence. There's basically no incentive for the police or prosecutors to show any restraint, they have a "get out of jail free" card in the form of plea bargains.
What makes you say "majority"?
Let me make up a number. 7%. I think that number of plea bargains would be a huge problem if in 7% of cases the person is in fact innocent. Would you disagree?
And even generally assuming guilt, a number that high gets worrying. Maybe we're only prosecuting the strongest of strong cases or something, but some of the other factors that could be reducing the rate of trials are really bad for justice.
What if the answer is 0.01% of cases the innocent person pleads guilty because they’re can’t afford a lawyer?
That seems like a totally different problem to solve than your solution which is get rid of plea bargains.
0.01% would be a good number. And yes the fix for that probably is something else.
But uh, I never suggested getting rid of plea bargains. You might have confused me with someone else.
I always re-read this on MLK day and learn something new each time. Pull quote for this year
“All that is said here grows out of a tragic misconception of time. It is the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time is neutral. It can be used either destructively or constructively. I am coming to feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.”
I think this pairs well with and contrasts to the quote that I think many prefer to quote, that “the arc of history is long, but it tends toward justice”.
My daughter was about the age of King's daughter when I first read this letter. It had a deep and profound effect and strengthened my commitment to racial and gender equality:
when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"
> "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"
Son, we are all human beings. There's only one way to make sense of it. It's economic slavery. Some people get rich making other people work for nothing... or for very little pay and food. If the rich people keep the poor people struggling in poverty, the poor people may never find the strength to free themselves. They'll be slaves for generations.
I'm forever grateful that Letter From Birmingham Jail was required reading during my highschool education(US history). It came during an impactful time - when I naturally questioned authority, but didn't have the wisdom to discern why or how.
Reading it left not a momentary effect, but a life long impression. It's nice to be re-examine it every few years and to notice new details that come with the perspective of recent events.
I'm, of course, grateful to Dr King for writing it, but also to the history teacher 25 years ago who decided to include it in the curriculum. When we're surrounded by self re-enforcing authority, it's takes individuals with courage to choose to share texts like these and its effect is appreciated.
This letter reads like a relic of democratic optimism that I find difficult to bear.
The dichotomy between Martin and Malcolm that people like to draw is tired and ‘undeveloper’ does a better job at criticizing this than I think I could. [1]
One of the advantages that Malcolm had over Martin was how deft he was at articulating the spoil in American government.
Read “The Ballot or the Bullet”; jump to page nine here for my point: https://bpb-us-e2.wpmucdn.com/sites.middlebury.edu/dist/0/20...
Malcolm representing the side of ‘violence’ in the non-violent/violent dichotomy is him being a realist about the situation that Black people were facing in the US since their arrival in the country. I think a more profound point of his that’s glossed over is that you cannot simply legislate equality into existence and that framing the treatment of Blacks in the US as a ‘civil rights’ issue was a misaddress of the issue.
But I think a lot of people are satisfied to settle for the appeal of what Martin and Malcolm's ideologies/methodologies represent on the surface. A matter of rhetoric, I suppose.
Both men’s politics seem frozen by men of time in ways that are easy for common observers to grasp. Never mind the evolution of thought that both men experienced in the years (and in the case of Malcolm, months, practically) before their assassinations.
So yeah. Riots are the voice of the unheard. Short of five years after this letter people throughout the US spent a “Holy Week” perpetuating that maxim.
I don’t know where this remark is going...
What a timeless banger, you fill in the blanks on this part:
'Over and over I have found myself asking: "What kind of people worship here? Who is their God? Where were their voices when the lips of __________ <American political leader> dripped with words of interposition and nullification? Where were they when __________ <American political leader> gave a clarion call for defiance and hatred?"'
Just as relevant now as ever. This part strikes me particularly:
> Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I have been arrested on a charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade. But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest.
I think that one of the great failures of our society and our government has been our willingness to allow large gaps to form between a law and its application. We constantly hear about laws that are "on the books but not enforced". We constantly pass laws to remedy perceived ills, but we don't fund or even specify enforcement mechanisms (or we make such mechanisms ineffective), so the laws just add to the pile of unpaid promissory notes that King refers to in another famous passage. (Ironically the civil rights legislation that King fought for is an example of this.)
I also wonder what King would say if we could ask him today about what he says here. In the situation he describes, is it really the ordinance itself that becomes unjust, or can it be that the ordinance itself remains just while it is the enforcement process itself that is unjust?
We seem too content to allow decisions about the provisions of a law to be separated from decisions about how those provisions are implemented; we allow innumerable people (e.g., police officers) discretion to make their own decisions about what the law means. This leaves space for those people to interpose their own personal biases and beliefs between the law and its operation. I think we need to fix that.
This speech is a masterclass in effecting change through influence rather than authority.
Groups like Black Panthers and associates of Malcom X were arming up and rearing up to back up their wishes with violence. King certainly gets the credit for oratory influence, but I think a lot of the obsession on overrepresenting it is white washed non-violence 'protest and vote harder' nonsense that the history books like to push hardest when giving role models to the youth in schools. So people like King became elevated but omit the part that there was a very real looming rod waiting and the carrot King offered was only half of the equation.
I think the underappreciated part isn't "violence vs non-violence", but the role that malcolm x and black pathners actually played.
They weren't primarily organizing armed revolt.. it was more about the idea that they were articulating moral clarity. They were, in the most credible way, refusing to accept endless delay.
This allowed them to shift the baseline of what was politically tolerable.
In that sense, the movements worked collectively because of a kind of good-cop/bad-cop dynamic. MLK JR offered a path to reform that felt (to some) constructive and legitimate _because_ there was a visible alternative that many people udnerstood as worse.
I think violence is already far to prominent today, but I think successful movements do need both moral persuasion (if morality is still a thing that persuades) and _also_ a credible way of making inaction feel unsafe.
I think we also shouldn't sell the nonviolence short. It wasn't merely nonviolence. It was subjecting yourself openly to state violence and not resisting. It was letting the brutality of the state be made manifest as it washed over you. As the cops abused and beat people who were not responding even remotely in kind.
That was part of Malcolm's moral clarity, though in the alternative. He suggested it was immoral to subject yourself or people you loved to such an exercise, tantamount to one of self immolation.
Malcolm X essentially advocated a system of sovereignty not unlike the American founders, who of course were violent, not nonviolent.
In that way MLK JR really was America's Christ. He was willing to be nailed to the cross if it meant bending the arc towards justice.
> good-cop/bad-cop
The first essay in "How to Blow Up a Pipeline" deals with this dichotomy and how it's been used many times. Great read.
You argument is intuitive but it is also very wrong.
In the face of violence, human groups tend to become tighter and more authoritarian with less room for dissenting voices. If you believe that the State was really afraid of revolutionary violence you are terribly misguided, repressing violence with violence is one of the State most ancient task, what all States are most prepared for and good at. Only in rare cases where there is a legitimacy crisis and/or a repressive apparatus unwillingness to do its job, only then regime change may happen.
> Groups like Black Panthers...
This is a little ahistoric, to the point where I'd appreciate if you provided scholarly sources about your overall argument.
This is years before the founders of the Black Panther Party went to college:
interesting to ponder is whether violence alone would have had a similar positive outcome?
I think I can hold in my head two things: prefer changing minds; realize that major changes are often made real by violence.
However, I would hesitate to encourage violence. I hope you also.
The civil rights movement was not a single‑track nonviolent morality thing, and the way it’s taught does often flatten it into something safe, palatable and politically convenient
Thank you, everyone always likes to harp on about non-violent resistance, but that really only works when there is a further threat behind not accepting the non-violent demands.
That seems to have become the received wisdom on the subject in certain circles but I do wonder how strong the evidence of this dynamic actually is.
Thanks for getting out the word on an incredibly historically accurate take on the Civil Rights movement. I think people often forget that _this_ is an incredible part of the movement. We got large-scale non-violent demonstrations and civil disobedience instead of a proliferation of armed protest and possibly something even worse. Many folks were tired of waiting around to be safe and treated justly. Just one too many a cop beating up your father or murdering your brother or lying under oath to send your neighbor away for years. The Black Panthers started armed patrols of their own neighborhoods to protect themselves from racist Oakland police officers. There were growing calls for other Black neighborhoods to use their 2nd amendment rights to arm and defend themselves from a tyrannical government. They were succeeding and spreading. As a direct response, Regan (while governor of CA) eventually signed the Mulford Act of '67 which made carrying firearms in public without a permit illegal. (_And they were stingy when it came to giving these permits to Black folks._)
Re Mulford, you make a brilliant point. Rights are often tolerated until marginalized groups begin to use them effectively. Mulford is to 2A what FACE Act is to 1A. And the FACE Act is about to be used against the peaceful protesters who went into that church in Minnesota the other day.
Self-defense and revolutionary violence are two different things. The former can bring you safety through deterrence, the latter only lead to a violence escalation that the State is almost always most prepared for and better at
> it is white washed non-violence 'protest and vote harder' nonsense that the history books like to push
My family is largely [EDIT: South Asian] Indian. It’s really not nonsense.
> there was a very real looming rod waiting
The rod was thinly-veiled racial violence and domestic terrorism. It would have been a route towards exterminationist rhetoric and potentially action on both sides. Not civil rights.
Keep in mind, while King was in jail America was in its own telling losing the Cold War. We were behind in space. We drew a stalemate in Korea and were getting routed in Vietnam. A year earlier the Cuban missile crisis had been narrowly averted through diplomacy. King vs. Malcolm is a textbook illustration of the downsides of escalating to violence as a political tool. (And the upsides of refraining from it even if your adversary embraces it.)
> King vs. Malcolm
Popular history idolizes Dr. King, but without the stick of Malcolm X, King would have been cast aside. Only with both did the movement succeed. An ahistorical false dichotomy. Nonviolence wasn't simply some magic bullet that was magically better than force, it was a political tool that seemed nicer compared to the alternative of force.
> [R]iots are socially destructive and self-defeating. I'm still convinced that nonviolence is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom and justice. [...] But at the same time, it is as necessary for me to be as vigorous in condemning the conditions which cause persons to feel that they must engage in riotous activities [...]. I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. [...] [A] riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation's summers of riots are caused by our nation's winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.
- Dr. MLK.
> India in relation to nonviolence
The Indian case is arguably one of the best cases for violence against a colonizing force. Ghandi brought eyes of the common people towards India and created internal pressures, and additionally functioned as a unifying figure, but without indian revolutionaries nothing would have happened.
> without the stick of Malcolm X, King would have been cast aside
This is very much a supposition. A credible one. But not settled history.
> Nonviolence wasn't simply some magic bullet that was magically better than force, it was a political tool that seemed nicer compared to the alternative of force
Fair enough. And perhaps showing a group of people movitated enough to credibly threaten violence demonstrates their potency as a political bloc. But the value is in showing organisation. Not in the violence per se.
Levying violence as a political tool a dangerous game. If that rhetoric turned to action, the civil-rights movement would have been destroyed. By popular command.
> Ghandi brought eyes of the common people towards India
Just fyi, it's "Gandhi". Civilization I is over 30 years old but its orthographic sins live on forever apparently.
> Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.
I'm on board with the general mindset of this, but in recent years and especially since 2020, I've become less and less convinced that it's actually true. We have seen people effectively rioting in opposition to social justice and progress. There are for instance people who sincerely believe that by being required to get a vaccine they are just as oppressed as a Black person in the 1960s, or even as oppressed as a slave.
They are incorrect. But they believe they are correct, and social justice and progress won't alleviate their misunderstanding nor their willingness to advocate on its behalf.
Let’s not whitewash Ghandi and the Indian independence movement either, by implying there also were violent sticks in the background vs Ghandi’s carrot
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_movement_for_Ind...
> there also were violent sticks in the background vs Ghandi’s carrot
There are always agitators. Britain, however, did not withdraw because of them.
As with King, if they’d taken the driver’s seat, British public opinion probably wouldn’t have turned towards India the way it did in our timeline.
Now consider that the principle anti-colonial pusher in the wake of WWII was America. The timelines are too far apart for serious commingling. But consider how much worse the world would be if India fought a bloody revolution, and then America saw domestic terrorism at home. Instead of two forces amplifying each other we’d see strong incentives for the majorities in each power to err on the side of caution and security.
A key part was that the PM of the UK at the time of independence had been supportive of the notion of Indian self rule for two decades. England had other priorities in the 1947 that administering India didn't help with too.
But yeah, Britain had put down a full scale rebellion of Indian troops with a 100:1 casualty ratio ninety years earlier, and had a full-blown self-styled "Indian National Army" surrender to them at the end of WWII shortly before independence was actually granted. They were tired of war at the time but certainly not afraid of badly-armed rebels. Noncooperation posed an entirely different challenge because it couldn't just be responded to with force of arms, and colonialist dogma taught that British leadership was supposed to make India a better run country, not virtually ungovernable. There were also more cameras around in 1947 than 1857
The flip side is that simple disobedience has far less effect in states less concerned with optics and values they claimed to live up to than the tail end of the British Empire or the US federal government at the height of the the Civil Rights era
> The flip side is that simple disobedience has far less effect in states less concerned with optics and values they claimed to live up to than the tail end of the British Empire or the US federal government at the height of the the Civil Rights era
Most importantly, the Civil-rights era US government was highly concerned with optics, because, you know, the world was being swept by Communist revolutions, and the last thing it wanted to do is to provide further fuel to their fire.
The current US government couldn't give two shits about its optics, because none of the people running it can even conceive of there being consequences to their brutality. The tail is wagging the dog.
> the world was being swept by Communist revolutions, and the last thing it wanted to do is to provide further fuel to their fire
I’d broaden the premise a bit: the world was awash with new countries in the wake of decolonization. It was a unique time in history when ideas held geopolitical sway in a way it hasn’t since.
If you want to ignore the violent revolutionaries in history because they make your narrative not work, then go ahead.
It doesn't change the fact that both the Civil Rights movement in the USA and the Indian Independence movement both had violent actors in the background telling the oppressors what comes next if they don't work with the populace.
> If you want to ignore the violent revolutionaries in history
Straw man. Obviously violent revolutions work. But nonviolent ones work, too, and often without substantially needing the “violent actors in the background.” They’re both valid tools, but they work in different contexts and seldom productively together. (Disruptive protest works incredibly well with diplomacy. But not violence. That gives the oppressor justification to dial up their own violence.)
> telling the oppressors what comes next
What comes next if the violent elements in India or the Civil Rights movement gained the upper hand would have been borderline-exterminationist intervention. Same as happened in the countless violent failed “revolutions” that preceded them.
I am not allowed to go into more detail into how we differ in opinion on forums with a US nexus.
The "principal anti-colonial pusher"? The first thing America did coming out of WW2 was support France, a nation just resoundingly beaten, in an utter colonial fumble on the other side of the planet.
> The "principal anti-colonial pusher"?
Yes. It was a major foreign policy issue for us.
> first thing America did coming out of WW2 was support France
Principal doesn't mean uncompromising. Just a main thrust. Britain was constrained in India, in part, by America.
If the Indians would have gone the King route alone rather than being on reservations they'd have been annihilated and you wouldn't even have been born. The token offering of the reservation was what they got in exchange for not fighting a losing battle to the last man, but the exchange wouldn't have happened had that not been on the table.
The poster you're responding to might be from the Indian subcontinent and not Native/Indigenous American.
In US Native/Indigenous usually call themselves either by their tribe or "Indian." White people are the ones that generally use native/indigenous more even though natives call themselves Indian more.
Since the context was US civil rights you can see how I came to the conclusion, since it didn't make any sense someone could simply declare their heritage is from an extra-continental nationality and thus I was wrong.
In any case in the context of US civil rights, the Indians (native) are a far more reasonable conclusion than Indian (Asian) so at best it is a shared failure of communication.
> In any case in the context of US civil rights, the Indians (native) are a far more reasonable conclusion than Indian (Asian)
Why? There's a very direct link between India and the US civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King Jr.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1959_visit_by_Martin_Luther_Ki...
I understand your confusion and I didn't downvote you. But the answer to "Which Indian?" is at the very least a coin flip in this context.
I think the ”Indian” there referred to India the country and Gandhi’s nonviolent protest as background
Excellent point. Though I find it distasteful when someone uses an ambiguous word counting on you to be able to figure it out from context, then "ha ha you are wrong" downvotes follow when I make a good faith effort to respond to it. It's certainly a weaponization of the word if it is implied the counterparty is naïve when they guessed the wrong one.
Martin Luther King Jr. has had a profound impact on my thinking, and is the historical figure who captivates me above all others. I am glad to see his writing appear on HN.
One concept which has pervaded my thinking recently due to personal circumstance is of forgiveness. I tend towards 'forgive but not forget'; I don't feel particularly attached to the past, but neither am I willing to let go of it. In one of his speeches [0] he addresses this directly.
He says that forgiving but not forgetting is not true forgiveness; but neither should you ignore one's past transgressions. Forgiveness is being willing to forge a new relationship. Not one built on history, but independent of it. The willingness to give a fresh start to those who seek it.
Another, more well-known idea he spoke of (that folks here are likely familiar with) is that of hate only adding to hate. I'll just leave his words here directly:
> The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
[0] https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/lov...
An alt-right lunatic could use this argument to suggest that those certain and particular J6ers who assembled openly, did not conceal identity, did not use force, nor make forcible entry, nor threaten others, ought never to have been arrested and jailed.
But that's crazy talk.
They didn't have nonviolence trainings ahead of it. It was an unorganized to loosely organized mob, which is the hallmark of most modern movements today
It was the storming of the capitol itself that was the problem. It was closed to the public and entered by force.
I’m sure all the police officers who were injured that day would be surprised to learn they did not use force.
You seem to be generalizing a whole group of people. I was careful to say "certain and particular J6ers." Collective punishment is not a thing in the US justice system
I reread this every year on this day.
Likewise, and I always find something new in it. It is always more challenging than I remember it.
I want to call out this part, which is just as relevant today as it was 60+ years ago:
> I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
What MLK is talking about how the "white moderate" sides with the oppressors by defending the status quo and choosing "order" over progress.
This is the exact schism that currently exists in the Democratic Party today. If you pay attention to American politics, you'll probably have an idea that there is a civil war within the Democratic Party between "liberals" and "leftists". "Liberals", the same "white moderates", defend American imperialism, want to put a smiley face on ICE rather than abolishing it and basically just want to be "Republican lite".
These policies are deeply unpoular with the base, such the the net approval of the Democratic Party is at historic lows [1]. This isn't incompetence. It's a choice to favor the donor class and their future job prospects over the interests of their base.
A lot of these "white moderates" today get angry at leftists (way more than at Republicans, ironically) for being "single issue voters" about Palestine since that's now become a litmus test for candidates in primary season. First, they don't understand what a single issue voter actually is. Second, and more importantly, there's not a single politician who has a good stance on racial justice and equality, women's rights and so on that has a bad position on Palestine. There is a refusal to see how these things are interconnected.
[1]: https://civiqs.com/results/favorable_democrats?uncertainty=t...
You can see it in the Democratic party leadership's response to Renee Good's murder. Cory Booker just proposed ( https://x.com/SenBooker/status/2011795625835114641 ) that ICE should be reformed by adopting higher training standards and requiring body cameras, when her killer was a 10-year ICE veteran and Good's murder was caught on three different cameras.
The only practical response to the situation in Minneapolis is abolishing ICE, firing every employee from the top to the bottom, forbidding by law whatever agency replaces ICE from hiring anyone who has ever previously worked there, and appointing a special prosecutor to vigorously investigate any wrongdoing by former agents. Unfortunately, we're stuck with an opposition party with no clear vision and leadership that would rather do nothing even when their inaction leads to major social unrest and injustice.
Cory Booker is the definition of performative opposition. He is a theater kid in DC. Still can't believe how many fools thought he was accomplishing something by filibustering nothing for about a day. I'm sure it got him many donations to pay his friends + family nice consulting jobs tho.
Who are you? What’s your background, and why are you increasing the acrimony in comments instead of t opposite, as the rules call for?
On the face of they are clearly some who believes, rightly or wrongly, that Booker is all hat and no cattle, only in the game for the contacts and donations.
That's certainly an opinion, and one that can ideally be countered with some key highlights from Bookers career that dispel that view and might even cause them to reconsider their opinion.
You know, as the HN guidelines encourage.
While I agree that supporting "status quo" is a central part of electability in US politics, by all means, if you have strong opinions about things, go get elected. Go run. There are plenty of places where you can become very powerful without having to go through a primary - all Louisiana offices, San Francisco, and numerous non-partisan roles throughout government everywhere, and anyway, you can get RCV passed, just like it is in some big US cities, which is to say...
You're talking about ideas that keep failing in elections, and then you demand just one more election but with different voters, and then find out that voters there don't like it either, so at what point do you admit you are wrong? That your idea of "good stance" is actually a "bad stance"? Another POV is, your grievance is, fundamentally, projection.