DS9 - Tribunal

[Freeverse]

He's the humble everyman so him being a victim of such episodes is them trying to make the impact harder felt.

Not to mention Colm Meany is really good at portraying suffering.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I actually liked it when he always ends up as the bad guy in Julian's hollow novel but everyone agrees he's the best at it anyways.

[Sir Will]

Finally someone who gets that just because you label yourself something doesn't make you that thing. Like how antifa is the most fascist group I know.

...no.

I like this episode. Cardassian society, their legal system in particular, is so... ugh. Poor Miles.

[Beastro]

I'd dispute chuck saying order without justice being worse than chaos because we in the developed world simply have no idea what real chaos is like. There are reasons why people bow to offering tyrannical order is things get bad enough, and that's because it's preferable than being at the mercy of the monsters of the abyss.

I find this issue particularly annoying with libertarian and socialist types who look on the entirety of civilization until about a century ago as being thousands of years of exploitation of the masses by elites that ignores the masses choices in such matters, and that said choice wasn't entirely negative. Most free farmers in Europe around 1000 willingly signed up to become serfs precisely because of the legal protections offered to them that they otherwise lacked, and that wasn't them making a bad decision, that only sounds that way from a modern perspective that comes with luxuries like the abundance of firearms being back centuries that afford people protects unimaginable to people a millennia ago.

[Fianna]

Sad thing is, this isn't even the worst experience O'Brien has had being wrongfully arrested.

Chuck brings up how, if police acquire evidence illegally, then that evidence can't be used to convict someone, since we don't want to reward police for breaking the law and violating people's rights. And while that's certainly a great sentiment, that doesn't really seem like an optimum approach. Surely, if you made the punishments for illegal wiretapping, searching someone's home without a warrant, etc., and enforced those penalties consistently, that would be sufficient; few cops are going to willingly go to prison just to ensure a specific person is also convicted. And if you've got that in place, then there's no need to willfully turn a blind eye towards evidence exposing someone's guilt, regardless of how it was obtained. A scenario where the illegally obtained evidence is declared inadmissible, but the officers who broke the law to get it are punished lightly, seems like a backwards approach.

[Nevix]

The greatest problem with the name game, as Chuck puts it, is that it is also being used to denigrate all of a group as awful for the actions of a few.

Irregardless of examples, to take a group with only a few bad people and extend guilt to ALL of that group is a very bad thing, because it paves the way for regarding that group as unworthy of protection under the law.

The soviet Kulaks know what it's like to be singled out as unworthy of protection. And the 6 million people (minimum) who starved in the coming winters when the new owners of the farms couldn't produce enough food to feed everyone know the consequences.

Do not assume the worst of people.

And even with the name game in mind, "it's just a name, it's not X example" is flawed, as some policies are only destructive.

Personally? Reform both the police, and the schools that fail the children by leaving them less able to succeed, and put in place policies that encourage 2 parent families that increase the likelihood of success for children.

I'm just sick and tired of having people tell me I'm some horrible THING because I don't 1,000,000,000,000% agree with them without question.

I'm also sick of feeling like I need to hide and be silent to be safe.

[Taurian Patriot]

Seriously though, I'd just be thrilled to live in a world that doesn't expect you to take one of only two perspectives on an issue, and then declare allegiance with that side on every other issue in perpetuity.

We wouldn't tolerate that on a fast-food menu, for God's sake - meal A or meal B, no substitutions - but apparently we're supposed to embrace it in our politics.

[Senko]

Your just having the worst luck with your topics currently aren't you. I wonder what's next as these things come in threes hmmm something about cancel culture perhaps?

[clearspira]

Your just having the worst luck with your topics currently aren't you. I wonder what's next as these things come in threes hmmm something about cancel culture perhaps?

We need the ''black on one side, white on the other'' episode of TOS.

[Genth]

Ok, make a registration solely in order to give opinions and remarks on the political stuff, sure why not.

I think it's... odd, perhaps, that Chuck seems to exclude those who do see the system as fundamentally flawed. There is an argument, and one that I find persuasive, that the purpose of the legal system in both the US and Worldwide is not to provide law or justice at all, but to protect the status quo. The origin of police forces was rarely, if ever linked to laws or courts and was always about protecting people from 'disturbances'. The modern history of policing, the repeated failures of reform speak to a system which can't be corrected onto the path it 'should' be on, because fundamentally policing is about protecting the status quo and not about law or justice.

The Cardassian system is not, whatever its proponents in-universe might believe, for the purpose of creating harmony or order, it is to protect the state itself as an entity. The Cardassian characters themselves show this kind of brilliantly. Kovat is a believer - thinking that the system is about what he was taught it was, a system of order and public harmony, a great thing that makes sure the people are safe and secure, even if some innocents are sacrificed. His horror at its failure is evident, but as Chuck says, he'll figure a way to rationalise what happened, or even possibly argue for a change to the system to make sure this can't happen again - perhaps by giving more funding to the investigators to 'uncover the truth more vigorously'. Makbar on the other hand knows what the system is really about - preserving the state and the status quo. Political expediency is more important than the values she claims to believe and stand for.

To use this as an analogy, Kovat in this is a 'reformer'. He believes in the Cardassian 'Justice' system, believes in the principles it stands for, even if presented with evidence that there is a fundamental flaw in it. The cops aren't fundamentally bad, they just need better training or more funding. Makbar on the other hand is a political opportunist, who would likely claim that this incident just proved how much the Federation hates Cardassia, that you need to back the system as it is even more, no matter what, otherwise you're a traitor.

Anyways. Thats a long post.