Do you know any cops? Because you'll find they are a hell of a lot more honest per capita than the people on the street, especially in the case of moving violations, stops, criminal investigations. Most of them are MUCH more saintly. Which is why they get the benefit. it goes both ways. Lying criminals make the innocent bystander more vulnerable, and the reputation of the majority of great cops add layers of protection for the bad ones that don't deserve it. It's gonna go down like that as long as there are humans living and humans policing.
For a long time, you've been using Hacker News primarily for political talking points and ideological rants. That's an abuse of this site. HN is for thoughtful discussion, not rote flamewars in which every position is predetermined.
If you want to use HN the way it's intended, that'd be great. But if you keep violating that, we're going to ban you.
> they are a hell of a lot more honest per capita than the people on the street
My experience is that police are people much like others, including "people on the street" (who does that refer to?). Like everyone, most generally are honest but when they are under stress or have something at stake, especially the approval or loyalty of their peers, they often will pursue other priorities. For example, what is the difference between 'don't snitch' and the 'Thin Blue Line'?
I think a great challenge for police is this expectation that they are superhuman: That they will manage dangerous, stressful situations day after day, year after year, with equinamity and without it taking a huge toll. That they are knights in shining armor who will charge at the bad guys without fear or PTSD. That they have supernatural integrity and the massive systemic problems that clearly affect police throughout the U.S. somehow won't affect them.
Whoever is reading this, if you were a cop - working in a toxic organization with highly toxic customers (criminals), dealing daily with situations so bad they had to call the police (how many times have you been in situations like that in your life?) - you'd probably behave similarly to the rest.
Our criminal justice system is based on "beyond a reasonable doubt", not "preponderance of the evidence". So the relative amount of lying by cops versus suspects should hardly matter.
It's this kind of erosion of the rule of law that has directly caused our current situation. Cops have ostracized themselves from their communities by enforcing top-down social engineering (eg drug criminalization), and then further compounded that resentment by doubling down into a combative us-vs-them mentality.
I've no doubt that most cops are good people, but they need to start policing the criminals in their ranks rather than defending them.
