The rule of law is largely a joke that the powerful trick the weak into accepting. The constant drilling away at the supposed sanctity of the legal system is evidence that the people who run things really don't care so much about attorney client privilege or due process.
The rule of law might not seem always fair, but it hampers the powerful much more than the weak. As an example: None of the billionaires in my city have set up their own duchy pressed us into an army, enforcing their own laws. Their taxes, while not as high as I would like, in fact pay for much of our city budget including city services. Even the poor in my city have access to clean water and the library system.
Just because we have to fight to maintain the sanctity of the legal system and because every actor isn't perfect, does not mean that it's entirely corrupt and captive. I would ask you to take a moment to compare the current rule of law, rule of law in a developing country, and rule of law without the rights guarded by a nation-state.
I guess we live in different realities. The powerful have proven over and over that they are capable of subverting the system in their own favor using their resources and influence.
>>As an example: None of the billionaires in my city have set up their own duchy pressed us into an army, enforcing their own laws.
They haven't set up their own duchies with private armies because they haven't had to. The state already protects them. Here is a direct quote from Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations:
“Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.”
At least the post you are replying to had the courtesy of providing supporting arguments.
http://www.vaildaily.com/article/20101104/NEWS/101109939 A hedge fund manager had his criminal charges substantially reduced over the victim's objections because having a felony would mean the hedge fund manager would have to admit what he did to his clients. The defendant in question struck a bicyclist in a hit and run, drove far away and called for roadside assistance for his car never mentioning anything about the bicyclist he left with lifelong injuries. Of course the excuse is that after he was caught he agree to pay some restitution to the victim...
Anyway, just a crazy story that I figured I'd share so not really a study of real national trends or anything.
The fact you attribute clean water as a sign of a functioning justice system shows how low your bar is.
Edit: I will say we have rights that exist. You just need to able to afford high power attorneys to prove such.
How is that an example of the justice system not functioning? 80-90% of people think drugs other than marijuana should be illegal. 32% see drug abuse as a "crisis" and another 55% as a "serious problem": http://www.people-press.org/2014/04/02/americas-new-drug-pol....
People thinking drug use is dangerous and making it illegal, and then putting people in jail for trafficking in drugs (which accounts for the vast majority of sentences), is not a failure of the justice system.
EDIT: Since people seem confused by certain FUD on this subject. The vast majority of "drug offenders" filling prisons are there for trafficking not possession: http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/Prisons_and_Drugs (only 5.3% of federal drug prisoners are serving time for possession; 91.4% are serving time for trafficking). And 80-90% of people support keeping cocaine and heroin illegal: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/17/drug-legalization-p....
Also account for the time lag between changing public opinion and changes in policy. As recently as 2001, 45% of people polled (and probably a much higher percentage of actual voters, who skew older and more conservative), opposed getting rid of mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent drug crimes.
Study controlling for type of crime and circumstances finds ~10% more severe punishment for crimes black to white: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1985377
Evidence that despite approximately equal occurrences of consumption of narcotics black citizens are arrested much more frequently than white citizens: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/06/04/the-b...
A successful rule of law functions in spite of, and not at the utter service to, the majority.
People do NOT support jailing offenders for minor drug offenders.
http://harvardjol.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/HLL104_crop...
And the poor haven't sacked them or hauled them to the guillotine. I still feel like the rich are winning here.
> Even the poor in my city have access to clean water and the library system.
Were there attempts to take those away that were successfully stopped in court? Because otherwise, you seem to be hand-waving more than arguing.
This reminds me, BTW, how lots of people have recently, after the terrorist attacks in Paris, urged us to sing La Marseillaise, to express sympathy to the French. That is slightly funny: the lyrics are rather blood-curling.
Do you hear, in the countryside, the roar of those ferocious soldiers?
They're coming right into your arms to cut the throats of your sons, your women!
To arms, citizens, form your battalions,
Let's march, let's march! Let an impure blood water our furrows! (Repeat)
I mean, it looks like people confuse it with All You Need Is Love which just steals the intro from it.
Well, duh. Did you miss the comment I was replying to, which suggested that the poor are better served by our system of laws than the rich are because the rich don't press them into servitude and they have clean water?
Yes in theory, but not so much in actual reality.
As Aesop said: "We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office."
Rob a gas station and get 10+ years. Rob the world economy and get promoted to Secretary of Treasury and the most powerful Governor's seat of the IMF.
For a notorious example, consider that some members of the Weather Underground committed crimes that could easily have resulted in life sentences, yet they are free today because the court found the evidence against them was collected illegally. This may not be a typical example, but it would seem to conflict with the idea that the rule of law is "largely a joke."
"Those politicians are all the same, there's no point in voting or being politically active, it's all going to hell, etc."
It's so not true, and it's just the kind of disempowering disregard for one's own agency that anyone who's greedy for power would love to hear. Man, when I hear that shit now, I just want to shake those people and say, "YOU'RE THE PROBLEM!!"
You're right, it is a continual fight. It never ends. There's no final set of laws or behaviors we're going for. The process is what matters.
When was that?
If you're saying that in the US the rule of law has been corrupted to the point that it's largely a joke that the powerful trick the weak into accepting, then while that's a bit stronger than I'd agree with, I do see how you'd come to the conclusion.
If you're saying that rule of law itself is largely a joke that the powerful trick the weak into accepting, then that's a deeply concerning statement.
Which do you mean?