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Comment by siculars | Hacker News Reader

I say all of the above. There's basically one reason to work for law enforcement: Authority and its slutty sister, Power. People who are attracted to these things are susceptible to logic failures in pursuit of their interest in exerting Authority and Power.

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Many people are drawn to law enforcement out of the desire to help others and do good for the world. Being an FBI agent is a very honorable and well-respected profession, especially outside of an internet forum.

Your comment pisses on every person who ever went to school to study criminal law, many of whom did so for noble or at least neutral reasons.

"Being an FBI agent is a very honorable and well-respected profession"

Unless you are doing this:

http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2011/01/secret_government...

It is not as though this is some kind of new, unprecedented behavior either:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/31/mlk.fbi.conspiracy/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Edgar_Hoover

So let's say a young man is thinking about joining the FBI; he wants to do good for the world, maybe help catch a serial killer or take down a child abuse group. How does he know he will not be asked to conduct surveillance on an anti-war group? How does he know he will not be asked to dig up some dirt on a civil rights leader?

This "honorable profession" you are defending has always had a dark side.

So all the good guys who could disinfect the system from within should just turn down the chance and ensure only bad guys get into the position of power and authority?

It's not that "bad people" are the ones drawn to become cops and prison guards, but the inverse: working as a cop or a prison guard changes you to behave a certain way.

The "Stanford Prison Experiment" is a good example of this phenomenon: http://www.thoughtcrime.org/blog/career-advice/

You can always quit if your morale compass is that damn good.

That's exactly the point. That happens, now who is left running the show?

There are many ways "to do good for the world." I am incredibly suspect of law enforcement, especially at a national level. Not to say that local law enforcement is any less corrupt but it's the nationals that can influence laws like "show me all your messages" happen.

I would absolutely hate the USA to go the way of Russia, USSR, China or many others. Unfortunately we are headed in that direction.

>Many people are drawn to law enforcement out of the desire to help others and do good for the world.

Yeah right, and bittorrent is mainly used for distributing Debian ISOs.

I wholeheartedly agree - I was born on American soil and always felt that the FBI's profession was very admirable. I have had family members deal with the FBI and most of their field agents are second to none when it comes to being good at their jobs.

>> There's basically one reason to work for law enforcement: Authority and its slutty sister, Power.

I'm against government surveillance, but your statement is way too broad.

Only one reason? Really? You don't think anybody goes into law enforcement to protect others, curb violence, and generally do good for the world?

I doubt you'd want your profession to be slandered so casually.

I said "basically one reason" because I thought it may engender pedantry. Ya, sure, people may get into law enforcement for ideologically pure reasons but I am of the opinion that with great power comes great responsibility and there are just not that many people who can resist the temptation of those two sisters. And as I said elsewhere, there are many ways to "generally do good for the world."

Authority and power are not inherently evil, nor is the desire for authority or power.

Would you like the authority and power to prevent women from being raped? Would you like the power to vote to implement laws equalizing 'rights', such as same-sex marriages?

Power may be a necessary evil, but it's still evil. It robs you of empathy, because putting yourself in the shoes of every person affected by your decisions is just too emotionally taxing. And lack of empathy is the root of all evil.

We are perhaps defining power differently, which is why we will disagree.

I see 'power' as 'the ability to realize my will' and I think you're extending it to 'power over other people,' which does imply that, at some point, it will conflict with someone's legitimate (not saying who is to decide what is legitimate) pursuit of well-being.

I think perhaps we also disagree on the definition of 'evil', but I'm not interested in debating this online. This discussion requires beers and scarred wooden furniture. :-)

Well, yes, what you call "power", I'd call "freedom", and it isn't what comes to mind in the context of "power-hungry federal agents."

So if people who are attracted to law enforcement are hungry for Authority and Power then everyone else is attracted to Anarchy?

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