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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   16848 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 2026

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Stealing this from @ToaKraka in the FF thread:

A 911 call is made regarding a robbery perpetrated at gunpoint by three juvenile males in black clothing. One mile away from the location of the reported robbery, the responding officers find two juvenile males—one in all black, and another, KC, wearing a black shirt and mask and gray pants. The officers pull over alongside the juveniles and start walking toward them while shining a flashlight at them. KC starts walking away. An officer steps in front of KC, blocking his path, and asks him what's in his waistband. KC discards the object in his waistband (a gun) and runs away, but is quickly apprehended. He is charged with various delinquencies.

The trial judge grants KC's motion to suppress the evidence. The officers fully detained him, rather than casually speaking with him, when they shined a flashlight on him and blocked his path; and they did not have reasonable suspicion to detain him, since the description given in the 911 call was vague and KC didn't even match it. (The caller didn't even provide a direction in which the assailants fled. Did the officers have the power to detain all juvenile males wearing a single article of black clothing within a one-mile radius of the robbery? No.)

Our own BJ Campbell wrote that this is one of the important differences between the US and Western Europe. A German or British police officer would have the power to detain all juvenile males wearing a single article of black clothing within a one-mile radius of the robbery and physical evidence wouldn't be suppressed even if obtained without following the proper trail of investigation.

Is the USA shooting itself in the foot there? What will it lose if it changes its legal norms to lower the bar on probable cause and evidence suppression?

It seems to me the problem with law is its universality. We need hard paternalism for the bottom 10% and classic liberalism with protections for everyone else

Yes, and the way that this should be implemented is swift and sure punishment with escalation ladders.

For example, let's say you are caught shoplifting. First offense, a warning. Then 1 day in jail. Then 30. Then 1 year.

Instead the law is like "Crime carries a sentence of 5 years but they probably won't prosecute and if they do the judge will probably let you out with a warning, unless they decide not to for some reason and throw the book at you".

You get bizarre cases where a first offender is thrown in jail for a long time and the (more common) scenario where a repeat violent criminal is released dozens of times. Three strikes you're out was the right idea, we just need better refinement.

This seems the way. Swift and sure punishment is how you create very safe societies with modern policing. Look at Dubai many people here insist that a society full of Arabs and Indians can be so safe and yet it is.

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