What I'm really intent on getting at, albeit through a roundabout way, is that such institutions will always be susceptible to abuse, and that they hadn't ought to reasonably exist in the capacity they do operating under the pretenses they have offered. They're neither properly capacious to hold themselves to account, nor is the public suited to the matter (look at the US political system), either. Trust and defer is a hazard, but we're all culpable in it's maintenance and that is why and that is how the faux lacquer of the Rule of Law is maintained because most can yield that faith, they're willing to defer their authority to someone else be it the police, the FBI, CIA, et cetera.
As to the argument, there are a million and one ways to justify and rationalize behaviors, some convincing some not. The question then becomes one of faith. Some aspects of ones willingness to advocate in the favor of another are fraternity, I won't deny that. And some are due to shared experience. I would say the largest fraction of it is necessarily that faith just because very often we lack the omniscience we so often act as if we're in possession of.
We'd also do well to remember that these folks have elected to enter into a position where they're frequently endangered, or at least the probable threat of danger exists frequently. Often times they're veterans trained for combat and not peacekeeping. They also interface with other people in ways that you and I will seldom ever have to in situations we'd hardly ever imagine. Imagine pulling over a drunk driver in a several thousand pound vehicle. There's about a thousand things that could go on there. Is the driver deranged? Is he armed? Is he going to resist arrest? Will he decide to run me over?
As to training: I disagree. There is always room for error, period. Men are never machines, as such they should never be trusted with mechanical rectitude. I can make a long list of a wide variety of charlatans with conflicts of interest in pedaling their wares, myriad training programs it's quite the industry and often it's snake oil with one or two poorly constructed studies or apparent correlation, unreliable, unreplicible — but they sell. I could see it being a point of plausible deniability though. Trained expert police dispatching someone sounds a whole lot more acceptable than police murdering someone. But really it's the difference between an annual refresher training composed of a slide deck that nobody pays attention to and mocks, and no annual refresher training.
As to the argument, there are a million and one ways to justify and rationalize behaviors, some convincing some not. The question then becomes one of faith. Some aspects of ones willingness to advocate in the favor of another are fraternity, I won't deny that. And some are due to shared experience. I would say the largest fraction of it is necessarily that faith just because very often we lack the omniscience we so often act as if we're in possession of.
We'd also do well to remember that these folks have elected to enter into a position where they're frequently endangered, or at least the probable threat of danger exists frequently. Often times they're veterans trained for combat and not peacekeeping. They also interface with other people in ways that you and I will seldom ever have to in situations we'd hardly ever imagine. Imagine pulling over a drunk driver in a several thousand pound vehicle. There's about a thousand things that could go on there. Is the driver deranged? Is he armed? Is he going to resist arrest? Will he decide to run me over?
As to training: I disagree. There is always room for error, period. Men are never machines, as such they should never be trusted with mechanical rectitude. I can make a long list of a wide variety of charlatans with conflicts of interest in pedaling their wares, myriad training programs it's quite the industry and often it's snake oil with one or two poorly constructed studies or apparent correlation, unreliable, unreplicible — but they sell. I could see it being a point of plausible deniability though. Trained expert police dispatching someone sounds a whole lot more acceptable than police murdering someone. But really it's the difference between an annual refresher training composed of a slide deck that nobody pays attention to and mocks, and no annual refresher training.
But nobody is going to take responsibility.