> this seems like a problem but one that gets far more attention than it deserves because it elicits strong emotions, riles up voters, etc.
Undermining trust in society is an enormous problem. The whole reason the west was successful is because people can go about their day without having to worry about nominal costs of corruption in day to day life.
Also, many issues can be handled at one time, and this is a pretty straight forward and quick and easy problem to fix. It’s obviously illegal, it’s obviously corruption, the only question is how much does society want to tolerate it. And the more it tolerates it, the more the parameters of which corruption is okay gets pushed.
Eventually, you end up like a third world country where you expect to pay a bribe or know someone to get anything done.
Edit: also, notice that the US currently has a president whose well known business practice was to not pay vendors and tangle up them up in court. And he’s openly proud about it. In any high trust society, brazen theft and dishonesty like that would be highly shameful, much less get you elected as a leader.
One perspective: at least 6 amendments in the Bill of Rights are directly about the relationship between the People and their police (most written prior to the concept of "police" as a separate entity from the country's militia forces/military, so not phrased as such, but is still known to directly apply). It's easy to argue that the remaining amendments all have indirect application to the police.
This seems clear evidence that the trust relationship with police was a critical ingredient to the Bill of Rights writers, an essentially a foundational principle in the US Constitution.
Aside: reviewing the Bill of Rights on Wikipedia there's a remark that as of 2018 the Third Amendment (no quartering of Soldiers) has never been invoked in a Supreme Court case. I cannot believe that the Third Amendment has never been invoked in a fight against "civil forfeiture" yet! [1] Yes, the wording of the Third Amendment specifically states "Soldier" and "home" but it seems to me clear that the intent should cover "police" under "Soldier" (again, given the document predates modern police), and "home" should be easily extendable to other private property. The more I think on it, the more I think civil forfeiture is directly a Third Amendment violation. But what do I know, I am not a lawyer.
> It’s obviously illegal, it’s obviously corruption, the only question is how much does society want to tolerate it.
It’s not obviously illegal to me. Corruption yes, but it’s legal for me to mention during a traffic stop that “my brother is on the job”, these cards are just a physical manifestation of that statement, and it’s legal for a cop to exercise discretion in handling the stop.
> Undermining trust in society is an enormous problem. The whole reason the west was successful is because people can go about their day without having to worry about nominal costs of corruption in day to day life.
Not worrying about the nominal cost of corruption is not the whole reason the west was successful. There are countless of arguments from both sides of the aisle that would show that to be untrue (capitalism, democracy, reward for innovation, acceptance of immigrants, pillaging land/resources, exploiting slaves, etc). The US has always had plenty of corruption so arguing that a lack of it is what made the west successful is difficult to justify.
> Eventually, you end up like a third world country where you expect to pay a bribe or know someone to get anything done.
There are laws today that prohibit bribery of police officers and they are enforced. Not sure this slippery slope type of argument holds water in the face of that.
> The whole reason the west was successful is because people can go about their day without having to worry about nominal costs of corruption in day to day life.
And I think that is still the case. Get outside, go talk to people, in the real world there is plenty of faith in our institutions.
Undermining trust in society is an enormous problem. The whole reason the west was successful is because people can go about their day without having to worry about nominal costs of corruption in day to day life.
Also, many issues can be handled at one time, and this is a pretty straight forward and quick and easy problem to fix. It’s obviously illegal, it’s obviously corruption, the only question is how much does society want to tolerate it. And the more it tolerates it, the more the parameters of which corruption is okay gets pushed.
Eventually, you end up like a third world country where you expect to pay a bribe or know someone to get anything done.
Edit: also, notice that the US currently has a president whose well known business practice was to not pay vendors and tangle up them up in court. And he’s openly proud about it. In any high trust society, brazen theft and dishonesty like that would be highly shameful, much less get you elected as a leader.