Is Canada Becoming a Police State?

To answer the question that constitutes the title of this post, no.  Of course not.  What an absurd thought.  To those that believe it is, may I suggest moving to Myanmar?  Perhaps that will allow you to see what an actual police state is.  I am a strong believer in “infringing” on people’s rights.  Not their fundamental, inalienable human rights, but the rights that allow them to get away with crime (such as the “right” to privacy).  A reason for jeopardizing that right should be necessary, but it is simply too easy to commit crime because it is too difficult for police to do their jobs. 

It is said that it is preferable for one thousand guilty men to be free than for one innocent man to be incarcerated.  To that, I say, “Huh?”.  If one thousand guilty men were free, as well as one innocent man, then there is the potential for at least one innocent person to become something worse than incarcerated.  The point of a criminal justice system is to lock criminals away from society (to keep society safe), not to keep innocent people from being locked away from society.  At least one possible solution to this is to rid of all these technicalities that free obviously guilty people.  And if someone is probably guilty (beyond reasonable doubt), then it makes sense not to free them.  I reckon the phrase “beyond reasonable doubt” has become meaningless (or its meaning has transformed into “beyond the slightest possibility of doubt”). 

Some actual possible solutions: install conspicuous cameras everywhere (in public, of course), allow for random locker searches (lockers are the property of the school, after all), allow for random drug tests, and give police more power in general, while also limiting it.  Personally, I see no harm in any of this.  I welcome any arguments as to why it may be harmful. 

When I hear of accusations of police brutality, or other such accusations against the police, I am usually skeptical.  That someone would make such an accusation for political gain is quite easy to believe.  I do think that there should be an independent agency that performs investigations into police conduct, because sometimes these accusations are genuine, but I would conjecture that some people just have an unreasonable sense of what “rights” they are entitled to, and how the police should treat suspects (as if they were their grandmothers, or something).  And, given what the police do, I believe they deserve the benefit of the doubt.  

Is the Death Penalty Outdated?

That the death penalty is outdated is an absurd notion, in my opinion.  What exactly makes something outdated?  I would say that something becomes outdated when a superior alternative is available.  It bothers me when people use the term “outdated” in a sociological context because it is basically a way of saying “traditional” with a negative connotation (even though “traditional” is seemingly gaining a negative connotation of is own), while there are more accurate adjectives available.  What I am trying to say is that “outdated,” in a sociological context, is really nothing more than a buzzword designed to add a negative connotation to a traditional custom or behaviour.  Which, it seems, is basically a way of saying anything short of progressivism (or constant social change) is inherently a bad thing. 

Semantics aside, the debate over the death penalty is becoming heated in the United States with the recent execution of Troy Davis.  I am pro-death penalty.  In fact, I would prefer to see it expanded to crimes such as sexual abuse of children and drug trafficking.  To me, it seems a perfectly ethical, reasonable, and practical option.  But only if it were limited to cases with strong evidence.  My believing in its ethicality is based upon the fact that the victims should be favoured in a criminal justice system.  Murder victims die.  They were not allowed the opportunity to be incarcerated and possibly paroled.  They’re dead.  So, why should their killers be allowed the opportunity not to be dead?  In many cases, the victim was relatively innocent, whereas the killer was not.  So, basically, a system devoid of the death penalty values the life of the killer over the life of the relatively innocent victim.  To me, that does not seem ethical; it, in fact, seems downright unethical.  Hence my belief that the death penalty is ethical.  With prisons ludicrously overcrowded, the death penalty is also practical (I agree with Homer).  It wouldn’t necessarily free up a lot of space, but that is beside the point.

I believe that anyone who believes that the death penalty, or violence, is outdated or barbaric (or, in other words, they believe that humanity has reached a point where everyone can get along without resorting to violence, or something) is living in a delusional fantasy-land.  

My Case for Judicial Reform

I do not know very much about law or the judicial process.  So everything in this post is based on what I do know about it or what I think I know about it. 

I am going to use the Casey Anthony trial as an excuse to make my case for judicial reform.  This case, where the defendant was found not guilty by the jury despite damning evidence, is an example of why such important decisions should not be left up to everyday people.  Several explanations have been given for why the defendant in this case was found not guilty by the jury.  I have not been following this case very closely.  I did watch the final verdict today, however.  I was aware of some of the evidence, and I would have guessed that that evidence would have been enough for a conviction.  If it was, in fact, the case that the evidence was sufficient for a conviction, then why wasn’t there one?  According to some analysts, it was due the human nature of the jury. 

A trial that can determine someone’s fate inovlves an important decision.  That decision is whether or not to convict that person, thereby determining their fate.  In my opinion, the evidence should by analyzed logically and mathematically (possibly by a jury of experts) and that decision should be based on that analysis.  I would imagine that some of the evidence, when presented, appears uninteresting to the jury.  It may not have much of an effect relative to more emotional testimony.  Such evidence may also have to be interpreted by an expert, which would theoretically give that person an opportunity to misrepresent its significance.  

A jury that can be capable of making this decision based on emotion should, in my opinion, not be trusted.  Something else about the current system that I dislike is that it involves lawyers.  Lawyers may have an agenda (i.e. they may get paid more if they win, or they may want to win for the sake of winning, et cetera) and they will do whatever they can to ensure that their agenda is enacted.  The lawyers can, thereby, use their charisma to sway the jury or play to the jury’s emotion. This may be a useful tactic in a lesser debate, but in the case where someone’s fate is at stake, it has no place.