I explained that, but you don’t need to like it. As an individual, the guy had a right to financial privacy. This does not preclude investigating his actions if he is otherwise engaged in criminal activity, or attending his duties in bad faith. It’s pretty much like any other form of bogus privacy where “it would be great” to know when somebody is up to something foul without depriving everybody else of their right to privacy. Sure, somebody could be a terrorist, or a mobster, or whatever - but those things are already illegal. So it’s an example of why not only this guy (who sounds like, by all accounts, an utter tool) has no expectations of financial privacy, but why nobody else does either.
Like I spelled out before - investigate the guy - and report on him in the news - based upon what he actually does, not what he buys. Otherwise it is just another angle of consumer dystopianism.
The ethics for me are the same as shaking somebody down and finding contraband. The finding of contraband or not should not override the ethics of the search in the first place. And shaking the cop down because of the car he drives is no better than shaking down anybody else based upon the car they drive. It’s classist. And, like I pointed out several times, why is the Ferrari the focal point of the headline rather than the corrupt activity?
It’s not enough scrutiny. But it’s also not as effective as other means, such as making government jobs impossible to keep as a career, or not paying them. Also there is not a distinct separation between his public duties and life as a private citizen. Why not let him live in the Public Servants facility with the others, and not pay them? Their life is a public function. But no, let’s make him a citizen also, and pay him money. The government used it’s oversight of him as a private citizen to solve the crime, rather than public oversight of them as police.
Right, the guy gets caught because he’s driving a quarter of a million dollar car to his work as a street cop and you’re trying to make it about him being brown. Nice try. Not buying it.
Racism is a real thing. This is not an example of it. Well except for you trying to excuse the guy by the fact of him being brown(ish) skined.
You realize that buying something is doing something?
The car was in plain sight, which is kind of the point here.
Cops are notorious for being likely candidates for corruption and bribery, and the powers-that-be would have to be on the watch for evidence of this going on if only to preserve the illusion that police are honest.
Because it’s comically obvious evidence of corruption. As in, there have been several references in this thread to comedies in which someone was both stupid and corrupt, and gave it away by buying an expensive car. Because expensive cars are the paradigmatic case of conspicuous consumption, in which someone buys something extremely expensive and impractical in order to show off how much money they have.
Did anyone mention that he might have been leasing it to pull chicks? I mean, obviously he wasn’t. But he COULD have been.
I knew a guy who leased a porsche right out of college, which took up a pretty chunk of his income at the time. Said he paid probably $30k over 2-3 years, I forget exactly, but said it was worth every. single. penny.
Well, I don’t believe in property. So for me it’s “doing something” in the same sense as praying might be. It’s not doing anything from my perspective, but it seems to help some people feel better.
Anyway, thank you for explaining the situation from another angle - instead of trying to point me out as a corrupt-cop apologist!
What don’t you get? Let’s say you are a $40,000 per year purchasing agent that buys millions of dollars worth of equipment for a large corporation. The company finds out you own a half a million dollar yacht. They think this is somewhat out of the ordinary, so they INVESTIGATE. They then find out you had a rich uncle who died and left it to you in his will, and all your dealing with the company’s money appear to be above board, so everything is fine. Investigating is not accusing, it is checking.
That’s probably one of the first things they checked. Rather than lease it he probably paid cash for it and owned it out right. If so that would have been a huge flag - one they wouldn’t have found if they haven’t investigated. It’s not like they said “nice car you’re under arrest.”
I’m trying to work out where you’re coming from. I’m reminded of Jean-Paul Sartre, trying to reconcile his belief that one was radically free and ultimately responsible for all one’s choices, with the belief that coercion impinged on freedom. (He was affiliated with the French Resistance during the Nazi occupation of France.)
Property is a system of social relationships, right? If no one believed in property – the way that pacifists don’t believe in violence – there wouldn’t be property anymore. (No more commodity fetishism.)
People both support and resist this system of social relationships. One reason they tend to support it is they often think it’s a fair set of rules, or at least bearable if it’s consistently applied. And, another reason is that there are people who use physical coercion to enforce the rules – i.e., police. Try to drive off with a car considered someone else’s property, and you’re likely to get beaten up by a cop, sooner or later. (Incidentally, I’ve read in the past that auto theft is the only common category of crime that the police have a significant likelihood of resolving.)
If it’s too obvious that police will bend the rules in their own favor, that undermines the idea that social relationships about property are fair, or bearable.
Not quite… I think of violence as a way of forcing certain behaviors, that it is tangible in that it is directly coercive. While property I think is more of a philosophy, or more likely a religion. It is entirely indirect. The objects which are ostensibly property do not change in their relationships with their professed owners. Nor is there much real effort to manage resources. It functions more like seduction - which is to say that people put forth inaccurate relationships because they are impulsive.
But I don’t think this implies pursuit of any ideal state where it is desired that people disavow the notion of property. A system of social relationships exists because you made it. A social contract between you and another. These are networks rather than totalities. What social relationships are comprised of is decided between the participants and no one else.
Sorry, I am probably not explaining this well, as I am rather tired now!
Except, they’re only violating his rights if they arrest him. Simply investigating someone (eg, checking bank records) is not a violation of his civil rights.
Owning something expensive in itself is not evidence of a crime.
