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by sanderjd 1041 days ago
> You said that the people involved were punished: This isn't an example of law enforcement attacks on the press going unpunished.

Where exactly do you see the words "were punished" in that quote from me, or in anything else I've written? It's not there...

Something "going unpunished" means it remains unpunished indefinitely. There are lots of examples of things happening in the past going unpunished. But this is a thing that is happening in the present, which may or may not go unpunished in the fullness of time. But not nearly enough time has passed to say either way.

The signs that justice is likely to be done here is that this created a national outrage, with the perpetrators having only local small town allies, which neither the US DOJ nor even, I suspect, the state of Kansas will find intimidating in the least.

Everything you're saying is totally true for things that don't get broad media attention. My thesis is that this case is different by dint of being featured in the NYTimes and on Good Morning America.

For instance, Derek Chauvin is in jail in very large part because he came to the attention of the Sauron's eye of the national media. This is like that, and it's why I think it's likely these people will face justice.

1 comments

If you have to wait until the fullness of time to stop playing a semantics game around on what you wrote vs what you meant, then be my guest.

For instance, Derek Chauvin is in jail...

Ok, I'm glad at least one cop who murdered an innocent person is punished. Maybe cops can't get away with literal murder anymore if enough people demand justice. Now, to get back on topic and to reiterate what I had posted before: all the cops that assaulted all the protesters, and press covering the story, in the wake of George Floyd's murder got off without punishment, even with the DOJ's knowledge, pressure from protestors & a lot more media coverage than this story is getting. That is the status quo.

It's not a semantics game! My only point is that it makes no sense to complain that these people have not yet been punished by the justice system for something they did less than a week ago! Of course they haven't, it takes way more time than that.

Pointing out the difference between things that happened in the past and things that are still developing in the present is not a "semantic game". I don't think anyone besides you is confused by what I'm saying here...

But your other point is a good one. You're right that my "media attention" thing is too narrow. I think another thing that matters is whether there is some broader political debate that they can latch onto. With respect to the protests in 2020, there was a lot of political disagreement about the protests themselves, which (unfortunately) made a lot of people sympathetic to those police officers.

But in this case, there is not any broad political disagreement about whether it's appropriate to intimidate local news outlets in order to cover up your corruption.