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How unfortunate for this woman that she happened to be off duty when she made this tragic mistake. Unless the journalist somehow got it wrong I find the details a little confusing. No one appears to question this was a mistake, but the report states she was found guilty of murder. You cannot commit murder by mistake. A mistake is manslaughter (or a similar offense in US). The distinguishing feature of murder is intent.
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On top of this we find that the 'crowd' jeered at the sentence but the brother gave her a hug! There can be a wide disparity between what an individual wants and what 'society' thinks it knows is best. Without being specifically told, pondering the point for a moment and treating it as simply an unusual anomaly we could be forgiven for assuming that the brother would have been jeering along with the crowd. Contrary to the impression we are so often encouraged to adopt in the mainstream media(MM) the vast majority of individuals can and do 'rise above' in small ways in their daily lives. Perhaps not to the same extent as this extraordinary brother, but even so, to a greater degree than they are often given credit for. Unspoken, conflict free, co-operation in hundreds of small ways throughout each and every day. Like many things that actually work well it only gets noticed when it breaks down, which is the exception rather than the rule.
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(Black Friday shoppers)
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When it does break down it is raked over by the State serving MM and often, seemingly innocently, implicitly touted as 'evidence' of the need for 'authorities' to step in and take control. The 'thin blue line' between civility and chaos (which is usually mislabeled 'anarchy'). Level heads, benevolent values and good judgement will all trickle down from the 'dear leaders' at the top.
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Which brings us back to our hapless shooter.
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Good judgement can ultimately only come from within. We are often told that it is fine to (sometimes heavily) arm huge sections of the population as long as they have a badge, a costume and become dependent on the State's plunder.
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Of course, they will be trained as well, as anyone who handles anything that could negatively impact others should volunteer to do.
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Is the State sanctioned 'judgement' 'better' at the end of this process? Where is the aggression initiated? How often are peaceful protests attacked by the State?
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(Catalan demonstrations attacked)
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We all make mistakes, even when handling potentially deadly machinery like cars. Whose mistakes do we want to live under? One's in which the responsibility lies entirely with ourselves for all the decisions made leading up to the mistake or one's we edge towards under duress?
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(Blair's Iraq War)
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By paying tax we are forced to finance security services known as the police 'for our own good'. One of the primary reasons given for this is that somehow the 'judgments' that are made by such enforcers are supposedly superior to the one's you, I or millions of other ordinary people might otherwise make. This will be the position taken by Statists in Hong Kong after the recent shooting of a protester. "You must conform to our agenda for the suppression of freedom because we are the only entity capable of preserving 'law and order'". The problem for them is that the ranks of their 'morally superior' enforcers are actually populated by (very) ordinary people whose judgments are no better, or worse, than anyone else's, as the title article helps us to appreciate.
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The only enforcers that can reliably reflect our own values are the one's we have chosen ourselves (and pay for). Our choices will be mediated by the market. We won't get exactly what we want in every instance ... the crucial difference is that the choice will have been ours and we individually bear the responsibility for the consequences, taking our business elsewhere the moment we become 'concerned' by the activities of our chosen agency. A good deal more effective, I suggest, than reading Guardian articles and writing to your MP (or other State representative).
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As an (albeit costume wearing) civilian she has a heavy price to pay for her mistake. It will be interesting to see how the Hong Kong shooter's treatment compares.
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Whatever happens, the real lesson is that the biggest mistake, and one we have an opportunity to avoid right now, is to imagine that costumes, badges, training and an 'authoritative' tone transform anyone from ordinary human into something somehow superior.
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(Gen. Sir Mike Jackson - juggling the complexities)
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The State is a fiction founded on aggression. The sooner this is understood around the world the sooner we will create an environment in which good judgement is rewarded and poor judgement has real consequences for all of us as individuals.
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