Saturday, November 15, 2014

Interlude 28. Should cops be permitted to join the bar?

[Based on Authorized police prevarication as a clue to the nature of the state.]

Acts of deceit, including those committed outside of the practice of law, prove a bar-candidate’s moral unfitness. (The Stephen R. Glass matter illustrates the point.) How does the state-bar establishment approach officially legitimate occupations that require that their practitioners routinely engage in acts of deceit? A nice theoretical question, you may say, but surely, no civilized society classifies occupations as “legitimate” when they require acts of moral turpitude. It's practically a self-contradiction.

But one occupation is freely permitted entry to the state bars despite having deceit at the core of its real job description: the police. American cops enjoy a license to lie both to the public and to suspects, interrogations included. Not only do they have this license, but their style of work depends on deceit. No cop can refuse on principle to resort to treachery, even against random members of the public, if at stake is a potential conviction.

Cops will retort that their deceit is socially useful. But so will many others who commit acts of moral turpitude!

Cops (and former cops) don’t belong in the bar, and their admission is the ultimate state-bar hypocrisy.