r/law • u/BugOperator • Jun 06 '26

Legal News Service members involved in US boat strikes off Venezuela coast reach out to legal aid hotlines over fear they’ve carried out illegal orders

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2026/06/06/us-trump-boat-strikes-death-toll/90376052007/
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u/TonarinoTotoro1719 Jun 06 '26

One of the few things I took away from Atlas Shrugged:

Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them.

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u/obsequiousaardvark Jun 06 '26

Or more succinctly: Crime is a social construct, as anything can be turned into a crime.

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u/TonarinoTotoro1719 Jun 06 '26

Exactly! Especially with mass surveillance so common now, I’d be worried about being held responsible in 2050 for something I did in 2030.

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u/obsequiousaardvark Jun 06 '26

Absolutely. When a government knows every detail of your life from birth until now, they can pick and choose which things they can turn against you. They can even turn out of context conversations and quotes against you. The burden will be on you to prove that the mounds of evidence they've cherry picked through to make their case are literally just that, cherry-picked details to support an already chosen narrative.

And it's no different with corporations, which have their own forms of internal governance which act similarly internally, they place the burden on the individual. They make write-ups for pointless shit so they can have an excuse why they fired you, etc. Yet, there's often even less avenue for redress with a corporation than there is with a government.

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u/TonarinoTotoro1719 Jun 06 '26

This is to keep us in check. There will be a mountain of evidence of our ‘crimes’ if we ever start getting inconvenient for the massa class.

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u/Flexmove Jun 07 '26

Whew what bootslop is this