Being on the front page means being responded to a lot here, so I'm not really going to keep up a discussion with you. I'm going to type this out once, and if you don't understand, I don't really care.brunothepig said:
You said yourself that you think the law is in place to protect people, but then you said at the end it's wrong to jail people for theft. This means that the law should not protect people from theft. In your mind, the job of the law is to protect people by not protecting them. Suffice to say, you've let leniency warp your perceptions so that you think the public interest is "protected" better when no one is protected at all. This is not an attack on you: it has happened to all of us, and even I'm not immune: this is so utterly woven into the psychology of the public that it is very difficult to notice.
But to cut to the chase, I think you're actually saying you'd prefer he still be punished, but have a lesser punishment than a two-year suspension. If not, re-read the above paragraph for why it doesn't make sense to not punish people for breaking the law. If you're still unsure, do a search on this thread for posts by me and check out my arguments on inflation of punishment and paternalism of the government as a result of civil disobedience. If you're still in disagreement at that point, not much I can do for you.
If you -are- just advocating a smaller punishment, then you're not really talking about now legal or ethical the officer's actions were at all, since the suspension length for this type of violation is actually set by state legislatures and judiciaries, way over his head. In essence, your arguments don't really link back to the discussion, even if they may be valid concerns.
