unqualifying immunity

those who purport to serve we the people must be accountable to we the people

if you wanted to change just one simple thing that would shift a great deal of power from leviathan to we the people, one could do a lot worse than eliminating the idea of “qualified immunity” a doctrine by which agents of the state acting in their official capacities as such cannot be held individually to account if they were in the “normal course” of duty “just doing their jobs.”

now, obviously, “just following orders” is an excuse with a more than mildly checkered ethical past. no one accepted this at Nuremburg, nor should they have. it was, however, seen as something of a mitigation. i find this idea deeply problematic.

in many ways, it seems that “atrocity because they told me to” should carry stiffer penalties precisely because so many fail milgram and asch and, especially as agents of the state, we really do not want them to. you need more, not less punishment to avert misbehavior. subordinates should push back against implementing outrages.

so why are we accepting this again?

perches of power should be precarious, not privileged.

those vested with vast political and institutional sway should be held to higher standards, not lower. they should be more transparent, not less. and when they transgress upon the rights and liberties of we the people, they should be held to strict account, not afforded opportunity to hide behind office and officiousness.

and yet here we are:

the fact of this law’s necessity is doubly galling as not even qualified immunity is supposed to cover violations of constitutional rights.

but increasingly it and a nasty trend toward selective prosecution to ensure that one’s friends get everything and one’s enemies get “the law” seem to confluence into unfettered fiat. the idea of opening such bad actors up to civil liability as well as criminal may well be a good one. if we cannot trust the increasingly captured justice system to provide justice, then perhaps we must lean upon torts and civil actions that can be brought by citizens. no more hiding behind agencies and edifices. let’s give our public servants some skin in the game.

even in private business, the corporate shield does not protect management from egregious ethical breaches, fraud, felony, and similar acts of turpitude. this is called “piercing the corporate veil” and it renders them individually liable for such misdeeds. surely there can be no cause to hold the self-styled managers of we the people to any lesser account. how would one even make such an argument?

that because we rule you we must be secure from the consequences of abusing our power, breaking laws, abrogating the constitution, and suppressing those we were charged to serve?

this hardly seems a sound basis for anything but tyranny. it’s outright antithetical to notions of rights and a republic.

bad actors act badly and even when called out, the state (paid for by you) pays? they remain free from consequence?

and this felonious fungus has flourished free from fear of consequence.

and the fact that no one ever gets in trouble here has itself become deeply troubling.

it seems like the endless rejoinder is “well, if we did not so protect and indemnify them, who would want these jobs? no one could do them!”

who indeed?

perhaps someone careful. perhaps someone considerate, someone modest, someone who would always first ask “does this intrude upon the rights i have been charged to safeguard?” before usurping power.

hardly seems the plot of a tragedy, does it?

of course those seeking to hold unaccountable power see this as a bug so damaging that it breaks the system. but then, they would, wouldn’t they? in truth, this reaction is perhaps proof positive that this is really a feature and a vital one.

no one who is unaccountable behaves well and none who plan to behave well mind accountability and so it seems like demands for qualified immunity serve as a form of shibboleth for leaders and apparatchiks alike to tell us that they are unfit for office.

if this job seems too risky to you if you can be held to account for violating the constitution, well, that sort of says it all, doesn’t it? and if we must choose between the mischief of public servants being unfairly accused and indicted for abuse of power or the mischief of unaccountable public officials acting badly and facing no consequence for having done so, i can see no sound case for preferring the latter.

honestly, good.

let’s make it a real examination and incentivize each and all to their best and most rights respecting behavior.

see a line? don’t go near it.

if some CDC apparatchik or leader redacts an entire document of vaccine side effects rather than letting we the people know what they the agencies do about products they pushed upon the populace and swore were safe and effective, then let’s get them in the dock.

(they apparently redacted 148 entire pages under (b)(5), information withheld pursuant to the deliberative process privilege)

rather than shield bad actors from liability because “just doing my job” and “nasty legalism,” let’s play the music and make them face it.

there is SO much of this.

and it will not stop until misbehavior carries a price, not just for agencies but for the people who develop and implement such policy.

would it really be so awful to have government employees be unwilling to break the law for fear of being culpable?

no one gets to be immune from morality and ethics as part of a job description and any job that requires such is work you don’t want done.

the idea of qualified immunity stands in direct opposition to notions of fairness, accountability, and rights.

so does the idea of liability shields for the makers of mandated (or any) products.

there is no inherent reason to prefer such a system and every reason to rip it out, root and stem, as an aristocratic infection that daily erodes liberty and incentivizes both tyranny, irresponsibility, and all manner of grotesque grift.

in the end, there’s really only one plan for qualified immunity: