Item — HN Reader

Do you think that distinction is substantive? Do you think there's some reason to believe that FBI agents are morally superior to the DEA and Secret Service?

As I see it, the illegal and immoral activities of individiuals within acronym agencies comes down to group think, tribalism, and a removal of separation of powers which this country was founded on. If a DEA agent does it, I think that increases the odds the FBI will do it.

1 comments

That is like saying if any police organization is corrupt in any way, then we can assume they all are deeply corrupt.

So, yes, the distinction is substantive.

Well, no that's a little different. If one out of thousands of police organizations were corrupt, that would offer little evidence that the average one is.

If one out of 5 acronym agencies is corrupt, that's a 20% corruption rate.

Now of course one incident doesn't prove a whole organization is bad. But it does show the processes used by that organization have insufficient oversight to prevent it.

Moreover, it's not simply one case. Yes, the comment brought up an isolated case, but there are many more known cases, and I'm curious how many unknown cases there are....

I feel like your arguments have been willfully oversimplifying and I question what your dog in this fight is.

When creating policies we should assume all human organizations are corrupt.

"If any corporation is corrupt, all others must be too"