The Problem between the Rule of Law and the Online Court of Public Opinion

by Christopher Barr │POSTED ON DECEMBER 8, 2014

Society is stuck together by the glue that the law enforces.  If this wasn’t the case we wouldn’t have much of a society and we certainly wouldn’t have a society like the one, for the most part enjoy, in the first world.  We need just look to some third world countries to see that murder, theft and rape are an every hour and sometimes every minute occurrence.  Yes there are bumps in the road but for the most part we are free to walk where we want to walk, and carry our food from the grocery store to the car without being ambushed.

So what happens when the law lets the people down?  What happens when a police officer in Ferguson and a police officer in New York are responsible for the death of a man, a man resisting arrest but otherwise containable without the need for lethal force?  The death of Eric Garner and the Grand Jury’s decision to not indict New York Police Officer Daniel Pantaleo, for applying an against regulations chokehold causing the death of Gardner, was yet another blow to this ongoing police brutality problem in the United States.

There are still more women coming forward claiming that Comedian Bill Cosby had drugged them and raped them.  The problem with the law as we all would like to see it; is it’s become this tool for the one-percenter’s and the Elite just beneath them to wield as they will.  Justice is supposed to be blind but I think we are all coming to terms with the fact that it can see just fine.  Justice can be quite cruel to those that don’t toe the line as a worker for the Elite, and for those that threaten profit so the Elite can maintain their power over the populace.

The police, and I’d like to state not all the police, have become mercenaries for those that rule over us.  “To Serve and Protect” is no longer for the working class, it’s for the Multinational Bankers, the weapons manufactures’, the CEO’s and politicians that perch themselves up on the highest levels of power, beneath the one-percenter’s and the true Power Elite.  This realization begins to force us to question the very laws that we assumed held society together.

The sad thing is we are getting comments from people via the television or internet claiming that the alleged victims of Bill Cosby should have come forward earlier.  We are being told by some so-called experts that if people like Eric Gardner didn’t resist the police they wouldn’t be dead right now.  The problem is these are heavily biased opinions attempting to serve themselves as arguments.  The internet especially, has allowed most of us to believe that what we have to say is just as qualified as a professor of sociology’s is.  The internet has afforded us anonymity and it has emboldened us.  There have been many legitimate opinions from people disapproving of the way police are going overboard, but then there are the ones with agendas that are exploiting such tragedies for their own gain.

The internet has been in the public-sphere for just over two decades now.  Many people have had some time now to warm up to this new form of communication.  It is not lost on me that this very article is an opinion, with that said; opinions are just getting out of hand.  There are so many opinions about any given topic that they flood the playing field.  They suffocate the discourse itself into a competition of narcissistic viewpoints; they blind the potential for truth to surface.  

The real problem is because the gates instantly become flooded with haphazard opinions; it doesn’t give a person much time for them to think about their opinion.  As a consequence people simply react to comments with often gibberish rather than thoughtful insight.  Certainly time is a factor as well, they want the opinion now before the next sound bite swallows the previous one.  Social Media is a beast that could alert us to the mischievous criminal activity of the ruling class and unite us, or it can turn us all against each other while the ruling class profits from our misery.  I’d love to say that it will unite us all against the tyranny of the Elite but what do I know, this is just my opinion that can be easily accessed or simply discarded by the safety and security found by the click of the mouse.