{"id":6385,"date":"2025-05-27T07:22:29","date_gmt":"2025-05-27T11:22:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/?p=6385"},"modified":"2025-05-27T07:22:31","modified_gmt":"2025-05-27T11:22:31","slug":"think-of-the-innocent-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2025\/05\/27\/think-of-the-innocent-man\/","title":{"rendered":"Think of the Innocent Man"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A majority of Americans seem to have forgotten that the main point of the American justice system – the reason that trials take so long, the reason there’s so many rules and regulations and appeals, the reason we go on and on about Habeas Corpus and so forth – is based on the core idea that it is better to let 10 guilty men go free than to wrongly imprison 1 innocent man.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And this might seem absurd at first glance – you’re saying it’s better to let criminals go free?? But you need to look at it from the point of view of the innocent man – to put yourself in his shoes to understand how terrible it is to be unjustly imprisoned and have your freedom taken away\u2026 but that requires empathy.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Empathy is literally the understanding of how other people feel, to deeply understand their situation as if it were your own, and it is a core requirement for a just society to exist – or arguably any society, really. Because if you can’t understand how other people feel, if you have zero empathy1<\/a><\/sup>, you are effectively a society of one, because the only person you can really understand is yourself, and you will always be at odds with others because of that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A just society requires<\/em> empathy, it requires<\/em> being able to understand one another, at least on some level. Without this, it’s just everyone going “me, me me,” and never accepting any other viewpoint but their own – everyone else is wrong, everyone else is out to get you for something, and only you matter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it doesn’t take much imagination to think of what kind of outcome such a “society” of empathy-lacking people would create, and how terrible it would be – for everyone. <\/p>\n\n\n

  1. If you truly<\/em> have zero empathy, you’re also probably a sociopath, which makes you absolutely not fit to exist in society, but that’s a whole other level we’re not getting into here. \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    When you think of justice, don’t think of the criminal – think of the innocent man.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"uspol","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"federated","footnotes":"[{\"content\":\"If you truly<\/em> have zero empathy, you're also probably a sociopath, which makes you absolutely not fit to exist in society, but that's a whole other level we're not getting into here.\",\"id\":\"be2f8533-8f15-4191-a709-0a8afb5d276a\"}]","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[17],"tags":[412,602,601,392,597],"class_list":["post-6385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-society","tag-america","tag-empathy","tag-justice","tag-society","tag-us-politics","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pimUj-1EZ","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6486,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2025\/09\/22\/empathy-for-the-dead\/","url_meta":{"origin":6385,"position":0},"title":"Empathy for the Dead","author":"Keith Survell","date":"September 22, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"It's funny how the people who say that empathy is bad and will be the downfall of western civilization turn around and demand that everyone else show empathy to one of their own who espoused those views most loudly and then was killed by one of their own who took\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":481,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2005\/05\/26\/the-innocent-and-the-guilty\/","url_meta":{"origin":6385,"position":1},"title":"The Innocent and the Guilty","author":"Keith Survell","date":"May 26, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"This article makes a good point - about the President's hypocrisy on death. It should be noted, of course, that I'm all for stem cell research - and the death penalty, too. At least my views are internally consistent!","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3479,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2011\/09\/08\/trust-no-one\/","url_meta":{"origin":6385,"position":2},"title":"Trust No One","author":"Keith Survell","date":"September 8, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"In the post 9\/11 America, you are presumed guilty until... well, you're pretty much always presumed guilty.","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2744,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2009\/08\/09\/what-lord-of-the-flies-taught-us-about-free-markets\/","url_meta":{"origin":6385,"position":3},"title":"What “The Lord of the Flies” Taught us about Free Markets","author":"Keith Survell","date":"August 9, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Taking the lessons of the book \"The Lord of the Flies\" and applying them to the so-called \"Free Market.\"","rel":"","context":"In "My Opinion"","block_context":{"text":"My Opinion","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/my-opinion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Flickr image by Enrico Fuente","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/123\/346158990_1ca071e203_m.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1231,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/07\/25\/news-from-the-not-to-distant-future\/","url_meta":{"origin":6385,"position":4},"title":"News from the Not-To-Distant Future","author":"Keith Survell","date":"July 25, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"From a Slashdot comment on the story \"Big Six UK ISPs Capitulate To Music Industry\": BBC News April 2nd 2010 ISPs have detected a massive spike in encrypted activity on the internet. Indecipherable \"SSL\" packets have increased in volume massively in recent months. This trend is seen as \"disturbing\" in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "society"","block_context":{"text":"society","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/society\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":918,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2007\/10\/12\/never-fear\/","url_meta":{"origin":6385,"position":5},"title":"Never Fear","author":"Keith Survell","date":"October 12, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"\"There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense.\"","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6385"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6387,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6385\/revisions\/6387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}