The Lonely Goatherd Blog And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats - Matthew 25:32
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April 09, 2003
Tiresome conscience [Morethings index for The Shield]
Season 2 finale, Episode 13 "Dominoes Falling"
Air date: 4-01-03
"Results don't excuse bad behavior." Claudette -the shows' official voice of conscience- says this to Vic. As a general philosophical comment, most of us would naturally agree. Particularly considering that we're talking about cops and civil liberties, a long time member of the Libertarian Party such as myself would vigorously concur.
It sounds a lot different in the context, though. Consider what exact bad behavior and what exact results, and Claudette starts to sound like an ingrate.
The "Johnnies" gang, attempting a comeback, has just revived an old April Fool's day tradition (note the original broadcast date) which involves a random killing for each of their homies killed over the past year, in this case three. "Johnnie says 'April Fools'" and BLAM.
The first random schmuck to get snuffed happened to be Claudette's ex-husband, out in a car with their daughter. Vic, whom Claudette strongly resisted from having any part in the investigation, quickly figured out the gang connection, and the gist of what was going on.
The "bad behavior" was that Vic let his new team member Tavon put a gun to the head of the Johnnie's leader and convince him that he was willing to blow his brains out if he didn't tell him who was involved. Most importantly, they needed to know who the other two shooters were supposed to be before they killed anybody. [This was the most compelling one scene to watch in this episode.]
Granted, they violated the hell out of the Johnnie's civil rights. They might have taken their time with interrogating him properly, and with a lawyer present as far as it concerned finding the guy who murdered Claudette's husband.
However, there were known to be two more Johnnie jackasses set to kill random civilians within the next several hours. Would it have been better to let two more people be killed in order to say that you were ethical and constitutional?
I'm not entirely sure what to think here, which is good. It means I HAVE to think, to parse out the right and wrong not just in the nice platitudes of political philosophy, but in how it really applies in practice.
On one hand, I see the dangerous allure. Well, yeah, this was a special case, but then there are always LOTS of special cases. Turn a blind eye to clearly illegal behavior by cops, and you're asking for a police state. We're already halfway there just on the special needs of fighting the drug war.
On the other hand, Vic saved two innocent citizens from getting whacked. He did so at the expense of terrorising a murdering gang-banger. The guy badly needed terrorizing.
Claudette's immediate and complete refusal to give Vic credit strikes me as pigheadedness. Having a strong conscience, a sense of right and wrong, is good. However, maybe your conscience isn't always on the right settings. All that "morality" and "ethics" and "integrity" and all those other things have to be judged by how they work in the real world. Otherwise, they can degenerate into mere smug self-satisfaction.
In this case, there's no two ways about it: Tavon and Vic were acting in a highly illegal manner. Also, knowing the facts of the case, if I were on a jury trying them for crimes against the banger, I'd vote for acquital.
