> People walking around with guns and badges should be held to the highest of standards. Suggesting an equivalence between the burden of proof on a hackernews commenter and individuals authorized by the state

Let's take a step back. OP, essentially, made a very basic logical error (actually not an error IMO, but a willfully misleading statement).

They said, "Statistically, [assuming a cop is a white supremacist] a pretty sensible assumption."

In my mind, what makes something a statistically safe assumption would mean that, more times than not, you'd be right. So it'd mean that greater than half of police are white supremacists. They then posted a link to support that statement which said that some white supremacist groups are instructing their members to join the police force. He's gone from the evidence of "some" white supremacist groups are telling "some" of their members among the police force to justify saying that it's a safe assumption to assume any officer is a white supremacist (greater than 50% chance for any random cop to be a white supremacist).

Considering that I strongly doubt the quantity of white supremacists that are members of white supremacist organizations in this county is even more than half of the amount of police officers, I very much doubt that the subset of individuals in the subset of organizations who were given this instruction and actually followed through on it comprises more than half of the police officers in the country.

To which I facetious said, "I'd hate to see someone use this kind of bad logic when deciding who is a criminal." Implying that, if the cops used the same logic on a neighborhood with criminals, it'd be sensible for them to assume every member of the neighborhood is a criminal. That point seemed to go over OPs head as he replied as if I wasn't making a facetious point and implied that cops do indeed do that. Presumably he thinks that's a bad thing when they do it but is perfectly reasonable for him to do.

I don't think anyone should be using faulty logic to make claims about groups of people.

> If you support the cops on this

I never said I did and, as such, the rest of this comment is not directed to me.

> In my mind, what makes something a statistically safe assumption would mean that, more times than not, you'd be right.

I assume I should buckle my seatbelt.

Not every car ride results in an accident. But enough do.