> All corruption is bad.

This is true, just like "all lives matter" is true, and it misses the point in the exact same way.

Those people you are replying to are not saying that this soldier should get away with his corruption because more powerful people are getting away with theirs. They are saying that those who abuse greater power are doing greater harm, and that their corruption should be punished with greater urgency.

On top of the harm the powerful people inflict directly through their corrupt actions, there's a secondary effect on the society at large. Unlike trickle-down economics, trickle-down corruption is a real thing. People see those in power get away with corruption and say "Why should I do the right thing?"

Of course, the usual answer from those in power ends up being "because we have the power to punish you and you don't have the power to punish us". And that's how you end up with the arrest and prosecution of a US soldier on the same 5 counts that the top politicians and their cronies are getting away with on a daily basis, aided by the president himself.

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scoofy a day ago | parent [-]

Two wrongs don't make a right. Legitimizing small time corruption because bigger corruption exists just legitimizes corrupt behavior in general. It should be offensive no matter who does it.

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superultra a day ago | parent | next [-]

How is this comment on hacker news? Do we not understand basic principles of scale?

40 billion of corruption is way more corrupt than 400k.

And what’s more is penalizing the 400k without penalizing the 400b means the people getting the 400b look better.

	▲	scoofy 14 hours ago \| parent [-]
		We can't penalize the 400B corruption. If we could, I would completely agree with OP's point. It's just that it's not a matter of choice. It's not that we "don't choose to"... We obviously want to, but we can't, because there is an inherent principal-agent problem that exists with high-level corruption. Again, it's like saying "let's not take the time to charge someone with manslaughter, because there are people out there who have committed war crimes that have killed tens of thousands of people." We all want to bring the war-criminals to justices, but we can't, so it's moot. We should spend our resources on law enforcement where we can. Otherwise it's a race to the bottom, because with justice, perfect quickly becomes the enemy of good.

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SlightlyLeftPad 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Are you my high school football coach defending their bully quarterback son as he terrorizes half the grade and punishing “tattle tails”?

	▲	scoofy 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		This is not a helpful comment.

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CodeMage a day ago | parent | prev [-]

I have to ask: did you read what I wrote before you replied to me? I know the question might come across as an attack, but it's not. I'm genuinely curious about what process lead to your comment being a reply to mine, when mine explicitly states the following:

> Those people you are replying to are not saying that this soldier should get away with his corruption because more powerful people are getting away with theirs. They are saying that those who abuse greater power are doing greater harm, and that their corruption should be punished with greater urgency.

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scoofy a day ago | parent [-]

I did read it. Your point is effectively irrelevant. It means the same thing. Creating an "urgency chain" is effectively the same thing as justifying behavior.

It's like saying "we shouldn't worry about enforcing traffic laws because we need to use our resources to bring war criminals to justice" when the reason where not bringing war criminals to justice isn't for lack of concern, it's just that we have no coercive power.

Caring about prioritizing things where we do not have coercive power is pointless.

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davidguetta a day ago | parent | next [-]

> Creating an "urgency chain" is effectively the same thing as justifying behavior.

What ? we SHOULD ABSOLUTELY create an urgency chain

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CodeMage a day ago | parent | prev [-]

> It's like saying "we shouldn't worry about enforcing traffic laws because we need to use our resources to bring war criminals to justice"

It most definitely isn't. At no point did anyone in this discussion say "we shouldn't worry about small time corruption". In fact, I explicitly said the opposite. And then I highlighted it after you essentially accused me of doing so, as you're doing again.

> Creating an "urgency chain" is effectively the same thing as justifying behavior.

No, it's not. No one is "creating" an "urgency chain". Justice isn't binary. Things can be more or less just, they're not either perfectly just or completely unjust with nothing in between. Similarly, different people have different levels of impact. That's the definition of power in this context: the level of impact your actions have. No one is "creating" these concepts out of thin air.

What is happening here is that people are complaining about injustice and other people -- like you and the person I initially replied to -- are trying to delegitimize those complaints by stating that "all corruption is bad".

Let me repeat this, in case it got lost despite earlier repetitions: yes, we all know that "all corruption is bad". Just like we all know that "all lives matter", but pointing out that banality only got popular after the "black lives matter" slogan surfaced in response to a systemic injustice against African Americans.

You're doing the same kind of thing here.

> Caring about prioritizing things where we do not have coercive power is pointless.

On the contrary. If you always give up on caring because you don't have coercive power, you will never rectify injustices caused by imbalance of coercive power.

	▲	Schiendelman a day ago \| parent [-]
		I want you to know that you are making sense, and I appreciate how calmly and constructively you're engaging. :)