Law and Order: Benson and Stabler are completely batshit.
I've almost stopped watching SVU. Occasionally I turn in, particularly if it's a Casey Novak-era episode (Mmmm.... Casey Novak... she can check out my briefs anytime). Now, it's really, really morbid curiousity, because Benson and Stabler are utterly fucking nuts now.
Last episode, a girl had gone missing and they thought her boyfriend had killed her, so they were tearing his boat apart looking for evidence that he had (he was too busy smuggling coke from Florida, but anyways) - the search team reports to Olivia and she asks what evidence they've found. They tell her nothing, and in a voice of even deeper conviction, she says that that just means he got rid of the evidence.
Take a moment. Think about this. Carefully.
Done?
Good.
It never even crosses her mind that a lack of evidence might mean he's innocent, only that he's done a really good job of covering up his crime. She sounded even more sure of his guilt after learning that there was no evidence than before.
This is a very frightening precedent.
Anyone seen Full Metal Jacket, that scene in the helicopter where a random GI is spraying equally random Vietnamese with machine-gun fire? "Anyone who runs is a VC. Anyone who doesn't run... is a well-trained VC."
You're guilty because the evidence says you are. If there's no evidence, you're guilty because you obviously got rid of it. There is literally no way for someone to prove their innocence.
This is why I prefer the episodes where they get egg on their face. Of course, nothing ever comes of it. They utterly destroy a suspect's life and just shrug it off "Eh. Just doing our job. Now suck it up and help us." It's the worst kind of zealotry, made even more so because we are expected to consider these people the Good Guys, no matter how many times they go off half-cocked and leave shattered lives in their way.
The ends justify the means, after all.
Last episode, a girl had gone missing and they thought her boyfriend had killed her, so they were tearing his boat apart looking for evidence that he had (he was too busy smuggling coke from Florida, but anyways) - the search team reports to Olivia and she asks what evidence they've found. They tell her nothing, and in a voice of even deeper conviction, she says that that just means he got rid of the evidence.
Take a moment. Think about this. Carefully.
Done?
Good.
It never even crosses her mind that a lack of evidence might mean he's innocent, only that he's done a really good job of covering up his crime. She sounded even more sure of his guilt after learning that there was no evidence than before.
This is a very frightening precedent.
Anyone seen Full Metal Jacket, that scene in the helicopter where a random GI is spraying equally random Vietnamese with machine-gun fire? "Anyone who runs is a VC. Anyone who doesn't run... is a well-trained VC."
You're guilty because the evidence says you are. If there's no evidence, you're guilty because you obviously got rid of it. There is literally no way for someone to prove their innocence.
This is why I prefer the episodes where they get egg on their face. Of course, nothing ever comes of it. They utterly destroy a suspect's life and just shrug it off "Eh. Just doing our job. Now suck it up and help us." It's the worst kind of zealotry, made even more so because we are expected to consider these people the Good Guys, no matter how many times they go off half-cocked and leave shattered lives in their way.
The ends justify the means, after all.