Indeed. Which is why when somebody gets pulled over for speeding and points out that because of the theory of relativity speed limits are meaningless without a frame of reference, but the law doesn't explicitly specify one, and laws are required to be interpreted most favorably to the accused in a criminal case, the police always let them go instead of giving them a ticket.

> It's cops trying to catch criminals.

Corporations dumping mercury in the river are "businesses trying to create jobs". Muggers are "disadvantaged youths trying to put food on the table". They're supposed to do the second thing but not in that way.

Cops should be able to do what is within the law, and if we don't like that then we should change the laws.

This is exactly what the police are doing.

> Are you implying that the cops in this case broke the law?

Are you implying that it's illegal to drive with the flow of traffic? That seems like an unreasonable interpretation, it would imply that everybody is constantly breaking the law! The interpretation where the speed limit is relative to other traffic makes much more sense, because the main issue is speed differences. If everybody is driving 70 that is much safer than some people driving 25 and some people driving 115, so the law sets a maximum speed difference, e.g. if the speed limit is 55 and some people are driving 40 then you could drive up to 95 but 100 is too fast. This is clearly much more in line with observed behavior.

Anybody can come up with reasoning to justify whatever. You can say that we should follow the letter of the law and let people get away with it if they can find a loophole, or that we should have judges reinterpret what the law actually says to try to get the result the legislature intended, but don't try to say we should do different ones for different people.

That isn't actually how it works.

There are in practice multiple constituencies. Some people want higher speed limits, because they prefer to waste less of their time in a car. Other people want lower speed limits, because they believe them to be safer. Politicians have learned how to lie to people in the most adaptive way: You lower the speed limit but don't vigorously enforce it. Then you can tell the people who like lower speed limits that they've won, while the people who want higher speed limits don't actually slow down.

This deceitful compromise is also supported by the police, because when everybody is constantly violating the law they always have a pretext to pull over anybody they want. So the status quo is sticky. But it's also unreasonable. It's just not something that democracy is well-suited to fixing.

- My original post puts forth an interesting double standard, where when a non-cop finds a workaround to achieve their aim it's considered a 'hack' and a sign of being 'relentlessly resourceful' (a fundable, valued attribute!). When a cop uses a workaround to achieve their aim, which is to find criminals, it's considered grounds for outrage.

- Rather than engage on this point, you put forth analogies that don't address the hypocrisy, but rather use fine sounding language (relativity!) to make a completely different point that all laws should be treated in the spirit of how they were written, and not by what they actually say. And this takes some thinking on the reader's part to get there, as it's diverged significantly from the thrust of the first post, which, again, was to point out an interesting double standard.

- I try to get clarification on your now changed point

- You double down on the speed analogy, even further removed, with whataboutism and the logic that 'everyone is breaking the technical law so we need wide latitude in how laws are interpreted'. It was so far from my original observation that I don't even know why I responded. Perhaps you were trolling, IDK.

It's also interesting to me that my initial post got a couple quick upvotes and then got buried 5 min later. I don't claim foul play or anything. Just interesting. Kinda reminds me of the post against applying to YC that rocketed to the front page and then got flagged for removal. It's quite amazing how hiveminded this place is. And you know, I really have to question the value that I've gotten from this site in 15 years of reading it. I am positive that my life would be richer without it. So so long. This last part has nothing to do with you, just doing some reflecting. I'll see myself out.

That isn't a double standard. People are constantly complaining about "loopholes" when someone other than the police have found one, and law enforcement are constantly claiming that the one you've found isn't allowed.

The real double standard is not police and everybody else, it's normal people and people with power. Apple doesn't have to pay taxes because they can use some complicated shell games, but you can't do the same thing because it's reserved for international megacorps with fancy lawyers. It would be much better if we were consistent and always allowed "loopholes" to be used by everyone, so that the law had to be fixed instead of ignored or selectively enforced. But the police wouldn't be the beneficiaries of that, because they're in the group with power.

Notice how the police who did this are being berated rather than incarcerated.