The people who were acquitted of criminal charges, who were awarded sole custody of their kids, and who won their small claims cases might have different views.
I was once ticketed for speeding. (The circumstances were as follows: I was driving several of my friends home after a party—I was as always completely sober—and had a full car. After almost entirely highway driving, I pulled out of an on-ramp, waited at a red light, turned red [because there was no turn on red], and then almost immediately turned again because that’s where my first delivery-couple lived at. As I was turning that second time police lights came on behind me. The officer spent five minutes trying to get me to admit to being under the influence in some way. After it became painfully clear I wasn’t, he quickly wrote me up a ticket for going twenty over, claiming he had ‘paced’ me, and that he had to immediately run off to some other emergency.) Naturally for this story to be relevant here, I contested the ticket. I had each of my friends sign a notarized letter stating that they personally recall me turning on the cruise-control of my car at a non-speeding velocity.
The officer didn’t show up, and so the charges were dropped. But not until after the judge spent a good three minutes lecturing me with as much condescension as she could possibly muster that I was lucky he didn’t, and that “we all knew” what I had done. No amount of testimony on my part—nor any collection of testimony (it was seriously seven on one, and the officer didn’t even have dash-cam evidence, when all vehicles in my state have them...) -- was ever going to change her mind.
Now, I know anecdotes do not make up evidence. But… that taught me a great deal about how the legal system is designed for petty-level criminal violations, as I got to watch many individuals go through the same process. And from that I infer that the attitudes of lower-middle class and lower-class individuals is derived from their exposures to ‘the law’: it is an interference and a nuisance, and therefore all manner of malfeasant caricatures are eminently believable.
I was once ticketed for speeding. (The circumstances were as follows: I was driving several of my friends home after a party—I was as always completely sober—and had a full car. After almost entirely highway driving, I pulled out of an on-ramp, waited at a red light, turned red [because there was no turn on red], and then almost immediately turned again because that’s where my first delivery-couple lived at. As I was turning that second time police lights came on behind me. The officer spent five minutes trying to get me to admit to being under the influence in some way. After it became painfully clear I wasn’t, he quickly wrote me up a ticket for going twenty over, claiming he had ‘paced’ me, and that he had to immediately run off to some other emergency.) Naturally for this story to be relevant here, I contested the ticket. I had each of my friends sign a notarized letter stating that they personally recall me turning on the cruise-control of my car at a non-speeding velocity.
The officer didn’t show up, and so the charges were dropped. But not until after the judge spent a good three minutes lecturing me with as much condescension as she could possibly muster that I was lucky he didn’t, and that “we all knew” what I had done. No amount of testimony on my part—nor any collection of testimony (it was seriously seven on one, and the officer didn’t even have dash-cam evidence, when all vehicles in my state have them...) -- was ever going to change her mind.
Now, I know anecdotes do not make up evidence. But… that taught me a great deal about how the legal system is designed for petty-level criminal violations, as I got to watch many individuals go through the same process. And from that I infer that the attitudes of lower-middle class and lower-class individuals is derived from their exposures to ‘the law’: it is an interference and a nuisance, and therefore all manner of malfeasant caricatures are eminently believable.