Via Stulti

There are some phrases that should make a country pause.

Not because they’re dramatic.
Not because they’re offensive.
But because they don’t belong in a place that claims to be governed by law.

“Absolute immunity” is one of them.

When leaders say it casually, about people with guns, badges, and the authority to use forc, something has already shifted.

Not legally yet.
Culturally.

Because in a system built on law, no one is supposed to be above it.

That doesn’t mean every action is criminal.
It doesn’t mean every use of force is wrong.
It means every use of force is answerable.

That’s the deal.
Always has been.

Once you start carving out exceptions, you’re not just protecting individuals.

You’re changing the relationship between power and consequence.

And history is very clear about where that leads.

This isn’t about politics.
It isn’t about which side you’re on.
It isn’t even about whether a particular agent did the right thing or the wrong thing.

This is about something simpler and older:

What happens to a country when it decides that some people don’t have to answer for what they do.

Because countries don’t fall when laws are broken.
They fall when breaking the law becomes official.

What “Absolute Immunity” Actually Means

(And What It Was Never Meant to Mean)

In real life, “absolute immunity” isn’t a blanket.
It’s a narrow lane.

It exists for a few specific roles, for one simple reason:
to protect the function, not the person.

Judges get it when they judge.
Lawmakers get it when they speak on the floor.
The idea is simple, those jobs don’t work if every decision turns into a personal lawsuit.

Even then, it isn’t total.
Judges can be removed.
Lawmakers can be voted out.
Presidents can be impeached.

There is always a backstop.

What absolute immunity was never meant for is enforcement.

The people who knock on doors.
The people who detain.
The people who use force.

Not because they’re bad people, but because enforcement is where power meets flesh.

That’s where mistakes happen.
That’s where abuse can happen.
That’s where the law is supposed to step in, not step aside.

When force is involved, accountability isn’t a luxury.
It’s the whole point.

That’s why enforcement has always lived under review.

Courts.
Investigations.
Oversight.

Not to punish, to limit.

So when the phrase “absolute immunity” gets attached to agents in the field, something has gone wrong.

It’s no longer about protecting a function.
It’s about protecting outcomes.

And once the outcome is protected no matter how it’s achieved, the law stops being a guardrail and starts being a suggestion.

That’s the line.

And once you cross it, you don’t need to change the Constitution.

You’ve already changed how it works.

Why Being “Above the Law” Is How Power Breaks

Authoritarianism doesn’t announce itself.
It doesn’t need speeches or slogans.

It starts with something quieter: unanswerable power.

A country can survive bad laws.
It can survive corruption.
It can even survive abuse.

What it can’t survive is power that doesn’t have to explain itself.

The moment the state says, “This action can’t be reviewed,” the law stops being a boundary and starts being a permission slip.

And once that happens, the question is no longer whether power will be abused.
It’s who gets protected when it is.

This is why absolute immunity is such a dangerous phrase.

Not because it insults ideals, but because it changes incentives.

If you know your actions will be examined, you slow down.
You document.
You think twice.

If you know you’re protected no matter what, the pressure flips.

Restraint becomes risk.
Excess becomes safety.

That’s not a character flaw.
That’s how people adapt inside systems.

This is why every authoritarian system, sooner or later, removes accountability from its enforcers.

Not because they trust them, but because they need them loyal.

And loyalty is easier to buy with protection than with principle.

Once force no longer answers to law, law answers to force.

You don’t feel it all at once.
You feel it in small ways.

Cases that never get reviewed.
Investigations that never open.
Questions that stop being asked.

The system still looks the same.

But it isn’t.

What Happens When You Tell People They’re Above the Law

This isn’t new.

Long before modern agencies or legal theories, countries learned the same lesson the hard way:
when you put authority above the law, behavior changes fast.

Early America is a clean example.

Before race fully hardened into law, the colonies ran on cheap labor.

A lot of it came from Irish indentured servants — poor, disposable, beaten, and controlled by contract and force.

They weren’t free.
They weren’t enslaved for life.
They lived in between.

Then slavery hardened.
And plantations needed people to hunt runaways.

The owners didn’t do it themselves.
They deputized people who wanted out of the bottom.

Former indentured servants.
Poor whites.
Men with something to prove.

They were given authority.
They were given weapons.
And most importantly, they were given protection.

Do the job, and the law won’t touch you.

What followed wasn’t restraint.
It was eagerness.

Because once accountability disappears, force stops being a risk and starts being a norm.

Cruelty wasn’t required,
but it was rewarded.

Restraint wasn’t punished,
but it looked suspicious.

So people adapted.

This pattern didn’t end with slave patrols.

It showed up again with Jim Crow deputies.
With secret police.
With “special units” that answer upward but never outward.

Different uniforms.
Same structure.

The people at the top don’t swing batons.
The people at the bottom don’t have them.

It’s the people in the middle, newly empowered, still insecure, who hit hardest.

Because their authority is conditional.

They stay safe by being useful.
And usefulness gets measured in obedience and force.

This isn’t about bad people.

It’s about what happens when the law steps aside.

Every system that removed accountability told itself the same thing:

this is temporary.
this is necessary.
this is controlled.

None of them were right.

This Pattern Never Stayed in the Past

It’s tempting to treat all of that as history.

Old systems.
Old mistakes.
Old brutality.

But that’s not how this works.

Structures don’t die when uniforms change.
They wait.

Anytime a country faces pressure, unrest, fear, loss of control, the same idea comes back dressed as necessity.

We need order.
We need speed.
We can’t afford hesitation.

And someone always suggests the shortcut:

Give the enforcers more room.
Less oversight.
More protection.

It’s sold as professionalism.
It’s framed as trust.
It’s justified as temporary.

But the effect is always the same.

Rules become flexible.
Judgment replaces restraint.
Force stops being exceptional and starts being routine.

Not because anyone sat down and planned it, but because systems reward what they protect.

You see it when cases quietly disappear.
When reviews get delayed.
When accountability becomes internal and invisible.

Nothing dramatic happens.

The system still calls itself lawful.
It still uses the right language.
It still claims good intentions.

But the center of gravity has moved.

The law no longer stands in front of power.
It trails behind it.

Why Leaders Keep Doing This Anyway

Most leaders don’t set out to break the system.
They’re reacting.

Pressure builds.
Control feels fragile.
Something needs to be done now.

And enforcement is the fastest lever there is.

Courts are slow.
Laws take time.
Persuasion is messy.

Force is immediate.

So leaders lean on it, and then they worry.

Will the agents hesitate?
Will they pull back?
Will they stop doing the job when things get ugly?

That’s where immunity enters.

Not as a philosophy.
As reassurance.

Don’t worry.
We’ve got you.
You won’t be hung out to dry.

It sounds practical.
It sounds supportive.
It sounds like leadership.

But it comes with a quiet trade.

Protection replaces restraint.
Loyalty replaces judgment.

And once that deal is made, it’s hard to undo.

Because walking it back looks like betrayal.
And keeping it means living with the consequences.

So the language hardens.
Oversight gets framed as obstruction.
Questions get treated as threats.

Not because leaders are evil, but because power protects itself.

And immunity is one of the cleanest ways to do it.

Why This Hits Harder Here

Every country has laws.
Not every country builds its identity around them.

This one does.

We don’t just say we have laws.
We say the law is what makes us different.
What makes us legitimate.
What makes power acceptable.

Equality before the law.
Due process.
No kings.

That story is the foundation.

So when a government here starts talking about immunity for enforcers, it cuts deeper than it would somewhere else.

Because it isn’t just a policy shift.
It’s a contradiction.

You can’t sell freedom and quietly carve out exemptions.
You can’t talk about rights while shrinking the space where they apply.
You can’t claim the law binds everyone and then decide who it doesn’t touch.

Other countries are honest about power.
They don’t pretend force answers to law.

We do.

That’s why the language matters.

Because once the exception is normalized here, it doesn’t stay small.

It spreads quietly, justified each time as reasonable, necessary, unique.

Until the claim that “no one is above the law” stops being something we expect, and becomes something we remember.

What This Moment Is Really Testing

This isn’t a test of one agency.
It isn’t a test of one administration.
It isn’t even a test of one incident.

It’s a test of a boundary.

Can power still be questioned once it’s exercised?
Can force still be reviewed once it’s justified?
Can the law still reach the people who enforce it?

Those questions matter more than outcomes.
Because a system that can’t look at itself can’t correct itself.

When leaders say accountability will be handled “internally,” what they’re really saying is:
Trust us.

But trust was never the point.

The point was distance.
Separation.
Independent judgment.

That’s why courts exist.
That’s why investigations exist.
That’s why review exists.

Not to punish power, but to keep it from drifting.

Once those checks become optional, everything else becomes flexible.

And flexibility is where abuse lives.

This is the moment where a country decides whether the law still stands in front of power, or steps aside for it.

That decision doesn’t announce itself.

You only see it later, when it’s already been made.

The Question.

Countries don’t fall when laws are broken.

They fall when breaking the law becomes official.

Not all at once.
Not with tanks in the streets.
Not with declarations or speeches.

It happens quietly.

With an exception here.
A protection there.
A promise that this time is different.

Each step sounds reasonable on its own.
Each one framed as necessary.
Each one defended as temporary.

And by the time people notice, there’s nothing left to appeal to.

Because the question was never whether power would be used.

It was whether it would still have to answer.