A policy framework that treats suspicion as guilt collapses the distinction between enforcement and execution.
Claims of secrecy and proof become substitutes for accountability when lethal force replaces arrest and trial.
Power justified as protection quickly mutates into a system that cannot tolerate scrutiny.
Maya and Michael frame a world where force has replaced process, and that shift exposes how fragile the rule of law becomes once evidence is optional. When governments assert the right to kill based on undisclosed intelligence, legality turns into a branding exercise rather than a constraint. The danger isn’t only the immediate loss of life but the precedent that mistakes are acceptable collateral, absorbed by people with no avenue for redress. This logic hollows out democracy by teaching institutions that outcomes matter more than methods. Once that lesson takes hold, violence stops being exceptional and starts becoming routine.
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