⟡ SWANK Position 004 ⟡

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ON SCALE WITHOUT NECESSITY

Force does not become legitimate by being thorough.

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Entry on Record

SWANK POSITION PAGE 004 addresses a failure that institutions routinely misdescribe as caution.

Disproportion is not caution.
It is excess.

When the scale of intervention exceeds the necessity of the situation, authority has already invalidated itself — regardless of how carefully the paperwork was completed.

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Why This Position Follows Page 003

Position 003 records escalation as default.

Position 004 records what happens when escalation is allowed to continue without measurement.

At this stage, authority no longer asks whether action is required.
It asks only how much it can apply.

This is not judgment.
It is amplitude.

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The Failure, Precisely

Disproportionate authority displays a consistent pattern:

• high-impact measures deployed before assessment,

• symbolic use of lower-intensity options,

• expansive framing of risk supported by narrow evidence,

• continuation of measures despite worsening outcomes,

• reliance on institutional power to compensate for evidentiary weakness.

In such systems, scale replaces precision.

That substitution is not neutral.

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What This Position Establishes

SWANK POSITION PAGE 004 establishes the following constraint:

Proportionality is an ethical requirement, not a discretionary preference.

Necessity must precede intensity.
Evidence must precede scale.
Outcomes must inform continuation.

Where harm imposed exceeds harm prevented, authority loses legitimacy — even when procedure is immaculate.

This is not a legal nuance.
It is an ethical boundary.

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Why This Matters (Briefly)

Disproportion produces predictable outcomes:

• escalation of distress rather than reduction of risk,

• deterioration of welfare indicators,

• erosion of trust and cooperation,

• normalization of excessive intervention.

Once harm has occurred at scale, institutions face incentives to persist rather than correct.

Error, at that point, hardens into policy.

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Canonical Consequence

Authority that worsens welfare without necessity cannot claim legitimacy.

Compliance does not redeem disproportional harm.
Process does not neutralize excess.

Power that cannot measure itself does not remain protective.
It becomes coercive by design.

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Closing Filing

Proportionality is the difference between protection and control.

Where institutions act at a scale untethered from evidence, harm becomes indistinguishable from purpose.

Power that cannot limit itself must be limited —
not to weaken authority,
but to prevent it from becoming destructive by default.

This position is filed accordingly.

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Filed as Position Page 004.
Sequential.
Still obvious.

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