Is Qualified Immunity Really a Thing?

The doctrine of qualified immunity says that when you sue a government official for violating your constitutional rights, you usually can't get anything. It means only somebody who was intentionally trying to violate your rights or basically completely incompetent could have done this. And so it's very hard to get a remedy to enforce your constitutional rights, right? So, you know, i'm not a scholar or anything, but this just seems so unjust to me...i take steel manning opposing arguments very seriously.