'Know why I pulled you over?' Fortunately, California police can't ask you that anymore

gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world to politics @lemmy.world – 457 points –
Opinion: 'Know why I pulled you over?' Fortunately, California police can't ask you that anymore
latimes.com
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Any system of government will require some way to handle unlawful/harmful conduct, yeah. It's just a matter of making it not complete shit.

No idea if it would work in practice, but I once heard an idea where policing is a (mandatory?) duty for all citizens, but in regular rotation. Meaning, at any given time, some % of the population is now cops, and once your turn is up you're back to a regular person with no enforcement obligations or privileges. No idea if that would work in practice, but it would give people real consequences for being a shit cop. Nobody could just be a terrible cop in perpetuity.

Just make working in retail a mandatory service. That would fix society in a few years.

You have too much faith in humanity. Some would gain empathy for people who have to do that kind of work. Some would think they've earned the right to treat retail workers like shit because they did their time and handled it, so can you. Some would walk away with a better idea of how to fuck with retail workers or avoid detection when shoplifting.

I think that plus a strong system of court martialing could be worth a small country trying

I think doing police work properly requires more training than we can expect from random citizens in a rotation.

I would, however, support this kind of arrangement for legislators, where it's called sortition.

We could start with training our existing cops

Just because the existing solution is bad doesn't mean a different poorly thought out solution wouldn't have its own problems.