ACAB.

BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world to Lefty Memes@lemmy.dbzer0.com – 908 points –
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I don't know in what shithole of a country you guys live to hate cops, but here they are just decent, helpful protectors they ought to be. Never ever met one single piece-of-shit-cop in my life. There surely are rotten apples, but that is due to being human, not being a cop. There is no field of anything where everything's sunshine and lollipops. Maybe it's a case of how you treat them? You know, like give respect, earn respect? That thing?

Maybe an actual cop can give insight.

I was talking about real cops in more civilised countries. Not untrained us-american gun-monkeys. For the US my statement surely isn't valid.

Real cops don’t exist.

When you grow up some day, you might notice who's your real enemy. As it surely ain't the stupid cop who's just doing another stupid job of all those stupid other jobs in a stupid society of stupid people running after stupid pieces of paper with stupid numbers on it.

Who’s the real enemy?

Maybe the billionaires running this planet? Who all just have the best of our future at heart

The police were not created to protect and serve the population. They were not created to stop crime, at least not as most people understand it. And they were certainly not created to promote justice. They were created to protect the new form of wage-labor capitalism that emerged in the mid- to late-19th century from the threat posed by that system’s offspring, the working class. source

Criminological data has told us for decades that police are irrelevant for public safety. Other data tells us a lot about what does influence safety. British researchers Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett in their classic 2009 book The Spirit Level show that a large number of social problems, including violence, correlate strongly with inequality. Their work also shows different options for achieving equality: high wages by private employers (as in Japan) or high taxes and redistribution (as in Northern Europe). In the United States, every option for increased equality has been blocked by the wealthy who have—as Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page make clear in their important 2014 study—captured politics. source

That might be true for the US, as they're a shitty capitalist hellhole. Here we have nearly zero incidents, extremely low level of gun-usage and they're not just capital-protectors. They're helpers in all kind, even as a taxi if need be. E.g. Who'd you gonna call if your SO beats you or just won't leave your house? Or anything else where someone stronger (or better armed) than you threatens you in some way? Popo is here in 5m tops. Remember that noone has guns here and we're not at liberty to shoot intruders even if we had guns.

While i don't argue about inequality mostly being the reason for violence/whatever, the cops aren't the enemy. As said in another comment, they're just doing their shitty job. As kids we see them as heroes (not fear them like in the US), so many just become cops as a kids-dream, not even thinking about if that's a good thing. I'd argue that a banking-employee or basically any other employee that works for a billionaire, are the real enemy and evil. Who cares about the lowest end in the chain aka coos? I don't.

If a majority of your population decided to overthrow your government, who would the police side with? That’s your answer.

If the police would side with the average citizen, then your society is egalitarian. But, if your police would side with the government and billionaires, then it is authoritarian.

Because... It's their job? Protecting everyone from unlawful blahblah? Overthrowing a gov is kinda the epitome of "unlawful". No wonders here. Also they'd probably do shit and the army rolls out in such a case, but...

Especially the muricans hate cops so much but love their military. People being paid to murder other people "for protection". Where are the AMAB instead of ACAB?

Anyhow, and your take on your statement is, that cops are the evil then? Where's the importance of the lowest of enemies that are literally in the same boat as the regular working joe that cries ACAB? Or is it just acceptance that one couldn't change a thing but hating cops is graspable and tangible?

This is specific to the United States, but it will also apply as fascism rises in Europe.

I see you avoid answering things, so I don't even watch this. But for the point of the argument again: Rising fascism in europe is connected to the fucking cops HOW?! Why the effing f should I care about the enforcers of a system that wants to fuck me raw and not the owners of this system? Serves my point somehow, doesn't it?

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You know, I've also never personally had too bad of an encounter with a cop. I mean, I was falsely arrested once, but the cops were chill, only half of them had their guns pointed at me for no reason. They were just doing their job though, the others were all super chill!

No. Doesn't matter. You see DAILY that people are victimized. Not just in the states, you can look through this very thread for accounts of other people from other countries with terrible stories.

The very system of the state giving some non-elected individuals sole legal authority to excise violence against their peers, even ostensibly to prevent crimes we all agree are crimes, creates a power dynamic that leads to all sorts of problems we see today.

There might be bad daily incidents here too. Sure. Even if it were 10, what about the tens of thousands of incidents where cops just were helpful and/or protective? Same like with plane-accidents. Millions don't happen but the one that does makes the media.

I really don't see the problems you do. Cops here are highly selected (a weekend full of assessments of all kind, physical, intellectual and psychological evaluation). From like 300 participants, 0-3 get chosen. Then follows 3 years of training and regular checks. Not every country is like the USA which seems to recruit nutjobs and then give them a 2 week crash course.

But, for the sake of the argument: what is the alternative? No cops at all? What do you do if you're in need of help? Elect cops? That already seems to work great with politicians /s

I'm not an expert on any of this. Just a caveat, I'm sure anything I propose will have it's share of flaws.

State law enforcement (men armed with guns apprehending private citizens) should be the LAST step. For in-the-moment intervention, cops are already useless - unless they happen to be on site already, whatever violence happen, will happen before they get there. There's no good answer to stopping a determined violent individual, short of empowering people to defend themselves and others around them.

I think there's always going to be some level of violent crime. Some people simply don't function the same way. For these people, we clearly need some kind of active response force. It's use should be limited, based on hard fact and actual threat to civilian life. We also clearly need some kind of (humane) separation for people who cannot or will not rehabilitate, people who cannot be reintegrated into our society. These are two of the only acceptable uses of state violence, in my opinion.

I don't know the exact way it would look, but I'd like to see a move towards communities looking after themselves and those around them, in all aspects, and this includes safety and security.

Unfortunately, for property crimes, the only way to actually enforce property ownership is through violence, either direct threat of violence (break my shit and I'll end you), or state violence (break my shit and the state will send armed men to apprehend you unless you reimburse me). We have to determine what level of property security versus violence we seem acceptable. I tend to fall a bit more extreme towards violence not being okay to protect property - I don't think there's a single piece of property worth killing or maiming an individual over. Thus, if the only way to protect property is this level of violence, I believe it is wrong to intervene. I don't believe it is right for the individual to intervene, and I don't believe it is right for the state to intervene. The sad truth is that most of what the police force does now is enforce these types of crimes.

A community looking after themselves? Nice in theory but

  • won't work for bigger cities where nobody gives a rats ass for others
  • won't work in countries without free guns. How else should a community defend themselves?
  • organized crime will always beat local yokels with guns. Now they just can do it freely.
  • who organizes it? Who votes whom? And in the end someone is doing nothing but organizing everything and cashing in. Up the point where he needs protection for his wealth and starts adapting rules. Back to square 1.

I see you're not sure of an alternative, i wouldn't have one to offer either. Where's light there's shadow. And the worst problem is always: people. Homo homini lupus est. Always has been, allways will be. Doesn't mean we shouldn't optimize police where necessary. But personally I'm quite glad they're 3 numbers dialed away to quickly help first, ask later. You can even call them drunk so they drive you back home for free or at least call u a cab😁

Sure they would protect my properties too. So unless you are totally against property (then you'd totally be right and we wouldn't argue), how else should i protect it? I don't work but I'm still sometimes not at home and glad the cops would be here in 5mins in case of an alarm.

Nuh uh, dehumanizing them works better!

Wow, such argument, many insight. Hope you'll never need a cop (and you're not murican) 😉

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