- cross-posted to:
- politicalmemes@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- politicalmemes@lemmy.world
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Patrol Cop once told me a joke about how he ran over a black kids bike. When got back to the station he saw the kid at the desk trying to report the incident. He’d carried his busted up bike the entire way. The cop behind the desk called out “Hey Rob, did you run over this kid’s bike?”. “Nope”. Case closed. No report filed.
Edit: PS: This was one of the “good ones”. He voted Clinton in 2016 because the rival faction in the Union was showing up to Trump rallies in class A’s. Took him the entire Trump admin but he works retail now.
How the fuck is that a joke?
Aristocrats!
It was funny to him. It was the moment he realized he could get away with crime.
For some people (and especially the kinds of people who want to become cops) literally just making others suffer is entertainment. He was surrounded by others like him, so for them it was nothing but a “joke” and another day at the office. Cops are truly fucked in the head.
I wish I had an answer
That’s the sadism they are best at.
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Memes are the political cartoons of the 2000s. Hopefully a bit funny, but more about the message.
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Sounds like a dumbass problem to me. Kid has some funny lines.
More importantly though, the space exists for both, apolitical memes and political alike. My point with the previous comment is that these kinds of small, digestible, somewhat funny but really more poignant pieces have been around since politics have. Once again, they’re called political cartoons. They’ve been co-opted into practically every form of comedy throughout history. This is nothing new to memes.
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You got an ouchie on your feefees, bud?
The child presents as “gee whiz, aww shucks mister” and then his words are increasingly harsh and abrupt (coincidentally, they are also true). The juxtaposition in the child’s presentation is objectively funny.
If the precocious little guy was here right now, he’d probably be eating a giant novelty lollipop and asking you if you brush your teeth every time you get done licking those boots.
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Doesn’t actually seem like you think at all, just react - likely because you or someone you know is a cop and you’re either in denial of the bigger known reality of cops at scale or you simply lack the basic empathy to consider any experience outside of your own first hand account of the world.
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I don’t think it’s every cop’s dick, I think at the most it’s every other cop… Scary enough to give yourself a built-in breather and time to wipe up.
Oh fuck that last line is good.
Did you cum? Glad to hear it.
Sure as fuck did.
People who make politics their identity ain’t funny. None of them are. No exceptions.
They are bitter people living in rage. Doesn’t matter what faction.
Oh how many comments I have seen on Lemmy from lefties suggesting death or violence upon right wing people. Horse shoe theory is not a theory. Tjeu should just get together and fuck or something.
“Everything I don’t like or understand is lefties!!! Objective, verifiable reality is lefties!!! The consequences of my own actions are lefties”
Just yesterday I had a conversation here with a self-described communist who thought the entire American middle class should be murdered by a mob for being part of a capitalist society that exploits poorer nations.
So I would categorize that as a leftist on Lemmy suggesting death or violence on people. Not only right wing, either.
I’m going to guess, reading between the lines here… “Just yesterday I had a conversation (that I didn’t have) with a real person (who doesn’t exist)”
If only that were true. But sadly, no. Here’s a link, I think: https://lemmy.world/comment/10693493
I’ll direct you to the key paragraph:
Yes [the Kulaks did deserve being killed], and if a mob of the third world’s poor rose up and killed middle class Americans (self included) we would very much deserve it too. My recognition of this simple reality is why I’m a communist, and your denial of it is why you cling so tightly to liberalism.
I’m glad you linked source. Counter to what I perceive your intentions were, it actually shed light on how dishonest you had been in your representation of that previous comment as a part of the bigger conversation you’d had in that other thread - I’m only left to assume that you had hoped that nobody would read the source conversation in full and would instead see the basic presence of the URL and accept your own POV as fact.
Frankly, I think you should be a bit ashamed that you tried to misrepresent ALL OF THAT INVOLVED CONVERSATION in the other thread with little-no larger context presented. All for an attempt at some minor “win” in this unrelated thread?
To the dishonesty, YOU are actually the one who introduced the original premise of the “middle class being murdered” and in response, this person (in a bit of a passionate response, sure) engaged to reinforce a point they had been otherwise making throughout that fuller conversation - that American “success” in capitalism is zero sum, it always thrives on the backs of a set of conveniently ignored victims (throughout the third world especially). It IS something that we in the US conveniently ignore each and every day in the perceived “success” of capitalism, like averting your eyes and stepping over a houseless person to buy an $8 coffee. On a human level, yes, that is a horrible indefensible choice many of us make consistently to preserve a higher level of personal comfort when we could choose to do otherwise. The quiet guilt that the “wonders” of capitalism rightly have is why reagan had to make that famous speech where he told yuppies something akin to, “You don’t need to feel ashamed for owning your own fancy, personal swimming pool”
I don’t agree with every position of that other poster, but there is definitely nuance here worth discussion every day - especially as the people who probably benefit the most (are a global level) from this broken system.
It is a truly rare thing that you get someone actually educated and involved enough with a counter position to engaged in meaningful debate - for you to then betray that here by trying to reduce that entire interaction to your singular misrepresentation of a flawed point that you originated yourself ONLY makes the reader walk away with a deeper consideration of your opponent’s positions and a dismissal of your own assertions.
You either agree that it’s justified to murder the entire American middle class, or you don’t. It’s pretty simple.
I don’t really care if you assessed me as being intellectually dishonest by linking someone’s answer to a question I posed. You can call that a flawed point if you want, but they were the ones who -rather shockingly- choose to embrace democide of millions of people - including presumably themselves, their family, and friends - in the name of class warfare.
So yes, the existence of people like that shapes my view of this platform, as does this interaction with you rushing to defend their position (despite the fact that you don’t seem to sold on it yourself, since I’m guessing YOU’RE not prepared to be personally murdered for the sake of global justice and eternal class warfare).
It is a truly rare thing that you get someone actually educated and involved enough with a counter position to engaged in meaningful debate - for you to then betray that here by trying to reduce that entire interaction to your singular misrepresentation of a flawed point that you originated yourself ONLY makes the reader walk away with a deeper consideration of your opponent’s positions and a dismissal of your own assertions.
I don’t consider it a meaningful debate AT ALL.
I consider it a tiresome debate with someone who is truly fucked in the head. Someone who I later identified as suffering from sociopathy, or antisocial personality disorder.
I could have (and possibly should have) dismissed them based on their earlier comments, when they engaged in genocide apologetics, and denied the existence of the Holodomer (actually claiming conditions in the 30s were somehow "pre revolutionary). Especially after that NUT JOB blamed the Holodomer on American yellow journalism, because no number of first person (primary source) statements from Ukrainians WHO WERE ACTUALLY THERE are to be believed.
But I choose to see how they’d respond to my personal litmus test, which was, for me, the final nail in the coffin of communism: The killing of the kulaks. I frame it as the American middle class, because that is the local equivalent of the kulaks. Small time landowners, a few minor landlords, farmers. The American dream involves property ownership, and getting rid of the small time property owners, the somewhat successful peasants whose lives were made worse by communism, was the goal in that particular move.
It is possible to be a communist who believes that dekulikization is a step too far - Trotsky famously was. But that’s not the position “our friend” chose to take.
Personally I consider the killing of the kulaks to be a much more appropriate line than the one used to label tankies - which was the use of tanks in Hungary to quell a COMMUNIST uprising by Hungarians who simply wanted communism without the Soviet occupation. In other words, communists who reject stalinism. Personally I prefer PEOPLE who reject MASS MURDER, and communism had failed that test DECADES before the people in Hungary revolted.
feel better about yourself after typing all that worthless schlock?
Huh?
Oh how many comments I have seen on Lemmy from lefties suggesting death or violence upon right wing people. Horse shoe theory is not a theory. Tjeu should just get together and fuck or something.
Sniff your own farts harder.
LOL
At you, not with you, so everyone is clear.
Got brigaded I guess. Went from upvoted to downvoted pretty fast. Intence community. Guess there’s some radical discord or something. Enjoy your politics.
It’s funny because the (far) left vilifies the police and then goes all surprised Pikachu when they turn out to not be manned by far left people.
Idealism in all honor, but you’re not gonna change the system without being in control of the current power structures.
Hello, you seem to be referencing an often misquoted statistic. TL:DR; The 40% number is wrong and plain old bad science. In attempt to recreate the numbers, by the same researchers, they received a rate of 24%, but only while considering acts like shouting as violence. Further researchers found rates of 7%, 7.8%, 10%, and 13% with stricter definitions and better research methodology.
The 40% claim is intentionally misleading and unequivocally inaccurate. Numerous studies over the years report domestic violence rates in police families as low as 7%, with the highest at 40% defining violence to include shouting or a loss of temper. The referenced study where the 40% claim originates is Neidig, P.H…, Russell, H.E. & Seng, A.F. (1992). Interspousal aggression in law enforcement families: A preliminary investigation. It states:
Survey results revealed that approximately 40% of the participating officers reported marital conflicts involving physical aggression in the previous year.
There are a number of flaws with the aforementioned study:
The study includes as ‘violent incidents’ a one time push, shove, shout, loss of temper, or an incidents where a spouse acted out in anger. These do not meet the legal standard for domestic violence. This same study reports that the victims reported a 10% rate of physical domestic violence from their partner. The statement doesn’t indicate who the aggressor is; the officer or the spouse. The study is a survey and not an empirical scientific study. The “domestic violence” acts are not confirmed as actually being violent. The study occurred nearly 30 years ago. This study shows minority and female officers were more likely to commit the DV, and white males were least likely. Additional reference from a Congressional hearing on the study: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=umn.31951003089863c
An additional study conducted by the same researcher, which reported rates of 24%, suffer from additional flaws:
The study is a survey and not an empirical scientific study. The study was not a random sample, and was isolated to high ranking officers at a police conference. This study also occurred nearly 30 years ago.
More current research, including a larger empirical study with thousands of responses from 2009 notes, ‘Over 87 percent of officers reported never having engaged in physical domestic violence in their lifetime.’ Blumenstein, Lindsey, Domestic violence within law enforcement families: The link between traditional police subculture and domestic violence among police (2009). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/1862
Yet another study “indicated that 10 percent of respondents (148 candidates) admitted to having ever slapped, punched, or otherwise injured a spouse or romantic partner, with 7.2 percent (110 candidates) stating that this had happened once, and 2.1 percent (33 candidates) indicating that this had happened two or three times. Repeated abuse (four or more occurrences) was reported by only five respondents (0.3 percent).” A.H. Ryan JR, Department of Defense, Polygraph Institute “The Prevalence of Domestic Violence in Police Families.” http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/virtual_disk_library/index.cgi/4951188/FID707/Root/New/030PG297.PDF
Another: In a 1999 study, 7% of Baltimore City police officers admitted to ‘getting physical’ (pushing, shoving, grabbing and/or hitting) with a partner. A 2000 study of seven law enforcement agencies in the Southeast and Midwest United States found 10% of officers reporting that they had slapped, punched, or otherwise injured their partners. L. Goodmark, 2016, BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW “Hands up at Home: Militarized Masculinity and Police Officers Who Commit Intimate Partner Abuse “. https://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2519&context=fac_pubs
TL;DR: only ~10% of police are confirmed assailants of domestic abuse!
Now go look up the incidence of domestic violence in the general population, and see if you still feel so smug in saying that, lol.
I’m gonna be that person right now, but i really don’t care if it’s a misleading or misquoted stat. If they get to throw around 13/50 or that trans suicide number without any care to the actual reasons I’m gonna throw around 40% self report to domestic abuse. Just like you can’t stop them, you can’t stop me. Go ahead and down vote internet numbers mean nothing to me
BTW did you know that 40% of cops abuse their spouse?
i really don’t care if it’s a misleading or misquoted stat.
I’m frankly not surprised. Decent, honest people do, though, hence my effort to reveal that it is, in fact, a bogus stat, so that said people will know to disregard both it, and those like you, who continue to spread it in the name of their narrative despite knowing it’s bogus.
People who care more about maintaining and propagating their biases/prejudices than about being honest and truthful, are abhorrent scum, and don’t belong in civilized society.
Like I said, I’m gonna be that person.
don’t belong in civilized society.
It’s not like we’re ever going to reach that civilized society with the way everything is sliding to the right. It’s also not like they don’t already plan on removing me, so feel free to remove me once you have your civilized society, until then I’ll be here.
Lying to support your position is how people lose trust in arguments. I’m used to seeing this kind of BS from the RW but it’s disappointing to see it from the left. We need to be better than this or discussion becomes completely useless
There are few things more frustrating, politics-wise, than seeing someone who you presumably fundamentally agree with on issue X, fuck everything up by exaggerating or fabricating evidence.
It’s better to get called out by someone who isn’t interested in doing anything but correcting them. Could easily be fuel to completely reject the premise if it was someone else.
Yeah, well said
If people were convinced by facts and logic we wouldn’t have had trump as president and the ADF wouldn’t have any power in Germany. Snappy soundbites are necessary. Why do you think you heard 13/50 everywhere? Because it’s easy to remember and it sounds good. Same thing with 41%. You’ll be hard pressed to find someone that’s willing to do a whole bunch of reading to understand why ACAB unless they are already predisposed to believe you. 40% is a potential gateway in, and when they are along that path and see all the problems with cops, it won’t really matter when they find out that the 40% wasn’t true.
So go ahead, be disappointed, go ahead downvote, or whatever. But if you think winning only involves playing fair and honest you have another thing coming and it’s very far right from what you want.
I don’t think that all people are convinced by facts. I do think that eventually those who CAN be swayed are swayed by honesty.
That kid’s getting punted across the street the next second lol
That kid had a gun 🔫
Cops love it when you tell them that they are free to go.
I love how every acab post inevitably brings out a bunch of uninformed libs in the comments talking about how pigs are only bad in America (as though the term ACAB was invented in America…) or how a society without them is completely inconceivable. As though badges grow on trees, like police are just a natural thing that sprung out of the ground.
The primary function of the police is to protect private property and enforce eviction. They’re state agents who are allowed to use violence against working class people, and do so to prevent us from overthrowing the ruling class and redistributing wealth and the means of production. They protect class hierarchy. They attack protestors. They use state violence against the disenfranchised and the marginalized. The “just doing their job” of the police is to protect and preserve the unequal distribution of power in society. They do so by using violence against the working class. The rest of anything else they do is a small fraction of their job and entirely secondary to their primary functions.
Every post i see seems to use lib as a slur
I mean, it’s not a slur, but an insult? Sure. Liberals are not allies to leftists, and actively support the same systems we seek to dismantle.
Liberals are not allies to leftists
They can be. Using traditional definitions, the Liberal / Authoritarian axis is orthogonal to the left / right axis
actively support the same systems we seek to dismantle.
Who are we? Poor non cops?
What are we putting in place of the dismantled system? Anarchy? Different cops? Something else?
Socialist cops. Because state violence doesn’t matter when the state is leftist.
No, I’m an anarchist and a police abolitionist.
It’s a nice idea, but doesn’t it really only work if everyone is cooperative? How do you deal with the John Wayne Gacys of the world without police? Mob violence?
How do we deal with them now? Is dealing with serial killers the day to day of the police? Is that their primary function? Do they even really do anything about it without constant prompting from victims and the community?
I’ve been a victim of physical and sexual violence. Nearly every woman I know has been at some point. None of us have ever had any positive experience with the police. At most they hand wave us away, at worst we are accused of being liars and of wasting their time. Police don’t prevent anything. They don’t solve anything. They don’t address anything. They are only occasionally turned towards a specific person who has done something wrong and used a means of state violence against that person. That is an exceptionally rare occurrence. They are the perpetrators of violence many times more than they are the defenders of victims.
Essentially, what is being currently done about the john Wayne Gaceys of the world? What is currently being done about the Bill Cosby’s, about rapists and pedophiles? What are the police currently doing that actually prevents those things from happening? Nothing. They only do anything after something has already happened. And they don’t do anything to prevent those things happening again. Their daily job has literally nothing to do with the John Wayne Gaceys of the world. It is in the things I listed in another comment. In rent enforcement and eviction, in enforcing private property and means of production, in collecting menial tax from the impoverished, in defending the interests of the rich and of the state, and in harassing minorities while enforcing hierarchies of gender race and class.
Because liberalism has failed.
The book argues that liberalism has exhausted itself, leading to income inequality, cultural decline, atomization, nihilism, the erosion of freedoms, and the growth of powerful, centralized bureaucracies.
Liberalism hasn’t failed as long as I’m around
John Locke would be proud.
Lemmy is a bit further left than center. And most liberals tend to fall around the center to center right.
Most people on the left don’t like liberals because in their desire to be “the adult in the room” by dismissing anything more radical than the status quo, they get in the way of people trying to bring forth important change. As an activist, it’s not very fun to see someone take a milquetoast centrist position and call you radical while continuing to uphold the status quo that we are peotesting against while claiming to despise the status quo. These liberals, though often well meaning, end up being the great stumbling block to freedom MLK was talking about.
From the perspective of the left, if you see someone who is making it harder to make necessary change (ex: ending the war on gaza, stopping police violence/police abolition, being a cop, etc) is a pretty nasty sight.
Is lib a slur? No, but it’s certainly an insult, and it’s aimed at people who aren’t used to being called out for their political positions by someone who isn’t conservative.
Also, as an anarchist, I find it fun to lib bash every once in a while :3
The rich love to make liberal a slur. Because to be liberal means you’re against tyrants. So now with more divided factions their minions can exert more power
I’m an anarchist, and seeing someone say “to be liberal means you’re against tyrants” is pretty humorous. It’s a self-aggrandizing tale that doesn’t reflect reality.
Liberals do not oppose tyranny. Liberals opposition to tyrants is done by keeping the offices clean, and the seats of power warm, be it in the oval office, judge’s bench, or chairs in the chambers. Liberals vote for the lesser tyrant as an anti-tyranny measure. They oppose tyranny by increasing funding for the police, and giving bombs to fascists the world over while continuing to fund the biggest military budget in the world while giving the district of defense a thumbs-up to defend American interests by invading countries and slaughtering millions.
The so called United States is a liberal democracy. It always has been. And yet this structure is the cause of some of the most violent tyranny the entire world over. Even if you consider the fact that there have been some terrible presidents who might have been the cause for some of the most tyrannical acts of the state, the very act of saying “all men are created free and equal” is tyrannic when said by a slave owner trying to create a government that considers life to be property. And that was said before there were even presidents.
Under a liberal democracy, even with a liberal leader of it, being minoritized is a sentence to feel the tyranny of the state. It doesn’t matter if you are a holding a minority political stance and using the liberal-approved mechanisms to oppose the state. It doesn’t matter if you are a minority based on religion, sexuality, gender identity, race, or ethnicity trying to peacefully oppose the extermination of their group, or the systematic oppression of it. You will feel the force of a police officer’s boot on your back and knee on your neck, tools of the liberal democracy being used to “keep the peace” or maintain “law and order”.
Liberals will uphold the fundamental tyrannies of capitalism. Liberals will uphold the fundamental tyrannies of property ownership.
To be a liberal doesn’t mean you are against tyrants. It means you are the lesser one.
As though badges grow on trees
True, if there is no police it’s not like cops just appear.
The mafia does.
When there’s a power vacuum, gangs even worse than the police tend to fill it. Don’t get me wrong, the entire U.S. criminal justice system is rotten to the core, and causes large amounts of pointless suffering. BUT, there needs to be some sort of “police” to enforce the laws of society (and ideally, all those laws would be just). Even the Zapitistas had a form of police.
Also, I find “ACAB” cringe inducing. Sounds like something an edgy 14 year old came up with. And I’m not sure focusing on individuals (cops) instead of the institution itself is helpful.
ACAB as an acronym began in the early 20th century by workers who were striking in the UK. It is a term with a long, complex history behind it. Cops are the institution, so I’m not sure what you mean by individuals. Every member of the police force, from the top down, is a bastard. Every single one. There’s no exceptions to this. The very nature of law enforcement is being a bastard. It is a term that is meant literally. Law enforcement functions as a means to break strikes, to enforce private property and ownership of the means of production, to enforce rent and evictions, to terrorize the impoverished and the marginalized, to collect menial tax from the impoverished who cannot fight back against them, and above all else to act as the legal arm of state violence against working class people.
Individual cops may have done good actions. I’m sure there’s a cop out there who’s volunteered at a soup kitchen, sure. But that has nothing to do with him being a cop. That has nothing to do with the actual role he fulfills in day to day life, with the violence he enacts, with the system he supports.
The idea that police are holding back some tidal wave of horrifying crime is and has always been propaganda. Nearly every single woman I know has been a victim of sexual harassment or violence at some time in their lives, including myself. A lot of them have gone to police before. I don’t know a single person for whom that did literally anything good for them. I know 1 woman who was harassed literally across the country by people including police officers who said she was lying. The police don’t prevent murder. They don’t prevent violence of any kind that’s literally not their job. More often than not they are the ones committing acts of violence for which there are no repercussions.
I still find ACAB cringe inducing, and a bad slogan, but that’s an interesting origin I did not know about. I agree with most of what you’re saying.
I think the phrase “All Cops Are Bastards” seems to focus on cops/people, and not the institution of policing. I’m not sure if it’s effective messaging or not. Maybe it helps with striker or protestor solidarity, IDK.
I think police hold back organized crime (currently, in the U.S.). They maintain a “monopoly on violence.” I think if all police suddenly disappeared, other gangs would quickly take over the job. I.e. forcing people to pay them for “protection,” and stuff like that. This currently happens in many parts of world, and has happened in the U.S. in the past, so I don’t think it’s some far-out idea. As bad as the system currently is, I think a mafia or cartel controlling things would be worse. U.S. police, generally, don’t engage in racketeering or execute you without a trial (it does happen, but is not generally the case).
Don’t get me wrong, I think the current system is evil too, and it needs to be torn down and rebuilt in a radically different way. I agree with thr concept that police currently function mostly to protect capital and the ruling class, and are, themselves, a gang of sorts. But, I think a society will always need to maintain some kind of “police” to remove people who cause harm to others (who would then be rehabilitated, if possible).
I dunno man it’s really simple I dunno why you don’t get it. If I watch my coworker murder/rape someone and I do nothing about it, I’m just as much a bastard as the coworker.
It’s that simple.
Real life isn’t the movies. Reality isn’t so easy.
Why always pigs, do you hate pigs?
Don’t talk to cops like this, they will ruin your life or end it. Use that energy to campaign for electoral reform in your state so we can break the bipartisan police state.
Meet the police with equal force.
Words may be powerful but a brick is often more efficient.
“did you used to be”
Followed by a quip about an IQ score. Something something glass houses…
It’s a quote from a kid. Kids talk exactly like that sometimes.
Serious question: What’s the leftists position on police in the ideal but realistic socialist world? What would make ACAB irrelevant?
Probably some combination of:
- Require them to have a 4 year degree
- No qualified immunity
- Make them also liable to civil suits
- Heavily slash their budget
- Disarm all of them, save maybe for SWAT
- much, much better descalation training (pretty sure they’re trained to escalate immediately)
I would add a measure of public election for every branch of LE, at minimum. If I MUST have a boot on my neck, I may as well get to choose it.
In the UK, the training requirements for police is still surprising to me, as I had assumed it would take years to train as police.
Either way, our police meet a lot of the criteria here. The budgets are nonexistent, they aren’t armed outside of specific circumstances, and they all go through regular de-escalation training.
It hasn’t stopped many of the issues we see that are also shared in law enforcement in the states. Our force often uses force unnecessarily, there is institutional corruption and racism, and even in instances where the police have done something bad AND there is evidence it’s very hard to find justice.
I think that a degree would help, or a training programme that takes many years and involves extensive training. It’s depressing to say, but the demand for good jobs with decent pay and employment protection would probably result in people becoming police just for the pension. I would also add that a good avenue to policing would be for it to link heavily with the law profession. Add a route for police to train part-time to be criminal lawyers, or for lawyers to join the police force.
How are you gonna slash their budget if you add so many requirements and remove benefits? By default that will mean there will be less interest in being a cop, which means you’ll have to offer a quite substantial increase in pay to compensate. And in most places there already is a shortage of cops.
My apologies, I submitted a comment regarding that elsewhere. By slashing their budget, I meant to say: divert it to other positions like to social workers so issues with mental health crises wouldn’t introduce excessive force. I think police really should be focused on the Public Servant part.
They wouldn’t exist in this form under anarchism at all. However they’re still very much bastards under ML-regimes as well.
The conflict between ACAB and All Vigilantes Are Also Bastards has always been my primary concern with anarchism tbh.
At least vigilantes aren’t above the law. We don’t reeeeeeally have police police, but we could have vigilante vigilantes.
Who vigilantes the vigilante vigilantes? It seems like in the end you really just need some form of professional rule thug that just has actual public accountability.
At least they’re held accountable to someone or something. Even if we have to have 40 layers of vigilantism, it’s better than what we have with police today - essentially zero accountability. Qualified immunity exists, and police oversight boards are routinely voted against, etc.
I’m not an expert in this field, I don’t have all of the answers. I don’t think we can really get all of the answers on a topic as large as “how do we keep society safe” without trying things. I do think the thing we’ve tried for the last little bit has run its course, it’s shown us it doesn’t have much merit, and I’m ready for another system.
I feel like people who enforce rules are necessary in any society. I note that cops in Scotland or New Zealand manage to do their job without killing lots of citizens. I dont think that being murderous unaccountable over-militarised gang is necessary to do the job.
NGL that doesn’t seem very convincing. Lots of what ifs and hypotheticals that sounds like the Office bit.
“Just krrrrsht and then you’ll be saved.”
Shame that the kid was such a threat to the cop that he needed to unload several magazines into him.
He wanted a vacation so he pretended he was scared
Partially because he was scared that young people understand the evils of capitalism and he fears that one day he may pay for his decades of evil. He may not be directly threatened by the kid but to him there is no greater threat than those who are willing to challenge the authority of the Capitalists.
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The quote is from a child. It’s almost like children speak that way sometimes.
Reposting my comment to combat mod abuse:
“did you used to be”
Followed by a quip about an IQ score. Something something glass houses…
the only thing you’re combating is being perceived as a reasonable person.
The quote is from a child. It’s almost like children speak that way sometimes.
The mod log reason for removing this comment thread is “Toxic and pointless off-topic comment thread about grammar in a meme.” That’s not mod abuse, it’s just moderation. Mod abuse would be telling you to fuck off.
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The question with the bad spelling tells me all I need to know.
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?
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) 😉
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
How is defunding the cops and courts not prosecuting going?
I for one am glad we here have the police forces and am honestly terrified by the comments in this thread here. I mean, okay, maybe in your country or local sphere you have more corrupt police forces than, say, over here in the middle of Europe, but I dread the day police would be on strike or get understaffed even more.
Society even here has gotten so violent and just morally and ethically bad in the last years I perceive the police forces as one of the few stabilizing instances left. Social engagement nowadays only gets you into trouble and I have been mugged more than once in the last years, whereas this never has been occurred before that. On the streets you can see gang-like groups of “young males” roaming the streets, littering everywhere, making especially the women feel unsafe and bad. Society has got a punch and it has become more difficult to strike up a conversation or feel safe or just well when in public. Police? Hell yeah. We definitely need more. And better judges which don’t let illdoers back on the streets. Society is no battlefield. There are rules to obey for the better of everyone.
I don’t know in what country you live. I live in The Netherlands, one of the richest countries, with police which is very mild compared to other countries. They are ‘trained’ to de-escalate, to use the least amount of violence, to try to talk first. A force they ‘try’ to be inclusive, with a reasonably high percentage of women and different ethnicities, promoting to be open to LGBTQ+.
I can tell you with certainty, they are biased and racist as fuck, corrupt, abusive, above the law.
I assume you view the world through (male) white glasses from a rich country within the EU? The cops are there to protect your rich white privilege, you don’t have a clue what it is like for poor people and people of color. Police is not what it is supposed to be in an ideal world. They should be abiding the law, enforcing the law, protect ALL citizens, be unbiased, treat everyone the same whether they are rich, poor, whatever their religion or ethnicity, whatever gender, political view, etc. They fail on all these points. Even in progressive countries like The Netherlands or Germany.
Next to that, the far right is on the rise. They love to enable and use the police to enforce their will.
Look at all the protests. The protests by the left are struck down with brute force and loads of arrests. Protests of the right are mostly left alone, with maybe one or two arrests if any. Here in the Netherlands farmers were left alone to lock down the entire infrastructure of the country, for many days, with loads of destruction (including driving a tractor into a municipality building) with barely any arrests or consequences. The cop who opened fire on a tractor which drove at him fast and refused to stop got into trouble, not the guy driving the tractor.
A hand full of climate activists blocking a single road were beaten and arrested with brute force, after which they got hefty fines.
So fuck the police.
I was at a peaceful rally a week ago, police showed up and acted as intimidating as possible. We stood around and listened to some very powerful speeches from Palestinians, the police left momentarily so that they could come and assualt the crowd from the side.
They pepper sprayed children. Fuck every cop who ever did their job.
People and parents bringing their children to such a kind of demonstration are willingly endangering them. Why do they bring their kids? It is irresponsible and in bad faith. Maybe because they know they can later pull the “oh noes, they hurt my poor child” card.
It’s irresponsible for the police to abuse their power and use pepper spray on children at a peaceful protest.
Going outside has a risk of getting hit by a car. So now it’s irresponsible to take your kids outside? It’s not normal to get hit by a car, but it’s also not normal for police to use violence on non-violent protes… Oh wait, yes that indeed IS normal now, depending on the religion, ethnicity, political statement of the protesters.
Imo it’s irresponsible to have kids in the first place by the way, it’s not irresponsible though to bring your kids to a peaceful protest as no one expect police to pepper spray your kids without cause. Or at least, that is how it should be. When you claim it’s irresponsible to bring your kids because you can expect police to use violence without cause, to abuse their power even though you are there because of your constitutional right, you acknowledge the police violence without condemning it.
You are victim blaming.
It was a peaceful protest. The only danger was from the -checks notes- boys in blue sworn to protect them? That CANT be right.
Children came to support a peaceful rally, they weren’t in danger until the police showed up.
There are many young people who care about things and want to help, many are refugees themselves and have just as much of a right to be there as anyone else. People are there to share stories, raise money for relief funds and to show our goddamn solidarity for people being murdered in their homes.
These rallies have been running for months now and no one at them has caused any issues, but the cops sure fucking have.
What’s the age limit when a child is allowed to learn from an adult’s example about peaceful activism
“peaceful activism” which needed police intervention? Tell me.
Police violence is something different then peaceful protesting. It turns into non-peaceful as soon as the police starts to use force without a proper cause. It’s called “abuse of power”. Cops love to get violent, especially when the protesters do not (so they won’t hit back).
Yes, it was completely peaceful as it has been for the past 30 something weeks that these rallies have been held.
If you’ve ever been to a demonstration you’d understand that all the police do is show up and cause violence. No one needed protecting from us, we walked down a goddamn street. Last time I checked that wasn’t exactly a violent act. But people sure needed protecting from the police…
There are plenty, too many, cases where police have “intervened” wrongfully
“If it was peaceful, why did the police show up?”
“If you were innocent, then why were you arrested?”
Bad arguments are bad.
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Sounds to me like the “powerful speeches” contained something which is forbidden in your country, forcing the police to act. Maybe Hamas propaganda? Israel should be removed from the map?
Wow, what an awful thing to assume. No, we listened to people talk about losing their families and the villages they grew up in.
No one was violent, no one called for violence and there was nothing for the police to stop. We walked through a street and then stood still peacefully.
You have no idea and are choosing to assume the protesters did something bad. It’s also possible (and likely) that the cops just abused their power and attempted to break up the protest illegally since they do stuff like that all the time.
Personally I think it is much more likely the potesters did something wrong and/or illegal (like demanding another Intifada, which so called pro Palestine demonstrations often do). Police force would probably prefer a day off or doing something less dangerous than intervening.
yeah, thoughts & prayers to the cops for turning another peaceful protest violent.
maybe approach the subject again once you’re done slobbering on pig pp.
Demanding an intifada is neither wrong nor illegal (at least not in the US). Palestinians have the right to resist their oppressors.
You think, so it must be. Who cares about facts and statistics. You know best, oh very wise one. By the way, what makes you come to this conclusion? Do you go to protests a lot, are you with the police, do you read a lot on Facebook on shady right wing pages, did Qanon tell you this,… I’d love to hear your support to your claim.
By the way, intervening a peaceful protest which includes children has a very very low probability of risk for police. They would think twice when the protesters are violent, but when they are peaceful they won’t hit back that hard so it’s rather safe to escalate. The cops in the task forces for breaking up protests are generally people who love to fight, filled with adrenaline and testosterone. Cops who are less eager to fight usually have desk jobs or are regular street officers.
I don’t know in what country you live, but in countries with freedom of speech you’re free to demand whatever you like, as long as you do not turn violent (except when you’re police of course).
Please stop spreading unsupported bullshit arguments based on “I think” and “looks like” when you clearly have zero knowledge of how police operate (which I do) and clearly have no clue about this protest (as you make very wrong assumptions)
Many European countries have better police, but the systemic critiques still hold. You just have functioning systems to mitigate their worst behavior. The us has something called qualified immunity, which effectively makes them immune from civil penalties.
To explain why many Americans don’t like cops, here’s some fun stories from the last few years:
Misissippi police buried 215 people in an unmarked mass grave, at least some of which were killed by cops. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/families-in-disbelief-after-hundreds-of-bodies-found-buried-behind-mississippi-jail
Crime dropped when the NYPD went on strike https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/02/opinion/half-the-police-force-quit-crime-dropped.html
Multiple studies have found police have a domestic violence rate significantly higher than average averagehttps://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/09/police-officers-who-hit-their-wives-or-girlfriends/380329/
The Los Angeles sheriff’s department is run by violent gangs. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/06/06/the-la-county-sheriffs-deputy-gang-crisis
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-policing-minneapolis/
This is a really good and even-handed breakdown of what happened in Minneapolis after the George Floyd killing. Leftists can be as high minded as they like on the internet but when the police officers cut back on their patrols/traffic stops the overall reaction from the high crime communities that no longer had a strong police presence was not very positive. I think it is naive to think that you can gut police forces and crime won’t go up.
To be clear I am all for police REFORM and increased accountability but I don’t think less police is inherently better.
Society has objectively gotten less violent. Morality and ethics are subjective, so I’m not going to touch on those. Every violent crime metric is, year over year, decreasing, and it’s not because of the boot on our collective necks.
We’d all be better off without armed thugs whose only job is to protect the property of the ruling class. State-sanctioned violence just waiting to be dispensed by the waiting batons of the blue mafia.
That is the only bullet point I really agree with, to be honest. Perhaps because I’m not American.
Society has objectively gotten less violent. Morality and ethics are subjective, so I’m not going to touch on those. Every violent crime metric is, year over year, decreasing, and it’s not because of the boot on our collective necks.
I don’t know where you get your violence crime metric from but it differs from my sources, which all over the board indicate an increase of crime in the last 5 years: https://www.numbeo.com/crime/country_result.jsp?country=France
This looks like survey results? Lines like “Worries being mugged or robbed” indicate to me these data points are for what people FEEL, not what actually exists. If I’m mistaken my bad.
If not - frankly I don’t care what people FEEL. I care about actual incidents of violent crime occurring. Not gonna lie, it’s 3am, I’ve got a stomach bug, and I work in 3 hours - I’m not gonna find you a source, but if you find another one showing a marked uptick in ACTUAL INCIDENTS OF VIOLENT CRIME, please feel free to share.
https://www.numbeo.com/crime/country_result.jsp?country=France
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I was referring to the line “Crime increasing in the past 5 years” which reads to me not being felt. I don’t know if you just overlooked it.
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Even if it’s only FELT, a society living in constant terror is functional and desirable because… why?
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How would you restore faith to a shaken society full of fears (“high fears” in above sources) of becoming a victim of crime?
TFW you don’t vet your sources before claiming they support your point.
Below the results, on the page:
These data are based on perceptions of visitors of this website in the past 5 years.
If the value is 0, it means it is perceived as very low, and if the value is 100, it means it is perceived as very high.
Our data for each country are based on all entries from all cities in that country.
I do not see anything indicating that those are only for the *safety" category - it seems like " safety" is intended as an aggregate of the above opinions.
Either way, without any information on how these numbers are collected and how exactly the bars are to be interpreted, I HAVE to assume it’s a collection of opinions.
Edit: assumptions cleared up. Clicking the information button on the page confirms it’s a survey result, and not based on reported incidents.
Thanks for digging, so it’s probably objectively skewed but subjectively correct.
No problem on the digging.
Define what exactly you mean.
Are you saying that it’s subjectively correct in that it’s reporting a subjective belief, and thus tautologically correct? Or are you saying that if people feel crime must be higher, crime must be higher? One of these I’m okay with, the other not hah.
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https://globalinitiative.net/analysis/ocindex-2023/
This study from 2023 states:
Global context As already outlined, one of the main findings of the Index is that levels of criminality are increasing worldwide, while resilience measures are falling short of meeting the threat. That critical gap, between growing levels of global criminality and the sustainable policy and civil society measures needed to address it, is widening. This deficit can be better understood when analyzed against the backdrop of a more fragmented and unstable global order."
They also offer a 246 page PDF detailing their findings.
More on the issuer on Wikipedia.
So, I don’t want to be accused of moving goal posts. That’s not my intention here in the slightest.
This article and organization specifically look at organized crime - things like terrorist cells, cartels, mafia, etc. - no doubt a big concern, but also not the bulk of the crime that happens. That number going up isn’t a good thing, but it’s also entirely possible for that number to be going up for one reason, while the general crime levels are going down, faster, for other reasons.
Looking at this article (first thing I found searching ‘violent crimes trend over years’) we can see a much different picture thatln we’d expect looking just at organized crime. The trend is MARKEDLY down from 1990 to today. The only period there even shows an increase, really, was during that little global pandemic we had.
THIS is the number that matters when someone says that the world is objectively safer today than it was in any other period of history. That, per 100k people, the number of them having violent things done to them is going down, steadily, and regularly.
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Look at crime over the last 30 years.
Be grateful there is no downvote button because I would use it to hell on you. The reality is that outside of a few countries cops aren’t really as bad as tankies etc paint them. Australia, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway and more have very few policing issues.
I got a down vote button. I’m not sure why I’d be afraid to have it used on me though? Oh no, someone online thinks I’m WRONG?
Anyway, enjoy the downvote. Or don’t I guess.
Have fun whinging about ACAB and then going to the police supported community event lmao.
Mate the community events I frequent tend to run contrary to the police. ACAB, and I will continue to have fun.
Mate what the fuck are you talking about? Cops only shut down parties. They never support them unless its a white robe party.
Finn here. this is & always has been straight up misinformation. all cops are, in fact, bastards, so our cops too are committing heinous acts, albeit on a smaller scale than in the US. the system isn’t magically not rotten elsewhere.
also, lol.
I don’t think you can have an institution whose purpose is violently policing your peers, either directly or implicitly, without attracting the least desirable of your population. Hell, describing them like that, they really do sound more like a gang.
we literally had a high-ranking cop running a criminal empire on the side.
