Police are people, too

[BiBunny]

So, do the bulk of people here assume that Michael Brown did have his hands up and was surrendering when Darren Wilson killed him? Do you think Wilson is a racist? Do you think every cop in Ferguson is a racist? How about the citizens of Ferguson? Are any of them racists? Are any of them responsible for the destruction of the buildings of Ferguson...or the looting? I'm curious to know.

It's not a matter of "assuming" that Brown was surrendering when Wilson shot him. The coroner's report concluded that the only way Brown could've gotten some of his wounds was if he had his hands raised above his head.

First, I think you meant to say "if 3 out of 53 are black, I would guess that somehow colour is already part of what gets you hired." Correct me, if I'm wrong.

And I disagree. First, where are the people who say they applied for the job and were rejected? After it has been noted that the majority of officers are white, why haven't any applicants of color who were rejected come forward to say so. I'd think at least some of them would have a case of discrimination because of race. If they were qualified in other ways and just their skin color lost them the job, that's discrimination and illegal.

And if you want to participate in how government is run, you have to get involved. You can complain all you want about how things are wrong, but you can help form the direction of government, if you are a member.

The jobs must be filled. Those jobs are filled from applications. If only whites apply, whites get the jobs. People of other colors are just as guilty as anybody else of any office or job that is overly white, if they don't apply or run for office. Again, I wonder why nobody has come forward to say they were rejected or discriminated against when they applied for police officer or when they tried to run for political office.

If you felt--whether your feelings were based in fact or not--that an organization was unfairly discriminating against/targeting/whatever a group that you considered "your people," I suspect you wouldn't be falling all over yourself to to go join up, either.

Just my thoughts about the police and those who dislike them.

The next time someone tries to break into my home I am calling the police. The rest of you are certainly welcome to call the peaceful protesters from Ferguson to come and help you out. Might be interesting to see how many of them would be willing to go face to face with an armed criminal.

You can distrust the police without hating them.

And for the record? Someone did try to break in my home once. There's a reason I keep a shotgun by my bed.

 

[KoPilot]

Some fun cop facts:

- Police are 2-4 times more likely to be batterers and abusers at home than the general population.

- Cops do not in fact have the most dangerous job in America, and far from it. In fact, they're not even in the top 10.The only thing that puts them even that close is that almost 20% of cops who die """in the line of duty""" do in car accidents because they're not wearing seatbelts.

- The government covers up just how many people cops kill each year.

- The police are a relatively modern invention. Law enforcement as we know it wasn't even developed in response to rising crime, but simply because English elites were getting scared of poor people and slaves.

 

[IrisAlthea]

First, I think you meant to say "if 3 out of 53 are black, I would guess that somehow colour is already part of what gets you hired." Correct me, if I'm wrong.

And I disagree. First, where are the people who say they applied for the job and were rejected? After it has been noted that the majority of officers are white, why haven't any applicants of color who were rejected come forward to say so. I'd think at least some of them would have a case of discrimination because of race. If they were qualified in other ways and just their skin color lost them the job, that's discrimination and illegal.

And if you want to participate in how government is run, you have to get involved. You can complain all you want about how things are wrong, but you can help form the direction of government, if you are a member.

The jobs must be filled. Those jobs are filled from applications. If only whites apply, whites get the jobs. People of other colors are just as guilty as anybody else of any office or job that is overly white, if they don't apply or run for office. Again, I wonder why nobody has come forward to say they were rejected or discriminated against when they applied for police officer or when they tried to run for political office.

Yes, that's what I meant, thank you.

As I said, if they don't even apply, I would say something is wrong in the organization.
I have several friends who are cops here, and all of them agree that it is difficult for minorities to become accepted not as much as employees but as collegues.
This is a big part of what makes it hard to recruit minorities here at least.

 

[Netzach]

I subscribe to the "few good apples" theory. And none of them have the sack that Frank Serpico did, so until they do, too bad, so sad.

To be fair, considering what happened to him, I can see WHY the system sucks as completely as it does.

The assholes are not just a malignant cluster. They are in charge of the show now, and any cop with decent tendencies is at their mercy. We put them there. We enable them.

 

[Netzach]

It's not a matter of "assuming" that Brown was surrendering when Wilson shot him. The coroner's report concluded that the only way Brown could've gotten some of his wounds was if he had his hands raised above his head.



If you felt--whether your feelings were based in fact or not--that an organization was unfairly discriminating against/targeting/whatever a group that you considered "your people," I suspect you wouldn't be falling all over yourself to to go join up, either.



You can distrust the police without hating them.

And for the record? Someone did try to break in my home once. There's a reason I keep a shotgun by my bed.

This.

Also, if you think "serve and protect" means you as a person, and not the property of your municipality, you need to stop watching Hawaii Five O reruns and read a thing or two.

Basically, expect forensics after a bad thing happens.

 

[Primalex]

I think the system is much more fundamentally broken.

You know the Simpsons episode where all smart people try to govern Springfield; and come up with stuff like:"We measured that cars cross crossroads fastest when the traffic light is yellow, so we removed the green light."

That's how I think about the police at the moment. From a certain point of view decisions seem to make sense; but when you add common sense they are a nightmare.

1) "Hey, we have spare assault rifles and armored vehicles. Would be a waste to destroy them, let's hand the stuff to the local police forces."

2) "Hey, we should strip criminals from their equipment and money. Let's allow the police to confiscate and keep whatever they want."

...

 

[KoPilot]

The problem isn't that the system is broken, it's that its doing exactly what it was designed to do.

The people at the top have never had it better, no? Black people get murdered by cops with body cams, without body cams, on purpose, on accident, doesn't matter. Women get raped in the back of cruisers. Peaceful protesters having their bail set at legal limit to deplete the community bail fund.

When has a cop ever done anything for a homeless person aside from arrest them for being homeless? When has a cop ever done anything for a trans person except arrest them for using a public restroom? When has a cop ever done anything for students except pepper spray them, shoot them, and tell them to not do drugs?

The problem is that the system is being refined. Rich people and politicians don't go to jail and never have. The only repercussions they face are fines, bad PR, and MAYBE a lost election. Cops who protect your property as middle class and poor people is nothing more than a fortunate coincidence. Because they sure as hell don't exist to protect you.

 

[Netzach]

That's slightly simplistic, but I take it we're not talking about things on an individual level. LE doesn't exist completely on a separate plane from any and all social services, problem is largely that social services have been deemed a waste and a drain on all of us petty billionaires over and over again.

It's gotten worse, MUCH. The structure may be the problem but a major metro will not function without LE any more in a marxist anarcho utopia than it will in a libertarian la la land of no rules. Both of these visions play amazingly well on paper, where people inherently drift to their better tendencies. But they don't actually do that.

I've never unequivocally trusted the police, but I've never unequivocally trusted the people around me either to put some kind of organic peer smackdown on any bad behavior.

I remember police more or less ignoring homeless people like the rest of the city unless they were acting aggressively, and even then it was hardly time to beat them to death for it. The frog has been cooked. They enjoy the roust and can't seem to pass it up. And we're making laws against handing out food, so we're getting what we want, apparently.

 

[desertslave]

I was always under the impression that "serve and protect" referred to the rule of law. IMO that's as it should be. Protecting people is secondary, in accordance with whatever laws are affected at the time. As a child of the 60s/70s I've never had any delusions. However, as a basically honest and law-abiding citizen, I've never felt that I had anything to fear.

I did, once, have a cop pull a gun on me, but it was in an exceptional situation (a robbery had just occurred in a common parking lot) and I didn't respond in the most cautious way. I didn't know any better, but once the officer was assured of HIS safety, he gave me a gentle lecture on how to better respond in the future. I learned, that night, and have passed that education along. Don't make any sudden moves, explain yourself politely before you do something and wait for acknowledgement/permission for that action. If you're not doing anything wrong there's absolutely no reason to be belligerent. That final bit seems to be the downfall of so many people, these days. I know, I'm a white woman, pretty innocuous. But it seems like common sense to me...they have the authority and the weapons to back it up, I don't. They hold the power so I'm sure as hell not going to do anything to invite them to use it.

 

[KoPilot]

That's slightly simplistic, but I take it we're not talking about things on an individual level. LE doesn't exist completely on a separate plane from any and all social services, problem is largely that social services have been deemed a waste and a drain on all of us petty billionaires over and over again.

Again, that's exactly how it's supposed to work. We were right on track for a millionaire's utopia until antitrust laws came about thanks in no small part to the labor movement.

It's gotten worse, MUCH. The structure may be the problem but a major metro will not function without LE any more in a marxist anarcho utopia than it will in a libertarian la la land of no rules. Both of these visions play amazingly well on paper, where people inherently drift to their better tendencies. But they don't actually do that.

Areas of very high density aren't exactly sustainable in any way that makes financial, logistical, or environmental sense. Stateless advocates aren't exactly clamoring to keep them around.

And come on, I thought you'd know better than to say none of this actually works. All it takes is a little more than a cursory glance at the history of stateless societies to know that shit's been around for a long time, and modern ones worked, and currently work, rather well, and would in fact have a much higher success rate if the rest of the world didn't want the very idea of statelessness obliterated.

I've never unequivocally trusted the police, but I've never unequivocally trusted the people around me either to put some kind of organic peer smackdown on any bad behavior.

That's because you're hanging around the wrong people. Nothing's going to change if you don't raise your expectations.

I remember police more or less ignoring homeless people like the rest of the city unless they were acting aggressively, and even then it was hardly time to beat them to death for it. The frog has been cooked. They enjoy the roust and can't seem to pass it up. And we're making laws against handing out food, so we're getting what we want, apparently.

http://america.aljazeera.com/articl...especially-vulnerable-to-police-violence.html

http://www.nationalhomeless.org/publications/crimreport2004/problem.html

Yeah something tells me that the homeless aren't voting on measures to ban people from helping them. We want the homeless to go away, and by any means necessary. Who cares if they spend most nights in jail? Or freeze to death?

I was always under the impression that "serve and protect" referred to the rule of law. IMO that's as it should be. Protecting people is secondary, in accordance with whatever laws are affected at the time. As a child of the 60s/70s I've never had any delusions. However, as a basically honest and law-abiding citizen, I've never felt that I had anything to fear.

Property > people. That doesn't strike you as being fucked up?

 

[BiBunny]

I was always under the impression that "serve and protect" referred to the rule of law. IMO that's as it should be. Protecting people is secondary, in accordance with whatever laws are affected at the time. As a child of the 60s/70s I've never had any delusions. However, as a basically honest and law-abiding citizen, I've never felt that I had anything to fear.

I did, once, have a cop pull a gun on me, but it was in an exceptional situation (a robbery had just occurred in a common parking lot) and I didn't respond in the most cautious way. I didn't know any better, but once the officer was assured of HIS safety, he gave me a gentle lecture on how to better respond in the future. I learned, that night, and have passed that education along. Don't make any sudden moves, explain yourself politely before you do something and wait for acknowledgement/permission for that action. If you're not doing anything wrong there's absolutely no reason to be belligerent. That final bit seems to be the downfall of so many people, these days. I know, I'm a white woman, pretty innocuous. But it seems like common sense to me...they have the authority and the weapons to back it up, I don't. They hold the power so I'm sure as hell not going to do anything to invite them to use it.

Personally, I think the real question is not "Why shouldn't the police protect The Law instead the people?" but "Why doesn't the law itself exist to protect the people? Why are the two almost always at odds with one another?"

Oh, and I have an anecdote.

Several years ago, I was pulled over for speeding. Yes, I was indeed speeding, and I didn't even begrudge the cop for pulling me over for it. I have always driven like a bat out of hell (and probably always will), so it's really a wonder I've gotten away with it as often as I have.

Anyway, when I saw the cop's lights, I hopped over into a left turn lane with the intention of pulling into the parking lot on that side of the road. Just as I was about to turn, the light turned red, and I wasn't about to run a red light with a cop on my tail, so I waited. My intention was to wait 'til the light turned green and then pull into the aforementioned parking lot to get my inevitable speeding ticket.

Apparently, the cop wasn't going to wait for me to legally get out of the street on what was a fairly busy highway, though. He bailed out of his car--blocking the entire left turn lane--and ran up to my window as if I was somehow going to get away or something. It's a good thing I happened to look up in my mirror and see him do it because right about the time he was getting to the back of my vehicle, the light turned green. If I had gone on through the light and pulled in like I'd intended to do, God knows what kind of shit I'd have gotten.

Anyway, I was very polite because what good does it do being nasty to them? I had both driver's license and proof of insurance at the ready, so he wouldn't have to wait forever for me to find them, etc., etc. There was literally nothing about my behavior that could have at all been construed as being either threatening or even disrespectful.

I can't remember exactly what was said, but he was unbelievably nasty and clearly trying to provoke me. I didn't take the bait because, again, what would've been the point? When that didn't work, he took my license back to his car and did whatever they do to run a check to see if you have any outstanding warrants or if you're driving a stolen vehicle or whatever. When he returned, there was a clear look of disappointment on his face, as though he were upset that he didn't have an excuse to arrest me.

He went back to being unnecessarily rude, and the cynical part of me is almost certain that he was doing it hopes that he could get me to say or do something that he could misconstrue as "threatening" so that he could get that arrest he was so obviously hoping for. He kept me there--in what was not the side of the road, but an actual lane of traffic, remember--for far longer than was necessary (but I couldn't leave because he still had my license), just being an outright dick.

Finally, I guess he just gave up because he basically threw my license back at me and stormed off.

Now...I was, at the time, a young-ish white woman who--even though I was driving an old truck and was dressed like I'd just walked out of a barn--spoke in a way that sounded both educated and polite. I provided all the information that he asked for promptly and with no complaints. My license, insurance, and tag on the truck were up-to-date. I had no outstanding warrants for my arrest and, indeed, no prior criminal record at all. And still, this dude did his very best to be the biggest asshole on the planet.

Again, I don't begrudge him writing me the ticket. I was speeding. What I don't like was the way I was being baited. He went into what should have been (and was) a routine traffic stop with a white woman (the group of people considered the least "dangerous" or whatever) fully intending to come out of it with an arrest. When he realized that wasn't going to happen, he took his ball and went home.

Now, imagine what would have likely happened in that situation if I had been a young black man instead of a young white woman. Or even a young black woman, for that matter.

I have gotten three tickets my whole life. But I used to get pulled over quite often because I had the audacity to *gasp*...be driving on a public highway after midnight. (Doesn't happen as often anymore, and I assume that's because I no longer look college-aged.) Absolutely anything can construed as "probable cause" if they want it to be, and then pretty much any traffic stop can be escalated if they so desire. I have been pulled over for things that are not even illegal more than once.

So, no, I don't trust them, even as a member of the group of people who's most likely to leave a confrontation with the police unscathed. If I were anyone else with the same history of being pulled over semi-often, I suspect I'd have been hauled off on bullshit charges a long time ago.

(For the record, it's only ever been city cops I've ever had this problem with. County deputies have never given me any trouble, and even State Troopers are remarkably good-natured when they're writing you a ticket. I don't know if that's at all applicable to anything, but it's just a thing I've noticed.)

 

[Netzach]

Areas of very high density aren't exactly sustainable in any way that makes financial, logistical, or environmental sense. Stateless advocates aren't exactly clamoring to keep them around.

I have my, I believe, very valid reasons for being very leery of anything that wants to return people to the soil, on the left OR the right.

And come on, I thought you'd know better than to say none of this actually works. All it takes is a little more than a cursory glance at the history of stateless societies to know that shit's been around for a long time, and modern ones worked, and currently work, rather well, and would in fact have a much higher success rate if the rest of the world didn't want the very idea of statelessness obliterated.

Seems to stop working very swiftly when diversity challenges notions of "us."

That's because you're hanging around the wrong people. Nothing's going to change if you don't raise your expectations.

The idea that if you only hung around the "right people" your expectation of safety and security would improve is no less fucked up than a police state. I don't think that my forebears had to leave in a hurry whenever the neighbors got drunk because they weren't doing solidarity or because they had a failure of the imagination. Yeah, sometimes we DO need protection from one another, not just a friend to dial. He who has the right friends winds up with the protection racket.

A law applied equitably to people without bias in its application, thanks.

 

[desertslave]

Property > people. That doesn't strike you as being fucked up?

I don't perceive things as being that way on a local level, which is where most police are involved. And in many aspects property is equivalent to people...I want my family to be protected, and the home where they live, the cars that they drive, the places where they learn or work or have their leisure time.

 

[IrisAlthea]

I think the system is much more fundamentally broken.

You know the Simpsons episode where all smart people try to govern Springfield; and come up with stuff like:"We measured that cars cross crossroads fastest when the traffic light is yellow, so we removed the green light."

That's how I think about the police at the moment. From a certain point of view decisions seem to make sense; but when you add common sense they are a nightmare.

1) "Hey, we have spare assault rifles and armored vehicles. Would be a waste to destroy them, let's hand the stuff to the local police forces."

2) "Hey, we should strip criminals from their equipment and money. Let's allow the police to confiscate and keep whatever they want."

...

I almost feel bad for laughing so hard.
The second one reminds me of crossing Balkan borders.

That's slightly simplistic, but I take it we're not talking about things on an individual level. LE doesn't exist completely on a separate plane from any and all social services, problem is largely that social services have been deemed a waste and a drain on all of us petty billionaires over and over again.

It's gotten worse, MUCH. The structure may be the problem but a major metro will not function without LE any more in a marxist anarcho utopia than it will in a libertarian la la land of no rules. Both of these visions play amazingly well on paper, where people inherently drift to their better tendencies. But they don't actually do that.

I've never unequivocally trusted the police, but I've never unequivocally trusted the people around me either to put some kind of organic peer smackdown on any bad behavior.

I remember police more or less ignoring homeless people like the rest of the city unless they were acting aggressively, and even then it was hardly time to beat them to death for it. The frog has been cooked. They enjoy the roust and can't seem to pass it up. And we're making laws against handing out food, so we're getting what we want, apparently.

This.
You only need to get into a serious argument to find out that when some people say that the will stand behind you, they actually mean that they will be hiding behind you.
The people who propose that you should be quiet if you don't have a nice thing to say will be very quiet.

Again, that's exactly how it's supposed to work. We were right on track for a millionaire's utopia until antitrust laws came about thanks in no small part to the labor movement.



Areas of very high density aren't exactly sustainable in any way that makes financial, logistical, or environmental sense. Stateless advocates aren't exactly clamoring to keep them around.

And come on, I thought you'd know better than to say none of this actually works. All it takes is a little more than a cursory glance at the history of stateless societies to know that shit's been around for a long time, and modern ones worked, and currently work, rather well, and would in fact have a much higher success rate if the rest of the world didn't want the very idea of statelessness obliterated.



That's because you're hanging around the wrong people. Nothing's going to change if you don't raise your expectations.



http://america.aljazeera.com/articl...especially-vulnerable-to-police-violence.html

http://www.nationalhomeless.org/publications/crimreport2004/problem.html

Yeah something tells me that the homeless aren't voting on measures to ban people from helping them. We want the homeless to go away, and by any means necessary. Who cares if they spend most nights in jail? Or freeze to death?



Property > people. That doesn't strike you as being fucked up?

I'm thinking areas of high density would emerge around the right people?

 

[KoPilot]

I have my, I believe, very valid reasons for being very leery of anything that wants to return people to the soil, on the left OR the right.

That's fine, most of the world's cities will be underwater in about 50 years anyways. Last I checked, nature wasn't left or right either.

Seems to stop working very swiftly when diversity challenges notions of "us."

The idea that if you only hung around the "right people" your expectation of safety and security would improve is no less fucked up than a police state. I don't think that my forebears had to leave in a hurry whenever the neighbors got drunk because they weren't doing solidarity or because they had a failure of the imagination. Yeah, sometimes we DO need protection from one another, not just a friend to dial. He who has the right friends winds up with the protection racket.

A law applied equitably to people without bias in its application, thanks.

Ok yeah you legit have no idea what you're talking about, or at least we're talking about completely different things, so I'm just gonna stop trying.

 

[KoPilot]

I don't perceive things as being that way on a local level, which is where most police are involved. And in many aspects property is equivalent to people...I want my family to be protected, and the home where they live, the cars that they drive, the places where they learn or work or have their leisure time.

Exactly. They protect your things, not you. And once those things cease to be yours, no matter how unfairly, they'll still be there to make sure the things fare well.

 

[KoPilot]

I'll just start leaving this stuff here:

LAPD Officers Removed Antennas from Police Cars in Black Areas to Disable Recording Devices

 

[KoPilot]

Graphic Body Cam Footage Shows Dallas Police Shooting Mentally Ill Man Holding Screwdriver | Dallas Observer

 

[JustaSCOUNDREL]

Posted without comment.


http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/police-wisconsin-state-trooper-shot-killed-29885371

 

[Netzach]

Posted without comment.


http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/police-wisconsin-state-trooper-shot-killed-29885371

No equivalency. None. If you don't think that MIGHT happen when you decide to take the job, you're too stupid to pick up cans for a living. Sure, it illustrates the primacy of property above all, but we've been doing that since we've been doing feudal. People will shoot people over what amounts to an abstraction, yep. If you join the department without realizing that, I don't know how you remember to breathe.

Unlike the civilians who are just trying to do civilian shit and didn't sign up for anything.


"LAPD Officers Removed Antennas from Police Cars in Black Areas to Disable Recording Devices"

This doesn't kind of worry you, like more? It does me.

 

[Netzach]

That's fine, most of the world's cities will be underwater in about 50 years anyways. Last I checked, nature wasn't left or right either.

It's also not always a Bruckheimer movie (unless we ignore it, which we are and are not in different ways) and last I checked not every city is on a coast, but what do I know, I live in flyover.

Ok yeah you legit have no idea what you're talking about, or at least we're talking about completely different things, so I'm just gonna stop trying.

You're completely not going to listen to anything but anarchist manuals, so fine. I'll clarify: when "BDS" turns into "Hitler was right" I can't rely on the people around me being cool and awesome for my security. They're not exactly in the mindset of listening to nuances. Now maybe you think that we don't really need to abandon the populist project in the name of whoever is unpopular that day, like Korean grocers or Orthodox Jews or some Sikh guy in a turban or what have, but I think they matter. And they don't fare well without LE of some kind in existence - present incarnation not being it, but "power to the people" not exactly any better. You could not have desegregation of southern schools without something holding hostile crowds of white people back. LE as a theoretical construct is not something I can toss out casually because of that.

Expecting the people to regulate themselves naturally is as ridiculous as expecting the banks to regulate themselves naturally.

I have no problem with the idea that what we've gotten to is intolerable. It's worse than I ever imagined it this fast, but I did imagine it the day everyone watched Rodney King get beaten up on tape and collectively decided that it was OK. It's completely fucked.

I do have a problem with "we must dismantle it" and all the replacement ideas being either 1. Romantic (they don't need it in hunter gatherer groups so neither do we) or 2. Nebulous. or 3. We just don't need no stinkin' law. or 4. go read Foucault, it really applies to the real world perfectly.

This tells me you're completely willing to overlook some very troubling tendencies within any kind of populist movements and moments because the greater good is more important than the individual and some eggs are going to get broken too bad so sad (as long as you're not an egg it's OK, usually.)

If we actually had the political will to live up to our legal ideals and our stated aspirations, things would look different.

Yeah, you do need law. And you do need a way to enforce it. And we need a complete re-draw of our priorities.

I'm completely on board with prison reform, restorative justice, anything that keeps more people out of prison, anything that de-criminalizes survival behaviors that don't hurt other people, anything that checks criminal behavior within LE, anything that punishes LE members like any other person for assault, the list goes on. But I really reject the idea that we can DIY whether or not we're violent to one another.

 

[KoPilot]

It's also not always a Bruckheimer movie (unless we ignore it, which we are and are not in different ways) and last I checked not every city is on a coast, but what do I know, I live in flyover.

Hence most. Mooooost. And the interior cities will wither as the ports wind up useless, one by one. If the world's leading glaciologist in Antarctica says that the projected 1-3 meter sea level rise is worse than "holy shit", I'm sort of inclined to agree. But that's just me. (And science.)

You're completely not going to listen to anything but anarchist manuals, so fine. I'll clarify: when "BDS" turns into "Hitler was right" I can't rely on the people around me being cool and awesome for my security. They're not exactly in the mindset of listening to nuances. Now maybe you think that we don't really need to abandon the populist project in the name of whoever is unpopular that day, like Korean grocers or Orthodox Jews or some Sikh guy in a turban or what have, but I think they matter. And they don't fare well without LE of some kind in existence - present incarnation not being it, but "power to the people" not exactly any better. You could not have desegregation of southern schools without something holding hostile crowds of white people back. LE as a theoretical construct is not something I can toss out casually because of that.

Expecting the people to regulate themselves naturally is as ridiculous as expecting the banks to regulate themselves naturally.

I have no problem with the idea that what we've gotten to is intolerable. It's worse than I ever imagined it this fast, but I did imagine it the day everyone watched Rodney King get beaten up on tape and collectively decided that it was OK. It's completely fucked.

I do have a problem with "we must dismantle it" and all the replacement ideas being either 1. Romantic (they don't need it in hunter gatherer groups so neither do we) or 2. Nebulous. or 3. We just don't need no stinkin' law. or 4. go read Foucault, it really applies to the real world perfectly.

This tells me you're completely willing to overlook some very troubling tendencies within any kind of populist movements and moments because the greater good is more important than the individual and some eggs are going to get broken too bad so sad (as long as you're not an egg it's OK, usually.)

If we actually had the political will to live up to our legal ideals and our stated aspirations, things would look different.

Yeah, you do need law. And you do need a way to enforce it. And we need a complete re-draw of our priorities.

I'm completely on board with prison reform, restorative justice, anything that keeps more people out of prison, anything that de-criminalizes survival behaviors that don't hurt other people, anything that checks criminal behavior within LE, anything that punishes LE members like any other person for assault, the list goes on. But I really reject the idea that we can DIY whether or not we're violent to one another.

Um, no, you are hardcore not understanding anything that you're arguing against, and it's not my job to coach you on what my position is, so I'm not going to. Like, I don't even know where to begin picking these strawmen apart that you've built here. So I'm just going to tell you that this entire rebuttal is in response to a bunch of strawmen and leave it there. If you'd like to have a coherent counter-argument, do some reading. Know thy enemy.

I'll be over here building the world I want to live in, not the one I'm kinda sorta I guess OK with living in.

 

[KoPilot]

A Timeline of Police Brutality in the USA | The Telegraph

NYPD Caught Editing Wikipedia Articles on Police Brutality | Gizmodo

 

[KoPilot]

2 former federal agents charged with stealing Bitcoin during Silk Road probe | CNN

Police corruption is rife; Senior officers react by silencing press | Breitbart London

Child sex abuse: Judges, MPs, media entertainers, actors, police and clergy implicated in Met Police corruption probe | The Independent

Rap lyrics are fiction — but prosecutors are treating them like admissions of guilt | Vox.com

Philly Police Faces Drug Corruption Trial | NBC

 

[KoPilot]

Police swiftly shut down student protest about Quebec spending cuts | CTV News

In which a pretty low-key demonstration of less than 150 students is met with riot gear, smoke bombs, batons, and arrests.

Good thing students aren't people, otherwise this might've been overkill!