Police are people, too

"The police" aren't a collection of otherwise good individuals just trying to pay the bills, "the police" are an institution that is structurally toxic, as is evidenced by all of the origin stories I shared that you obviously didn't read. They literally evolved from slave patrols in the south.

"The law" that they defend is not objective, nor is it ever applied nondiscriminatory among all citizens of this country.

Read about the history of usury, of capitalism, of the commons, and then you can talk to me about facts.
 
I think medicine is a good parallel. There is, so I am lead to believe by anecdote, but have no evidence, :D, a higher than average number of sociopathic tendency among certain medical professionals. Its not necessarily, as I understand the argument, perceived as a wholly bad thing, as it protects the individual from emotional involvement that if they were to not have that sort of personality tendency would emotionally cripple them from doing their job ( and I believe rather than talking about full blown sociopath on dr end of scale, we are edging op down a profile scale). As one who deals a fair bit with consultants and surgeons in a personal capacity I feel this is a truism but accept this is from a very biased angle.

If this is indeed more than anecdote, I wonder if similar profile has been done on police. And if anyone has been bold enough to break it down it to any profile of 'good' policing ( based on what might be cause for further probably un useful debate....so I won't go there....).

There are most definitely a bunch of jobs and situations where it is usefull to be able to detach a bit more than would normally be deemed healthy.
It probably isn't overly healthy in those jobs and situations either, but as you say, it probably beats the alternative which would be not being able to do the job at all or in the long run.

It's also true that some detach a bit to much and will have problems, in their personal life and/or their job.
I think there are a few jobs where you probably need to detach that much, and yes, mostly in law enforcement and the military.

Being naive about this and not seeing that this is going to pose problems and not having a support systems in place that help these people stay proffessional and reasonably on top of their private lives, is a big problem in my opinion.
 
But I also feel condemn a group of people by job and there is another problem.

I think that a whole lot of misunderstanding and anger comes from this point here. But I think that a lot of people see "Too many police officers have been screwing up" and "Police forces as an institution are badly flawed" as attacking ALL police officers as people. That is simply not the case.
 
But I also feel condemn a group of people by job and there is another problem.

Yeah, I can justify condemning people for their job. And as a society, we do it all the time anyways: drug dealers, pimps, sex workers, meter maids, stock traders (or, for a bit more punch, you can call them "Wall Street Traders"), tax auditors, lobbyists, our own fucking members of congress for pete's sake.

A job is a nothing more than a series of actions that you perform for money.

If we can't condemn the things people (legally) do for money (really, only when it suits us, as demonstrated above), then why do we find it much easier to condemn people for the things people don't do for money? Your uniform doesn't excuse anything.

And for the record, I have a few cops in my family, and I love them. I don't love their job. Same thing for all the servicemen in my family too. (Yet being anti-war is a much less contentious position?) Though it's not like they had a choice, they were all drafted.
 
Iris: That certainly sounds reasonable. I don't disagree with that at all. And, that 99% figure might be a tad high. I mean there is absolutely no profession anywhere where there aren't some bad apples, including the police. There are so many police and police forces around the country that these stories will continue to pop up but you don't hear much about all the cases where something went right or the police went above and beyond their duty. It's unfair and unreasonable to brand all police bad based on the stories that make the news. It is a very one sided perspective and the media is doubling down on their coverage now.

Locally we just had an incident where the police chased a suspect into the woods and fired, hitting the person in the foot. The police spokesman made a point of telling the media that it was a white suspect and a white cop. A few months ago they wouldn't have made a point of saying that right up front. While bad cops should be weeded out we can't make the police as a whole afraid to do their jobs, especially when their own lives might be in jeopardy.


Are you completely willfully insane?

The police have the PR machine of the entire entertainment industry behind them since day 1. The "decent guy against a corrupt force" or "decent guys among a terrifyingly OTHERED criminal element" is 9/10ths of that we're spoon and force fed as a fictional narrative - FFS, look at "COPS" and how long it was on the air. We've got a complete collective FETISH installed on the most basic levels to the point where we can watch a filmed murder of a fleeing person with no weapon and no record and say "oh, she had it coming." If you think that the average person is capable of ignoring the barrage of culture that they're stewing in since birth, you're wrong.

The "basic decency of the police" is a myth that has had virtually no real challenge until the fourth estate started being forced to do it's fucking job based on amateur footage.

Nobody's got it in for these guys except the truth and their track record. We wish it were not the case.
 
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Like I said, I really don't care what you believe; especially since you have 0 solutions for problems that you do readily recognize. I really don't. I'm interested in really talking with two kinds of people: people who are out there, accomplishing real things, whether I agree with their endgame or not, and people who are receptive to the project that I consider myself part of. Politically engaging with anyone else, you and Keroin included, is a huge waste of time and energy.


Well I hope not, because that's less than a sparknotes version with all the big words edited out.

At any rate, I'm not going to have this discussion here, like I've been trying to say for several posts now. You wanna talk about all your beefs with libertarianism? Start a new thread or continue doing so here without me. It's not going to be nearly as fun when I stop replying, though.

Don't worry, I won't pollute your echo chamber any further. I'm too busy doing nothing of value.
 
"The police" aren't a collection of otherwise good individuals just trying to pay the bills, "the police" are an institution that is structurally toxic, as is evidenced by all of the origin stories I shared that you obviously didn't read. They literally evolved from slave patrols in the south.

"The law" that they defend is not objective, nor is it ever applied nondiscriminatory among all citizens of this country.

Read about the history of usury, of capitalism, of the commons, and then you can talk to me about facts.

Your concept of law enforcement history is just plain wrong. For starters, read the Wiki entry "Police" which cites the prefecture structure in ancient China, the Roman vigiles, and the medieval Spanish hermandades.

American policing began while we were still a colony, in Boston.

http://www.nleomf.org/museum/news/n...days-american-law-enforcement-april-2012.html

http://www.nleomf.org/facts/enforcement/impdates.html

It had little to do with slavery and much to do with the regrettably human behaviors such as robbery and assault. People have been doing crappy things to each other since we crawled out of the mud.
 
Agee, on all points. But it I suppose reminds me of the question I think perhaps it was you raised else where on a nother topic of 'what's/who neutral?' And as we all have character 'failings' or idiosyncrasies we might all tip a scale in some areas we might consider unpleasant in society, I mean.....some here share some aspects of that in common at least and have made joy with that which some parts of society are uncomfortable with.

And I think the point Kopilot might have validity over, that where there is rot, ill rather than might be attracted.

But I also feel condemn a group of people by job and there is another problem.

Oh, absolutely.
This is why "The police are people too" means that there is a good portion of problematic people to begin with. Then I think that the culture and the specifics of the job draws in a somewhat higher percentage of them that a random sample of "people" would contain.
At the same time, I think that this group and other groups that get invested with extra power and the possibility to use force over people, should be held to a higher standard then other people.
Because we are actually told to judge these people as good, based on their job

If I'm supposed to teach my kids to always do as the police say, I don't want to read about policemen systematically raping people as happened in a high profile case here. They actually kept files about it and hid them in a folder named something that translates to "proper proffessional value system" "because noone would ever look there".
I mean, it sounds like something the would make up in one of those satire shows Primalex linked, doesn't it?
 
Don't worry, I won't pollute your echo chamber any further. I'm too busy doing nothing of value.
Um, yeah actually that's more or less the entire point of voluntary association. Why would I want to build a community with people that don't want to even be in that communtity? The point you've missed since you started freaking out about my position is that, unlike you, I'm not forcing anyone to do anything. Your supporting the police is your supporting making completely harmless people do what you want them to do against their will because you're scared of a few bogeymen "out there". You're doing a lot more shoving down my throat than I am anyone else's, even in completely theoretical terms.

Would you call CERN an echo chamber because they don't have time for people who don't know the first thing about physics or engineering? Yeahhh doubt it.
 
Your concept of law enforcement history is just plain wrong. For starters, read the Wiki entry "Police" which cites the prefecture structure in ancient China, the Roman vigiles, and the medieval Spanish hermandades.

American policing began while we were still a colony, in Boston.

http://www.nleomf.org/museum/news/n...days-american-law-enforcement-april-2012.html

http://www.nleomf.org/facts/enforcement/impdates.html

It had little to do with slavery and much to do with the regrettably human behaviors such as robbery and assault. People have been doing crappy things to each other since we crawled out of the mud.

LE =/= police

LE =/= police

LE =/= police

Grats, you're arguing against a strawman.
 
Oh, absolutely.
This is why "The police are people too" means that there is a good portion of problematic people to begin with. Then I think that the culture and the specifics of the job draws in a somewhat higher percentage of them that a random sample of "people" would contain.

I linked to a study that proved police are domestic abusers at 2-4x the rate of the general population a while back. I don't think anyone read it.
 
You know what would be neat? If everyone flipping their shit over what I'm saying actually had anything to say in response to all of my links instead of going straight for the philosophy and getting it completely wrong every single fucking time. (Seriously, nobody here has come close to being able to argue against an even somewhat correct characterization of anti-authoritarian socialism, socialist libertarianism, anarchism, etc. If you get your facts straight, I'll be HAPPY to talk to you.)

Like, the facts and news stories are all so blatant and obvious and yet nobody's touching those at all.
 
LE =/= police

LE =/= police

LE =/= police

Grats, you're arguing against a strawman.

Ummm, you said "police", I referred you to the Wiki entry on Police.

You have cherry-picked as many negative stories on local police, FBI, state police, as your busy fingers could find. Somehow I doubt you would willingly bring yourself to doing so with positive stories on the same agencies. You're writing your narrative purely to suit your own rationalizations.
 
Ummm, you said "police", I referred you to the Wiki entry on Police.

You have cherry-picked as many negative stories on local police, FBI, state police, as your busy fingers could find. Somehow I doubt you would willingly bring yourself to doing so with positive stories on the same agencies. You're writing your narrative purely to suit your own rationalizations.
And Hitler was a great uncle or whatever, I hear. So what? Positive stories don't mean anything on their own.

As for your research, Wikipedia is a very problematic resource. NYPD have been caught altering pages to cast them in a more positive light, f'ex. Besides, why would I take it as gospel when you can't even cite it in a fuckin high school essay lol? Its like trusting the "dictionary definition" of racism. Anyone who has more than a cursory understanding of the subject, academics, social scientists, theorists, they all go by a more useful, more precise, more -upsetting- definition that the layperson probably doesn't use.

I don't use the dictionary definition of "police".
 
And lol, what's keeping any of you from posting positive features on cops if you're upset by my bias? Its certainly not me.
 
Anyone can cherry pick facts to "prove" whatever they want. The fact that someone can cherry pick facts proves absolutely nothing. It happens all the time with the bible, politics, whatever. There are always facts to prove whatever the hell you want. An argument with facts can be made about anything. Common sense will tell you that nobody is right 100% of the time and nobody is wrong 100% of the time. The only thing you can be sure of is in not trusting the opinions of someone who thinks they are right 100% of the time and their opponents are wrong 100% of the time.
 
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I think this a a very good and interesting point. Its changed a lot over the years too.

In mainly peace time some service men saw trauma, but often less often than police men, ....depending of course where the policeman is and what type of policing he does. I also think there must be a lot of trauma involved in seeing some of the worst of people daily In your own environment 'not on the news' yet just as being anti was is less contentious, hating police routinely is less contentious and rarely are they considered 'heroic' in the way service men are, for just doing their jobs. ( tbc. I do not think its heroic, but I do think some roles must be very traumatic).

You kidding me? If you're anywhere near being middle class the police are almost untouchable. You can complain about and hate almost any other institution or arm of the government--university system, congress, IRS, highway patrol, FDA, the military, the presidency, the fed, you name it--and get less flak than if you badmouth cops.

Even many of the so-called cop haters nowadays just want a few minor changes, like body cams, to how the police function, after which they promise to love cops again.
 
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Aren't readers and contributors of publications like The Nation often left leaning middle and upper 'class' ( keeping another debate to the side:D). I'm sure there are pieces touching police 'value' in the Nation. And, presuming we are talking about American society here, which to my regret and not by my choice is fairly limited these days to upper and upper middle socioeconomic brackets regretfully, then, no, I am not kidding you, and yes, my experience is different. You might enjoy some of that debate, but it am pretty sure you would find a lot of the company despicable :D

Oh, been there, done that. I have a relative in NYC who I spent a lot of time with in college who does a lot of work for art museums around the country, and who is married to an economic theorist who can get away with charging $10k per talk. I've had fancy-ass dinners with their friends and colleagues, I've kept pace with people in their social circles. And you're right, it's pretty dumb lol. They have some interesting stories, but most of what I do is nod and politely chuckle while sipping my martini. They're entertaining, but they're not real.

I think a lot of the bloated overvaluing of police in this society (as compared to all the other public servant jobs out there) has to do with everything Netz said. We have entire channels dedicated to spreading propaganda about how great and how necessary cops are. (There's a show out now that's nothing but pro-surveillance propaganda: "See No Evil". Christ on a stick.)

What other job, what other class of citizen, has gotten a show like Cops? None, really. They've been working us for a long time.
 
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