How much do we need the police? • Hacker News Board

Re: How much do we need the police?

#391

Post by AdrianB1 » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 10:31 AM UTC

ikeyany wrote: post #198

birdyrooster wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By civilizing the police we also mean affirmative action to bring the demographics of the officers in line with the people they serve. Removing guns wouldn’t have saved Eric Garner or George Floyd.

Other ways of turning policing away from "tacticool" policing and towards community policing: offering cops more $$$; requiring a degree or two; placing residency requirements (x cops in a precinct must live within y miles of the community they are to serve) to help weed out the bully types. That can be done in a reasonable amount of time.

We did that in my country; it did not have the effect people hoped for, just made them another class of privileged employees milking the system. I have 2 former cops in my family, they retired young for nice pensions, money never made them any better cops. One was similar to a police captain with a masters degree, one was a seargent.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#392

Post by AdrianB1 » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 10:33 AM UTC

birdyrooster wrote: post #187

_8j50 wrote: post #175

"Police" (Edit:"modern police") is a 19th century invention, well after cities were a thing. If we get past semantics, a service that provides order and security to a community is needed. I imagine it more like social workers that also do criminal investigations for prosecutors instead of a military force for a city. Perhaps an unrelated armed "police" can help when deadly force is needed (gangs, armed criminals,etc.…

By civilizing the police we also mean affirmative action to bring the demographics of the officers in line with the people they serve. Removing guns wouldn’t have saved Eric Garner or George Floyd.

The argument that the right race is better than competency is overused. People pointing at race are one of the reasons racism exists, asking for diversity is using divide et impera the races, not helping anyone.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#393

Post by Memosyne » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 10:34 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #216

BurningFrog wrote: post #38

Montreal once had a 16 hour police strike, creating a natural experiment in what happens without police. Steven Pinker describes how that went: > "As a young teenager in proudly peaceable Canada during the romantic 1960s, I was a true believer in Bakunin's anarchism. I laughed off my parents' argument that if the government ever laid down its arms all hell would break loose. Our competing predictions were put to the…

And that’s just the short term. Look at places like Somalia or Afghanistan to see what happens when law and order breaks down in a systematic way. The issue isn’t even just “crime” in the sense of robbery, etc. When there is no police, organized crime can take over. When we lived in Bangladesh in the 1980s, a minibus full of criminals showed up at the gate of our house. (This being Dhaka in the 1980s, we had a brick…

> Look at places like Somalia or Afghanistan to see what happens when law and order breaks down in a systematic way.

Also see Brazil with Primeiro Comando da Capital and Comando Vermelho which are violent organizations that have/had lofty goals similar to the growing movement (i.e. anti-police brutality, vengeance)[1]. Those groups now partake in degenerate drug and sex fueled parties and slaughter their enemies using advanced weapons. No need to worry though; their code of conduct proclaims that they fight for liberty, justice and peace and that rape is bad -- they're obviously the good guys.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primeiro_Comando_da_Capital#Hi...

Re: How much do we need the police?

#394

Post by Wintamute » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 10:34 AM UTC

Netcob wrote: post #390

cheesecracker wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But here we are in the middle of ongoing riots discussing the role of the police. Maybe the comparison is not so inappropriate after all.

Then maybe the fact that the riots have been caused by the police in the first place should be considered too.

Let's be more accurate. The protests are caused by the police. But the riots, violence and looting is caused by opportunists and criminals, in many cases instigated and enflamed by white revolutionary anarchists and/or white supremacist cells more than willing to sacrifice minorities and their neighbourhoods to their insane political projects, i.e. blood soaked revolution or race war.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#395

Post by teddyh » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 10:41 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #364

teddyh wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fail to see the trolling you evidently can see. Can you explain?

Moderation is guesswork, and if I guessed wrong I'll be happy to apologize and correct the error, but I think the username "remember_george" is sarcastic and the comment was intended to be demeaning. "Seeing how", "I bet", and "didn't even" is language one would more likely use to sarcastically mock something than to make a straightforward point. And...what is the straightforward point supposed to be, anyway? And why…

OK, with additional information, I can now see it. But the comment itself is so indirect in its sarcasm that it can just as easily be interpreted straight, and your ban does not give the additional information to make it clear; if somebody does not know anything about George Floyd, your comment about “trolling” makes no sense to the casual reader. You could easily have given some rationale in your post, but you didn’t.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#396

Post by lazylizard » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 10:41 AM UTC

Perhaps just take away their guns?

Re: How much do we need the police?

#397

Post by selimthegrim » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 10:41 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #216

BurningFrog wrote: post #38

Montreal once had a 16 hour police strike, creating a natural experiment in what happens without police. Steven Pinker describes how that went: > "As a young teenager in proudly peaceable Canada during the romantic 1960s, I was a true believer in Bakunin's anarchism. I laughed off my parents' argument that if the government ever laid down its arms all hell would break loose. Our competing predictions were put to the…

And that’s just the short term. Look at places like Somalia or Afghanistan to see what happens when law and order breaks down in a systematic way. The issue isn’t even just “crime” in the sense of robbery, etc. When there is no police, organized crime can take over. When we lived in Bangladesh in the 1980s, a minibus full of criminals showed up at the gate of our house. (This being Dhaka in the 1980s, we had a brick…

In New Orleans we spend 30% of the budget on the police and corrections while the convention and visitors bureau sit on millions and black owned businesses have negligible receipts. Meanwhile, the city is subsiding. You’d be mad too.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#398

Post by selimthegrim » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 10:43 AM UTC

holler wrote: post #303

ncallaway wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some protestors have been completely peaceful. Some entire protests have been completely peaceful. And some of those completely peaceful protests have still met tear gas, and/or pepper spray. For example, see the protest in DC that was peaceful and broken up before curfew. Is your assertion that nationwide, over 9 days, there hasn't been any peaceful protests?

If we’re focused on Seattle still, and basing this off the news from the past few days, it certainly was hard to notice any peaceful protesting occurring. Of course many people were peaceful, but amidst scenes of people busting through every retailer’s window downtown, looting stores until they were bare, while dozens of cars burned in the street...

Have you not seen the pink umbrella video?

Re: How much do we need the police?

#399

Post by selimthegrim » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 10:45 AM UTC

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #384

chrismcb wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost all of the protests in Seattle have been peaceful, until the cops started spaying made and throwing flash grenades into the crowd. Yes there has been some looting, generally away from the protestors, because the police are busy.

So far, everyone who has said that cops reacted this way for absolutely no reason has been misinformed or lying when I go investigate. It’s actually quite surprising how frequently these blatantly wrong claims keep coming up. Often there is an assumption that because they didn’t see what started it, it must have been nothing. You might think they didn’t have a good enough reason, but I have yet to see police in any c…

https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/gv0ru3/this_is_the...

Re: How much do we need the police?

#400

Post by Beltiras » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 10:48 AM UTC

Wintamute wrote: post #394

Netcob wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then maybe the fact that the riots have been caused by the police in the first place should be considered too.

Let's be more accurate. The protests are caused by the police. But the riots, violence and looting is caused by opportunists and criminals, in many cases instigated and enflamed by white revolutionary anarchists and/or white supremacist cells more than willing to sacrifice minorities and their neighbourhoods to their insane political projects, i.e. blood soaked revolution or race war.

There are multiple reports of agent provocateurs being police agents.