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How much do we need the police?

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451–460 of 505 posts

Re: How much do we need the police?

#451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t “hire” the police, and that’s critical. If you did, they would be accountable to you and not the rest of society. Police are agents of the government which is accountable (to some degree) to the people. This is a tremendous distinction.

Police and government have something very important in common with you. They are all just people. Regular people without superior morals, intellectual capability, resolve, etc. In this case a government is just a group of people getting together and saying, "Okay Bob, a few of us in the community have pooled our money together to hire some mercenaries and we'd like you to do the hiring." And then Bob just does it.

No one said anything about superior morals, capability, resolve, etc. The important part is that the state has a monopoly on violence and in a democracy, the state is accountable to the people. This doesn't require agents of the state to be superior in any specific way, only that We The People authorize state agents to enforce and uphold law and order.

We literally cannot remove the police without a collapse of the state and consequently the rest of our civilization, and if you think for even one moment about how that would play out it would be apparent: everything fractures into private armies with no incentive to uphold democratic rule of law; the most powerful private armies become de facto states and their ruler a law unto himself--effectively a king. Obviously modern society can't survive under these conditions--no one can trust rule of law which absolutely underpins our economy. So congratulations, you've rediscovered the dark ages and doomed hundreds of millions to deaths from violence, illness, and starvation. :)

Re: How much do we need the police?

#452
post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed over time that things that can be done elsewhere on the world are impossible in America according to most Americans. I even particularly like America because it has more of the sort of liberty I like but it also has some of the most unbelievable defensiveness. For years, fibre was impossible in America. Turns out it wasn't. For years, bicycling was impossible in America. Turns out it isn't. Nothing is re…

Profitable home delivery of groceries really does seem to be impossible in America, for some reason!

You know, that market appears so attractive but no one seems to be able to really succeed. I idly sometimes dream of an alternative model where you make money providing a white boxed delivery solution to the supply side using a general fleet. Not convinced yet that it’ll work but maybe it’s worth a shot sometime.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#453
post #372
post #11

I'm heartened by city council members Tammy Morales in Seattle, Nury Martinez in LA, and Steve Fletcher in Minneapolis who are all seriously discussing significantly defunding or disbanding their police departments. While we've had protests like this in the past, I don't think I've ever seen so many places seriously asking how much we need our police, and how equipped they should be. Clearly, the answer is that polic…

I'm all in favor of disarming the police. If they need a gun, they can call it in. However, a city like LA would be nuts without cops, if anything there should be more. The situation on the street is not safe without some authority patrolling and making sure people don't get rowdy and heated; there are just too many people out of their mind on meth. I've seen someone get pushed and yelled at on the expo line for maki…

Practically, the things that people are advocating for with defunding are things like stopping paid administrative leave for cops under investigation, cutting pensions and rehire rates for cops who use excessive force, require cops to be liable for a portion of their misconduct claims, do not pay for military exercises, withdraw from police military equipment programs, etc.

The disband crowd still wants people patrolling and available to deal with emergencies, but generally wants them to be specialized, unarmed, and focused on peace rather than violence. Ensure we have mental health specialists on call, dedicated people focused on addressing the homeless community, etc. Yes, we'll need a few folks who are trained to use force, but that shouldn't be the normal mode of police.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is so obvious. Defund the police, and regulate their roles. >deprioritize protests/drugs/etc Yeah, already done that. And it's miserable . My parents came to visit (from the midwest and right before the pandemic) and were absolutely appalled at seeing needles on the street when we went out to dinner. I don't blame them, really. I blame the people who pretend that shrugging at enforcing drug laws is some sort of…

Yikes, dude. I just don't agree with trying to ruin someones life forever, because they occasionally like to use drugs. That's not political nihilism. I don't really consider seeing a needle in the street a "third world standard of living". I don't enjoy seeing litter, but it's a reality of living in an urban area. There's beer cans, and yes people toss bottles to, so there's shards of glass in the street, and it's n…

>Yikes, dude. I just don't agree with trying to ruin someones life forever, because they occasionally like to use drugs.

As if that's what we're doing. "Yikes bro", maybe stop straw manning everything I said into some kind of crypto fascist fantasy? Maybe consider that not being able to have your elderly parents take the subway when they visit - because of risk of violence, or you just don't want them around open injection drug use - is a sign that what we're doing isn't working? We've been trying the decriminalization route for a decade at least. Do you actually think this is "success"? Or has real decriminalization never been tried?

> because you sometimes see what's really going on in your city.

And this is the nihilism. Thinking this is normal.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It all indicates the problem isn't the gun, it's the person. Really? How did the persons become worse because of the gun control laws? Because that's what your message implies, that said rise in violent crimes is related to enacting gun control.

> How did the persons become worse because of the gun control laws? Because that's what your message implies No, it doesn't. > that said rise in violent crimes is related to enacting gun control The person did not become worse but rather found the chance to attack someone who could not defend themselves because they did not have a gun.

It's quite an extraordinary claim - among others, it implies these are all premeditated crimes (shot other person knowing that it would not have a gun - without that knowledge, crime wouldn't happen)

Re: How much do we need the police?

#457

Useless thinking. Just think of what would happen to your siste rif she was raped and her only family was her grandma and she did not have any friends. Oh it would be the neighborhood crew saving her? That's police.

I have experience with someone who was sexually assaulted in a well-to-do area. Cops don't want inconvenient stats like sexual assaults ruining their town's image, so those crimes don't get investigated. It isn't for a lack of resources, either, as those cops make well over $100k before overtime.

You confuse something that is bad in practice with something that is bad in theory

Re: How much do we need the police?

#458

Useless thinking. Just think of what would happen to your siste rif she was raped and her only family was her grandma and she did not have any friends. Oh it would be the neighborhood crew saving her? That's police.

Do you think police stop rapes from happening? Rapes happen in peoples' homes where there are no police. Then, if the victim chooses to report it, they are often blown off by the police entirely unless the circumstances make it impossible to ignore.

You confuse something that is bad in practice with something that is bad in theory

Re: How much do we need the police?

#459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how do you make people be nicer to each other?

Education (in the french sense of the word)? My only specific recommendation I already gave above, and even that is a hypothesis. If I had an answer, I'd be proposing it, but as it is, I've taken the easier path out, by living in the place where I'd found the nicest people, after having traveled a bit. (I don't think one can make people be nicer to each other. At best, they can experience for themselves that things g…

Why not make people nice to each other first, and then abolish or reduce the police? It seems like that would happen naturally anyway. If huge parts of the police force went idle most of the time for lack of anything to do, the force would presumably reduced after a while.

Re: How much do we need the police?

#460

In Rojava (anarchist autonomous region in Syria) there are been efforts to replace the police with a better institution. More information: http://hawzhin.press/2020/06/01/how-to-abolish-the-police-le...

that's a fantasy, rojava is a one party dictatorship oppressing Arabs
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