3 ms·

You know the drug busts, and shootouts, and car chases from the drug war. Yea, cops are there too. They have to be the enforcers for the crap laws that get pass

You know the drug busts, and shootouts, and car chases from the drug war. Yea, cops are there too. They have to be the enforcers for the crap laws that get passed too. It's the same thing for soldiers, they fight wars other people declare. If you pay taxes you support this system financially. Don't live in the US? Does your country trade with the US? Someone somewhere is almost somehow contributing to some problem. You also neglect the good cops do, doing the job means you do all of the job. From being first responders to drug enforcement.

pessimizer 10y ago
> They have to be the enforcers for the crap laws that get passed too. No, they don't. You probably somehow managed not to be. I've never been tempted.
filoeleven 10y ago
> [Cops] have to be the enforcers for the crap laws that get passed too This is something I've heard from friends in law enforcement, but it doesn't stand up to scrutiny. I've seen countless moving violations take place in front of police--most often speeding and failure to signal--without the violator getting pulled over. And usually while the cop is driving down the left lane of the highway while not passing, which is itself illegal in my state. I've heard plenty of stories of other situations where the threat of arrest for violating some law is real, meaning that the officer had every right under the law to make the arrest already, but is used to get someone to chill out and de-escalate the situation instead of being followed through. Discretion, the ability to selectively enforce the law, is a huge part of their everyday job. So I don't buy it when people say "they have to enforce the law" because they do not do so universally. I don't buy it when police say "I don't agree with it but I have to enforce it" since basically everyone agrees that you ought to signal lame changes but that is only rarely enforced. Clearly there's more to it than that--there are greater incentives for police to continue making arrests for marijuana and there are greater penalties for them if they decide to stop making those arrests on moral grounds. But until this false statemeant about "having to enforce the law" is dropped, we can't talk intelligently about what really factors into the decision (personal and institutional) to continue drug enforcement.
- washadjeffmad 10y ago
  This is part of a response I've heard from law enforcement (family and friends' family), usually as soon as someone else concedes, just so that the conversation doesn't sound like a complete indictment, that "most officers are good". The officer then corrects with, "99% of people are good", and that the same is true of police. Boy, does that sound good! Everyone is good, and the police, being a very small subset of the normal population are actually "better" than the population at large. The conversation just went from "cops need more accountability and oversight (and to stop killing people)" to... Phase Two. Now that cops are the potential victims of unfair persecution and popular media slander campaigns (they're all good except the really bad ones who get caught, but they weren't "real" cops anyway, remember?), here come the examples of other accountability measures civilians think are helping them but are actually harming them. Those damned lapel cams. Officer discretion keeps nice kids out of jail and keeps the really bad people locked up. But with lapel cams, any defense attorney can go back through police footage from the same officer and see where they selectively enforced laws in similar situations, making prosecution of "dangerous thugs" harder than it needs to be. You wanting to know that police aren't being violent and aggressive puts you and your children in DANGER. And it's not prosecutorial overreach or disproportionate sentencing or selective enforcement that are the problems here- it's the defense attorneys. Lapel cams remove cop control over who stays in (or out) of jail, and that's a problem. It's a really friendly and passionate argument, but it's rotten at its core. Police aren't judges, they don't know the law like attorneys, and they shouldn't be arbiters over the communities they serve. Does having sick laws designed to punish selected targets unduly built because selective enforcement is a fact make this a rats nest of an issue? Absolutely, and it makes attempts to address it a much more difficult and dangerous task for the public. What was BLM? If you watch TV, it was a movement of wanton destruction in response to the death of some criminals. What was it supposed to be? A campaign for recognition and reform of unfair sentencing, selective enforcement, and prosecutorial overreach through national awareness and grassroots activism. Don't worry if you didn't know; their local marches and sit-ins weren't exciting enough to be covered.

pessimizer 10y ago

> They have to be the enforcers for the crap laws that get passed too. No, they don't. You probably somehow managed not to be. I've never been tempted.

filoeleven 10y ago

> [Cops] have to be the enforcers for the crap laws that get passed too This is something I've heard from friends in law enforcement, but it doesn't stand up to scrutiny. I've seen countless moving violations take place in front of police--most often speeding and failure to signal--without the violator getting pulled over. And usually while the cop is driving down the left lane of the highway while not passing, which is itself illegal in my state. I've heard plenty of stories of other situations where the threat of arrest for violating some law is real, meaning that the officer had every right under the law to make the arrest already, but is used to get someone to chill out and de-escalate the situation instead of being followed through. Discretion, the ability to selectively enforce the law, is a huge part of their everyday job. So I don't buy it when people say "they have to enforce the law" because they do not do so universally. I don't buy it when police say "I don't agree with it but I have to enforce it" since basically everyone agrees that you ought to signal lame changes but that is only rarely enforced. Clearly there's more to it than that--there are greater incentives for police to continue making arrests for marijuana and there are greater penalties for them if they decide to stop making those arrests on moral grounds. But until this false statemeant about "having to enforce the law" is dropped, we can't talk intelligently about what really factors into the decision (personal and institutional) to continue drug enforcement.

washadjeffmad 10y ago
This is part of a response I've heard from law enforcement (family and friends' family), usually as soon as someone else concedes, just so that the conversation doesn't sound like a complete indictment, that "most officers are good". The officer then corrects with, "99% of people are good", and that the same is true of police. Boy, does that sound good! Everyone is good, and the police, being a very small subset of the normal population are actually "better" than the population at large. The conversation just went from "cops need more accountability and oversight (and to stop killing people)" to... Phase Two. Now that cops are the potential victims of unfair persecution and popular media slander campaigns (they're all good except the really bad ones who get caught, but they weren't "real" cops anyway, remember?), here come the examples of other accountability measures civilians think are helping them but are actually harming them. Those damned lapel cams. Officer discretion keeps nice kids out of jail and keeps the really bad people locked up. But with lapel cams, any defense attorney can go back through police footage from the same officer and see where they selectively enforced laws in similar situations, making prosecution of "dangerous thugs" harder than it needs to be. You wanting to know that police aren't being violent and aggressive puts you and your children in DANGER. And it's not prosecutorial overreach or disproportionate sentencing or selective enforcement that are the problems here- it's the defense attorneys. Lapel cams remove cop control over who stays in (or out) of jail, and that's a problem. It's a really friendly and passionate argument, but it's rotten at its core. Police aren't judges, they don't know the law like attorneys, and they shouldn't be arbiters over the communities they serve. Does having sick laws designed to punish selected targets unduly built because selective enforcement is a fact make this a rats nest of an issue? Absolutely, and it makes attempts to address it a much more difficult and dangerous task for the public. What was BLM? If you watch TV, it was a movement of wanton destruction in response to the death of some criminals. What was it supposed to be? A campaign for recognition and reform of unfair sentencing, selective enforcement, and prosecutorial overreach through national awareness and grassroots activism. Don't worry if you didn't know; their local marches and sit-ins weren't exciting enough to be covered.