7 ms·

Daily reminder that police exist to protect the "property" of the ruling class.

• googlesux 7y ago
  Top rated comment from the commie
• m-p-3 7y ago
  The police is there to protect the law and order, and the ruling class don't want the current order (them on top) to change.
• 19ylram49 7y ago
  Precisely!
• Bostonian 7y ago
  Marxism has always failed but Marxist rhetoric remains popular. In a market economy companies make money by producing what people want, and we all depend on energy from fossil fuel.
  • ajross 7y ago
    That's because "Marxist rhetoric" expresses a legitimate grievance, though. Your argument is a conflation fallacy. It can be simultaneously true that: 1. Law enforcement disproportionately and unfairly serves the interests of the powerful above the reasonable interests of justice. 2. Proletarian seizure of the means of production is terrible economic policy. I mean, come on. They did three years of investigation and lab work to chase one guy down on a disorderly conduct[1] charge. That's just absurd. How many open case rape kits in Bismark ND went untested since 2016? If the number is more than one, I think even the most Blue Lives Matterest among us would agree that this was a miscarriage of justice. [1] Edit: it's even dumber: "conspiracy to commit criminal mischief". Three years, folks. They worked that case for three years.
  • jeanperrot 7y ago
    In order to function well, markets have to be correctly regulated. In particular, externalities must be accounted for. Energy markets fail to do that (CO2 emissions is a large externality) and are broken - I wager we wouldn't depend on fossil fuels for much longer if it weren't the case.
  • deogeo 7y ago
    So people want DRM in their printer cartridges? They want to pay for patent-encumbered filesystems instead of free ones? They want ads that spy on which websites they visit? They want to be lied to about the harms of sugary foods [1]? About the harms of smoking? They want the dangers of climate change concealed from them, so that they cannot act in time and develop alternative sources of energy [2]? They want to be lied to about the dangers of lead in gasoline? Companies make money in all sorts of ways, and producing what people want is just one of them. To pretend otherwise is willful ignorance. [1] https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/13/493739074/50-years-ago-sugar-industry-quietly-paid-scientists-to-point-blame-at-fat https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/13/493739074... [2] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-climate-change-almost-40-years-ago/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-...
    • rayiner 7y ago
      People accept those things as trade offs for things they want, yes. Free markets don’t give people what they want. They give people the trade offs they most highly value. They may not want DRM in printer cartridges, but they make the conscious decision to buy $100 printers with expensive DRM cartridges instead of $500 printers with cheap cartridges. They may not want less leg room on flights, but they make the conscious decision to click on a fare $3 lower in Orbitz. They may not want ads to spy on them, but they don’t want to pay for content. They want sugary foods, which are delicious. They want gas guzzling SUVs, and continue to buy them in large numbers even now that the “truth” about climate change is supposedly out. Economies are about trade offs. The central thing marxists do not understand is that you cannot alter the nature of the trade offs through government. All you can do is move the equilibrium to a different place (at the cost of a deadweight loss).
      • anigbrowl 7y ago
        You're applying the logic of perfect competition(which presupposes total market knowledge) to real-world consumer decisions, which are subject to multiple complicating factors from the paradox of choice to well-documented behavioral quirks. You're smarter than this.
  • dang 7y ago
    Please don't take HN threads further into ideological flamewar. It's not what this site is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
• newguy1234 7y ago
  Police are there to protect the political ruling class and their power structure. Same with the military. This is why I am confused when people are "proud" to serve in the military. That's like being a slave used to build a railroad, which you will never use or benefit from.
• dang 7y ago
  Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to HN. Especially not ideological flamebait slogans. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  • MiroF 7y ago
    I contend that flagging the comment proves its point.
  • anigbrowl 7y ago
    That seems rather biased, Dan. While the 'daily reminder' bit is snarky dismissing it as mere flamebait or soganeering is unjustified and veers into trying to control the discussion. It's quite relevant considering the context.
    • dang 7y ago
      It simply repeats a slogan that's favored by one side of the ideological abyss and rejected by the other. Therefore there's only a single bit of information in it, the bit that signals which side the comment is on. An HN comment needs more than one bit of information to count as substantive.