5 ms·
> Is there a way to just start over when it comes to policing in America? I'm afraid this would be a beginning, not a start over, because what you're describin
by K0SM0S 7y ago
> Is there a way to just start over when it comes to policing in America?
I'm afraid this would be a beginning, not a start over, because what you're describing is technically not meeting the definition of a democratic "police".
As a foreign observer, were this my country— I'd feel in presence of an occupying force, whose master and goals are unclear but randomly hostile.
Apparently they do worship the god "prison", feeding it as many people as possible, in the worst shape possible¹.
These is emphatically not the behavior of a group whose ultimate responsibility is to citizens. It is not worthy, ethically or technically, of the name police. There are other (notably italian) words to qualify such practices.
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1: I know it's a caricature, but frankly the notion of "police" in the USA is itself but a sorry caricature, compared to any other modern rich country. Citizen-police interactions too often devolve into quasi-dystopian (certainly authoritarian) situations, straight from the 1980s of Orwell where words and actions are so twisted they no longer make any sense.
- golergka 7y agoAny government is an occupying force for the society, by it's very nature.
- LordDragonfang 7y agoLeftists really like to point out that the American police system has deep roots in the paid slave catchers that would return escaped slaves in free states to their masters. And the fact that America never actually abolished slavery, just made it contingent on being punishment for a crime. Stories like this make you wonder if they're right.
- tylerl 7y agoReally? That's certainly not something I generally hear. You can levy a lot of complaints against police systems, especially the a few of the more infamous departments. But that one seems like it's pushing a bit to make a specific connection.
- Seirdy 7y agoThe United States "abolished" slavery in the 13th amendment of its Constitution; however, the amendment explicitly makes an exception for punishment for crime. Text of the 13th amendment of the United States Constitution, Section 1 (emphasis mine): > Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. It's really not pushing it when it says so right there.