4 ms·

Probably a bit of a controversial opinion but in some cases I can sympathize with the police officers. The reality is that the vast majority of them likely cond

Probably a bit of a controversial opinion but in some cases I can sympathize with the police officers. The reality is that the vast majority of them likely condemn the events around George Floyd's death. They are also regular people with families, children and friends they have to provide for. And they have the exact same problems that many of us do. Their daily work involves keeping things in order, which is something I respect. That said, the first video I opened at random[1] shows a small number of people blocking a road in what looks more like a civil war scene rather than a protest. And the authorities are greeted with "F-U" and people tossing objects at them. The people in uniforms are ordinary people. Put yourself in their shoes and tell me: having all the problems you have, seeing all the destruction, which in all cases is no longer a protest, people shouting "f-u" and throwing stuff at you: You can be the most mentally stable human being but everyone has a limit. Many of those men are possibly working overtime, in extreme conditions and I bet they would much rather be with their kids or sick parents for instance. With this idea in mind, I personally can't picture myself being able to remain calm and not overstep my boundaries sooner or later. Now putting myself in the shoes of the protesters: seeing the same destruction, destroying of properties, cars and businesses, I'll call it a day because this is no longer a protest. I'd go back home and wait for this to be taken care of and join a civilized protest once this has been taken care of. A civilized country should be able to hold a civilized protest. And having spent most of my life in eastern Europe, you can say I know a thing or two about protests. Last large protest I was a part of was in ~2013 irrc and the aftermath was very different. The night after each of those protests, everything was spotless clean, people thew all their garbage in the bins, nothing broken or destroyed. People were coming with their children and pets and being completely comfortable with it. There was a completely unrelated incident of a gas explosion at a Chinese restaurant, which burned a nearby shop. People gathered donations fo the shop owner to recover. Incidents with police? Practically none during ~3 months of daily protest. And we are talking eastern Europe - the police officers are anything but the nicest people on the planet. [1] https://twitter.com/XruthxNthr/status/1266903223220097024 https://twitter.com/XruthxNthr/status/1266903223220097024

miguelmota 6y ago
> A civilized country should be able to hold a civilized protest. The protests started out peaceful but became less peaceful when the police showed up and tear gassed innocent crowds. There's people literally getting arrested for practicing their right to assemble and right to freedom of speech.
- axegon_ 6y ago
  That is the thing about collectivism though. Imagine one person throwing a bottle from the crowd at the police(something which can be seen in tons of videos). The idea of collectivism implies that the crowd itself is no longer innocent at that point. Not to mention the destruction of public and private properties. The words "rights" and "responsibilities" go hand in hand and people love ignoring that fact.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > That is the thing about collectivism though. Imagine one person throwing a bottle from the crowd at the police(something which can be seen in tons of videos). The idea of collectivism implies that the crowd itself is no longer innocent at that point. You are confusing the idea of collectivism (in which each individual is responsible for the welfare of the members of the group, and is expected to sacrifice to some extent—different variations on collectivism vary on the extent—their own welfare for the common good) with the concept of collective punishment (a widely recognized violation of human rights and, in the context of armed conflict, a war crime, in which members of a group are punished for mere shared membership in a group which contains wrongdoers, without any evidence of collaboration in or support for the wrongdoing.) They are not equivalent.
    - axegon_ 6y ago
      A mass protest is by all means a form of collectivism. Everyone has the right to protest and everyone has the responsibility to keep it civilized. Collective punishment may be a violation of human right and it should be condemned but what is your solution when you have the manpower of say 1,000 people vs a crowd of 100,000 and your task is to make sure that the city is still there the next morning? Just do the math.
booleandilemma 6y ago
I wonder how many people on this thread have participated in the riots, theft, and destruction of our local businesses? I wonder how many have told a cop to go fuck themselves in the past 24 hours. Judging by how quickly you were downvoted, I'm guessing quite a few.
- axegon_ 6y ago
  Which means everyone is missing the point. It doesn't matter if you personally participated in the riots, theft, and destruction: you are in the crowd of people which is a collective and as such, is treated as a collective. There is no other way around it. It's easy to think about it as an ordinary situation, but this is much like war. Only a handful of the population is actively engaged in a war but the damage is reflected upon everyone.
  - mydongle 6y ago
    Maybe the smartest move is for the legitimate protestors to go somewhere else, do something else, so that we can isolate those who are taking advantage of the chaos to riot and loot. The protestors are basically just cover for the rioters/looters at this point. To play devil's advocate, they play cover for each other. Protestors retain legitimacy by claiming the rioters/looters are some other people. Rioters/looters can do their work because of all the people and chaos. Protestors have the leverage of continuing violence and destruction unless their demands are met while looters get their free Jordans and Gucci.
    - axegon_ 6y ago
      My point exactly!
arel 6y ago
> With this idea in mind, I personally can't picture myself being able to remain calm and not overstep my boundaries sooner or later. It's their job to remain calm and lawful under all circumstances. They have the full force of state sanctioned violence at their disposal. Watch some of the hundreds of videos on Twitter now and see if you can't see a rotten and brutal culture in US policing.
- gremlinsinc 6y ago
  Or just go here: https://old.reddit.com/r/2020PoliceBrutality https://old.reddit.com/r/2020PoliceBrutality
muglug 6y ago
I think most of what you’re saying is not controversial, but I think you’re missing a lot of context. Those officers, and the protestors, exist in a country that still treats black people as second-class citizens in a variety of ways. Hell, the current President spent years saying the previous (black) President was illegitimate. You want to see the protesters and officers as equal, but they’re not - the protesters are trying to change the status quo, the officers by and large want it to stay the way it is, and often want to make things worse for minorities (“Make America Great Again”). Sympathy for the officers is fine, but remember they can quit whenever they want. Black people can’t quit being black.
- axegon_ 6y ago
  And looking at the images of complete destruction, who do you think is the big winner here? Isn't it Mr. "Make America Great again"? I think that's playing beautifully in his hands and many of the people who had turned against him are now back under his wing. > Sympathy for the officers is fine, but remember they can quit whenever they want. That's not always the case. As I said, often those people have to provide for someone and put food on the table each night. I know exactly what it is to be a kid and seeing an empty table in the evening.
- jtjbdhsjjdnd 6y ago
  As an outsider (maybe I am wrong) US will continue their bad treatment of 'black people' as long as you continue calling them 'black' and supporting it at the official level. It is just racial segregation in disguise.
  - muglug 6y ago
    > maybe I am wrong Yeah, uh, I have bad news for you...
curryst 6y ago
I agree with you, I think there is a failing on two parts: firstly, police are ill equipped (training wise) to handle this and it was a systematic failure to deploy them like this. Secondarily, police (I would guess their union) have continually pushed to expand their ability to use force, giving the impression that they are well equipped to handle this. On the first, I firmly believe that you should always deploy people who are accustomed to a more difficult or dangerous task. Managing large crowds of potentially violent people is far beyond the typical danger police face (usually peaceful, or one or two dangerous people). On the other hand, this is one of the scenarios the National Guard is trained for. And the level of force is likely lower than what they have trained for. The current response is like handingba Sev1 incident to an intern. They're just as or more likely to cause more damage as they are to help. On the second point, handing armored vehicles and body armor to a group that isn't well versed in their use and effects on the opposing force is a bad idea. The outcome is inevitably the "five foot drop". When you your electronics don't work and you don't know how to fix them, people tend to give it a hard smack to see if that works. Likewise when your day to day policing doesn't work, deploying your heaviest armaments probably seems like a good idea. I do still hold the officers accountable to a degree. The degree of force is incredibly one sided. However, more than them, I blame the system that put them in a situation they are so unequipped to handle.
- axegon_ 6y ago
  > On the second point, handing armored vehicles and body armor to a group that isn't well versed in their use and effects on the opposing force is a bad idea. This may be a topic of another discussion but I wouldn't call it a bad idea in a country where everyone and their dog has firearms, just saying...
  - curryst 6y ago
    Body armor, perhaps. I still think it creates a moral hazard; if you were in a situation where someone might shoot you, how much does the idea that your vital organs are protected influence your decision to keep yelling commands versus a decision to go back to your car, write down the license plate, and pick them up at home when you're prepared for the situation? On the topic of armored vehicles, I vehemently disagree with distributing them to police forces. If there is a significant threat of a firefight, we have an existing domestic force that is trained to handle combat conditions. They are the National Guard. If things escalate to that point, the proper response is to call in the National Guard. They are both trained to handle that situation, and they have far more equipment than you could ever hope for. The National Guard has actual tanks, if it comes to that. I will grant you, there is a very narrow middle ground of things that SWAT is equipped to handle but the National Guard would take too long to deploy. However I would contend that the military attitude SWAT-style tactics cause costs more in human lives than the small subsection of things SWAT needs to handle before the National Guard arrives. The police should be a domestic force, charged with maintaining law and order among largely non-violent and lawful citizenry. The National Guard should be a force charged with handling violent and unlawful situations. Traffic stops are well within the police jurisdiction. Standouts can be handled by police, so long as they don't plan on going in to the building. Taking a building full of hostile combatants with at-risk civilians should be handled by the National Guard. If the police feel at risk enough that they need more than a handgun, they should call the National Guard. The police are not an invading army performing an occupation of hostile lands. They are public servants enforcing democratically chosen laws on a largely willing populace, of which they are part. Anything outside that scope should be handled by another branch that has been chosen and trained for that purpose.
wsatb 6y ago
I get a lot what you're saying regarding the police. I think there's a lot that needs to change, and the mental health of our police needs to be included. Not only are they probably working insane hours, in lots of stress, but it's quite evident lots of them have become completely desensitized from violence. You don't come out of the womb being okay with hitting people that are not a threat. That said: it's increasingly evident that they're very poorly trained. You see the same strongman tactics in every city. They gang up on a single person, sometimes 4 or 5 of them, all hitting, all kicking, and continue to do this once you're on the ground. If you've ever watched Live PD, you see a ton of this same behavior, all the time, all across the country. At the same time, there are some really bad cops out there (and the cynic in me tells me they're more common than we're lead on to believe), and also lots that just don't have the mental fortitude to do the work, but are still doing it anyway. Those people need to be weeded out, and we need to better equip them with tools that are not weapons.
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
While I do want to sympathize with the police officers, at the same time each and every one of them is complicit in what has happened - there is not enough accountability in the police force, not enough emphasis on de-escalating, on respect of people they suspect of wrongdoing - especially if they're PoC. Why was Floyd pinned to the ground until he suffocated when all he supposedly did was use a fake $20 bill? (supposedly because innocent until proven guilty). Why did none of the other officers present step in? All of them are guilty IMO. As a police officer, you need to keep your colleagues in check. The problem right now is that there's vast groups of policemen who have no qualms with using excessive violence, especially against PoC, and they protect each other. I suspect that goes up the chain of command all the way up. For one, the US President himself hasn't condemned the actions of the police, not in the Floyd case, not in any other case of police violence. And that makes them complicit.

miguelmota 6y ago

> A civilized country should be able to hold a civilized protest. The protests started out peaceful but became less peaceful when the police showed up and tear gassed innocent crowds. There's people literally getting arrested for practicing their right to assemble and right to freedom of speech.

axegon_ 6y ago
That is the thing about collectivism though. Imagine one person throwing a bottle from the crowd at the police(something which can be seen in tons of videos). The idea of collectivism implies that the crowd itself is no longer innocent at that point. Not to mention the destruction of public and private properties. The words "rights" and "responsibilities" go hand in hand and people love ignoring that fact.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > That is the thing about collectivism though. Imagine one person throwing a bottle from the crowd at the police(something which can be seen in tons of videos). The idea of collectivism implies that the crowd itself is no longer innocent at that point. You are confusing the idea of collectivism (in which each individual is responsible for the welfare of the members of the group, and is expected to sacrifice to some extent—different variations on collectivism vary on the extent—their own welfare for the common good) with the concept of collective punishment (a widely recognized violation of human rights and, in the context of armed conflict, a war crime, in which members of a group are punished for mere shared membership in a group which contains wrongdoers, without any evidence of collaboration in or support for the wrongdoing.) They are not equivalent.
  - axegon_ 6y ago
    A mass protest is by all means a form of collectivism. Everyone has the right to protest and everyone has the responsibility to keep it civilized. Collective punishment may be a violation of human right and it should be condemned but what is your solution when you have the manpower of say 1,000 people vs a crowd of 100,000 and your task is to make sure that the city is still there the next morning? Just do the math.

booleandilemma 6y ago

I wonder how many people on this thread have participated in the riots, theft, and destruction of our local businesses? I wonder how many have told a cop to go fuck themselves in the past 24 hours. Judging by how quickly you were downvoted, I'm guessing quite a few.

axegon_ 6y ago
Which means everyone is missing the point. It doesn't matter if you personally participated in the riots, theft, and destruction: you are in the crowd of people which is a collective and as such, is treated as a collective. There is no other way around it. It's easy to think about it as an ordinary situation, but this is much like war. Only a handful of the population is actively engaged in a war but the damage is reflected upon everyone.
- mydongle 6y ago
  Maybe the smartest move is for the legitimate protestors to go somewhere else, do something else, so that we can isolate those who are taking advantage of the chaos to riot and loot. The protestors are basically just cover for the rioters/looters at this point. To play devil's advocate, they play cover for each other. Protestors retain legitimacy by claiming the rioters/looters are some other people. Rioters/looters can do their work because of all the people and chaos. Protestors have the leverage of continuing violence and destruction unless their demands are met while looters get their free Jordans and Gucci.
  - axegon_ 6y ago
    My point exactly!

arel 6y ago

> With this idea in mind, I personally can't picture myself being able to remain calm and not overstep my boundaries sooner or later. It's their job to remain calm and lawful under all circumstances. They have the full force of state sanctioned violence at their disposal. Watch some of the hundreds of videos on Twitter now and see if you can't see a rotten and brutal culture in US policing.

gremlinsinc 6y ago
Or just go here: https://old.reddit.com/r/2020PoliceBrutality https://old.reddit.com/r/2020PoliceBrutality

muglug 6y ago

I think most of what you’re saying is not controversial, but I think you’re missing a lot of context. Those officers, and the protestors, exist in a country that still treats black people as second-class citizens in a variety of ways. Hell, the current President spent years saying the previous (black) President was illegitimate. You want to see the protesters and officers as equal, but they’re not - the protesters are trying to change the status quo, the officers by and large want it to stay the way it is, and often want to make things worse for minorities (“Make America Great Again”). Sympathy for the officers is fine, but remember they can quit whenever they want. Black people can’t quit being black.

axegon_ 6y ago
And looking at the images of complete destruction, who do you think is the big winner here? Isn't it Mr. "Make America Great again"? I think that's playing beautifully in his hands and many of the people who had turned against him are now back under his wing. > Sympathy for the officers is fine, but remember they can quit whenever they want. That's not always the case. As I said, often those people have to provide for someone and put food on the table each night. I know exactly what it is to be a kid and seeing an empty table in the evening.
jtjbdhsjjdnd 6y ago
As an outsider (maybe I am wrong) US will continue their bad treatment of 'black people' as long as you continue calling them 'black' and supporting it at the official level. It is just racial segregation in disguise.
- muglug 6y ago
  > maybe I am wrong Yeah, uh, I have bad news for you...

curryst 6y ago

I agree with you, I think there is a failing on two parts: firstly, police are ill equipped (training wise) to handle this and it was a systematic failure to deploy them like this. Secondarily, police (I would guess their union) have continually pushed to expand their ability to use force, giving the impression that they are well equipped to handle this. On the first, I firmly believe that you should always deploy people who are accustomed to a more difficult or dangerous task. Managing large crowds of potentially violent people is far beyond the typical danger police face (usually peaceful, or one or two dangerous people). On the other hand, this is one of the scenarios the National Guard is trained for. And the level of force is likely lower than what they have trained for. The current response is like handingba Sev1 incident to an intern. They're just as or more likely to cause more damage as they are to help. On the second point, handing armored vehicles and body armor to a group that isn't well versed in their use and effects on the opposing force is a bad idea. The outcome is inevitably the "five foot drop". When you your electronics don't work and you don't know how to fix them, people tend to give it a hard smack to see if that works. Likewise when your day to day policing doesn't work, deploying your heaviest armaments probably seems like a good idea. I do still hold the officers accountable to a degree. The degree of force is incredibly one sided. However, more than them, I blame the system that put them in a situation they are so unequipped to handle.

axegon_ 6y ago
> On the second point, handing armored vehicles and body armor to a group that isn't well versed in their use and effects on the opposing force is a bad idea. This may be a topic of another discussion but I wouldn't call it a bad idea in a country where everyone and their dog has firearms, just saying...
- curryst 6y ago
  Body armor, perhaps. I still think it creates a moral hazard; if you were in a situation where someone might shoot you, how much does the idea that your vital organs are protected influence your decision to keep yelling commands versus a decision to go back to your car, write down the license plate, and pick them up at home when you're prepared for the situation? On the topic of armored vehicles, I vehemently disagree with distributing them to police forces. If there is a significant threat of a firefight, we have an existing domestic force that is trained to handle combat conditions. They are the National Guard. If things escalate to that point, the proper response is to call in the National Guard. They are both trained to handle that situation, and they have far more equipment than you could ever hope for. The National Guard has actual tanks, if it comes to that. I will grant you, there is a very narrow middle ground of things that SWAT is equipped to handle but the National Guard would take too long to deploy. However I would contend that the military attitude SWAT-style tactics cause costs more in human lives than the small subsection of things SWAT needs to handle before the National Guard arrives. The police should be a domestic force, charged with maintaining law and order among largely non-violent and lawful citizenry. The National Guard should be a force charged with handling violent and unlawful situations. Traffic stops are well within the police jurisdiction. Standouts can be handled by police, so long as they don't plan on going in to the building. Taking a building full of hostile combatants with at-risk civilians should be handled by the National Guard. If the police feel at risk enough that they need more than a handgun, they should call the National Guard. The police are not an invading army performing an occupation of hostile lands. They are public servants enforcing democratically chosen laws on a largely willing populace, of which they are part. Anything outside that scope should be handled by another branch that has been chosen and trained for that purpose.

wsatb 6y ago

I get a lot what you're saying regarding the police. I think there's a lot that needs to change, and the mental health of our police needs to be included. Not only are they probably working insane hours, in lots of stress, but it's quite evident lots of them have become completely desensitized from violence. You don't come out of the womb being okay with hitting people that are not a threat. That said: it's increasingly evident that they're very poorly trained. You see the same strongman tactics in every city. They gang up on a single person, sometimes 4 or 5 of them, all hitting, all kicking, and continue to do this once you're on the ground. If you've ever watched Live PD, you see a ton of this same behavior, all the time, all across the country. At the same time, there are some really bad cops out there (and the cynic in me tells me they're more common than we're lead on to believe), and also lots that just don't have the mental fortitude to do the work, but are still doing it anyway. Those people need to be weeded out, and we need to better equip them with tools that are not weapons.

Cthulhu_ 6y ago

While I do want to sympathize with the police officers, at the same time each and every one of them is complicit in what has happened - there is not enough accountability in the police force, not enough emphasis on de-escalating, on respect of people they suspect of wrongdoing - especially if they're PoC. Why was Floyd pinned to the ground until he suffocated when all he supposedly did was use a fake $20 bill? (supposedly because innocent until proven guilty). Why did none of the other officers present step in? All of them are guilty IMO. As a police officer, you need to keep your colleagues in check. The problem right now is that there's vast groups of policemen who have no qualms with using excessive violence, especially against PoC, and they protect each other. I suspect that goes up the chain of command all the way up. For one, the US President himself hasn't condemned the actions of the police, not in the Floyd case, not in any other case of police violence. And that makes them complicit.