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I too dislike hyper aggressive militarized police who act above the law. But anyone who makes facile generalizations about entire groups of people is merely mir
by banads 6y ago
I too dislike hyper aggressive militarized police who act above the law. But anyone who makes facile generalizations about entire groups of people is merely mirroring the problem, not helping it.
Edit: "populations" -> "groups of people"
- marricks 6y agoWhen I read their comment I first thought it was ever present defense of police "if you're doing nothing wrong you have nothing to fear!" Pretty sure their glibness is just poking fun at that.
- enraged_camel 6y agoNormally I agree, but this is one of those situations where the problem goes far beyond "a few bad apples". The entire police culture in the United States is built on the "good" cops not reporting, fiercely defending, or even lying to provide cover for the bad ones. And at that point, every person who tolerates the bad behaviors ends up enabling them, and therefore become complicit in them.
- banads 6y ago>not reporting, fiercely defending, or even lying to provide cover for the bad ones. And at that point, every person who tolerates the bad behaviors ends up enabling them, and therefore become complicit in them. Precisely the same mentality is present in many of the most crime ridden neighborhoods in the US.[1] Are you able to think objectively for a moment, and see how your reaction to police doing that, is similar the police's reaction to criminals doing that? [1]https://youtu.be/nFhWpTKvD8E https://youtu.be/nFhWpTKvD8E
- teddyh 6y agoClassic whataboutism. EDIT: The commented post was edited after I wrote my original above comment. Now it’s more like victim-blaming.
- banads 6y agoWhen two things are directly interrelated (attitudes among police and attitudes among criminals), are we not allowed to discuss them both? Why not? Seems like you're trying to purposefully shun context, which isn't a practical way of understanding reality.
- Apocryphon 6y agoFor one thing, LEOs receive governmental and societal sanction, are armed with lethal force, and receive legal immunity, and so clearly should be held to a higher standard.
- banads 6y agoAgreed! That still doesn't mean Collective Punishment is ethical https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_punishment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_punishment
- enraged_camel 6y agoDefunding police departments (many of which everyone is realizing are grossly overfunded) and taking away qualified immunity (which is a protection entirely made up by the judicial branch, which the police have close relationships with) are not “collective punishment”.
- banads 6y agoNever said it was. Note the context of this conversation, and the article it is in reference to
- guerrilla 6y agoStopping all of agroup from doing something terrible is a far cry frol collective punishment. In fact there's no need to punish at all here, simple eliminate the problem.
- stjohnswarts 6y agoSorry dude I live in a small town, our cops look like they're headed to do combat in Afghanistan most of the time, rather than to patrol sleepy suburban neighborhoods.
- banads 6y agoYeah dude, police militarization is a huge problem in the US, I agree. Cheering on indiscriminate hacking/doxxing of any/all police as an attempt to solve the problem is infantile, though, and demonstrates a naive ignorance of the root causes.
- teddyh 6y agoHow does understanding the root causes help with providing a solution in this case?
- banads 6y agoWhen does understanding a problem not help with solving that problem? "A problem adequately stated is a problem solved theoretically and immediately, and therefore subsequently to be solved, realistically." -Buckminster Fuller Anyone with any programming experience knows this.
- teddyh 6y agoMany times, understanding the cause of the problem reveals that the cause of the problem is inherent and cannot, or should not, be changed. Take, for instance, the problem of unwanted pregnancies. The cause is sex. This naturally leads to thinking that the solution can only be abstinence. This kind of thinking limits you to solutions which sometimes are of the type which can never work. In this specific case, the problem of police behavior can partially be said to be caused by people behaving inappropriately towards police. Should therefore the solution be that people behave better towards police? How would you go about making that happen? This “solution” is impractical. The solution to a problem is sometimes unrelated to its cause.
- anigbrowl 6y ago'The police' is an institution, not a population.
- banads 6y agoSo what? Institutions are made of people.
- guerrilla 6y agoAnd the KKK and al Qaeda are unacceptable institutions and there's no problem with generalzing there. Every single member there is a problem simply by being a member. If people uphold an atrocious institution then there's no problem saying they're doing something atrocious.
- banads 6y agoDo you honestly think all police are like Al Qaeda? Have you ever known anyone in law enforcement on a personal level? I find similar reactions from people who have never known a gay person before.
- coffeemaniac 6y agoSo you have the option to leave an institution, which distinguishes it from a population. When you generalize about a population of people, you're unfairly attributing characteristics to them which weren't decided upon by them (and likely doesn't apply to all of them). When you generalize about police, you're fairly generalizing about a group of people who have decided to be a part of that institution, have decided to behave in such a way that would not get them kicked out of the institution (ie. they haven't agitated for any significant change in almost every case), and have decided not to leave it with full knowledge and in spite of its abuses.
- bobdole12345 6y agoBut institutions have the ability to enforce behavior in that group. If these people were really "just bad apples", this wouldn't be a problem anymore, as there have been literal decades to solve this. See how that's different from a group defined by things you cannot control, like skin color? I can't blame one person of a certain hue for the actions of a person of that same hue, because they don't share anything in common other than the hue. Whereas police departments are 100% accountable for the actions of their members. Today you learned, huh?
- tehwebguy 6y agoActually it is helping it, this is not about some US police. This is about all US police.
- banads 6y agoThis is the same pathos parroted by bigots.
- stjohnswarts 6y agoShow me a major urban area with cops that don't look like military infantry when they're out and doing their job, particularly during crowd control
- banads 6y agoWhy do I need to show you that?