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> If the state wants people to respect the laws and remain peaceful, it needs to clean its own house of violent criminals first. No, the people demand that eve

by zaroth 6y ago

> If the state wants people to respect the laws and remain peaceful, it needs to clean its own house of violent criminals first. No, the people demand that everyone respect the laws and remain peaceful. To that end, the people fund and enact a police force to protect life and property, and to apprehend suspected criminals. I don’t think it’s accurate to say that “some of the protestors have turned violent.” There is a contingent which is using violence as a specific strategy, against property and against police as well as bystanders who may not agree with them.

watwut 6y ago
And when the people think the police is endangering their safety, does the job badly and abuses power given to them or breaks the law, what are people supposed to do?
- compiler-guy 6y ago
  At least one thing that you do is allow others the freedom you want for yourself.
  - watwut 6y ago
    What freedom you have in mind? Afaik the exchange was 1.) about whether police can be blanket assumed to be the "good guys" due to that being presumed original intent. 2.) Whether and how ir is legitimate to protest if they are not "good" in practice. I am not asking for any special freedom. I do find second question interesting and complicated. I do have own answer to question one (namely that blanket trust is super naive of course low paid force with few weak checks will end up having bad actors in it and it is then question of pruning them out or not).
    - compiler-guy 6y ago
      The freedom I have in mind is the freedom to film in public.
landryraccoon 6y ago
Can I get some details? Who makes up the contingent? Are they protestors, counter protestors or what? What motivates them, and how do you know this information?
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
  Presumably the same sort who says > If the state wants people to respect the laws and remain peaceful, it needs to clean its own house of violent criminals first. Or “peaceful protesting wasn’t working so what else are protestors supposed to do?” Which I see all over Reddit. Personally, I hear friends who dislike the violence but have an attitude of “well we’re so privileged, who are we to judge?” It’s not PC to disavow it because our voices aren’t the ones that need to be heard right now (unless we agree, in which case we’re being allies and have a moral duty to speak up and lend our privilege). This quote comes up a lot in that context (MLK, Letter from the Birmingham Jail): > First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action” That said, I don’t know anyone who supports violent protest, and my friends are as left as they come.
sneak 6y ago
> No, the people demand that everyone respect the laws and remain peaceful. I don't think that's true in practice in America, at all. It's certainly the cover story, though. Demonstrably, the people (as a collective group) have only ever demanded that from non-police. Police have a long, long history of deploying illegal violence against anyone even suspected of breaking the law, prior to trial, up to and frequently including executing them. Historically, "the people" (again, as a group) do not seem bothered by this at all, simply because that's the way it's always been. It's expected and accepted that the police will deploy a significant amount of (not legally permitted) violence against anyone even suspected of breaking the law, hence the common shout of "STOP RESISTING" (usually deployed against those who aren't resisting at all) during police-initiated violence. It's a farce; the police are de facto exempt from the laws regarding battery by American social consensus. This is obvious to anyone paying attention. No effort is made to conceal this fact because there is no significant outrage or pressure to change anything about the situation. Violent police in the US are the widely-accepted and expected norm, and there isn't usually even a debate about it. https://www.reddit.com/r/2020PoliceBrutality/ https://www.reddit.com/r/2020PoliceBrutality/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UC_Davis_pepper_spray_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UC_Davis_pepper_spray_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOVE#1985_bombing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOVE#1985_bombing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots Seriously, think about it: the police have no special legal exception from the laws for beating or otherwise battering people when dispersing riots, giving chase to a suspect, or effecting an arrest. Most people seem to have entirely lost track of that fact in the "police vs baddies" battle narrative, and assume that anyone suspected or accused by police must be deserving of at least a few whacks with a nightstick, or possibly even execution if the officer, at their sole discretion, deems it appropriate. That's about as far from "due process" or "presumption of innocence" as you can possibly get. The set of laws that applies to police is simply not the same set of laws that applies to you and I, and that gap is entirely a social contract one, not a legally-codified one. It's reflected in the intense indignation of police and police unions when they are (very) occasionally charged with crimes of violence whilst doing their jobs. To them, they're doing what's expected of them: deploying expected (yet illegal) violence against suspected criminals. https://news.wttw.com/2020/06/08/having-talk-how-families-prepare-black-children-police-interactions https://news.wttw.com/2020/06/08/having-talk-how-families-pr... https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000003575589/a-conversation-with-my-black-son.html?action=click&gtype=vhs&version=vhs-heading&module=vhs&region=title-area https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000003575589/a-conv... > To that end, the people fund and enact a police force to protect life and property, and to apprehend suspected criminals. The police in the US have only ever been really diligent about protecting the life and property of a small subset of the population, primarily large landowners. Meanwhile, they pose a significant danger to the life and property of a much larger segment, and always have. The reason the police were first created in America was to capture escaped slaves and to keep the poor from looting and torching the mansions of the white landowning class. The tradition continues to date. You can see this gap in the amount of case-solving effort the police in the US put into crimes against the police force themselves or large buildings/retail, and the amount of case-solving effort they put into crimes against the property of non-HNWI individuals, or the amount of case-solving effort they put into violence against women. Their priorities are extremely clear, and to hold up police behavior as "law and order" is simply the motte in this argument, as their behavior is anything but a reasonable or fair application of the law. The police, for example, basically never enforce any laws against other police (or their families), even when violations are entirely obvious, and this is extremely well-documented. It extends to the prosecutorial apparatus that supports the police, too. This is one of the primary reasons that minorities and poor people are incarcerated at an extremely out-of-proportion rate to the rest of the population. Those calling for the abolition or defunding of the police would, funnily enough, actually be thrilled with more thoroughly consistent application of actual "law and order" and not the two-tiered system of police-initiated violence and authoritarian choke-holding and skull-cracking that passes for same by tradition in the US. I wrote about one facet of this bizarre police-to-American-public apparently undocumented social contract in June: https://sneak.berlin/20200628/the-problem-with-police-in-america/ https://sneak.berlin/20200628/the-problem-with-police-in-ame...

by zaroth 6y ago

watwut 6y ago

And when the people think the police is endangering their safety, does the job badly and abuses power given to them or breaks the law, what are people supposed to do?

compiler-guy 6y ago
At least one thing that you do is allow others the freedom you want for yourself.
- watwut 6y ago
  What freedom you have in mind? Afaik the exchange was 1.) about whether police can be blanket assumed to be the "good guys" due to that being presumed original intent. 2.) Whether and how ir is legitimate to protest if they are not "good" in practice. I am not asking for any special freedom. I do find second question interesting and complicated. I do have own answer to question one (namely that blanket trust is super naive of course low paid force with few weak checks will end up having bad actors in it and it is then question of pruning them out or not).
  - compiler-guy 6y ago
    The freedom I have in mind is the freedom to film in public.

landryraccoon 6y ago

Can I get some details? Who makes up the contingent? Are they protestors, counter protestors or what? What motivates them, and how do you know this information?

6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
Presumably the same sort who says > If the state wants people to respect the laws and remain peaceful, it needs to clean its own house of violent criminals first. Or “peaceful protesting wasn’t working so what else are protestors supposed to do?” Which I see all over Reddit. Personally, I hear friends who dislike the violence but have an attitude of “well we’re so privileged, who are we to judge?” It’s not PC to disavow it because our voices aren’t the ones that need to be heard right now (unless we agree, in which case we’re being allies and have a moral duty to speak up and lend our privilege). This quote comes up a lot in that context (MLK, Letter from the Birmingham Jail): > First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action” That said, I don’t know anyone who supports violent protest, and my friends are as left as they come.

sneak 6y ago

> No, the people demand that everyone respect the laws and remain peaceful. I don't think that's true in practice in America, at all. It's certainly the cover story, though. Demonstrably, the people (as a collective group) have only ever demanded that from non-police. Police have a long, long history of deploying illegal violence against anyone even suspected of breaking the law, prior to trial, up to and frequently including executing them. Historically, "the people" (again, as a group) do not seem bothered by this at all, simply because that's the way it's always been. It's expected and accepted that the police will deploy a significant amount of (not legally permitted) violence against anyone even suspected of breaking the law, hence the common shout of "STOP RESISTING" (usually deployed against those who aren't resisting at all) during police-initiated violence. It's a farce; the police are de facto exempt from the laws regarding battery by American social consensus. This is obvious to anyone paying attention. No effort is made to conceal this fact because there is no significant outrage or pressure to change anything about the situation. Violent police in the US are the widely-accepted and expected norm, and there isn't usually even a debate about it. https://www.reddit.com/r/2020PoliceBrutality/ https://www.reddit.com/r/2020PoliceBrutality/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UC_Davis_pepper_spray_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UC_Davis_pepper_spray_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOVE#1985_bombing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOVE#1985_bombing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots Seriously, think about it: the police have no special legal exception from the laws for beating or otherwise battering people when dispersing riots, giving chase to a suspect, or effecting an arrest. Most people seem to have entirely lost track of that fact in the "police vs baddies" battle narrative, and assume that anyone suspected or accused by police must be deserving of at least a few whacks with a nightstick, or possibly even execution if the officer, at their sole discretion, deems it appropriate. That's about as far from "due process" or "presumption of innocence" as you can possibly get. The set of laws that applies to police is simply not the same set of laws that applies to you and I, and that gap is entirely a social contract one, not a legally-codified one. It's reflected in the intense indignation of police and police unions when they are (very) occasionally charged with crimes of violence whilst doing their jobs. To them, they're doing what's expected of them: deploying expected (yet illegal) violence against suspected criminals. https://news.wttw.com/2020/06/08/having-talk-how-families-prepare-black-children-police-interactions https://news.wttw.com/2020/06/08/having-talk-how-families-pr... https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000003575589/a-conversation-with-my-black-son.html?action=click&gtype=vhs&version=vhs-heading&module=vhs&region=title-area https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000003575589/a-conv... > To that end, the people fund and enact a police force to protect life and property, and to apprehend suspected criminals. The police in the US have only ever been really diligent about protecting the life and property of a small subset of the population, primarily large landowners. Meanwhile, they pose a significant danger to the life and property of a much larger segment, and always have. The reason the police were first created in America was to capture escaped slaves and to keep the poor from looting and torching the mansions of the white landowning class. The tradition continues to date. You can see this gap in the amount of case-solving effort the police in the US put into crimes against the police force themselves or large buildings/retail, and the amount of case-solving effort they put into crimes against the property of non-HNWI individuals, or the amount of case-solving effort they put into violence against women. Their priorities are extremely clear, and to hold up police behavior as "law and order" is simply the motte in this argument, as their behavior is anything but a reasonable or fair application of the law. The police, for example, basically never enforce any laws against other police (or their families), even when violations are entirely obvious, and this is extremely well-documented. It extends to the prosecutorial apparatus that supports the police, too. This is one of the primary reasons that minorities and poor people are incarcerated at an extremely out-of-proportion rate to the rest of the population. Those calling for the abolition or defunding of the police would, funnily enough, actually be thrilled with more thoroughly consistent application of actual "law and order" and not the two-tiered system of police-initiated violence and authoritarian choke-holding and skull-cracking that passes for same by tradition in the US. I wrote about one facet of this bizarre police-to-American-public apparently undocumented social contract in June: https://sneak.berlin/20200628/the-problem-with-police-in-america/ https://sneak.berlin/20200628/the-problem-with-police-in-ame...