8 ms·

Police using violence against someone who is not violent is insane. Anyone doing so should be disqualified from ever being a cop.

ancode 5y ago
That's like most of what cops do in the US
- drdeca 5y ago
  Do you mean "like what most cops do" rather that "most of what cops do"? Because weighting by time, the latter seems implausible to me.
  - BoorishBears 5y ago
    Do you think most cases of violence by cops are against violent people? Remembering that when they're called to a violent crime, usually it's already over, but when they're called for a non-violent offense the perpetrator is more likely to be there?
    - ashtonkem 5y ago
      I mean this completely unironically: cops are mostly armed bureaucrats. The vast majority of their function is to basically hand out tickets, police reports for insurance reasons, and to a lesser degree arrest people for whom there is an arrest warrant. Actually stopping crime in progress is more a factor of luck than an intended role, and not one they have any legal obligation to do. The fact that we tolerate this level from people who probably don’t even need to be armed is insane. Hell, red light cameras and speed cameras could probably save a lot of lives purely by eliminating unnecessary police/civilian interactions, let alone whatever road safety function they’d perform.
  - jrochkind1 5y ago
    I guess it depends on what police behavior counts as 'violence'. So the first part of the question is, are most policing hours spent "using violence" or not? I'm not sure. Then the next part of the question might be, of the hours of policing spent "using violence", is the violence being used against someone who is not being violent most of the time? This one I feel pretty safe saying a big yes to. And I think is mainly what the original comment was getting at.
    - drdeca 5y ago
      I assume that by "violence" we mean, like, physical violence, things like beating, choking, tazing, tear gas, shooting, etc., things by which one is exerting power over another through physical exertion, in a way that can directly cause injury or pain. "using violence against someone" doesn't refer to "taking advantage of an implicit threat of violence", it means actively doing violence (or actively directing others to do so).
      - jrochkind1 5y ago
        What about an explicit threat of violence? If someone who is not the police does that, we generally consider them "violent" and (ironically?) support police violence against them. Like if someone points a gun at someone (an explicit(?) threat of violence, but not yet violence itself?), if the police shoot them, people consider that a justified violent response to violence. Then we can ask if, say, imprisoning someone is "violence" on it's own -- again, if someone that wasn't the police kidnapped you and locked you in the basement, we'd probably consider it a violent act, even if they didn't have to punch you to get you into the basement? I think it's interesting to talk about because I think what's violent and not is not as clearcut as we sometimes assume, and is worth interrogating. (I don't mean to suggest that anything anyone finds emotionally uncomfortable is "violence" either... there is lots going on culturally around "violence" these days...) Still, regardless, I think it's probably true that the majority of policing hours are not spent in the active use of violence (although some are spent preparing for use of violence, or looking for opportunity to use violence), and also, that the majority of times that are use of violence are against people who were not being violent.
  - LilBytes 5y ago
    Cops have a bad reputation in most places, but this might be media bias or media coverage. I can't say in the countries I've lived in (most countries in the UK, France, Germany and now Australia) are anything like what you see covered in the US.
    - jandrewrogers 5y ago
      It depends on what kind of law enforcement you are dealing with. City police have a poor reputation but county sheriffs often have a more positive reputation in many areas. Federal law enforcement is a whole different can of worms. The incentive structures and relationships to the population are different, and that leads to different behaviors. My experience in several jurisdictions matches the heuristic. Encounters with city police were always default adversarial, even when I had done nothing wrong; interactions with sheriffs were uniformly pleasant and reasonable, not adversarial, even in a couple cases where I was inadvertently breaking the law.
    - jollybean 5y ago
      "are anything like what you see covered in the US." Judging US police from media coverage is really not useful. Having lived experience of living in the US I think does illustrate some things, and then, more importantly, having access to 'good data' (which is hard, but nevertheless possible) is even better. I believe the police in the US overall take a more aggressive tone and posture. I also believe US citizens are far more likely to act in defiance. The things I've seen American individuals do ... I have never in my life seen in Canada, UK, France, Germany and couldn't even imagine it happening. The scenes of a man, with two police officers arresting him - four hands on him, putting cuffs on him - and he goes for his gun (!!). Or the number of times people race away from police after being pulled over and resulting high-speed chase. It's absurd. It's an issue I think people often don't tend to want to think about, but if we use car chases as an example - I think this is worthy because these are generally not situations in which arbitrary police aggression is going to be a 'root cause'. You can see total deaths in the US from car chases is ballpark 2/million/year, where as in he UK it's about 0.2/million/year. [1][2] High speed chases are a cultural phenom [3] (FYI about 1/2 of the people who die in high speed pursuits are innocent bystanders.) Obviously, this will be affected by police police in terms of pursuit policy (i.e. in many forces they won't pursue if it's too dangerous) - but there's no doubt that Americans have a much greater propensity to run from police, in cars, which is an extremely dangerous thing to do for those involved, but also for everyone else. It's nary impossible to get the data, but I believe that this applies to all other forms of confrontation as well. I think that they are related, i.e. civilians more aggressive posture - combined with the fact so many people have weapons - makes the police more 'on edge' and combined with their more systematically aggressive posture, you have considerably greater chances of 'small things' escalating into 'big things' - as we have in this article. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/319294/deaths-during-or-following-police-contact-police-pursuit-in-england-and-wales/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/319294/deaths-during-or-... [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/727008/vehicle-pursuit-related-deaths-by-state/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/727008/vehicle-pursuit-r... [3] https://www.lamag.com/longform/how-high-speed-car-chases-became-a-citywide-pastime-in-los-angeles/ https://www.lamag.com/longform/how-high-speed-car-chases-bec...
- jcims 5y ago
  That seems unlikely given there were an estimated 61.5 million encounters between police and the public in 2018. https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/cbpp18st.pdf https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/cbpp18st.pdf My nephew just started as a police officer in a small town recently. He hasn't cracked a skull or kneed a chest in an entire year of service. Most of his time is spent as a medic, social worker or civil servant but also has to be ready in case shit hits the fan. The scope of work is too much for a single person and we get what we get as a result.
  - elikoga 5y ago
    > He hasn't cracked a skull or kneed a chest in an entire year of service. What a powerful sentence.
User23 5y ago
Does that mean I don’t need to pay taxes and they should never use violence to coerce me? Does that mean I don’t need to pay rent, because so long as I’m not violent they can’t remove me? Edit: Y’all are evidently missing the point that passive resistance can require violent force to overcome. Ultimately the difference between a law and a polite suggestion is that the former is backed by the threat of whatever force is necessary to enforce it. Suppose I prefer not to be arrested and I don’t attack the police, I just don’t let them cuff me and take me away. Are they justified to overpower me, regardless how much force it takes to overcome my noncompliance?
- coderintherye 5y ago
  First of all, your first question is a strawman because local police, as being discussed here, are not the ones performing arrests in cases of tax evasion. Rather, federal authorities would be the ones handling tax evasion.
  - LanceH 5y ago
    As soon as a warrant goes out from any source, local police are potentially conducting arrests.
- DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
  You're conflating the academic definition of "violence" (e.g. "Nationstate monopoly on violence") with the colloquial and context-sensitive word "violence" ("That violent cop tased me for no reason.").
- Ar-Curunir 5y ago
  Yes, and yes.
- II2II 5y ago
  There is a difference between the use of force and the use of excessive force. When people talk about violence, they are usually referring to the latter. Then there is the question of when is the use of force appropriate. Failure to pay taxes or rent rarely involves the use of physical force. It would be used as a last resort, after other methods have failed. Likewise, the alleged failing to stop for a stop sign should not have led to a physical confrontation unless it was initiated by the person being ticketed. Even the refusal to comply with a police officer should not result in the immediate use of force. There are other ways to handle it.
vkou 5y ago
> Anyone doing so should be disqualified from ever being a cop. Preferably by ending up in prison, among the general population.
- gruez 5y ago
  Great idea! Let's punish extra-judicial punishment with... extra-judicial punishment /s
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - tombert 5y ago
    Should we not hold the people who are given a higher amount of power to a higher standard? I feel like the only way that it makes sense to have some sort of Leviathan-esque system is if we have assurances that the enforcers can be trusted.
    - gruez 5y ago
      >Should we not hold the people who are given a higher amount of power to a higher standard? You don't need extra-judicial and/or cruel and unusual punishment to do that.
      - tombert 5y ago
        How is putting cops in prison extra-judicial or cruel and unusual? I do think cops should get harsher sentences for abusing their power because, again, they're given extra power. If we cannot trust the enforcers of the law, then I am skeptical of the concept of enforcers. But of course I think there should be a standard trial and whatnot, I'm not suggesting we go to Mad Max or anything like that. I'm not saying we summarily execute every cop who has run a red light, but I'm saying that if a cop does a bad thing, then it shouldn't be an outlier case for them to go to prison for it.
        5y ago
ghoomketu 5y ago
Yeah this video still haunts me(1). The cop was acquitted by jury, saying the victim, committed a misdemeanour by leaving the house without identification(2). They did win $1.75m in the end though so at least there is that. (1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_SSGa7-6BQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_SSGa7-6BQ (2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sureshbhai_Patel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sureshbhai_Patel
- whiddershins 5y ago
  That Wikipedia article is almost certainly inaccurate. I would need much stronger evidence than a link to photographyisnotacrime to be convinced that not having id when walking around is even a citation, much less a misdemeanor anywhere in the US. Much more likely someone got their wires crossed in hearing the detail of the story.
  - papercrane 5y ago
    It's accurate, it's misdemeanor for a permanent resident to not carry ID in public. https://www.al.com/news/2016/01/judge_throws_out_case_against.html https://www.al.com/news/2016/01/judge_throws_out_case_agains...
  - magicalist 5y ago
    > I would need much stronger evidence than a link to photographyisnotacrime to be convinced that not having id when walking around is even a citation, much less a misdemeanor anywhere in the US. Or just do a basic search. If you're a green card holder it's a misdemeanor to be without your id.
    - DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
      As an LPR myself, this is true. I keep mine in my wallet. It is handy as a secondary backup identity card when (for whatever reason) I don't have my drivers license on me. (PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong!) I understand there are some weird situations you can be in though (caused by poorly written legislation), for example, not having your LPR Green Card is a *strict liability* federal misdemeanor, without any exceptions or legislated consideration if someone stole your card off you, or even if the card was confiscated by a federal or state/local official. So you could be stopped by a cop, who asks for your Id and confiscates your GC, and then immediately charges you for not being in possession of your GC. However I gather that this has never been tested in court, but it's still an unpleasant possibility. ...and if you lose it, that's $600 (!!!!) to renew it, which means having to go to your nearest USCIS building in-person (which can be hundreds of miles away) to have your fingerprints and other biometrics re-taken - I don't know why but USCIS simply won't re-print an existing GC unlike how WA's DoL has been re-issuing my drivers' license using the exact same biometrics and other info unchanged from almost a decade ago... it still says I weight 140lbs (lol... I'm 90kg now, ugh). And you're on-the-hook for that $600 regardless of the reason for reissuing it: whether it was your fault or not (though if it was someone else's fault I guess you could file a civil claim for damages at least) LPR rights are not exactly high on the priority list - but the law should be changed to not require us to carry the GC; and misplacing a GC (or being the victim of a crime of GC theft) should certainly not cost $600 and a half-day spent at a (depressing) USCIS building every time. It's super-absurd: I understand the "must carry" rule also applies to children: so rambunctious kindergarten kids too young to even tie their own shoelaces need to carry a $600 hologram of past presidents' heads. Surely there must be some way this is an unreasonable burden or maybe even unconstitutional because of the power-imbalance it introduces? ------ ...also I could be horribly misinformed about all of the above.
donatj 5y ago
Monopoly on legal violence is the job description. Don't want things smashed, don't use a hammer. Don't want violence, don't send a cop.
- mdp2021 5y ago
  Such grasp of the point - monopoly of legal violence - completely perverts it. Who is given powers to perform a function, plainly must not abuse them. The police is entrusted with a power to use violence, which means it is given a special responsibility associated with the special power: to abuse it is corruption, which is treason against the mandate, against the role and against the Entity empowering and entrusting. One is given a hammer, one is entrusted not to smash things. Don't want thing smashed, hire reliable personnel. If a cop is sent and you get gratuitous violence, that individual is unfit for its job, its behaviour is corrupt and it is treason.
  - Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
    You're speaking from the position of how it should be, while everyone else is talking about how it is. It's not hard to find plenty of instances of police abusing their power and getting away with it. In many departments, "Internal Affairs" works FOR the police, rather than as a neutral 3rd party. The "We investigated ourselves and found no wrong-doing" is a common meme because it's often true.
    - mdp2021 5y ago
      Where that is tolerated (including accepted as a fact, or put aside as a background fact), the involved societies have a much bigger problem to deal with first. And if that fact is forced to fit into someone's mind through monstrous excuses for thought (with reference to that involving undefined association with violence), to problem (1) - the corruption in the state -, and problem (0) just above - the corruption of the members of society -, you get an even bigger damage (-1) - thought pollution, the corruption of clear cognitive function.
- atoav 5y ago

ancode 5y ago

That's like most of what cops do in the US

drdeca 5y ago
Do you mean "like what most cops do" rather that "most of what cops do"? Because weighting by time, the latter seems implausible to me.
- BoorishBears 5y ago
  Do you think most cases of violence by cops are against violent people? Remembering that when they're called to a violent crime, usually it's already over, but when they're called for a non-violent offense the perpetrator is more likely to be there?
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    I mean this completely unironically: cops are mostly armed bureaucrats. The vast majority of their function is to basically hand out tickets, police reports for insurance reasons, and to a lesser degree arrest people for whom there is an arrest warrant. Actually stopping crime in progress is more a factor of luck than an intended role, and not one they have any legal obligation to do. The fact that we tolerate this level from people who probably don’t even need to be armed is insane. Hell, red light cameras and speed cameras could probably save a lot of lives purely by eliminating unnecessary police/civilian interactions, let alone whatever road safety function they’d perform.
- jrochkind1 5y ago
  I guess it depends on what police behavior counts as 'violence'. So the first part of the question is, are most policing hours spent "using violence" or not? I'm not sure. Then the next part of the question might be, of the hours of policing spent "using violence", is the violence being used against someone who is not being violent most of the time? This one I feel pretty safe saying a big yes to. And I think is mainly what the original comment was getting at.
  - drdeca 5y ago
    I assume that by "violence" we mean, like, physical violence, things like beating, choking, tazing, tear gas, shooting, etc., things by which one is exerting power over another through physical exertion, in a way that can directly cause injury or pain. "using violence against someone" doesn't refer to "taking advantage of an implicit threat of violence", it means actively doing violence (or actively directing others to do so).
    - jrochkind1 5y ago
      What about an explicit threat of violence? If someone who is not the police does that, we generally consider them "violent" and (ironically?) support police violence against them. Like if someone points a gun at someone (an explicit(?) threat of violence, but not yet violence itself?), if the police shoot them, people consider that a justified violent response to violence. Then we can ask if, say, imprisoning someone is "violence" on it's own -- again, if someone that wasn't the police kidnapped you and locked you in the basement, we'd probably consider it a violent act, even if they didn't have to punch you to get you into the basement? I think it's interesting to talk about because I think what's violent and not is not as clearcut as we sometimes assume, and is worth interrogating. (I don't mean to suggest that anything anyone finds emotionally uncomfortable is "violence" either... there is lots going on culturally around "violence" these days...) Still, regardless, I think it's probably true that the majority of policing hours are not spent in the active use of violence (although some are spent preparing for use of violence, or looking for opportunity to use violence), and also, that the majority of times that are use of violence are against people who were not being violent.
- LilBytes 5y ago
  Cops have a bad reputation in most places, but this might be media bias or media coverage. I can't say in the countries I've lived in (most countries in the UK, France, Germany and now Australia) are anything like what you see covered in the US.
  - jandrewrogers 5y ago
    It depends on what kind of law enforcement you are dealing with. City police have a poor reputation but county sheriffs often have a more positive reputation in many areas. Federal law enforcement is a whole different can of worms. The incentive structures and relationships to the population are different, and that leads to different behaviors. My experience in several jurisdictions matches the heuristic. Encounters with city police were always default adversarial, even when I had done nothing wrong; interactions with sheriffs were uniformly pleasant and reasonable, not adversarial, even in a couple cases where I was inadvertently breaking the law.
  - jollybean 5y ago
    "are anything like what you see covered in the US." Judging US police from media coverage is really not useful. Having lived experience of living in the US I think does illustrate some things, and then, more importantly, having access to 'good data' (which is hard, but nevertheless possible) is even better. I believe the police in the US overall take a more aggressive tone and posture. I also believe US citizens are far more likely to act in defiance. The things I've seen American individuals do ... I have never in my life seen in Canada, UK, France, Germany and couldn't even imagine it happening. The scenes of a man, with two police officers arresting him - four hands on him, putting cuffs on him - and he goes for his gun (!!). Or the number of times people race away from police after being pulled over and resulting high-speed chase. It's absurd. It's an issue I think people often don't tend to want to think about, but if we use car chases as an example - I think this is worthy because these are generally not situations in which arbitrary police aggression is going to be a 'root cause'. You can see total deaths in the US from car chases is ballpark 2/million/year, where as in he UK it's about 0.2/million/year. [1][2] High speed chases are a cultural phenom [3] (FYI about 1/2 of the people who die in high speed pursuits are innocent bystanders.) Obviously, this will be affected by police police in terms of pursuit policy (i.e. in many forces they won't pursue if it's too dangerous) - but there's no doubt that Americans have a much greater propensity to run from police, in cars, which is an extremely dangerous thing to do for those involved, but also for everyone else. It's nary impossible to get the data, but I believe that this applies to all other forms of confrontation as well. I think that they are related, i.e. civilians more aggressive posture - combined with the fact so many people have weapons - makes the police more 'on edge' and combined with their more systematically aggressive posture, you have considerably greater chances of 'small things' escalating into 'big things' - as we have in this article. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/319294/deaths-during-or-following-police-contact-police-pursuit-in-england-and-wales/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/319294/deaths-during-or-... [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/727008/vehicle-pursuit-related-deaths-by-state/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/727008/vehicle-pursuit-r... [3] https://www.lamag.com/longform/how-high-speed-car-chases-became-a-citywide-pastime-in-los-angeles/ https://www.lamag.com/longform/how-high-speed-car-chases-bec...
jcims 5y ago
That seems unlikely given there were an estimated 61.5 million encounters between police and the public in 2018. https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/cbpp18st.pdf https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/cbpp18st.pdf My nephew just started as a police officer in a small town recently. He hasn't cracked a skull or kneed a chest in an entire year of service. Most of his time is spent as a medic, social worker or civil servant but also has to be ready in case shit hits the fan. The scope of work is too much for a single person and we get what we get as a result.
- elikoga 5y ago
  > He hasn't cracked a skull or kneed a chest in an entire year of service. What a powerful sentence.

User23 5y ago

Does that mean I don’t need to pay taxes and they should never use violence to coerce me? Does that mean I don’t need to pay rent, because so long as I’m not violent they can’t remove me? Edit: Y’all are evidently missing the point that passive resistance can require violent force to overcome. Ultimately the difference between a law and a polite suggestion is that the former is backed by the threat of whatever force is necessary to enforce it. Suppose I prefer not to be arrested and I don’t attack the police, I just don’t let them cuff me and take me away. Are they justified to overpower me, regardless how much force it takes to overcome my noncompliance?

coderintherye 5y ago
First of all, your first question is a strawman because local police, as being discussed here, are not the ones performing arrests in cases of tax evasion. Rather, federal authorities would be the ones handling tax evasion.
- LanceH 5y ago
  As soon as a warrant goes out from any source, local police are potentially conducting arrests.
DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
You're conflating the academic definition of "violence" (e.g. "Nationstate monopoly on violence") with the colloquial and context-sensitive word "violence" ("That violent cop tased me for no reason.").
Ar-Curunir 5y ago
Yes, and yes.
II2II 5y ago
There is a difference between the use of force and the use of excessive force. When people talk about violence, they are usually referring to the latter. Then there is the question of when is the use of force appropriate. Failure to pay taxes or rent rarely involves the use of physical force. It would be used as a last resort, after other methods have failed. Likewise, the alleged failing to stop for a stop sign should not have led to a physical confrontation unless it was initiated by the person being ticketed. Even the refusal to comply with a police officer should not result in the immediate use of force. There are other ways to handle it.

vkou 5y ago

> Anyone doing so should be disqualified from ever being a cop. Preferably by ending up in prison, among the general population.

gruez 5y ago
Great idea! Let's punish extra-judicial punishment with... extra-judicial punishment /s
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- tombert 5y ago
  Should we not hold the people who are given a higher amount of power to a higher standard? I feel like the only way that it makes sense to have some sort of Leviathan-esque system is if we have assurances that the enforcers can be trusted.
  - gruez 5y ago
    >Should we not hold the people who are given a higher amount of power to a higher standard? You don't need extra-judicial and/or cruel and unusual punishment to do that.
    - tombert 5y ago
      How is putting cops in prison extra-judicial or cruel and unusual? I do think cops should get harsher sentences for abusing their power because, again, they're given extra power. If we cannot trust the enforcers of the law, then I am skeptical of the concept of enforcers. But of course I think there should be a standard trial and whatnot, I'm not suggesting we go to Mad Max or anything like that. I'm not saying we summarily execute every cop who has run a red light, but I'm saying that if a cop does a bad thing, then it shouldn't be an outlier case for them to go to prison for it.
      - 5y ago

ghoomketu 5y ago

Yeah this video still haunts me(1). The cop was acquitted by jury, saying the victim, committed a misdemeanour by leaving the house without identification(2). They did win $1.75m in the end though so at least there is that. (1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_SSGa7-6BQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_SSGa7-6BQ (2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sureshbhai_Patel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sureshbhai_Patel

whiddershins 5y ago
That Wikipedia article is almost certainly inaccurate. I would need much stronger evidence than a link to photographyisnotacrime to be convinced that not having id when walking around is even a citation, much less a misdemeanor anywhere in the US. Much more likely someone got their wires crossed in hearing the detail of the story.
- papercrane 5y ago
  It's accurate, it's misdemeanor for a permanent resident to not carry ID in public. https://www.al.com/news/2016/01/judge_throws_out_case_against.html https://www.al.com/news/2016/01/judge_throws_out_case_agains...
- magicalist 5y ago
  > I would need much stronger evidence than a link to photographyisnotacrime to be convinced that not having id when walking around is even a citation, much less a misdemeanor anywhere in the US. Or just do a basic search. If you're a green card holder it's a misdemeanor to be without your id.
  - DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
    As an LPR myself, this is true. I keep mine in my wallet. It is handy as a secondary backup identity card when (for whatever reason) I don't have my drivers license on me. (PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong!) I understand there are some weird situations you can be in though (caused by poorly written legislation), for example, not having your LPR Green Card is a *strict liability* federal misdemeanor, without any exceptions or legislated consideration if someone stole your card off you, or even if the card was confiscated by a federal or state/local official. So you could be stopped by a cop, who asks for your Id and confiscates your GC, and then immediately charges you for not being in possession of your GC. However I gather that this has never been tested in court, but it's still an unpleasant possibility. ...and if you lose it, that's $600 (!!!!) to renew it, which means having to go to your nearest USCIS building in-person (which can be hundreds of miles away) to have your fingerprints and other biometrics re-taken - I don't know why but USCIS simply won't re-print an existing GC unlike how WA's DoL has been re-issuing my drivers' license using the exact same biometrics and other info unchanged from almost a decade ago... it still says I weight 140lbs (lol... I'm 90kg now, ugh). And you're on-the-hook for that $600 regardless of the reason for reissuing it: whether it was your fault or not (though if it was someone else's fault I guess you could file a civil claim for damages at least) LPR rights are not exactly high on the priority list - but the law should be changed to not require us to carry the GC; and misplacing a GC (or being the victim of a crime of GC theft) should certainly not cost $600 and a half-day spent at a (depressing) USCIS building every time. It's super-absurd: I understand the "must carry" rule also applies to children: so rambunctious kindergarten kids too young to even tie their own shoelaces need to carry a $600 hologram of past presidents' heads. Surely there must be some way this is an unreasonable burden or maybe even unconstitutional because of the power-imbalance it introduces? ------ ...also I could be horribly misinformed about all of the above.

donatj 5y ago

Monopoly on legal violence is the job description. Don't want things smashed, don't use a hammer. Don't want violence, don't send a cop.

mdp2021 5y ago
Such grasp of the point - monopoly of legal violence - completely perverts it. Who is given powers to perform a function, plainly must not abuse them. The police is entrusted with a power to use violence, which means it is given a special responsibility associated with the special power: to abuse it is corruption, which is treason against the mandate, against the role and against the Entity empowering and entrusting. One is given a hammer, one is entrusted not to smash things. Don't want thing smashed, hire reliable personnel. If a cop is sent and you get gratuitous violence, that individual is unfit for its job, its behaviour is corrupt and it is treason.
- Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
  You're speaking from the position of how it should be, while everyone else is talking about how it is. It's not hard to find plenty of instances of police abusing their power and getting away with it. In many departments, "Internal Affairs" works FOR the police, rather than as a neutral 3rd party. The "We investigated ourselves and found no wrong-doing" is a common meme because it's often true.
  - mdp2021 5y ago
    Where that is tolerated (including accepted as a fact, or put aside as a background fact), the involved societies have a much bigger problem to deal with first. And if that fact is forced to fit into someone's mind through monstrous excuses for thought (with reference to that involving undefined association with violence), to problem (1) - the corruption in the state -, and problem (0) just above - the corruption of the members of society -, you get an even bigger damage (-1) - thought pollution, the corruption of clear cognitive function.
atoav 5y ago