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I'll bite & engage. I feel like "don't have police" is not feasible, in fact a complete non-starter outside of "nuclear family" sized units, unless we get into

I'll bite & engage. I feel like "don't have police" is not feasible, in fact a complete non-starter outside of "nuclear family" sized units, unless we get into semantics. In a large society, there are likely to be some basic, ideally mutually agreed rules (unless we are advocating for a true dystopian anarchy). There will likely be some way of monitoring and enforcing those rules - whether it be as basic as "don't shoot children in the face with a shotgun" or "don't defecate on other people's food" et cetera, or something more elaborate and granular. We can call that organization "police" or "friendly helpful neighbourhood helpers" or "Gnorf" or whatever; We can and should have meaningful discussion and change on what the mutually agreed upon rules are, how we enforce them, what the balances, checks, authority, etc are, scope and mandate, training and oversight, absolutely; but I do not believe "don't have police" as an absolute statement is a valid proposition with thought-through consequences, and I don't believe it's helpful to any side of the issue in moving forward to make life a better place. That being said, maybe I'm wrong, and I'd be interested in what your elaborated proposal might look like?

wollsmoth 4y ago
It's a complete fantasy from someone who is lucky to have never needed to call the Police. Unfortunately someone's gotta take out the trash. The real problem is we need police to be accountable, but that's easier than it sounds, apparently.
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  The police certainly serve their purpose well for those comfortable calling other people trash, yes. My assertion isn't that they're ineffective at their purpose, but that their purpose is not one worth serving. We almost certainly disagree on this, but you should not be making any assumptions about what my relationships to the police are or have been.
  - NikolaNovak 4y ago
    Interesting. 1. I took a much more charitable interpretation of their post - "Somebody has to take out the trash" to mean somebody has to be the janitor / garbage disposal expert, even though it's not traditionally a desired or easy position. And therefore in the context of this discussion, to mean "Somebody (Police, or whatever we call them) has to respond to crime and danger". 2. When you say "their purpose is not one worth serving", I don't think we merely disagree; I am honestly having a hard time fathoming the framework/thought/life perspective/point/literally anything. The purpose of police is to "serve & protect". We can agree or disagree how well they do at that; what the margins and scope and mandate and methods and oversight etc etc etc are; but if you believe protecting the weak from the strong, preventing crime is purpose not worth serving, we may have an axiomatic difference so massive we may not be able to meaningfully proceed in discussion. (and fwiw, I've lived in Canada & USA, as well as in what some might consider police state; I've been poor and well off; I've been on the privileged and on the harassed side of class/ethnicity/nationality/religion/group; me and mine have had our share of being harassed by various police in some places, and I also had friends who are police officers in other places; but I still cannot envision a societal framework anarchic enough to say that civil protection, which is the purpose if not the implementation, is not worth serving in principle)
    - wollsmoth 4y ago
      re:1 Yeah I mean that's obviously what I meant they're stretching to make me seem bad. If someone is going around murdering, I don't have time or the gumption to try to deal with it and somebody should. Look if you can run a society without any kind of police to enforce laws, by all means. People are mostly good and maybe it'll work out. Maybe everyone will just behave.
    - giraffe_lady 4y ago
      > The purpose of police is to "serve & protect". This is the purpose of police as stated by the police and the institutions that create and endorse them. It doesn't make it true and I don't believe it is. That's really what it comes down to I think. I'm not asking for a lawless world where all are free to commit whatever harms they wish without consequence. I'm saying an institution actually designed to protect people would bear almost no resemblance to policing as it exists now. And also that we should create that institution instead of police. There is no path that I can see from police as we have them to that other thing.
vlunkr 4y ago
There’s no elaboration to be had. They just say we should have no cops because it’s the twitter-correct thing to say and move on.
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  Nah it's actually because of living most of my life under police terrorism but go ahead. I've lived situations nearly exactly like the one described in the article. These are relatively normal interactions people have with police. Maybe not people like you, but we've been trying to tell y'all for decades. This shit was 1981 and nothing has changed this still happens every day. What are you defending, why?
  - quacked 4y ago
    Have you ever actually lived in an area with zero legal enforcement of law?
    - giraffe_lady 4y ago
      I'm not asking for zero enforcement I'm asking not to have a paramilitary force dedicated to terrorizing poor people.
      - vlunkr 4y ago
        > Maybe let's try "don't have police" instead. Maybe you should work on your phrasing then.
        maxbond 4y ago
        I think the problem is actually that you can't imagine a world where we have rules and governance without a militarized force which uses violence to enforce those laws, and so when someone suggests getting rid of the police, you assume they want to get rid of the rule of law.
giraffe_lady 4y ago
Yes, what we need is so far from what we have we should start over and in the process find a different name for it.
- NikolaNovak 4y ago
  and that's fine and we may in fact find a strong point of agreement there. "We don't need police" though says very different thing. It may be that it was a quick statement of strong belief, but for what it may be worth, it may not communicate to others the message/point you intend to communicate.
maxbond 4y ago
If the problem isn't that someone is employing existential violence, the response shouldn't be to send a bunch of people with guns. Often the police are called on to harass people who are on the fringes of society, such as the mentally ill or the homeless, and the best case scenario is these people are arbitrarily harassed, but they often end up imprisoned or dead. If someone is having a crisis, there should be a resource society provides you to help protect yourself and them; the police are not that resource. If we're going to have a bunch of people with guns, we can't tell them that they're warriors, the last line of defense, the thin blue line, et cetera. It greenlights abuse by creating a culture where the rules are viewed as impediments which can be discarded as long as you get away with it, justified as "doing what is necessary," a sort of Dirty Harry or Jack Bauer theory of policing. This creates a culture that imposes it's desires on society rather than one that protects, serves, and defends society.
- NikolaNovak 4y ago
  Sure. Agreed. And agreed a priori and proactively in my post. We can and should improve and change and reform police and hold them accountable and reduce their mandate and so on. My response was specifically to the notion,explicitly stated, that we don't need and shouldn't have police no matter how defined, and that it's purpose is not worthile. Later I think that position was clarified and we are all good now.
Aerroon 4y ago
The problem with the police is that they are a self-policing enforcement arm of the state. The state gives the police various forms of liability immunities that breed bad behavior. The term "police" here also includes other services too - child protective services, social workers, judges etc. 1) If the state itself acts maliciously, eg mass deportations, gulags etc then it's the police that enforce this. Even if the state is unjustified, you cannot fight back because fighting back itself is an offense against the police and society. Even if you are eventually cleared of the injustice that the state enacted on you, you will still have to deal with the consequences of having fought back. 2) If the police act maliciously, eg police brutality or a social worker separating kids from families as political retaliation[0], then you cannot fight back either. As fighting back will get you punished. On top of that, the police are not held liable for their actions so that they can do point 1). I think what would help enormously is if the police were more liable for what actions they take. It shouldn't be such an uphill struggle when police or social workers or judges do something very clearly wrong. [0] https://reason.com/2022/09/08/brickbat-very-protective/ https://reason.com/2022/09/08/brickbat-very-protective/

wollsmoth 4y ago

It's a complete fantasy from someone who is lucky to have never needed to call the Police. Unfortunately someone's gotta take out the trash. The real problem is we need police to be accountable, but that's easier than it sounds, apparently.

giraffe_lady 4y ago
The police certainly serve their purpose well for those comfortable calling other people trash, yes. My assertion isn't that they're ineffective at their purpose, but that their purpose is not one worth serving. We almost certainly disagree on this, but you should not be making any assumptions about what my relationships to the police are or have been.
- NikolaNovak 4y ago
  Interesting. 1. I took a much more charitable interpretation of their post - "Somebody has to take out the trash" to mean somebody has to be the janitor / garbage disposal expert, even though it's not traditionally a desired or easy position. And therefore in the context of this discussion, to mean "Somebody (Police, or whatever we call them) has to respond to crime and danger". 2. When you say "their purpose is not one worth serving", I don't think we merely disagree; I am honestly having a hard time fathoming the framework/thought/life perspective/point/literally anything. The purpose of police is to "serve & protect". We can agree or disagree how well they do at that; what the margins and scope and mandate and methods and oversight etc etc etc are; but if you believe protecting the weak from the strong, preventing crime is purpose not worth serving, we may have an axiomatic difference so massive we may not be able to meaningfully proceed in discussion. (and fwiw, I've lived in Canada & USA, as well as in what some might consider police state; I've been poor and well off; I've been on the privileged and on the harassed side of class/ethnicity/nationality/religion/group; me and mine have had our share of being harassed by various police in some places, and I also had friends who are police officers in other places; but I still cannot envision a societal framework anarchic enough to say that civil protection, which is the purpose if not the implementation, is not worth serving in principle)
  - wollsmoth 4y ago
    re:1 Yeah I mean that's obviously what I meant they're stretching to make me seem bad. If someone is going around murdering, I don't have time or the gumption to try to deal with it and somebody should. Look if you can run a society without any kind of police to enforce laws, by all means. People are mostly good and maybe it'll work out. Maybe everyone will just behave.
  - giraffe_lady 4y ago
    > The purpose of police is to "serve & protect". This is the purpose of police as stated by the police and the institutions that create and endorse them. It doesn't make it true and I don't believe it is. That's really what it comes down to I think. I'm not asking for a lawless world where all are free to commit whatever harms they wish without consequence. I'm saying an institution actually designed to protect people would bear almost no resemblance to policing as it exists now. And also that we should create that institution instead of police. There is no path that I can see from police as we have them to that other thing.

vlunkr 4y ago

There’s no elaboration to be had. They just say we should have no cops because it’s the twitter-correct thing to say and move on.

giraffe_lady 4y ago
Nah it's actually because of living most of my life under police terrorism but go ahead. I've lived situations nearly exactly like the one described in the article. These are relatively normal interactions people have with police. Maybe not people like you, but we've been trying to tell y'all for decades. This shit was 1981 and nothing has changed this still happens every day. What are you defending, why?
- quacked 4y ago
  Have you ever actually lived in an area with zero legal enforcement of law?
  - giraffe_lady 4y ago
    I'm not asking for zero enforcement I'm asking not to have a paramilitary force dedicated to terrorizing poor people.
    - vlunkr 4y ago
      > Maybe let's try "don't have police" instead. Maybe you should work on your phrasing then.
      - maxbond 4y ago
        I think the problem is actually that you can't imagine a world where we have rules and governance without a militarized force which uses violence to enforce those laws, and so when someone suggests getting rid of the police, you assume they want to get rid of the rule of law.

giraffe_lady 4y ago

Yes, what we need is so far from what we have we should start over and in the process find a different name for it.

NikolaNovak 4y ago
and that's fine and we may in fact find a strong point of agreement there. "We don't need police" though says very different thing. It may be that it was a quick statement of strong belief, but for what it may be worth, it may not communicate to others the message/point you intend to communicate.

maxbond 4y ago

If the problem isn't that someone is employing existential violence, the response shouldn't be to send a bunch of people with guns. Often the police are called on to harass people who are on the fringes of society, such as the mentally ill or the homeless, and the best case scenario is these people are arbitrarily harassed, but they often end up imprisoned or dead. If someone is having a crisis, there should be a resource society provides you to help protect yourself and them; the police are not that resource. If we're going to have a bunch of people with guns, we can't tell them that they're warriors, the last line of defense, the thin blue line, et cetera. It greenlights abuse by creating a culture where the rules are viewed as impediments which can be discarded as long as you get away with it, justified as "doing what is necessary," a sort of Dirty Harry or Jack Bauer theory of policing. This creates a culture that imposes it's desires on society rather than one that protects, serves, and defends society.

NikolaNovak 4y ago
Sure. Agreed. And agreed a priori and proactively in my post. We can and should improve and change and reform police and hold them accountable and reduce their mandate and so on. My response was specifically to the notion,explicitly stated, that we don't need and shouldn't have police no matter how defined, and that it's purpose is not worthile. Later I think that position was clarified and we are all good now.

Aerroon 4y ago

The problem with the police is that they are a self-policing enforcement arm of the state. The state gives the police various forms of liability immunities that breed bad behavior. The term "police" here also includes other services too - child protective services, social workers, judges etc. 1) If the state itself acts maliciously, eg mass deportations, gulags etc then it's the police that enforce this. Even if the state is unjustified, you cannot fight back because fighting back itself is an offense against the police and society. Even if you are eventually cleared of the injustice that the state enacted on you, you will still have to deal with the consequences of having fought back. 2) If the police act maliciously, eg police brutality or a social worker separating kids from families as political retaliation[0], then you cannot fight back either. As fighting back will get you punished. On top of that, the police are not held liable for their actions so that they can do point 1). I think what would help enormously is if the police were more liable for what actions they take. It shouldn't be such an uphill struggle when police or social workers or judges do something very clearly wrong. [0] https://reason.com/2022/09/08/brickbat-very-protective/ https://reason.com/2022/09/08/brickbat-very-protective/