5 ms·

I don't know that it's fair to characterize it as "protecting" so much as a good faith argument in someone's favor. I think most people would extend that favor

I don't know that it's fair to characterize it as "protecting" so much as a good faith argument in someone's favor. I think most people would extend that favor to their peers, not *just* police. I've had plenty of debates with opponents that talk about rape stats: they're pretty high, and assumed to be undercounted, and predominately it seems like it's men perpetrators and female victims. Now I'm not a rapist, and *to the best of my knowledge* nobody I know is a rapist, or a perpetrator of domestic violence, etc... But these are also things that can and do happen behind closed doors and are secreted away and swept under rugs — fair point. So when someone makes broad-strokes accusatory statements about men as a whole, acting under that assumption, I defend myself and my peers because me, my friends, my family are all being called to task over something I have *faith* we were no party to. And I've heard ballpark figures from some of these interlocutors that indicate as many as one-half of all men are perpetrators of the aforementioned crimes or their kindred malefactions. And I think this kind of extension of trust is fundamental to society and civilization. I think it is also a considerable hazard as a population grows. Bystander effect but at scales inconceivable to any individual.

autoexec 4y ago
> Now I'm not a rapist, and to the best of my knowledge nobody I know is a rapist, or a perpetrator of domestic violence, etc... But these are also things that can and do happen behind closed doors and are secreted away and swept under rugs — fair point That's the difference between you and the police. The police do have knowledge of the crimes of their co-workers. They stand by and watch it happening. Often there is body cam footage of it happening. If you knew one of your friends was a serial rapist, and you've watched them raping people, and you had video evidence of it, and you did nothing, you'd be the problem. The "Bystander effect" is a solvable problem. That's what training is for. Training is how doctors, EMTs, and countless others are able to intervene in a crisis. There are even specialized programs designed just for police. One example is EPIC (http://epic.nola.gov/home/ http://epic.nola.gov/home/) and another is ABLE (https://www.law.georgetown.edu/cics/able/ https://www.law.georgetown.edu/cics/able/). If an officer isn't adequately trained to do their job, then they have no business wearing a badge. We should be holding police to much higher standard to the rest of the population.
- brnaftr361 4y ago
  What I'm really intent on getting at, albeit through a roundabout way, is that such institutions will always be susceptible to abuse, and that they hadn't ought to reasonably exist in the capacity they do operating under the pretenses they have offered. They're neither properly capacious to hold themselves to account, nor is the public suited to the matter (look at the US political system), either. Trust and defer is a hazard, but we're all culpable in it's maintenance and that is why and that is how the faux lacquer of the Rule of Law is maintained because most can yield that faith, they're willing to defer their authority to someone else be it the police, the FBI, CIA, et cetera. As to the argument, there are a million and one ways to justify and rationalize behaviors, some convincing some not. The question then becomes one of faith. Some aspects of ones willingness to advocate in the favor of another are fraternity, I won't deny that. And some are due to shared experience. I would say the largest fraction of it is necessarily that faith just because very often we lack the omniscience we so often act as if we're in possession of. We'd also do well to remember that these folks have elected to enter into a position where they're frequently endangered, or at least the probable threat of danger exists frequently. Often times they're veterans trained for combat and not peacekeeping. They also interface with other people in ways that you and I will seldom ever have to in situations we'd hardly ever imagine. Imagine pulling over a drunk driver in a several thousand pound vehicle. There's about a thousand things that could go on there. Is the driver deranged? Is he armed? Is he going to resist arrest? Will he decide to run me over? As to training: I disagree. There is always room for error, period. Men are never machines, as such they should never be trusted with mechanical rectitude. I can make a long list of a wide variety of charlatans with conflicts of interest in pedaling their wares, myriad training programs it's quite the industry and often it's snake oil with one or two poorly constructed studies or apparent correlation, unreliable, unreplicible — but they sell. I could see it being a point of plausible deniability though. Trained expert police dispatching someone sounds a whole lot more acceptable than police murdering someone. But really it's the difference between an annual refresher training composed of a slide deck that nobody pays attention to and mocks, and no annual refresher training. But nobody is going to take responsibility.

autoexec 4y ago

> Now I'm not a rapist, and to the best of my knowledge nobody I know is a rapist, or a perpetrator of domestic violence, etc... But these are also things that can and do happen behind closed doors and are secreted away and swept under rugs — fair point That's the difference between you and the police. The police do have knowledge of the crimes of their co-workers. They stand by and watch it happening. Often there is body cam footage of it happening. If you knew one of your friends was a serial rapist, and you've watched them raping people, and you had video evidence of it, and you did nothing, you'd be the problem. The "Bystander effect" is a solvable problem. That's what training is for. Training is how doctors, EMTs, and countless others are able to intervene in a crisis. There are even specialized programs designed just for police. One example is EPIC (http://epic.nola.gov/home/ http://epic.nola.gov/home/) and another is ABLE (https://www.law.georgetown.edu/cics/able/ https://www.law.georgetown.edu/cics/able/). If an officer isn't adequately trained to do their job, then they have no business wearing a badge. We should be holding police to much higher standard to the rest of the population.

brnaftr361 4y ago
What I'm really intent on getting at, albeit through a roundabout way, is that such institutions will always be susceptible to abuse, and that they hadn't ought to reasonably exist in the capacity they do operating under the pretenses they have offered. They're neither properly capacious to hold themselves to account, nor is the public suited to the matter (look at the US political system), either. Trust and defer is a hazard, but we're all culpable in it's maintenance and that is why and that is how the faux lacquer of the Rule of Law is maintained because most can yield that faith, they're willing to defer their authority to someone else be it the police, the FBI, CIA, et cetera. As to the argument, there are a million and one ways to justify and rationalize behaviors, some convincing some not. The question then becomes one of faith. Some aspects of ones willingness to advocate in the favor of another are fraternity, I won't deny that. And some are due to shared experience. I would say the largest fraction of it is necessarily that faith just because very often we lack the omniscience we so often act as if we're in possession of. We'd also do well to remember that these folks have elected to enter into a position where they're frequently endangered, or at least the probable threat of danger exists frequently. Often times they're veterans trained for combat and not peacekeeping. They also interface with other people in ways that you and I will seldom ever have to in situations we'd hardly ever imagine. Imagine pulling over a drunk driver in a several thousand pound vehicle. There's about a thousand things that could go on there. Is the driver deranged? Is he armed? Is he going to resist arrest? Will he decide to run me over? As to training: I disagree. There is always room for error, period. Men are never machines, as such they should never be trusted with mechanical rectitude. I can make a long list of a wide variety of charlatans with conflicts of interest in pedaling their wares, myriad training programs it's quite the industry and often it's snake oil with one or two poorly constructed studies or apparent correlation, unreliable, unreplicible — but they sell. I could see it being a point of plausible deniability though. Trained expert police dispatching someone sounds a whole lot more acceptable than police murdering someone. But really it's the difference between an annual refresher training composed of a slide deck that nobody pays attention to and mocks, and no annual refresher training. But nobody is going to take responsibility.