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There's a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state. The other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes
by jxjnskkzxxhx 1y ago
There's a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state. The other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people.
- Aeolun 1y ago> The other serves and protects the people. I think you’d already kinda lost this? Cops seem to mostly serve themselves?
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> One fights the enemies of the state "At stake is a fundamental component of the framework of US constitutional democracy. It begins with the principle, enshrined in law, that military forces exist to protect the country from existential threats — such as an invasion or rebellion — not to enforce the law. Most fundamentally, the founders of the American republic understood very clearly that concentrated military power, loyal to a single man, could be used to achieve total control by that person. And they had a historical example in mind: Rome — a republic governed by the people and the Senate — was transformed into an empire ruled by an emperor as a result of the Roman army being turned against its citizens." https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-06-09/trump-s-national-guard-deployment-is-a-threat-to-democracy https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-06-09/trump-...
- kpw94 1y ago> military forces exist to protect the country from existential threats — such as an invasion or rebellion — not to enforce the law. serious question: are Countries such as Italy, France etc not a democracy? All of them are, verbatim from wikipedia, "a military force with law enforcement duties among the civilian population.". Ditto for spain Guardia Civil, and many of the countries listed in that same wiki page: Algeria, Netherlands, Poland, Argentina, Romania, Turkey, Ukraine, Chile, France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gendarmerie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gendarmerie
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> serious question: are Countries such as Italy, France etc not a democracy? They are, but not in the the "framework of US constitutional democracy." A system for which we have more evidence of stability than either of Italy or France's modern republics. (Note, too, les gendarmes' heritage: imperial France. Also, gendarmes aren't usually deployed overseas. They are, in a sense, more similar to the FBI than the U.S. Marines.)
- gabaix 1y agoI have always found confusing the existence of the gendarmes. They are indeed a vestigial force of the XIXth century, and should be transformed into a regular police force.
- aredox 1y agoOn the contrary, they are more relevant than ever in today's era of peacekeeping and anti-terrorism activities. They are fundamental to the stabilisation of the Balkans, for example. They fill the gap between full war and "normal" (punctual) criminality.
- gabaix 1y agoThe issues are two-fold 1- the territorial split between gendarmerie/police within the French territory 2- the fact the gendarmes for police work report to the Ministry of Defense. If one had to design the police system from crash, they would likely merge police and gendarmes for police work.
- BrandoElFollito 1y agoYou forgot 3: a hatred between the organizations for ego reasons (not everyone, not everywhere). The split is nonsense today.
- forty 1y agoGendarmerie are simply policemen with a military status which give them some duty (like I think they cannot strike) and some benefits (earlier retirement) but they are still really a police force in reality. I don't think it would look good to send actual army to fight citizens, and I don't think the army would appreciate it either (it might have been done already, no idea)
- lordnacho 1y agoWell I hate to disparage a large group of people, but how often have you spoken to an American who understands this type of social-legal history of the country, and values it? Although I know quite a lot of (what I consider) well-educated Americans, it is also the only country from which I regularly meet the type of person who doesn't care at all about how society works (also, technology, history, art, etc). You'll probably find that HN-person is the kind of person who values this kind of argument, but HN-world is quite small. On multiple occasions, I've met Americans who simply care about might-makes-right. It's skin-deep, as soon as you ask them why they support this or that policy, it's because they are powerful and the rest of the world is not. I've literally met Americans who thought their tax money allowed them to summon troops, more than once. (This ended up backfiring as it turns out, they did not know how to get US Marines to arrive, big shocker.) The same kind of thinking seems to be prevalent internally. You can trample the law, because you can. You see it even in ordinary US-made popular media. What happens what a character gets in trouble with the law? Well, then of course it depends on who has the most money to hire the best lawyers. In the current case, I suspect the government will just do whatever it wants and there will be no legal reckoning.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- Y_Y 1y ago> You'll probably find that HN-person is the kind of person who values this kind of argument, but HN-world is quite small. The nice thing about the HN Small World is that it can be efficiently searched. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchical_navigable_small_world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchical_navigable_small_w...
- sebastiennight 1y agoWell, one would have guessed that the service powering HN search would know about HNSW: https://www.algolia.com/blog/ai/a-simple-guide-to-ai-search https://www.algolia.com/blog/ai/a-simple-guide-to-ai-search
- jampekka 1y ago
- socalgal2 1y ago[flagged]
- komali2 1y agoAmerica is a melting pot, many people are proud of their heritage. If seeing a Mexican flag triggers you, I'm wondering if you hold American values, or something else?
- aaronbaugher 1y agoHeard a rumor this morning that organizers have realized the bad optics in that, and have put out word to wave US flags today. It'll be interesting to see if they're obeyed.
- ryandrake 1y agoLOL, so if I travel to Australia and wave my American flag there, they should consider me to be part of an invasion force?
- kjkjadksj 1y agoSocal is majority latino today and was originally mexican land. There is no invasion. A reversion to historical norms if anything. People carrying flags to trigger conservative bigots does not an invasion make.
- msgodel 1y agoThen we should make it official by surrendering the territory to Mexico.
- drewcoo 1y agoThe reason is Posse Comitatus. It's in place because enough people were fed up with federal troops being used to impose "law." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act
- JumpCrisscross 1y agoIt's also, notably, a legacy of Reconstruction. Put another way, we're dismantling infrastructure built to prevent civil war.
- leereeves 1y ago> a legacy of Reconstruction Quite the opposite. It was passed in 1878 because of the backlash against Reconstruction, shortly after federal troops were withdrawn from the South in 1877, and was intended to prevent something like Reconstruction from happening again.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> It was passed in 1878 because of the backlash against Reconstruction, shortly after federal troops were withdrawn from the South in 1877, and was intended to prevent Reconstruction from happening again You're right. Sorry, I didn't mean to suggest it was a product of Reconstruction. It was absolutely part of the process of post-civil war renormalisation.
- twic 1y agoI love that the navy wasn't covered until 2021. So although the president can't send in the troops, Trident is a-ok!
- psalaun 1y ago(I've the feeling that during civil uprising in dictatorship or democracy, the police tends to serve and protect the hand that feeds them, rather than the oppressed people.)
- watwut 1y agoWell, in the case of Third Reich, they decisively sided with Nazi. They were not hands that fed them, but they were what police (and military) liked.
- ta1243 1y agoThe police - especially the US police - often appeals to high school thugs who like authoritarianism, especially when it gives them power over others. Its always been this way. Its no surprise that some government systems more strongly appeal.
- typeofhuman 1y agoWe must have a different definition of "thug" because the "thugs" in my high school didn't become police. They became the people who shoot 11 people in a weekend, steal cars at 15, and commit disproportionate amounts of - especially violent - crime.
- emittens 1y ago[dead]
- pixl97 1y agoThug: a violent, aggressive person, especially one who is a criminal The problem here is you've taken the last part as the whole. There were plenty of thugs as you say that have no social inhibition and get imprisoned. But there are numerous others that got along well enough and covered for each other they kept themselves away from punishment. There were cruel bullies in my school while committing vicious acts had enough of a following they could depend on them to blame the victims as the entity that started the fight. This type of person is well suited for the thin blue line.
- fractallyte 1y agoYou should provide the source: Commander William Adama of Battlestar Galactica, speaking to President Laura Roslin: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/sz2QN8_VvoM https://www.youtube.com/shorts/sz2QN8_VvoM
- moffkalast 1y agoSo say we all!
- jxjnskkzxxhx 1y agoLook at all the upvotes I got tho.
- timewizard 1y agoThere's an entire division of the military that is literally police. They serve a similar function to their civilian counterparts. There's also intelligence and logistics units.
- catlifeonmars 1y ago2/7 is an infantry battalion. They have no training or experience policing. I was a member of an infantry battalion once tasked with doing policing in a foreign country. Let me just say that the outcome was exactly what you’d expect. We were very effective at responding with overwhelming force to attacks by an insurgency but pretty ineffective at keeping the peace.
- closewith 1y ago> We were very effective at responding with overwhelming force to attacks by an insurgency I don't think you were, since all US COIN operations in living memory have been abject failures.
- catlifeonmars 1y agoHeh not wrong but I think you stopped reading at “we were very effective” I never said we were effective at counterinsurgency ops
- kulahan 1y agoWell sure, but their police activities are limited to government installations. Their jurisdictions do not extend to “everywhere”
- fenomas 1y agoRecent anecdote from Popehat, about the 1992 riots in Los Angeles: > /4 So “cover me” to the LAPD means “if someone pops up with a gun and shoots at me, shoot at them.” Apparently to the Marines it means “lay down a curtain of suppressive fire using your rifles.” Hilarity ensued. https://bsky.app/profile/kenwhite.bsky.social/post/3lr2w7wo3o22n https://bsky.app/profile/kenwhite.bsky.social/post/3lr2w7wo3...
- thaumasiotes 1y ago> Apparently to the Marines it means “lay down a curtain of suppressive fire using your rifles.” Is that supposed to be a surprise to someone? What do you think "cover fire" is?
- ceejayoz 1y agoThat’s why the post says “cover me”, not “cover fire”.
- thaumasiotes 1y agoWell, "cover fire" is a noun, and can't be used as a command. It's called that because it's how you cover people. If you ask someone to darn your sock, and they do, will you complain "hey, I didn't say 'darning needle'"?
- ceejayoz 1y agoA marine saying “cover fire” is asking you to shoot. A cop saying “cover me” is asking for something the marine might call overwatch.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- fenomas 1y agoThe fact that it meant something else to someone else is, if you look closely, the entire point of the anecdote.
- chippiewill 1y agoSo say we all
- yokoprime 1y agoAnd their training reflects this. I've served in the army, but not in the US. Some units did get crowd control training, but it was very unusual and specific for their deployments (they were going to Kosovo). Preparing these units for crowd control required weeks of training. Crowd control is pretty much the opposite of modern warfare, with large number of troops marching shoulder to shoulder forming shield walls, even having supporting cavalry.
- closewith 1y ago> I've served in the army, but not in the US. Probably very specific, but I was in two non-US militaries and all combat corps were trained in Aid to the Civil Power, including public order, and were regularly refreshed.
- lostlogin 1y ago> There's a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state. The other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people. It’s not just that the military has become both, the police have too. Arming your police to the level of US police is just crazy.
- potato3732842 1y agoThe police are not serving the people except if you use using "clearly the patriot act is good it has patriot in the name" type reasoning to define what that looks like. They're just serving your state and local government instead of the feds. They only serve the people in so far as doing so advances the interests of their employer. And that overlap is less than a lot of people make it out to be, especially when you look at specific issues.
- techdmn 1y agoJust watched a vid of LAPD trampling a person with a horse, then shooting them with what looked like a baton round at a range of 5-10 feet. That is a life altering injury, administered with direct intent, while the protestor was trying to flee. Holding my breath for zero consequences for unnecessary force. Not to mention qualified immunity. LAPD doing LAPD things. How can one argue that the police serve the people? They don't necessarily even serve local government. They get a lot of federal funding and equipment, and in riot-control mode their purpose is to brutalize protestors until people stop showing up. I also find it rather grotesque to watch Newsom argue that state and local police are perfectly capable of handling (i.e. crippling) protestors by themselves and don't need any federal assistance to do so.
- actionfromafar 1y agoTrue. Forming a Presidential Guard and have them rolling over protestors with tanks isn’t very enticing either IMHO
- vixen99 1y agoHow can the incident (with video evidence) you describe not potentially result in criminal charges? Why hold your breath? Surely there are countless people to act on that.
- conartist6 1y agoWhat would be the point? There's almost nothing they could do that would be against the law if they're just given a pre-emptive pardon. They could put up an arena with citizens vs lions as long as it pleases Donald...
- major505 1y agoyeah. A good quote from Adama, but that only applies to the US. In many places around the world the police and military are the same.
- jajko 1y agoNowhere in any western country, Heck, I've visited a bit of Africa and tons of south east Asia and a bit of South America and this ain't true neither for any of countries I visited.
- theshrike79 1y agoCan you list these "many places"? One or two examples?
- major505 1y agoBrazil, the more extensive police work like patrols and crime prevention is usually done by military police. Crime investigation is part of civilian police. But most polpulation have contact only with military police. IS no coincident they look like this in Brazil: https://www.reddit.com/r/MilitaryPorn/comments/10r02yp/black_beret_brazilian_rota_officer_during_urban/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MilitaryPorn/comments/10r02yp/black...
- falcor84 1y ago> the enemies of the state tend to become the people Wait, don't you mean that "the people become the enemies of the state"? Or did I miss some jab at immigrants?
- jxjnskkzxxhx 1y agoIt means that if you use the military to police, the military looks at people and sees enemies.
- falcor84 1y agoBut it's still reversed - it's as if you said "the successful tend to become those who persevere". Are you perhaps translating the grammar from another language?
- HauntedDrum 1y agoThis is a popular quote from Battlestar Galactica: Commander William Adama: Yeah, but I'm not going to be your policeman. There's a reason why you separate military and the police. One fights the enemy of the state. The other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people.
- cpuguy83 1y agoSo say we all.
- yibg 1y agoWhich makes the continued militarization of the police forces across the country also troubling.
- Slava_Propanei 1y ago[dead]