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The police are there to: - Do you for speeding. - Protect the establishment. - Threaten violence. - Prop up the prison-industrial complex for the benefit of

by madaxe 13y ago

The police are there to: - Do you for speeding. - Protect the establishment. - Threaten violence. - Prop up the prison-industrial complex for the benefit of private corporations. They are categorically not there to help you. They never have been. This is a misapprehension that has been around since the days of Peel. A police force is the state's visible threat of violence against its populace, in order to exact control and to keep the powerful powerful.

csmuk 13y ago
Agree entirely. I've learned this over the last few years.
marvin 13y ago
This is not how a democratic nation is supposed to work. So please don't hold up this characterization of the police as something which is inevitable. The democratic ideal is that the police have a national monopoly on the legal use of violence, and the use of this violence is dictated by the laws and the courts. This is how well-working democratic nations work, and it is indeed how the police force in my home country works. That anything else can be said about the USA today (maybe also the UK?), is just a testament to the scale of the democratic problems you guys have. You are really deep into it, and it doesn't seem like you realize the extent of the problem.
- csmuk 13y ago
  It is inevitable. Every society has descended into this so far, until there is a revolution. Us people in the UK realise what is happening. At some point, the moment will occur when the state oversteps the mark on something and the shit will get flipped country-wide.
  - madaxe 13y ago
    Yup, just said the same as you. Hobbes and Hayek both anticipated this. Revolution is the only way out.
    - csmuk 13y ago
      Thanks for posting this. Just the motivation I need to read The Road To Serfdom which has been sitting on my bookshelf for a couple of years.
- madaxe 13y ago
  No, it isn't, but it appears to be the endgame of representative democracy. I'd suggest reading Hobbes' Leviathan, or perhaps Hayek's Road to Serfdom, if you haven't already, as both anticipated this exact malaise. The US and the UK are in the terminal stages of decline. The representative democratic ideal is ultimately revealed to be a fiction, and the rule of law is a falsehood - for without a universally applied rule of law, there is no rule of law - just authoritarianism - and our rule of law is decidedly not universal, and never has been. One set of rules for us, one for them. All representative democracy eventually declines under the same disease of creeping authoritarianism due to the inevitable desire of entrenched power structures and bureaucracies to self-sustain and expand. This should not be mistaken for malice, rather it's the inevitable output of a system optimised for self-preservation. The only solution to my mind while maintaining a democratic ideal is either strict sortition, or direct democracy.
  - marvin 13y ago
    This doesn't make sense to me. Why hasn't my native Norway ended up in this spot? Claiming "it is inevitable" isn't a valid argument, projecting to unlikely-seeming future scenarios can be used to prove anything. Just because two big nations have ended up with a screwed-up political system doesn't prove that it is an inevitability.
    - vidarh 13y ago
      Try arguing with a Norwegian police officer. Even calmly. Odds of ending up in jail overnight are pretty high, though you might find one with a sense of humour now. Norway is one of those countries where shouting insults at a police officer can be illegal where shouting those same insults at a random strangers would not be - there explicitly is one law for public officials and one for the rest. The idea of public officials being above the rest is deeply embedded in the Norwegian system, and only started fading with the growth of the labour movement, and steady inclusion of the labour movement into the establishment starting with the first lasting Ap (labour party) government in 1935 onwards. Even then, Ap took up the baton (..), and wielded it against the groups to their own left, with extensive illegal political surveillance for decades. The reason Norway is now as civilized as it is, is simple: Norway eventually got filthy rich thanks to the oil. The average salary in Norway is about 70% above the average salary in the UK, for example, and the salary curve is far flatter. We've had social democratic ministers from a party that used argue for revolution and was an early member of Komintern that are millionaires. A long range of our past "threats" to the establishment are now wealthy and firmly embedded in the establishment. The class struggle in Norway is largely "on hold", and the police is being wielded against immigrants instead.
mrow84 13y ago
Could you please add a bit of explanation as to why you are so confident that this interpretation of the role of the police should be regarded as categorical fact? Particularly in the case of UK, if your knowledge allows, given that we operate, at least in principle, an explicitly Peelian system of policing, in contrast to, for example, our European neighbours.
- vidarh 13y ago
  Consider the UK police treatment of demonstrators. It's one of the most brutal in Western Europe, and in many countries the very idea of a practice like kettling brings out images of fascist dictatorships. I'm Norwegian. In Norway, government officials are often found participating in May day demonstrations, and it's a public holiday. Imagine my shock the first May day I experienced after moving to the UK, with police lining up units on horseback with shields all around and slowly forcing demonstrators into a smaller and smaller space and keeping them their for hours. How does that fit with Peelian principles to you? It's the kind of method that is pretty much designed to provoke violence and distrust.
  - mrow84 13y ago
    I too think that kettling is provocative and unnecessary. There is a balance that we have to strike as a society between, on the one hand, protection of property and freedom from violence, and on the other, freedom of speech and expression. Personally, I would rather we allowed more of the latter at the (potential) expense of less of the former, perhaps with some civil compensation scheme for any who might be affected. I also think that we should allow much more disruption than we currently do - that is often one of the ways protesters make themselves heard. If protests were allowed to make more of an impact then people might feel less inclined to cause trouble. Unfortunately any impact on the great economic machine is seen as almost taboo in some, rather influential, quarters, which makes moves in that direction less likely. Another part of the puzzle is community leadership, whatever 'community' means in the particular context. The leadership doesn't need to be centralised, but if people don't engage with the police in situations like that then things can get out of control. Though again this is another area where I think the police are often at fault: following orders rather than engaging with people. All that said, I don't agree with madaxe's statement: "(the police) are categorically not there to help you. They never have been.", and to be frank I don't see how your example shows that it is so.

by madaxe 13y ago

csmuk 13y ago

Agree entirely. I've learned this over the last few years.

marvin 13y ago

This is not how a democratic nation is supposed to work. So please don't hold up this characterization of the police as something which is inevitable. The democratic ideal is that the police have a national monopoly on the legal use of violence, and the use of this violence is dictated by the laws and the courts. This is how well-working democratic nations work, and it is indeed how the police force in my home country works. That anything else can be said about the USA today (maybe also the UK?), is just a testament to the scale of the democratic problems you guys have. You are really deep into it, and it doesn't seem like you realize the extent of the problem.

csmuk 13y ago
It is inevitable. Every society has descended into this so far, until there is a revolution. Us people in the UK realise what is happening. At some point, the moment will occur when the state oversteps the mark on something and the shit will get flipped country-wide.
- madaxe 13y ago
  Yup, just said the same as you. Hobbes and Hayek both anticipated this. Revolution is the only way out.
  - csmuk 13y ago
    Thanks for posting this. Just the motivation I need to read The Road To Serfdom which has been sitting on my bookshelf for a couple of years.
madaxe 13y ago
No, it isn't, but it appears to be the endgame of representative democracy. I'd suggest reading Hobbes' Leviathan, or perhaps Hayek's Road to Serfdom, if you haven't already, as both anticipated this exact malaise. The US and the UK are in the terminal stages of decline. The representative democratic ideal is ultimately revealed to be a fiction, and the rule of law is a falsehood - for without a universally applied rule of law, there is no rule of law - just authoritarianism - and our rule of law is decidedly not universal, and never has been. One set of rules for us, one for them. All representative democracy eventually declines under the same disease of creeping authoritarianism due to the inevitable desire of entrenched power structures and bureaucracies to self-sustain and expand. This should not be mistaken for malice, rather it's the inevitable output of a system optimised for self-preservation. The only solution to my mind while maintaining a democratic ideal is either strict sortition, or direct democracy.
- marvin 13y ago
  This doesn't make sense to me. Why hasn't my native Norway ended up in this spot? Claiming "it is inevitable" isn't a valid argument, projecting to unlikely-seeming future scenarios can be used to prove anything. Just because two big nations have ended up with a screwed-up political system doesn't prove that it is an inevitability.
  - vidarh 13y ago
    Try arguing with a Norwegian police officer. Even calmly. Odds of ending up in jail overnight are pretty high, though you might find one with a sense of humour now. Norway is one of those countries where shouting insults at a police officer can be illegal where shouting those same insults at a random strangers would not be - there explicitly is one law for public officials and one for the rest. The idea of public officials being above the rest is deeply embedded in the Norwegian system, and only started fading with the growth of the labour movement, and steady inclusion of the labour movement into the establishment starting with the first lasting Ap (labour party) government in 1935 onwards. Even then, Ap took up the baton (..), and wielded it against the groups to their own left, with extensive illegal political surveillance for decades. The reason Norway is now as civilized as it is, is simple: Norway eventually got filthy rich thanks to the oil. The average salary in Norway is about 70% above the average salary in the UK, for example, and the salary curve is far flatter. We've had social democratic ministers from a party that used argue for revolution and was an early member of Komintern that are millionaires. A long range of our past "threats" to the establishment are now wealthy and firmly embedded in the establishment. The class struggle in Norway is largely "on hold", and the police is being wielded against immigrants instead.

mrow84 13y ago

Could you please add a bit of explanation as to why you are so confident that this interpretation of the role of the police should be regarded as categorical fact? Particularly in the case of UK, if your knowledge allows, given that we operate, at least in principle, an explicitly Peelian system of policing, in contrast to, for example, our European neighbours.

vidarh 13y ago
Consider the UK police treatment of demonstrators. It's one of the most brutal in Western Europe, and in many countries the very idea of a practice like kettling brings out images of fascist dictatorships. I'm Norwegian. In Norway, government officials are often found participating in May day demonstrations, and it's a public holiday. Imagine my shock the first May day I experienced after moving to the UK, with police lining up units on horseback with shields all around and slowly forcing demonstrators into a smaller and smaller space and keeping them their for hours. How does that fit with Peelian principles to you? It's the kind of method that is pretty much designed to provoke violence and distrust.
- mrow84 13y ago
  I too think that kettling is provocative and unnecessary. There is a balance that we have to strike as a society between, on the one hand, protection of property and freedom from violence, and on the other, freedom of speech and expression. Personally, I would rather we allowed more of the latter at the (potential) expense of less of the former, perhaps with some civil compensation scheme for any who might be affected. I also think that we should allow much more disruption than we currently do - that is often one of the ways protesters make themselves heard. If protests were allowed to make more of an impact then people might feel less inclined to cause trouble. Unfortunately any impact on the great economic machine is seen as almost taboo in some, rather influential, quarters, which makes moves in that direction less likely. Another part of the puzzle is community leadership, whatever 'community' means in the particular context. The leadership doesn't need to be centralised, but if people don't engage with the police in situations like that then things can get out of control. Though again this is another area where I think the police are often at fault: following orders rather than engaging with people. All that said, I don't agree with madaxe's statement: "(the police) are categorically not there to help you. They never have been.", and to be frank I don't see how your example shows that it is so.