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You really believe this? I think the reddit / HN echo chamber combined with the current media cycle blowing the situation in Ferguson out of proportion in their

You really believe this? I think the reddit / HN echo chamber combined with the current media cycle blowing the situation in Ferguson out of proportion in their 24 hour coverage is working. There are thousands of good things being done every single day by cops all over the country. You don't hear about it because it isn't exciting. If you think overall there are more corrupt / racist / evil cops than good, you most likely need to stop only getting your news from such biased sources.

baddox 12y ago
I did not say I think there are more corrupt/racist/evil cops than good. I said that it's debatable whether police are generally a net good.
- res0nat0r 12y ago
  Honestly that is pretty laughable.
  - baddox 12y ago
    What is laughable, and why?
    - res0nat0r 12y ago
      That you actually believe police providing a net-good overall is up for debate.
Zigurd 12y ago
"If you think overall there are more corrupt / racist / evil cops than good..." There is a simple test to see if the above is true: How often do cops step forward to denounce brutality and corruption? What happens to the ones who do step forward? Unfortunately for us, the real answer is not very pretty, and not the one most people wish were true.
- res0nat0r 12y ago
  Terrible metric. If you want to measure that the "police generally are a net good", then you should be measuring how many crimes are committed on a daily basis by the cops vs. good deeds. The outcome is not what you think, if you are just consuming your police news via /r/politics, HN (and MSNBC the last two weeks).
  - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
    That's ignoring the very fact of their existence - it provides a civilizing effect on cities and communities. If crime ran rampant and unopposed, it would be a very different world. Don't imagine for a millisecond that we could somehow do without police.
    - baddox 12y ago
      > Don't imagine for a millisecond that we could somehow do without police. What about civilizations in the past that did do it without anything we would recognize as modern police?
      - res0nat0r 12y ago
        Or a current country like Somalia which has barely any functioning government or law, look how great of a place that is!
    - Zigurd 12y ago
      Imagine a world without the Drug War. We could do without that many fewer police, prosecutors, courts, and prisons.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
  - baddox 12y ago
    > then you should be measuring how many crimes are committed on a daily basis by the cops vs. good deeds. I don't think that's a very good metric. You wouldn't measure "how good of a person" a murderer is by counting how many minutes of his life he spent murdering versus how many minutes he spent not murdering. And you wouldn't measure "how good of a disease" cancer is by counting how many people it kills versus how many people it does not kill.

baddox 12y ago

I did not say I think there are more corrupt/racist/evil cops than good. I said that it's debatable whether police are generally a net good.

res0nat0r 12y ago
Honestly that is pretty laughable.
- baddox 12y ago
  What is laughable, and why?
  - res0nat0r 12y ago
    That you actually believe police providing a net-good overall is up for debate.

Zigurd 12y ago

"If you think overall there are more corrupt / racist / evil cops than good..." There is a simple test to see if the above is true: How often do cops step forward to denounce brutality and corruption? What happens to the ones who do step forward? Unfortunately for us, the real answer is not very pretty, and not the one most people wish were true.

res0nat0r 12y ago
Terrible metric. If you want to measure that the "police generally are a net good", then you should be measuring how many crimes are committed on a daily basis by the cops vs. good deeds. The outcome is not what you think, if you are just consuming your police news via /r/politics, HN (and MSNBC the last two weeks).
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  That's ignoring the very fact of their existence - it provides a civilizing effect on cities and communities. If crime ran rampant and unopposed, it would be a very different world. Don't imagine for a millisecond that we could somehow do without police.
  - baddox 12y ago
    > Don't imagine for a millisecond that we could somehow do without police. What about civilizations in the past that did do it without anything we would recognize as modern police?
    - res0nat0r 12y ago
      Or a current country like Somalia which has barely any functioning government or law, look how great of a place that is!
  - Zigurd 12y ago
    Imagine a world without the Drug War. We could do without that many fewer police, prosecutors, courts, and prisons.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- baddox 12y ago
  > then you should be measuring how many crimes are committed on a daily basis by the cops vs. good deeds. I don't think that's a very good metric. You wouldn't measure "how good of a person" a murderer is by counting how many minutes of his life he spent murdering versus how many minutes he spent not murdering. And you wouldn't measure "how good of a disease" cancer is by counting how many people it kills versus how many people it does not kill.