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Agreed. Especially considering that the majority of law enforcement are there to do the right thing for the right reason, I believe that we need to be careful

Agreed. Especially considering that the majority of law enforcement are there to do the right thing for the right reason, I believe that we need to be careful to not send the impression that we should assume there is an assumed potential for wrong-doing in every person with a uniform. Just as important is an avenue for sending videos to relevant organizations of criminal executing criminal acts. The economic divide is the first place to start in terms of fixing this issue in the long-term; raise the dignity of life of every person in this country and I believe the road to healing can begin.

wpietri 11y ago
> we should [not] assume there is an assumed potential for wrong-doing in every person with a uniform The whole American experiment is built upon the notion that you basically can't trust people with power. That's why we have a checks-and-balances system. There is a potential for wrongdoing by anybody with power. Power corrupts. Take a look, for example, at David Simon's take on Baltimore. As far as I'm concerned, the Baltimore PD has been corrupted as an organization: https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/04/29/david-simon-on-baltimore-s-anguish https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/04/29/david-simon-on... That is not to say that the majority of people don't want to do the right thing. But by creating structures of accountability, we are helping them to do the right thing.
jellicle 11y ago
> Especially considering that the majority of law enforcement are there to do the right thing for the right reason Let us suppose three categories of police officers: a) bad cops b) cops who generally act good themselves but who will lie and cover for bad cops c) good cops who will arrest bad cops when they see them doing bad, and testify against them, and otherwise act against them, despite peer pressure not to do so When people say "most cops are good", they are saying that group a) is small, which for the purposes of argument I will agree with. But the fact is, there are almost no cops in group c), and whenever one is discovered, they are pushed out of the police force as quickly as possible. And I consider group a) and group b) to both be "bad cops". There are lots of cops in group b), who consider themselves good, but who should be considered to be part of the problem. > assumed potential for wrong-doing in every person with a uniform Why would a uniform eliminate one's potential for wrong-doing?
- christianbryant 11y ago
  I don't mean to say a uniform eliminates a person's capacity for wrong-doing. I mean to say that for a system to work, we ought not assume wrong-doing automatically when we see the uniform, despite the news. Understand, swap "uniform" with the skin color or nationality of your choice and the same should be true. As hacktivists and influencers or social change, we should have other means in place to make sure justice is done, and be careful not to participate in reverse racism or painting an institution initially placed for good as the enemy.
afandian 11y ago
> the majority of law enforcement are there to do the right thing for the right reason What is the right thing? Does it extend to trying to prevent others from doing the wrong thing? > we need to be careful to not send the impression that we should assume there is an assumed potential for wrong-doing in every person with a uniform Hasn't history and psychology shown us again and again that wrongdoing in aggregate is almost inevitable when you get a group of humans together? We should absolutely assume that where there's a high chance of a concentration of power there will be abuse somewhere, and proactively head it off. > send the impression That's a tricky one. If we actually do presume that there will be wrongdoing in aggregate, how do we avoid demotivating the 'good ones'? There must be a way to encourage the good ones to uphold standards and chuck out the 'bad apples' without feeling like they're under attack. "Rough Rides" [0] seem to be standard practice. I can't imagine any person with a shred of humanity thinking this is an acceptable way to treat another human, or that it wouldn't end up killing someone. But the fact is that it's commonplace, hasn't been stopped, the people that do it haven't been challenged or punished by the people who should know better. I've even seen the point of view expressed that this is 'standard procedure' so the driver shouldn't be singled out. Just saying 'it's only a few bad apples' perpetuates this situation. It's not an American thing, we have it in Europe too, and, I'm sure round the world. It's just down to statistics and innate human behaviour. When we have high-profile cases like this, we have a choice of saying 'it's a shame someone else died at the hands of some police, let's put them on desk duty' or saying 'is this systemic? how many days until it happens again?'. Unless we tackle that, we're always going to have abuses. Pretending otherwise is condemning another generation of black people / Irish / travellers / indigenous / homosexuals / tomorrow's minority group to more of the same. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rough_ride_(police_practice) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rough_ride_(police_practice)
- christianbryant 11y ago
  I don't disagree with your endpoint, but I also wasn't suggesting we do nothing. I am actually part of a small group of more "libertarian" Americans who believe in the absolute rights of the individual person over whatever dominant government, religion, etc, currently hold the monopoly on any given idea (LGBT persons should not marry, for example). At risk of betraying my own beliefs, I'll defend a person's personal rights up to the point they threaten to harm (definition of that always in flux) other people and/or society. However, when I see a police officer, I want to believe they are the "good guy" while still maintaining healthy caution. That means I would hope that those around me do, too, rather than attacking the officer, or running from the officer, as both put me and other innocent people in danger. We should never allow any criminal activity that is performed toward needlessly harming others or that infringes upon their rights maliciously. I'm trying to be careful about how I word that because there are many things in America that are currently considered criminal that I support and feel are necessary because they fight corruption and inequalities that seemingly can not be legally overcome...
christianbryant 11y ago
Side note: I have Mobile Justice installed and do plan to use it if needed. Any musings on how we should view law enforcement aside, this is clearly a needed tool right now in my region.

wpietri 11y ago

> we should [not] assume there is an assumed potential for wrong-doing in every person with a uniform The whole American experiment is built upon the notion that you basically can't trust people with power. That's why we have a checks-and-balances system. There is a potential for wrongdoing by anybody with power. Power corrupts. Take a look, for example, at David Simon's take on Baltimore. As far as I'm concerned, the Baltimore PD has been corrupted as an organization: https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/04/29/david-simon-on-baltimore-s-anguish https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/04/29/david-simon-on... That is not to say that the majority of people don't want to do the right thing. But by creating structures of accountability, we are helping them to do the right thing.

jellicle 11y ago

> Especially considering that the majority of law enforcement are there to do the right thing for the right reason Let us suppose three categories of police officers: a) bad cops b) cops who generally act good themselves but who will lie and cover for bad cops c) good cops who will arrest bad cops when they see them doing bad, and testify against them, and otherwise act against them, despite peer pressure not to do so When people say "most cops are good", they are saying that group a) is small, which for the purposes of argument I will agree with. But the fact is, there are almost no cops in group c), and whenever one is discovered, they are pushed out of the police force as quickly as possible. And I consider group a) and group b) to both be "bad cops". There are lots of cops in group b), who consider themselves good, but who should be considered to be part of the problem. > assumed potential for wrong-doing in every person with a uniform Why would a uniform eliminate one's potential for wrong-doing?

christianbryant 11y ago
I don't mean to say a uniform eliminates a person's capacity for wrong-doing. I mean to say that for a system to work, we ought not assume wrong-doing automatically when we see the uniform, despite the news. Understand, swap "uniform" with the skin color or nationality of your choice and the same should be true. As hacktivists and influencers or social change, we should have other means in place to make sure justice is done, and be careful not to participate in reverse racism or painting an institution initially placed for good as the enemy.

afandian 11y ago

> the majority of law enforcement are there to do the right thing for the right reason What is the right thing? Does it extend to trying to prevent others from doing the wrong thing? > we need to be careful to not send the impression that we should assume there is an assumed potential for wrong-doing in every person with a uniform Hasn't history and psychology shown us again and again that wrongdoing in aggregate is almost inevitable when you get a group of humans together? We should absolutely assume that where there's a high chance of a concentration of power there will be abuse somewhere, and proactively head it off. > send the impression That's a tricky one. If we actually do presume that there will be wrongdoing in aggregate, how do we avoid demotivating the 'good ones'? There must be a way to encourage the good ones to uphold standards and chuck out the 'bad apples' without feeling like they're under attack. "Rough Rides" [0] seem to be standard practice. I can't imagine any person with a shred of humanity thinking this is an acceptable way to treat another human, or that it wouldn't end up killing someone. But the fact is that it's commonplace, hasn't been stopped, the people that do it haven't been challenged or punished by the people who should know better. I've even seen the point of view expressed that this is 'standard procedure' so the driver shouldn't be singled out. Just saying 'it's only a few bad apples' perpetuates this situation. It's not an American thing, we have it in Europe too, and, I'm sure round the world. It's just down to statistics and innate human behaviour. When we have high-profile cases like this, we have a choice of saying 'it's a shame someone else died at the hands of some police, let's put them on desk duty' or saying 'is this systemic? how many days until it happens again?'. Unless we tackle that, we're always going to have abuses. Pretending otherwise is condemning another generation of black people / Irish / travellers / indigenous / homosexuals / tomorrow's minority group to more of the same. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rough_ride_(police_practice) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rough_ride_(police_practice)

christianbryant 11y ago
I don't disagree with your endpoint, but I also wasn't suggesting we do nothing. I am actually part of a small group of more "libertarian" Americans who believe in the absolute rights of the individual person over whatever dominant government, religion, etc, currently hold the monopoly on any given idea (LGBT persons should not marry, for example). At risk of betraying my own beliefs, I'll defend a person's personal rights up to the point they threaten to harm (definition of that always in flux) other people and/or society. However, when I see a police officer, I want to believe they are the "good guy" while still maintaining healthy caution. That means I would hope that those around me do, too, rather than attacking the officer, or running from the officer, as both put me and other innocent people in danger. We should never allow any criminal activity that is performed toward needlessly harming others or that infringes upon their rights maliciously. I'm trying to be careful about how I word that because there are many things in America that are currently considered criminal that I support and feel are necessary because they fight corruption and inequalities that seemingly can not be legally overcome...

christianbryant 11y ago

Side note: I have Mobile Justice installed and do plan to use it if needed. Any musings on how we should view law enforcement aside, this is clearly a needed tool right now in my region.