201
ice agents
(quokk.au)
Police were originally created to catch runaway slaves.
In the US, yes.
Okay, who will fulfill their role of policing, though?
When there's a crime committed and we need somebody answerable to the nation's laws in their actions, well trained to handle all situations safely, to go tackle/chase/fight the criminal, or rescue somebody from a criminal, who are we sending?
When they've been caught but need to be processed through the legal system, searched, questioned, charged with a crime, detained if needed for days or weeks, etc, all while ensuring that their legal rights and needs are being adhered to by the government branch that's got all these responsibilities, who are we sending?
I see a lot of people who call for the abolishment of all policing, such as yourself, but you might as well be suggesting we get rid of the Fire Brigade, or Teachers.
The Police are an essential service in any human civilisation, without which crimes would go entirely unpunished, criminals could do anything they want with impunity, there would be no law and safety, because the law is only as strong as those who enforce it. Society would collapse into chaos.
At best you'd have random disconnected groups of civilians banding together to enforce their own moral "law" on those they deem criminals, but they are unaccountable, unregulated, and no more than a lynching mob, even with good intentions.
I do of course agree that in some countries their police system is broken institutionally, and requires a complete reforming from the ground up. But that's a far, FAR stretch from suggesting the whole concept of policing the nation should be completely abolished. That way lies madness.
What about human nature? Don’t we need laws and police and other authoritarian institutions to protect us from people with ill intent?
If human beings are not good enough to do without authority, why should they be trusted with it?
Or, if human nature is changeable, why should we seek to make people obedient rather than responsible, servile rather than independent, craven rather than courageous?
Or, if the idea is that some people will always need to be ruled, how can we be sure that it will be the right ones ruling, since the best people are the most hesitant to hold power and the worst people are the most eager for it?
The existence of government and other hierarchies does not protect us; it enables those of ill intent to do more damage than they could otherwise. The question itself is ahistorical: hierarchies were not invented by egalitarian societies seeking to protect themselves against evildoers. Rather, hierarchies are the result of evildoers seizing power and formalizing it. (Where did you think kings came from?) Any generalization we could make about “human nature” in the resulting conditions is sure to be skewed.
Further reading: https://anarchistfaq.org/afaq/sectionI.html#seci59
Edit: linked to wrong section, correct link is here https://anarchistfaq.org/afaq/sectionI.html#seci58
If human beings are not good enough to do without authority, why should they be trusted with it?
The solution that many nations came up with is checks and balances. As much accountability as possible for authority figures. Multiple reviews by competing agencies. That sort of thing.
And while you might be 100% correct, your logic is counter-intuitive for a lot of folks. My car is stolen. I know who did it. If I approach them, they will laugh in my face and possibly do violence to me. What now? Or, my wife is murdered. I want justice, but I don't know who did it or how to find them.
I'm genuinely curious how society handles these types of situations without a dedicated police force? What's does crime-fighting look like in that world? How is justice meted out?
Click the link for further reading
Nothing in those links provides an actual narrative of what society might look like on a day-to-day basis.
From what I gather, anarchism is more a set of philosophies concerning what to do as society collapses around you. A kind of "in case of apocalypse, break glass" contingency plan. Or it can be implemented on a microscale. "Do I insure and register my car? Or is my resistance worth the possible consequences?"
But I see very little about the day-to-day living experience. Suppose I'm homeless. I see a nice big house. I walk up to the house with a couple of friends and toss the owners to the curb. Is it my house now?
Oop, sorry, I linked to the wrong section. Scroll up, it's section 5.8 not 5.9 that is relevant
Yeah, thanks for the light reading assignment. JFC, I thought my Philosophy 101 textbook was a dry read, but that particular section of the document is on another level.
Here's the relevant information that you can just copy/paste for the next person who asks:
This system could be based around a voluntary militia, in which all members of the community could serve if they so desired. Those who served would not constitute a professional body; instead the service would be made up of local people who would join for short periods of time and be replaced if they abused their position. Hence the likelihood that a communal militia would become corrupted by power, like the current police force or a private security firm exercising a policing function, would be vastly reduced. Moreover, by accustoming a population to intervene in anti-social as part of the militia, they would be empowered to do so when not an active part of it, so reducing the need for its services even more.
That's your answer. It's nebulous. It doesn't address the resources needed for more complicated cases. It's seems workable on a desert island, but it's woefully inadequate for the modern day. Your murderer flees in a car with no license plates. How are you going to track him down? How are internal investigations carried out?
IMHO, anarchism has a real problem addressing how to get from HERE to THERE. How does one decentralize a world that runs on centralized systems? Especially when so many people like those systems and enjoy the benefits despite the flaws.
If you wanted light reading don't ask such questions.
I'm not here to debate you.
Think what you want, a question was asked, answers and sources were provided. It's late, I'm tired from working and studying, I'm gonna play some video games.
For the rest of your questions, that website provides many answers. The anarchist library is another good resource. You seem smart enough to do your own reading without having the need for some random on the internet to spoon feed you answers. Anarchism is vast, there's no singular interpretation that is agreed upon or deemed correct. My answering of your questions wouldn't achieve much but provide my individual interpretations.
The sidebar here has a selection of readings that provide the foundations:
HexBear isn't an anarchist instance and their comm sees one or two posts a month.
https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/c/anarchism is the most active anarchist community, on an actual anarchist instance and can provide much better help.
dbzer0 is more tankie than anarchist.
Aye, I only linked that comm for the reading recommendations in the sidebar. Something other communities are lacking
The community replaces the police and looks after itself. It’s proven to be far more effective when tried in places such as the Chiapas and Rojava.
I’m thinking of making a rule because I’m so tired of this boot licker question and people who think it’s not all cops are bastards.
Chiapas: In low-income, low-density population areas without technology, policing is easy. Small towns on the American frontier operated like this for decades. Some still do.
Rojava: Am I taking crazy pills or are you? I thought the SDF had control of the region? Like, full on military occupation...but I know nothing recent, so maybe things changed?
Let's agree, for the sake of keeping the conversation flowing, that ALL cops ARE bastards. Ok, fine. Rapists and murderers are bastards, too. Checks and balances. Let the bastards fight one another. It's the foundational principle of our nation, an entire system of government betting that each and every citizen is, at times, a greedy, selfish, lying prick.
(It's so weird, btw, using "bastards" as a derogatory term. Very elitist. Like, fuck you, my parents' marriage status has no bearing on anything. You're gonna make Jon Snow cry.)
Rapists and murderers are like 0.05% of the population, and police do not stop those crimes from happening. They sometimes arrest someone afterwards, often ignoring sexual assault crimes entirely.
The police will not protect you, we have absolved our duty of protecting the community to a handful of bastards who don’t live in the community and do not have its best interest at hand. Directly empowering community defence works, absolving it does not.
The entire system is fucking broken if you’re basing it on empowering the worst people. That is not human nature, we are extremely altruistic and generally want to see peace for ourselves and others. We have abstracted society to such a degree that we allow governments to do horrible things in our name.
Yes, the system is broken. EVERY system is broken. None are perfect. It's very easy to point out their shortcomings.
It's difficult, though, to construct a system - even in the abstract - that works better.
That is not human nature, we are extremely altruistic and generally want to see peace for ourselves and others.
I'm sorry, I disagree. Very firmly. There are evil people. Broken people. People who feel no empathy, show no mercy. And there are a good deal more people who think they are "good" but are really just passive. See also Nazi Germany.
It’s difficult, though, to construct a system - even in the abstract - that works better.
It's really not, our history is full of better systems. Our current system is relatively recent and is one of the worst things we've made as a species to the point it's going to wipe us out.
I’m sorry, I disagree. Very firmly. There are evil people. Broken people. People who feel no empathy, show no mercy. And there are a good deal more people who think they are “good” but are really just passive. See also Nazi Germany.
You can disagree all you like, but the fact that we form communities, seek out and connect with others, and feel empathy says otherwise.
You can disagree all you like, but the fact that we form communities, seek out and connect with others, and feel empathy says otherwise.
I didn't mean to imply that ALL people are evil and broken. And sure, even an evil, broken person will seek companionship. We are social creatures. That doesn't make us inherently good creatures, any more than it makes a pack of wolves inherently good.
The Police are an essential service in any human civilisation, without which crimes would go entirely unpunished, criminals could do anything they want with impunity, there would be no law and safety, because the law is only as strong as those who enforce it. Society would collapse into chaos.
Not true - formal policing forces are a very recent development in Western civilization.
At best you’d have random disconnected groups of civilians banding together to enforce their own moral “law” on those they deem criminals, but they are unaccountable, unregulated, and no more than a lynching mob, even with good intentions.
More like citizens' arrests to bring criminals to court.
The issue is, of course, that now that there are people with no training attempting to subdue each other, with no indication of the legitimacy of the struggle or potential to 'impose' a socially acceptable conflict resolution if the arrest is disputed. I don't know that "Everyone is now a cop" is really better so much as a recipe for a glorified gang war leading to a small group of enforcers without any institutional oversights.
Wonder what we should call them, for short?
I do agree that generally policing in society is a net good, as vigorously as American police attempt to drive that into the red and as vigorously as politicians try to push policing as a curative instead of an alleviation of symptoms. The US system really needs to be torn down completely, and most cops disqualified from any future policing duties. The siege mentality is so ingrained in so many departments that I can't imagine them being able to reintegrate into any modern policing system, much less a rationalized socialist policing system.
It's the lack of real oversight.
One problem that union supporters like to ignore is that it is the police union's fault it has gotten this bad.
I'm not knocking unions, there is a reason they are needed. (Capitalism unchecked is just plutocracy.)
But they have gone way too far, in shielding them from repercussions, that is has fostered a culture of "I can do whatever the fuck I want" and a sense of entitlement for that culture.
We shouldn't need this many police officers because most things they prosecute people for shouldn't be crimes in the first place. Stealing food and water shouldn't be necessary to survive, for example.
Occasionally there would be a rare ill-adjusted person who wants to hurt other people just for the sake of it. You don't need the current volume of the police force to deal with those. More than that, under the current system those people end up controlling the police.
Abolishing the police right now in its entirety would be premature. We should start by abolishing capitalism and directing the police to apprehend the actual criminals (by which I mean the billionaires).
Sure, but public sentiment is not the same. We actually stand a chance of disbanding ICE!
Do you?
Both sides of government want them highly funded and existing.
this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2026
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