I give a shit about nurses and doctors and firefighters. We need them. I want them to be taken care of and compensated well.
All cops are bastards, though. The world would be better off without them and I work toward abolition.
Edit: dont commit violence OP
The world would be better off without them
This is a fantastically naive thought. I hope you learn why, some day, but not in a way that causes you harm.
We need police too dumb ass.
We need some form of law enforcement.
We do not need a standing military with a license to kill and random citizen.
Some people on here legitimately believe that if the world transitions to anarchy, crime won't exist anymore. They actually believe that all crime is caused by power structures existing.
Uh-huh. So, in your fantasy world where cops don’t exist, who intervenes when someone inevitably commits a crime?
I’m sure you’ve got some version of Social Workers with Enforcement Powers^TM^ in mind, but all that really amounts to is Reformed Cops^TM^. So, just admit ACAB is your anger-fueled generalization/oversimplified solution to a complex problem and say you want police reform, like the rest of us sane people.
in your fantasy world where cops don’t exist, who intervenes when someone inevitably commits a crime?
Who intervenes when cops are around, though? I've been laughed at in my face and told they couldn't do anything despite us having proof in the form of a brick through our window. Not even the restraining order was honored.
Or how about the time I got beat up and all they did was allegedly take some notes and tell me they couldn't do anything because it was private property despite my fresh bruises?
Or them cat-calling a 15 year-old that they're supposed to be protecting?
Kind of useless if you ask me, and I haven't even gotten to the malicious stuff like locking up my brother in law for a year and pressuring for ransom and sacking his family's home.
It's kind of insane how much we believe in their image rather than rely on their actions to even dare be so condescending.
All of those instances are examples of either cops not doing their jobs or the law being imperfect. Problems like that will always exist but that just means we need to focus on fixing them, by changing laws and instituting better systems for policing the police. Getting rid of police as an institution is pointless and fixes nothing.
I agree we need reforms in both law and police departments, as well as a better institution than “Internal Affairs” to keep cops in line. More essentially, we need to change the cultural problem at the heart of police corruption. Regular psychological evaluations, deescalation training, and an active stance against authoritarian personalities in police need to be adopted.
Cops are a few hundert years old concept why would they be necessary now when most places they barely existed pre ww1.
Your second paragraph is just as pie in the sky as abolishing, specifically because as with every position entailing power over others, authoritarians will flock to it.
The police was created so that wealth and power can effectively use part of the state for physical protection of their assets and lives, and that is still their operating background, the management of the local meat packing factory or the amazon warehouse will have much greater access to police resources than you or your plumber, by design, the law is imperfect and cops are not doing their job, more or less on purpose. And this status quo will not change unless at least some part of this system is entirely redone.
If the greater context in which the police exists, makes normal people scared of consequences, and powerful people immune to consequences enacted by police, why should any normal person argue for their existence.
So say we abolish the police. What happens when someone has been robbed?
Either the robbery is severe enough for the person who was robbed to assemble a little group to catch the robber or they just let it slide. If we know some info about the robber we could let any institutions in the surrounding area know that this person is to be exiled or at least that his missteps be brought up before he is again considered to be part of polite society.
Local neighbourhood watch /militias could also exist and take over some of the polices current work especially when it comes to groups of potentially violent perpetrators.
None of this is going to be particularly effective but it's not like currently a robbery, or most other crimes are likely to be effectively prosecuted either so I don't see the big issue.
There are more watertight arguments made by anarchists, syndicalists and the like that you could read and agree or disagree with. But at the end of the day there is little ability for either of us to demonstrate, to me that the police can be fixed with any proposed method, and to you that society without police would work/ be more fair. So ultimately we are not gonna get much further here.
I'll be honest, what you are describing sounds like a return to vigilante justice, which does not sound enticing to me. It sounds like the prelude to Gang/Militia warfare. Organised Crime would thrive in such an environment.
But at the end of the day there is little ability for either of us to demonstrate, to me that the police can be fixed with any proposed method
I'm not intelligent enough to propose solutions for fixing a police force which is highly corrupt. But I feel confident enough to say there are absolutely examples of countries with a functioning/not corrupt police force.
Germany is a very good example of what a good police force can look like. Sure there is always some that have a power trip and abuse their power, but that's something you'll have in any system, a system of vigilante neighborhood/militias included (if not more so). Police in Germany are generally well trained and a boon to society.
None of this is going to be particularly effective but it’s not like currently a robbery, or most other crimes are likely to be effectively prosecuted either so I don’t see the big issue.
Not sure what country you are referring to, but I'll stick with Germany as an example of a functioning police force. In Germany 58% of crimes are solved
And the missing 42% aren't because of police corruption, but due to missing evidence etc.
So I don't believe Police as a concept is outdated, since we need a way to enforce the laws that we as citizens agree on, but rather that the countries that have corruption problems need radical reform.
All you have to do is look at how Reddit responded to the guy they thought was the Boston Marathon bomber to know that your idea isn't going to work.
Crowd sourcing law enforcement is a horrible idea.
the person who was robbed to assemble a little group to catch the robber
Vigilantism isn't the answer ... to anything. It's a romantic idea best consumed in pulp form.
Cops are a few hundert years old concept why would they be necessary now when most places they barely existed pre ww1.
LOL, wtf are you smoking, dude? This is why conversations about this topic on Lemmy are so consistently bad; ACAB folks just make shit up. Societies have had police in some form or another since practically the beginning of civilization. And to the extent that they didn’t, crime was up and vigilante justice was the only recourse.
You’re a damn fool, and I don’t take you seriously.
Look at nearly any developed country outside the USA. Cops are not even given firearms in many cases, and the cop murder rate is near zero, even when the suspects are armed. There are way better ways to deal with it.
If you have a problem and you call the police, you now have two problems. ACAB. police in the usa are tyrants who just punish, don't give a shit about you.
You’re pointing to countries that still have police as evidence that we don’t need police?
Man, ACAB arguments have flatlined.
The percentage of people in those jobs who die is small. In fact, there are quite a few deadlier jobs out there. (I want to guess that they're mostly related to resource extraction)
Do you also not give a shit when a driver dies because we know that driving is the deadliest method of transportation per kilometre?
Surely motorcycling, free climbing, BASE jumping, hang gliding, and skiing are deadlier?
People’s intuition on risk is wildly off here.
Skydiving sounds insane, but in the U.S. it’s ~9–10 deaths a year out of millions of jumps (roughly 1 in a few hundred thousand per jump).
Driving feels normal, but it kills ~40,000+ people every single year.
So yeah—both involve “transportation,” but the one everyone does casually every day is orders of magnitude deadlier than the one that sounds extreme.
driving is the deadliest method of transportation per kilometre?
Driving is not the deadliest method of transportation per kilometre which it seems you missed.
Motorcycling is deadlier, horse riding is even worse and jet skis are the worst that I’m aware of.
Base jumping would probably be the deadliest but I’m not familiar with the statistics on it.
Hmm. Motorcycling might be higher or counted together with driving a car. I forget the stats.
The others generally aren't used as methods of transportation, but instead are generally recreational activities.
Motorcycling is orders of magnitude more deadly on a person-mile basis. It varies a lot by motorcycle type, experience level, helmet. DUI also statistically has a heavier correlation with fatality in motorcycling (I'm not 100% but my understanding is that motorcycles are significantly harder to operate in such a way that dui effects are multiplied).
I'm not sure if this is actually relevant to your discussion, I just like to discuss the reality of motorcycling (as a person who rides).
On the flip side if you’re a trained rider, licensed, sober and not riding like you have a death wish the stats aren’t anywhere near as bad.
And those are all factors you as a motorcyclist have control over. I’m also a motorcyclist and I used to spend a lot of time crunching numbers on the stats.
I’ve recently been debunking claims that motorcycle fatalities have skyrocketed in Australia. They haven’t, we just have more riders and the stats are being misrepresented following sharp reductions during the covid lockdowns.
Wrong, no, absolutely not.
Not giving a shit isn't inherently wrong. Can't be because nobody has enough inner resources to give a shit about everything. I don't give a shit about large swathes of the human population by dint of my give-a-shitter being defective from the beginning and having worn down significantly over the years.
Like, I don't want bad to happen to anyone lest it be being hoist by their own petard. You know, fuck around and find out. I have enough shadenfreude in me to appreciate someone fucking their own shit up by being an asshole.
But even "innocent" people getting wiped out by floods or whatever, I just don't have the fucking spoons.
So, even the best cop in the world, 1000% what a cop should be instead of what most of them are, it just ain't a big deal. Soldiers, or any other job where there's danger inherent to it as well. That actually goes for my fellow medical folks too tbh. There's some things where the assumption of risk is there, and when the risk eventually happens, it sucks, but I lack the energy to be upset when there's just so much fuckery in the world that people don't agree to.
Unless there's malice involved in why you don't give a shit, who cares? Hell, even if there is malice, as long as you don't try to make it happen, who cares?
Empathy is not an infinite well. How it gets spent is only partially voluntary. So if there's some segment of the world that just isn't on your concern list, it's fine
remember, these are the same type of people who waited over an hour to go into Uvalde, while the killer was killing people. They don't give a fuck about you.
I live in Australia, so the only exposure to american cops i have is TV shows and YT vidya. Australian police are mostly okay. but American cops, fuck them.
Its not a very dangerous job when compared to farming, logging or roofing. I don't even think its in the top 10.
Or compared to fishing, or farming, or garbage collection, or delivery drivers, anything in construction…
Are you a nurse, by chance?
Yep pretty much since I was 16
It's not any different than me not giving a shit if you get killed. We all signed up for this continued existence and we're all dying at the end. Best of luck on your run but I'm not going to lose any sleep when you check out.
Firefighters don't deserve to die, they don't harm anyone. But I agree the boot of the oppressor isn't sympathetic.
Yeah, firefighters are in the same class as lifeguards. They're protecting people from forces of nature, and don't have any ideology that is central to their work other than "save lives".
You can skip feeling bad if the person deserves it.
Most people working as police, probably every fire fighter, nurse or doctor don't deserve to die, so while you don't have to go out of your way to attend their funeral or anything; the normal reaction is feeling bad for them.
I understand cops have a lot of bad PR right now (mostly in america), but It still kinda sucks they are all getting blanketed in the "deserved it" category (in this thread), because most of them truly are putting up their life to protect yours, so they deserve some gratitude.
Also I always think about that fun fact where "police police police" (etc) is valid english.
Anyways, yes, I feel bad when someone dies protecting us, even if they did "sign up for it." I don't think they should be discounted.
Yeah, it is.
All people face risk in one way or another. Some willingly take on risk to help others or for some different reasons.
First off, being a cop isn'y nearly as high risk as (say) logging. Do you shrug and say "oh well, they knew what they were getting into" when a logger dies? Or a nurse?
Some will point out that ACAB, but even if that's true, being a bastard isn't a comprehensive deacription of a person. Humans, even shitty and broken ones, are complex creatures.
Personally, the only people whose deaths I don't mourn (or at least have empathy for) are those rare monsters who are so sadistic and evil that they barely qualify as human.
Empathy for others, without conditions, is one of our most defining and best traits as humans. It's worth cultivating.
You are not responsible for your feelings, only your actions.
The risk of death is low, but there's not many jobs where you risk being murdered. Many cops that die have children, and whatever you think of cops, children whose parent is murdered deserve compassion
I dont care about cops, firefighters and the others, yes
If I'm reading your message correctly, you should format that thought process better.
"I don't care about cops. Firefighters, and the others, yes, I care about them."
At least that's how I'm reading your statement, but it's not how it innitially reads.
You need a semicolon there, bud.
Only good cop...
... Do good things.
Cops dying is used as justification for cops to crack down harder. As long as the cop is not evil or corrupt, I don't think them dying helps anyone.
Enforcing an unjust system makes them inherently evil.
To some degree I understand. They risk their lives but where im at they get outsized compensation. The sad thing is its because their wages and comp are pretty equivalent to what it was 50 years ago while everyone elses have fallen without unions that have powerful leverage. Then they are known for being pretty right leaning in general. Add to all that the massive shows that get put on with funeral processions and televised masses that go on for hours. That being said they did die. Firefighters I feel a bit worse for as they by and large do not hurt people in their role and do save them. Cops are harder as people they shoot never were given a shot to lead lives with the largess they have and no public displays are put on for their funerals. I don't really want anyone dieing unecessarily but I also want a society that is far more equitable.
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